Still Mine
By Amy Stuart
3/5
()
About this ebook
What happens when you vanish from your life and leave no story behind?
Someone makes one up for you.
Clare is on the run. From her past, from her husband, and from her own secrets. When she turns up alone in the remote mining town of Blackmore asking questions about Shayna Fowles, a young woman who has gone missing, everyone wants to know who Clare really is and what she’s hiding. Because everyone in this place has secrets—Jared, Shayna’s mysterious ex-husband; Charlie, the charming drug pusher; Derek, Shayna’s overly involved family doctor; and Louise and Wilfred, her distraught parents.
As Clare unravels the mysteries surrounding Shayna’s disappearance, Clare must confront her own demons, as she moves deeper and deeper into her elaborate web of lies. But what is she really running from?
Haunting and electrifying, Still Mine is a thriller that is “impossible to put down” (Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of My Sister’s Grave).
Amy Stuart
Amy Stuart’s fourth novel, A Death at the Party, emerged as a longstanding #1 bestseller. She is the author of three other bestselling novels—Still Mine, Still Water, and Still Here—which have been optioned for television by Lark/NBC Universal. Amy’s other love is hockey. She is one of only four women head coaches in the GTHL, the world’s largest youth competitive hockey league. She was born in Toronto, where she still lives with her husband and their three sons. They also spend much of their time on Prince Edward Island, where Amy’s family is originally from. Find her on X @AmyFStuart.
Read more from Amy Stuart
Still Water: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Still Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Still Mine
54 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I found this book extremely disappointing and expected so much better. The initial plot had a lot of potential and could have been developed so much better. I get what other viewers said about being bored. Clare has disappeared from her abusive husband and has been on the run for months not knowing that her husband Jason has hired someone to find her. And when he does find her, instead of letting Jason know he hires her to find another missing woman he was hired to find in exchange for not telling Jason where she is? Really? May I never end up in Blackmore where the most unlikable people live. I couldn't feel much for any of the characters, except maybe Clare for about three minutes when knowing her abusive but I didn't like her much. And you disappear, change your name but not your first name? Clare isn't that common a name.I really wanted to like this book. I loved the cover, that's what first drew me and the synopsis was also intriguing but I found this book to be all over the place and the ending just didn't work for me.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I absolutely loved this book. At first, I found it a little hard to get into, but, eventually, it got under my skin and I couldn't put it down.
This is about Clare, a woman on the run from her abusive husband, who finds herself in the small town of Blackmore under the name Clare O'Dey. She has been hired by a man named Malcolm Boon to help find a local missing woman named Shayna. This psychological thriller is filled with elements that just kept me intrigued to the very end. Addiction, depression, abuse, family drama, tragedy.
At the end, I found myself wanting to hear more of Clare's story and more on her family back home. I really enjoyed the writing and can't wait to read more from this author. - Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Not very thrilling nor suspenseful, which what the cover suggested to me. i expected a mystery like [book:Gone Girl] but there was not much mystery to reveal in this one. Plus, with characters who drank and did pills and shot at everyone, I found it hard to really relate. If you want a quick less intense thriller, go ahead. Otherwise take a pass.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5First off, there is no doubt that Amy Stuart can write. There is some beautiful prose in this. She successfully creates mood and atmosphere. The wordplay title is great. However, nice prose doesn't equal a good story.This story is about Clare, a woman on the run from her past. For reasons that are slowly revealed, she ends up in the dying backwater town of Blackmore charged with the task of finding a missing woman, Shayna Fowles. It turns out Clare and Shayna have a lot in common.The town of Blackmore has been shaped by a mine explosion in which several local men were killed and which left families traumatized and grieving and the town in steady decline. There are feuds, survivor guilt, drugs, and alcohol. Following the mantra "When in Rome", Clare 'infiltrates' the community and fits right in. She gets close to Shayna's ex-husband, rents a trailer from the local drug pusher and spends time with Shayna's mother who is suffering from dementia.The story of the dying town and its inhabitants takes center stage to the mystery of Shayna's disappearance. My favorite passage in the entire book was one of the survivor's re-telling of what happened in the mine on that fateful day. That part was really poignant. Regrettably, the rest of the time I felt rather indifferent towards the characters. I thought Malcolm for whom Clare is "working" had the potential to be a really intriguing character. Unfortunately, we never get to know him. There are one or two hints about his past, but that's it. He was like the invisible man, able to keep an eye on Clare in a town which is supposedly full of very suspicious people.I was disappointed that there was a lot of build-up and hints at something intense, something secretive, but nothing ever came of it. The biggest mystery turned out to be the revelation who hired Malcolm to find Shayna. The rest of the story was just straightforward, no twists, no thrills.Once again, I fell for a marketing promise, this one of "The Girl on the Train meets The Silent Wife in this taut psychological thriller" and "in the vein of The Good Girl". Nope. Wasn't taut nor was it a thriller. That's not the author's fault, but it builds an expectation. I like 'does exactly what it says on the tin', when it doesn't, I can't help but feel a bit let down. The comparison to "The Girl on the Train" is valid in as far as the protagonists are struggling with addiction and come across as irresponsible and irrational. I usually like a flawed character, but I didn't feel Clare was all that interesting.The ending leaves the door wide open for the sequel. So maybe the intention was all along to keep Malcolm and Clare, their backgrounds and characters vague in order to reveal more in the follow-up. But sadly, if I don't feel invested in the characters after 320 pages, I doubt I'll be enthusiastic enough to pick up the next book.Overall, better plotting and more intricate characterization would have made this more enjoyable for me. But as far as the prose is concerned, this isn't a bad debut novel.Thanks to Touchstone for providing me with an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still Mine is Amy Stuart's debut novel.Clare is on the run - from a past that slowly comes to light as the story progresses. She is on her way to a rundown, remote mining town called Blackmore. Why? She's there at the direction of a man named Malcolm - to see if she can discover anything about a missing local woman named Shayna.Stuart is spare with details in the beginning - it absolutely ensures the reader will keep turning pages, eager to see who and why. And I did, but I felt a wee bit annoyed at the pacing of it. Malcolm is alluded to many times, without any idea of who he is and why Clare is following his directions until we're a fair ways into the book.The setting was good - dark, atmospheric and totally mirroring the tone and plot of the book. It had the feel of a cross between Justified and Winter's Bone - rundown town off the beaten track, poverty, drugs, violence and simmering undercurrents.And I held onto that image as I read - it allowed me to ignore my pragmatic nature and not question Clare's decisions. Her past seems to let her easily slip into the town's underbelly. I did have a harder time with some of the other locals - why they 'adopted' her so fast. An old man letting a woman he just met look after his dementia stricken wife alone was a bit of stretch for me.There are two stories running concurrently through Still Mine - Clare's and Shayna's. Journal entries interspersed between chapters give the reader a good idea what has happened to Shayna even as Clare continues to try to find her. Although Shayna's disappearance is at the centre of the plot, I found myself much more invested in Clare's story.I liked that I couldn't predict what was going to happen next in Still Mine. Stuart keeps the reader guessing right to the end. And the ending was perfect - opening up the door to the sequel that Stuart is working on - and I will be watching for.The title is very clever - no spoilers, but it can be taken two ways.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/53.5 A woman turns up in the dying town of Blackmoor, she is on the run from someone, also sent by someone to find a missing woman. So for a while the reader doesn't know why she is willing to do this nor why. The town's mine had closed after a terrible accident which cost the lives of several miners. This also created a feud between those who lost family members and those who survived. The mining foreman is the missing woman's father. Without the mine to provide a living, many have left and some of those who stayed are either hooked on drugs or are producing and selling them.The feud, the dying town, people on the edge, the atmosphere, the feeling of this novel is very authentic. You get the sense of desperation, the giving up and finding solace whatever way you can, with whatever or whoever you can. Clare, our mystery woman, has quite an interesting past. In fact all Tue characters are well drawn. Clare does some things, takes chances I didn't quite understand but as the story goes on you see and understand much more. The title is very apropos, the suspense in the novel quite good for this author's first. Books end leaves a few things hanging but a sequel is planned, one I do intend to read. The letter at the very end is chilling. Quite a good first novel.ARC from netgalley.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Clare O’Dey is running away from an abusive husband when she is hired by a stranger, Malcolm Boon to help locate a missing woman in Blackmore.Blackmore is a former mining town which experienced a mine blast five years ago where 17 people were killed. Since the explosion the town has deteriorated to the point that buildings, stores and homes are abandoned and drugs and alcohol are a common problem.Clare is hired to locate Shayna, a drug addicted wife and daughter who has been missing for 3 weeks. She poses as a photographer and is able to befriend several of the locals as she investigates Shayna’s whereabouts.This is a convoluted story which i found confusing and frustrating after getting half way through. I finished it but would not recommend it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The beginning of this story is a little slow. There was a lot happening, but I didn’t feel ever really invested in the character of Clare. The reader needed to know more about her and how she ended up investigating Shayna’s life. There was lots of information about Shayna and the town…but not nearly enough about Clare. The story is both dark and disturbing and not a bad read at all. A lot of threads are left hanging so hopefully the story will be continued.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Clare is running away from something. Malcolm finds her and hires her to find a missing woman, Shayna. When Clare arrives in Blackmore, she finds a town that has been decimated by an explosion at the mine years earlier. The town also has a drug problem and several possible suspects as to the disappearance and possible murder of Shayna.As Clare keeps digging into Shayna’s life, she finds herself in real danger herself. You may not guess who the person responsible is, and why. You should also be concerned for Clare’s safety. This book kept me guessing, and the tension was palpable throughout the entire story, ending in a sinister note. To be continued in book 2!#StillMine #AmyStuart
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have mixed feelings about this story, while I felt I was missing something, and not understanding what was going on, I felt compelled to keep turning pages, The words flew off the pages, and the book was read in no time at all.Clare is running from an abusive husband, how abusive you are about to find out, and I had the feeling that if he finds her he will kill her. The man he hires to find her, Malcolm is good at his job and has her in his sight in no time, but he soon has her working for him?She ends up in a small, really small mine town, and looks like a missing woman from there, a town that is really broken, from a mine disaster and drugs. What a place for her to end up in with her drug problem, but it appears she has not choice.We visit with the mother of this girl, a person in the throes of dementia, rational at times, but lost. The mother talks of seeing her daughter yesterday, but did she, or the dementia talking.Keep reading, you really won’t be able to stop once you start, an explosive end and surprises, and we end on the biggest surprise of all.I received this book through the Publisher Simon and Shuster and was not required to give a positive review.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5STILL MINE. First of all, the title. When I finished this book, it dawned on me that the title has two different meanings in relation to the story. I was so fixated on one that I almost missed the other. Clever!Clare is running from an abusive husband. In a strange turn of events, she ends up in the remote mountain town of Blackmore, hired to find a missing woman named Shayna. The locals don’t buy Clare’s cover story at first, but her troubled past allows her to fit in better than she’d hoped. Maybe too well for her own good.It was easy to get wrapped up in Shayna’s mysterious disappearance, and also Clare’s turbulent life. The tone throughout the book was dark and ominous, giving it an ever-present edge of suspense. It was hard to tell which characters were trustworthy, including Clare herself. Something at the end made me question her… Reliable? Unreliable? I’m not quite sure. I hope there’s a sequel.
Book preview
Still Mine - Amy Stuart
Sometimes I dream of my escape. In my sleep I conjure a way out, another life waiting for me beyond this one. Sometimes I am climbing, or driving, or falling through a void with no clear place to land. But most often I am running, sprinting through the field and into the trees, my clip too fast for you to catch me.
Even in the version where I’m falling there’s this relief at having finally shed it all, these people, this place, you. The shame is gone, just like that. Replaced by a perfect calm. And do you know the strangest part? It feels good. I am free of your anger, and I don’t care how long it will take for you to notice I’ve disappeared. The dream doesn’t halt at the door to consider these things, because by the time it begins I am already gone.
WEDNESDAY
With the moonless sky, Clare doesn’t see the mountains closing in. But then the road begins to rise and she knows she’s driving through the foothills, then come the switchbacks and the hum and pop in her ears, and finally the peaks and shadows, blank spots in the ceiling of stars. By dawn the mountains crowd the long vista of her rearview mirror, she is deep among them, and Clare guesses she’s covered nearly six hundred miles since sunset.
Drive west into the mountains, Malcolm said. Then cut north to Blackmore.
Clare climbs one last hairpin turn before signs of life pepper the roadside, peeling billboards first, then a scattering of ramshackle buildings. Her car lurches and revs, the ascent of this narrow road too much for its old engine. She passes a sign hammered right into rock: WELCOME TO BLACKMORE: POPULATION 2500, the word zero spray-painted across it in black. The road flattens out and Clare reaches the row of storefronts that marks the town proper. Most of them are shuttered with plywood, the main strip devoid of cars and people.
Beyond the lone stoplight Clare finds the motel. She turns in and parks. Weeds grow through cracks in the asphalt, the motel L-shaped and bent around an empty swimming pool, its neon sign unlit. The barrenness washes over Clare, eerie and surreal, like a movie set built and then abandoned. Panic cuts through her, a grip tight around her chest, the coffee she’d picked up at a gas station hours ago still whirring through her veins.
The folder Malcolm gave Clare sits on the passenger seat. She flips it open. On top is a news article dated ten days ago: Blackmore Woman Missing Since Tuesday.
Next to the text is a grainy photograph of a gaunt and unsmiling woman named Shayna Fowles. Clare examines the photo. They are roughly the same age, their hair the same deep brown, their skin fair, alike in certain features only. Is she imagining the resemblance, imposing herself on this woman?
This is your job, Malcolm said. You will go to Blackmore. See what you can find.
The car fills with the dampness of the outside air. Clare leans back against the headrest and closes her eyes. She thinks of Malcolm across from her in that diner booth, sliding the folder over to her, his own meal untouched. She had wanted only to get away from him, and Blackmore was the option on offer. Now she must gather herself up, muster the nerve to introduce herself to strangers, tell them her name, or at least the name Malcolm chose for her. Clare grips the dewy handle of the car door and lifts her backpack. Though she hasn’t worn her wedding ring in months, her finger still bears its dent.
Time to go.
At the motel reception Clare rings the bell once, then again when no one comes. She can hear the muffled din of a TV. Behind the desk the room keys hang in a neat row. Black mold snakes around the windows and patches the carpet in the corners.
Hello?
Clare’s voice barely rises above a whisper.
Nothing. In her exhaustion, Clare cannot decide what to do next. At dawn, she’d pulled in to a lakeside rest area, walking straight past the picnic tables and the outhouse, wading thigh deep into the lake, catatonic, transfixed by the vast, jagged landscape of snow-peaked mountains. A foreign land. She’d hoped to take a warm shower. Malcolm told her about this motel. Clare slams her hand down hard on the bell.
The door at the far end of the office opens. A man in his sixties peers through, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
We look open to you?
He tosses the napkin over his shoulder.
The door was unlocked.
We’re closed.
The man is gray haired and rosy cheeked. An old family portrait hangs on the wall to his right, a younger version of him the beaming father to two red-haired boys, his hand resting proudly on his pretty wife’s shoulder.
If the rooms are still standing,
Clare says, maybe I could just—
I’m closed.
Clare nods.
I’ve never seen you before,
he says.
I’ve never been here before.
You a reporter?
No.
A cop?
No. I’m not a cop. I’m just here to see the mountains.
Huh. Right.
I take pictures.
Pictures. Of what?
Landscapes, mostly. Anything off the beaten track.
No one around here likes getting their picture taken,
he says, his voice flat.
Like I said. Landscapes. Not people.
Clare pauses. Is there another place in town I could stay?
No.
Clare gropes through her bag for her car keys. Just arrived and already she’s failed at her first task. This motel might have been busy once, when Blackmore was still a bustling mining town, when there were jobs for everyone, money to go around, people to visit. Maybe this man’s sons had been miners. Maybe they were underground five years ago when the mine blew up and killed three dozen of Blackmore’s men. Clare detects a slight softening in the motel owner, his shoulders relaxing. He peels himself off the wall and approaches the desk.
We had a bad melt in the spring,
he says. All twenty rooms flooded. I’ve barely had a customer in months. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t help you.
It’s okay,
Clare says. I’ll figure something out.
There are plenty of mountain towns. You could pick another one.
I could,
Clare says.
Already her story feels like too much of a ruse, arriving in Blackmore alone and unannounced. On the drive she’d anticipated the questions the attendant just asked of her. Who are you? Why are you here? She’d rehearsed her answers. She and Malcolm had been hasty in picking photography as her cover, the one skill in her thin repertoire now ringing false on delivery. The attendant walks around and props the door open to usher her out.
Turn around,
he says. Drive back down the hill. That’s my advice.
Clare retraces her steps to the car. The mountains are cloaked in low clouds, Blackmore’s main road fogged from view. She hears the bolt of the office door behind her. Clare knew full well the reception here would be cold. She grew up in a small town beset by the same woes as Blackmore. She remembers the way her neighbors closed rank when strangers turned up, all prying eyes unwelcome. Who knows what the motel owner sees when he looks at Clare? Maybe he knew Shayna Fowles, maybe his sons were friends with her. Maybe it rattles him, one woman gone missing and another turning up out of nowhere, a stranger in his midst.
This is what she dreams. Clare lies on the floor among shards of broken glass, her palms cut open. She looks up at him. When she opens her mouth to speak, the beer bottle hits her square between the eyes. She falls back to the cellar floor and the bottle smashes next to her. He punches the lightbulb and Clare feels its glass rain down. Then he slams the door and locks her in. She can’t hear any footsteps overhead.
If you leave, he says, his voice muffled by the closed door, I’ll find you. You know that, right? I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.
Clare jerks awake. The car is dark and sticky and she cannot breathe. In the black of the rearview mirror she spots movement. She fumbles with the door and drops to the wet ground, then scrambles to her feet, spinning in a circle. No one else is here. It takes a full minute before she is able to orient herself. Blackmore. The parking lot of the old hardware store. She’d driven here from the motel and climbed into the backseat to rest. That was early afternoon, and now it’s dark outside.
Clare knew the bad dreams would come back, the ache of withdrawal.
The air has thinned and cooled. Clare gets back into the car and flips down the visor mirror. Her face is flushed, her hairline rimmed with sweat, her chest tight. For months she’d been spared, but she knew. Clare knew it was a reprieve only, his shadow trailing ever behind, the willpower only carrying her so far. It took Clare six months to let down her guard. Then she met Malcolm Boon.
Wrappers and soda cans litter the floor of the car, relics from her long drive. In the glove compartment Clare finds the cell phone Malcolm gave her. The brightness of the screen blinds her. No messages.
I’ll be in touch by end of day Friday, Malcolm said.
Clare digs out her wallet and camera, then stuffs all her belongings into the trunk and locks the car doors.
At the edge of the parking lot, a streetlamp casts a tidy beam to the sidewalk. The stoplight is red. To the north Clare spots a sign, blinking but lit: RAY’S BAR AND GRILL. A few teenagers smoke in a cluster by the door. They fall silent and stare unabashedly at Clare as she approaches, three boys and one girl sharing a cigarette in a closed circle. The girl wears army pants and a top cropped in a ragged line just under her breasts. One of the boys breaks from the group and holds the door open for Clare with an exaggerated bow, a mock gentleman.
The bar is empty, but music plays and Clare can see the waitress and cook shuffling around the kitchen. The stares from outside follow her until she chooses a booth and props the menu to block them out, setting her camera down on the middle of the table. When Clare looks up the waitress is hovering over her.
Kitchen closes in five minutes.
What’s good?
Clare asks.
The waitress shifts her weight but doesn’t answer.
Burger and fries?
To drink?
Behind the bar, dusty bottles are lined up row by row.
Club soda,
Clare says.
The waitress pinches the top of the menu and yanks it from Clare’s grasp. Out the window the teenagers swarm to the stoplight. The double doors to the kitchen flap back and forth and Clare tries to identify the song playing, something country, sounds like Patsy Cline but the voice is too young and too polished, not husky enough. Clare’s soda can is delivered without a glass. It runs cool down her throat as she gulps it. Only when she’s half-finished it does Clare spot the notice board on the far wall of the restaurant. She slides out of her booth and walks over.
MISSING: SHAYNA CUNNINGHAM FOWLES.
Below, the date she disappeared, two weeks ago.
TIPS? TALK TO DONNA.
In the kitchen the waitress is in animated conversation with the cook. The grill hisses and flares. Clare pulls down the poster and stuffs it in her back pocket. Stapled to the lower corner of the board is another notice, this one yellowed with age. TRAILER FOR RENT. FURNISHED. CONTACT CHARLIE MERRITT. Clare plucks the staples from the corners and folds this paper away too. By the time the waitress emerges with her meal Clare is back in her booth, napkin spread across her lap. The plate is dropped in front of her with a clunk.
You that photographer?
The waitress nods to the camera.
I am.
We heard about you showing up.
Clare imagines the motel attendant bolting the door, then diving for his phone. One call to his wife or his girlfriend or his sister, the highest female in his particular pecking order, and word of Clare’s arrival would spread fast from there.
What’s your name?
Clare O’Dey.
This is the first time Clare has uttered this name aloud.
Yours?
Clare says.
Donna.
Donna looks to be fifty, her hair bleached yellow and tied back. The burger on Clare’s plate sags out of its bun.
I saw you making off with my poster.
Clare shrugs. Not quite as stealthy as she thought.
You got a reason to want it?
Donna asks.
I wondered if I might know her.
You’re not from around here.
No.
Then how would you know her?
She looks familiar,
Clare says.
Donna slides into the booth across from Clare.
You’re undercover.
I’m not.
Some kind of private detective, then. Or a reporter? Snooping around and stealing posters.
Clare doesn’t break eye contact. Whatever part she is to play in Blackmore, she must hold to it.
I’m honestly just curious.
Clare rests her hand on the camera. It’s a hazard of the trade.
Well, there’s no big story here. She wasn’t eaten by a yeti. And she wasn’t murdered.
How do you know?
Shayna Cunningham was nothing but trouble. Popped some pills and wandered off a cliff. Down at the gorge. That’s where they go to party.
One article in the file Malcolm gave her mentioned Shayna’s penchant for drugs and the town’s slide into addiction that followed the shuttering of the mine. Those interviewed claimed that Shayna was high the night she went missing, the consensus around here being, Clare can tell by the waitress’s tone, that her status as a junkie somehow mitigates the horror of her disappearance.
Why make a poster if you know what happened?
Clare asks.
No one knows for sure what happened,
Donna says. I just figured. Had them printed on a trip to town. So I could feel like I was doing something.
Donna leans in and lowers her voice, her mistrust quickly eclipsed by the prospect of a fresh audience. Clare was never one for gossip, could never understand the willingness to divulge secrets that didn’t belong to you. She sees she’ll have no choice but to engage in it here.
I don’t mean to sound weird,
Donna says, but sometimes I picture her down there. Her body. Maybe she survived the fall but couldn’t climb out or call for help. You can’t be sure what happened.
Until they find a body.
And they might not. Too much rain. We had flash floods deep in the gorge. She could be halfway to the sea by now.
Who’s looking for her?
You tell me.
The police?
Detachment closed last year,
Donna says. There was a search party that climbed down the gorge as best they could. I’d guess her father’s looking for her. Her husband sure isn’t. He’s prancing around town like nothing’s happened.
Clare offers the waitress some of her fries. Donna takes one and folds it into her mouth.
So you know her family?
Clare asks.
Sure. Grew up with her mom. We both still live in the houses we were born in. I guess that’s why I bothered with the poster. Her mom couldn’t.
Why not?
She’s gone batty. Dementia hit her early.
Donna frowns. Her husband Wilfred’s out of his mind too. Too much, I guess.
Too much what?
Sometimes everything falls apart at once. You know?
I know,
Clare says.
My husband mined with Wilfred for thirty years. They showed up in Blackmore looking for work right around the same time. Right out of high school. My husband hasn’t seen him in a year. Now I heard he’s building some kind of bunker up at their house. Dug a hole.
Donna leans in again. My sister says it had to be the husband. Says maybe Shayna went off the cliff, but maybe her husband nudged her. Maybe.
Stuffed in the file Malcolm gave her were a few photographs of Shayna and her husband culled online. In her wedding photograph a younger and healthier Shayna lay draped against her new husband, Jared Fowles, his arm wrapped right around her waist, his palm resting on her belly. The news article about her disappearance described the couple as estranged.
Of course he would be the point of gossip. A missing woman means a guilty husband, as Clare’s own mother used to say. Clare sat glued to the TV the summer her mother fell ill, her mother next to her, frail and wispy bald from the chemotherapy. A woman from two towns over had gone missing on her way to work, and Clare and her mother watched as the woman’s husband sobbed into a scrum of microphones and begged for his wife’s safe return.
Guilty, Clare’s mother said. You wait.
Days later, the news showed the flat hay field where the body was found and the police leading the handcuffed husband across his front lawn. Clare’s mother mustered the energy to stand and jab her finger at the TV.
It’s always the husband, she said. Always.
The french fries on Clare’s plate are soaked brown with oil. Donna picks another one up and eats it.
So, photographer,
Donna says. Where’d you come from?
A long way east of here. A small town.
Which small town?
I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.
Try me,
Donna says.
Long Lake?
An answer that told the asker nothing. In six months of driving Clare had passed through four towns with this same name, registering each of them and their features. But she’d always banked on one-off interactions, moving on before the questions got too probing. She will have to find another way to stem the inquiries.
I didn’t like it there,
Clare says. I don’t plan to go back.
Where’s your family?
Donna asks.
I don’t really have any family.
So you just drive around taking pictures for a living?
It’s not much of a living. But it keeps me moving. I like to be moving.
Clare takes hold of the soda can and squeezes it until it buckles. The give-and-take of conversation, the effort in calculating her responses, have given her a headache. All she wants is to finish her meal. Donna points a thumb over her shoulder.
You took the ad for the Merritt trailer too.
I need a place to stay. The motel’s closed.
Well, you can’t stay in that trailer.
Why not? This Merritt guy isn’t around anymore?
Oh, he’s around.
So what’s the problem?
"He’s the problem. Lost his family in the mine. Father and two brothers. His mother swallowed a loaded rifle a week later. He’s been on a rampage ever since."
Jesus,
Clare says.
He’s taking the whole town down with him.
I don’t understand.
He’s supplying the junkies. That’s what I’ve heard. I know he’s selling his crap to kids a lot younger than you. Might as well be poisoning the town water. And that trailer’s in the middle of the woods. Right next door to the Cunninghams.
Clare taps the poster again. The Cunninghams? As in Shayna’s family?
Yep. All the town’s craziness is up on that ridge.
It takes Clare a minute to absorb the implications, the stroke of luck. This trailer of Charlie Merritt’s sits right next door to Shayna’s family. Under the bun the meat of the burger looks gristly and gray. Donna heaves herself to standing.
You like this kind of thing? Other people’s misery?
No,
Clare says. I was making conversation.
If you leave now you can be in the next town before midnight.
Clare keeps her head down to ward off Donna’s cautionary glare. Finally Donna retreats to the kitchen. What would Malcolm Boon do if he were here? He might tell her to be cautious, to sleep in the car instead. For six months it has been easy enough to deflect the attention of chatty strangers, gas station clerks or motel attendants or servers at diners like this one. Clare knew how to keep all conversation short. All along she’s pictured a terminus, a place that might swallow her whole, a place with enough scope to let an invented past go unchallenged.
Now she’s in a small town not so different from the one she left, and Clare can feel her past bubbling up again. The dread, the sense of abandon, of nothing to lose. Why not go knock on Charlie Merritt’s door? Out the window the street is deserted, the stoplight switching from green to yellow to red in deference to no one. Clare will eat the rest of her burger as slowly as she can. She will stay until the waitress kicks her out. The walk back to the car is only two blocks, but she is too awake after a day’s sleep. Who knows what sorts of people live here? The kind devoid of hope. The kind who refuse to leave a dying town. The kind who disappear.
It wasn’t swift. It took some time. I try to chart when my woes began. That’s what my mother calls them: woes. A quiet word, easy to bear. This is a cusp, I remember thinking as I swallowed what I’d been given. My fate was predetermined and I needed only to see how it would play out.
You told me. You warned me. You said we would all suffer, that people would start dying, that you wouldn’t tolerate it. But still, here you are.
My mother once said that there’s no rhyme or reason to who stays when things fall apart. It won’t be the people you expect. But I knew you would hang on. You can’t let go. You say it’s love, but I think