The Name We Knew
My breath caught.
Vince.
My cousin.
He’d been seventeen when Lily disappeared. Old enough to remember the search. Old enough to hear the adults whispering. Old enough to know Patrick blamed himself.
He’d spent that terrible night at the pond with the rest of us.
He knew about Lily.
He knew about the sunflowers.
He knew about the strip of farmland we’d sold the year before.
And apparently he knew enough about our grief to think he could turn it into money.
Emily sat beside her grandmother, twisting her hands in her lap. She looked frightened and ashamed, though she hadn’t done anything wrong.
She told us Vince had mud on his shoes when he took the photo.
She remembered a white ribbon sticking out of his pocket.
That was when I stopped feeling only heartbroken.
I got angry.
Not loud angry.
Not reckless angry.
The kind of anger that goes cold and steady because it knows exactly where it needs to go.
