Page 38 of Dead Man's Hollow
“Is that his name? Andre.” The name stings her tongue like a bitter poison or a toxin.
“Yes. Andre Newport.” She places the book open to the page with his picture on the counter in front of Amy.
Amy avoids looking at it. Her voice is tight when she asks, “Have you talked to him? Did he tell you anything?”
“No, Maisy and I haven’t talked to him.”
“What are you waiting for?”
Jordana waits, letting the venom of Amy’s question—more of an accusation, really—dissipate before she answers. “Well, for one thing, we wanted to confirm he’s the guy Heather was with that?—”
“—He’s the guy,” Amy bites off the words.
Jordana goes on as if she hasn’t been interrupted, “—night. And for another, he’s dead.”
Amy deflates. “He’s dead?” She closes her eyes. They waited too long.
“Presumed dead. He went missing the same weekend as Heather did, and he’s never been found.”
Amy’s eyes fly open and she stares at Jordana, her mouth slightly agape. “Are you serious?”
The producer’s expression answers the question for her. She’s dead serious.
“I am.”
Amy’s mind is racing, and her thinking is fuzzy, unclear. “He—Andre—was never found either?”
“That’s right.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t remember hearing anything about this.”
“I’ll pull together some old articles and news clips, but the way our source recalls it, the media was focused on Heather’s disappearance. Andre’s may not have gotten as much coverage.”
Could they have run away together?Amy’s instinct is to reject the question, to declare there’s no way Heather would have taken off and left her family to worry, grieve, and mourn for thirty years. But this scenario means Heather might be alive and well somewhere. For all the other questions it raises, it gives her hope.
Jordana seems to know what she’s thinking. “Do you think they might have run away together?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like they were dating or anything. Who runs away with a boy they just met? But he disappeared, too. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“We don’t know that,” the producer cautions.
After a long silence, Amy croaks, “We don’t know because nobody told the whole truth about that night.” Her voice cracks and wobbles.
“That’s true, unfortunately. Unless someone told the Pittsburgh police Andre was in Dead Man’s Hollow that night, there’s no reason they would have connected his disappearance to Heather’s,” Jordana agrees.
Amy blinks. “What did the witnesses in his case say?”
“We don’t know, yet. We’re continuing to focus on Heather, but this new information raises questions.”
“Can’t you at least call his parents and ask?”
“My understanding is that he was raised by his mother, and she’s passed away.”
Amy moans, stricken. “What have we done?”
Jordana nudges Amy’s glass toward her. “Take a drink of water. Then take a breath. You were just kids.”
Amy’s struck by the generosity of this statement, given that Jordana can’t be more than a few years older than she was when Heather disappeared. She picks up the glass with trembling hands and sips the water.
