She turns in a full circle and then begins to clear the walls of their adornments. Down come the National Honor Society certificate, the photograph of Louise in her cap and gown, shaking hands with her high school principal; down comes the last report card she ever received, filled with A’s and A-pluses.

She was the one who put them up. At fourteen, sixteen years old. No adult in her life ever cared enough to do so. Embarrassing, she thinks. Pathetic.

Her graduation photograph is the last to go. The girl in it is smiling, but her brows are furrowed, as if she’s seeing into the future.

Louise makes a pile on the floor of all the documents, then gathers them into her arms. She’s walking to the kitchen door to take them to the garbage when she hears Jesse speaking to someone outside it.

She picks up her pace.

“Who’s asking?” Jesse says, but Louise can’t hear the response.

Jesse turns to her, scowling: an expression that means it’s most likely a man.

He closes the door before asking.

“You know someone named Lee Towson?”

•   •   •

Three minutes later, Louise stands out front of her mother’s house, facing Lee Towson in the flesh. She’s made Jesse swear to stay inside; she’ll be damned if she has this conversation in front of an audience.

It’s only been four days since she stood opposite Lee in the hallway of Staff Quarters at the camp. It feels like a month. She can still hear Denny’s phrase in her ear: statutory rape. She looks down at the ground when she speaks.

“How’d you find me?”

“Phone book,” he says. “Not too many Donnadieus in Shattuck, New York.”

“But how’d you know I was here?”

“I’ve got friends in the area.”

She considers the implication of this. She has always disliked being gossiped about. But in a town as small as Shattuck, she guesses it’s inevitable.

“You know they’re looking for you?” Louise asks him.

“I heard that.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Here and there.”

“You hiding?”

“Kind of, I guess. I’ve got a plan to leave, anyway.”

Louise looks up at him, finally. Then past him. There are only two other houses on this cul-de-sac, both of them seemingly shuttered for the night. There are no streetlights on the side streets of Shattuck; she can see his form only by the glow cast forth from her mother’s house.

“Louise?”

“What?”

“I’ve got something weighing on my mind,” he says. “Had to tell you before I go.”

Louise’s heart skips several beats. In her mind, she makes guesses, all of them far-fetched.

“Oh?” she says—trying to sound casual.

“Your boyfriend,” says Lee Towson. “Your fiancé. Excuse me.”

“What about him?”

“He was sleeping around.”

Louise closes her eyes.

“How do you know?” she says.

“I supplied him. And I saw him a couple times with another girl. Same one.”

“Not,” says Louise.

“Not Barbara. No. He was up at the main house. On the beach behind Self-Reliance. He was with a girl he called Annabel,” says Lee.

•   •   •

Louise closes her eyes. The world around her fades; her understanding with it. Other things come into focus now: Annabel’s declaration, early on, that her parents had someone in mind for her to marry. The Southworths and the McLellans, longtime friends, staying together at Self-Reliance. John Paul’s staunch refusal to bring Louise anyplace in its vicinity. His absence throughout the week. And—last, most brutal—Annabel’s departure in the middle of the camp dance. The same night as Barbara’s disappearance.

“Annabel’s seventeen,” says Louise.

Lee says: “Normally I’d mind my own business. But I thought you needed to know that, in case.”

“In case what?” says Louise.

“In case it—proves anything. In case it’s helpful to you. I know what charges they laid on you. But I bet they’re interested in you for something else. That’s how they work,” he adds.

“Why do you care what happens to me?” says Louise, abruptly. It sounds more bitter than she meant it to. Everyone, she believes, has an agenda.

“Well,” says Lee, “because I like you.”

She says nothing. She closes her eyes.

A long pause. Then: “Louise. Why don’t you come with me?”

“What?” says Louise—distracted now. “Where?”

“I’m going to Colorado tomorrow. To a town called Crested Butte. Buddy of mine lives out there, says it’s heaven.”

“I’m not allowed to leave my house,” says Louise, stiffly. “My mother’s house. I’m out on bail. They got me on possession charges. For some drugs that weren’t even mine.”