Page 14 of Dead Man's Hollow
“Or they have information,” she muses.
“Or fantasies about the former WPXI weather girl,” Jordana notes dryly.
Maisy shudders, her excitement turning to dismay. “Bite your tongue. I left my stalkers behind when I left television. I hope.”
Jordana wrinkles her nose. “Well, one of them is local.”
“How can you tell?”
“They have location data enabled on their device. The zip code is 15218. Where’s that?”
“Swisshelm Park,” Maisy says automatically. All those years chasing stories have given her a detailed mental map of the city.
Jordana frowns. “Isn’t that where Amy Marino lives?”
“It is.” Now Maisy’s frowning, too. “I sincerely hope she hasn’t played the trailer about her missing sister fifty times. That seems …”
“Unhealthy?” Jordana supplies.
“Extremely.”
They’re silent for a long moment. Maisy’s imagining Amy obsessively replaying the minute-long clip and wondering what that would mean for the woman’s metal state. She suspects Jordana is, too.
After a moment, Jordana cracks, “Now I’m kind of rooting for it to be one of the guys who used to send you underwear at the station.”
“I think I might be, too.” She grimaces. “What about our other superfan? Do they have location enabled?”
“I think you’re safe from that one. They’re in Quebec.”
Maisy blinks. “Canada?”
“Is there another Quebec?”
“Quebec,” she muses. “I never would have thought.”
“We have listeners all over the world,” Jordana tells her.
“But fifty times?”
“Morethan fifty times,” Jordana reminds her. Then she shrugs.“Dieu seul le sait.”
Only God knows.
Maisy finishes the French Canadian saying for her.“Et le diable s'en doute.”
And the devil suspects.
ChapterNine
The Pirates gameis on the television, but Rich isn’t watching baseball. His earbuds are in, and he’s listening to the Farley Files trailer on a loop. On the other side of the family room, Amy reads her novel for her book club. Ava’s sprawled on her stomach on the floor, playing some game on her phone, and Owen and Evan appear to be actually watching the game.
Rich wanted nothing more than to vanish into his workshop after dinner with a vague excuse about working on his latest project—a set of cedar planters for Amy’s perennials. But Evan mentioned the Pirates were playing, and Amy pulled out the popcorn maker. Lured by the buttered treat, his family gathered in the den, and he figured his absence would irritate his wife.
So here he sits, Maisy Farley’s voice in his ear, and a churning tightness in his gut.
… On Friday, May 27th, at the start of the Memorial Day Weekend, a group of teenagers gathered around a small bonfire deep in the woods to drink and celebrate the fast-approaching end of the school year. One of those present was sixteen-year-old Heather Ryan.
The bonfire was not actually that small. Nor was it the only fire in the woods that night. McKeesport High wasn’t the only school whose students used the woods to party. In fact, Rich had planned to give his own school’s fire a wide berth. He wanted to hang out with a group of guys he knew from basketball camp. But then he’d spotted Heather.
