“Nothing as far as I know,” Agent Shirley said. “When will you check out this school?”

Cork looked at Dross, who gave a nod.

“No time like the present,” he said.

They left the situation at Irene Boyle’s house to the Cloquet police. On the way to Sizemore, Cork used his cell phone to look up the school online. It had been in operation for over a decade. Its central building housed the administrative offices and the educational rooms. There was also a dormitory and a gymnasium. The curriculum was designed to educate and rehabilitate. Residents came from both the private sector and the court system. As far as he could tell, there were no complaints or issues regarding the school’s oversight of its charges.

It was full dark by the time they reached the campus. The large administrative building was unlit, but there were lots of lights on in the dormitory building. Dross pulled into the empty parking lot, and they walked to the dormitory. As they neared the entrance, a security light came on. The door was locked, but a sign on the wall advised that they should ring the bell for admittance, which they did.

“Yes?” a voice said through a wall-mounted speaker.

There was security camera high in a corner of the entrance alcove, and Dross lifted her badge toward it. “Sheriff Marsha Dross. I’d like to come in and speak with someone in charge.”

At the sound of the buzzer, they opened the door and entered. To the right of the entrance was a reception desk, behind which sat a young man whom Cork figured to be in his late twenties, with a scruffy beard and a ponytail. He wore a blue T-shirt that bore an image of a bicycle and under it the word CYCOLOGIST. He stood up when Dross and Cork approached the desk.

“I’m Tim Foley,” he said. “One of the resident counselors. What can I do for you?”

“We’re trying to locate Irene Boyle.”

“She’s not on the campus at the moment. What’s this about? One of our kids?”

“We need to speak to Ms. Boyle on another matter.”

“You might try her home. She lives in Cloquet.”

“We’ve just come from her home. She’s not there.”

“I’m not sure I can help you then.”

“How well do you know Irene?” Dross asked.

“We’re kind of a close-knit family here.”

From somewhere out of sight arose the swell of bombastic music. Foley smiled. “Movie night in our lounge. It was girls’ choice this time. They’re watching The Hunger Games.”

“How long have you been here?”

“You mean today?”

“Employed as a counselor?”

“A little less than a year.”

“Familiar with a former resident named Fawn Blacksmith?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“You say you’re like a close-knit family,” Cork said. “Any idea if Irene was seeing anybody?”

“Seeing?”

“In a relationship,” Cork clarified.

“I couldn’t say. Guess we’re not that close-knit. But…”

“But what?” Cork said.

“We had a staff meeting scheduled late today. She got a phone call in the middle of it. Took the call out in the hallway. When she returned, she said she had to leave, no explanation.”

“Did she seem worried?”

He thought a moment. “I’d say eager. Look, there are others on staff who’ve been here longer and probably know her better. Maybe Candyce Osterkamp. She and Irene are good friends. She’ll be back in the morning. You could check with her then.”

“Do you have her phone number?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Dross asked him to spell the name, wrote it down, then handed him her business card. “If you think of anything that might be helpful, give me a call.”

Before heading to Aurora, they swung back by Irene Boyle’s house. The Cloquet PD cruiser was gone. Dross called the department.

“Apparently, they canvassed the neighbors and came up with nothing,” she told Cork when she’d ended the call. “They said there’s no reason to suspect foul play at the moment. They’ll check the residence again in the morning to see if she’s returned. If not, they’ll make a decision about how to proceed.”

“Try her cell phone again?” Cork suggested.

Dross did and again got no answer.

“Tim Foley said she got a call that made her leave the meeting this afternoon,” Cork said. “Maybe we can get her phone records, find out who that was.”

“We won’t be able to get anything until Cloquet PD decides to investigate tomorrow. But I’m thinking tomorrow might be too late.”

Cork eyed the woman’s darkened house and shook his head. “I’m thinking it might be too late already.”

CHAPTER 26

Annie woke to the ringing of the phone. She hadn’t meant to sleep. She’d just intended to lie down on the sofa for a little while. She was always tired, it seemed, and the strain of the day at Spirit Crossing, her headache episode, and the scare from the neighbor across the street had all contributed to an overwhelming exhaustion.

Night had descended and the house was dark. Annie had no idea how long she’d slept. She sat up slowly, a little disoriented, and stumbled her way to the phone on the stand near the stairs. It was only as she lifted the receiver that she thought about the deluge of calls from reporters earlier in the day, but it was too late. She mumbled, “O’Connor residence,” which was how she’d always answered the phone when she was growing up, when she lived under the roof of the house on Gooseberry Lane, when her life was still an unknown road stretching ahead of her, full of possibility.

There was no response from the other end of line. Then whoever it was simply hung up.

Annie set the receiver back in its cradle. Her first thought was that it must have been a wrong number, but as the fog of her sleep cleared away completely, her next thought was It’s him.

She was alone in the house. She tried to recall if she’d locked all the doors. The front door, after John O’Loughlin had left and gone back across the street? She rushed over and checked the lock. It was set. Then she thought about the back door, the one their neighbor had unlocked to come in and check on her. Had he reset it?

She hurried to the kitchen and checked the door to the mudroom. It was secure, thank God. Annie leaned back against the door and felt how tense she was, how fast and shallow she was breathing. That’s what fear does, she thought. In her time in Guatemala, she and fear had become well acquainted. The screams in the night or the gunshots that could come at any hour as the gangs took what they wanted from those who already had next to nothing, or fought with one another, or the soldiers swept through the barrio yet again.

She left the kitchen and went to a front window in the living room, where she drew aside a curtain to look out. The streetlamps were on, and the intersections on Gooseberry Lane were illuminated with fluorescent pools. All the houses she could see were dark. There were no vehicles parked on the street.