Page 49 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

It was his choice of meeting location. He’s determined to stay here, just outside the restricted area where he can’t be told he’s trespassing, until someone listens to him. Now I am listening. I want to know everything he’ll tell me. I’ve watched and rewatched the footage of him rushing up on the mall and shouting at George. I can hear the pain and desperation in his voice. I want to know what happened to put them there. And what it might have to do with the bodies left scattered on the floor.

“He told me he knew I was right. That he had gotten out of control and he wanted to get it back. He wanted to regain his life and make something of himself. That’s what brought him here. He called me and told me he had gotten a really great job that he was so excited about. But then I stopped hearing from him. I couldn’t get in touch with him and he never called, never wrote. He was just gone.

“I came looking for him, but it didn’t do any good. I showed his picture around and nobody said they recognized him. A couple of people said he might look a little familiar, but that doesn’t mean anything. It wasn’t enough. It was like he got that job and vaporized. Something happened here.”

“Where was the job?”

“He said it was taking care of horses at a place that offered trail rides and things. Frank always loved animals. Especially horses. They were big and lovable just like him. Sometimes misunderstood. But when I came here, I couldn’t find anything like that. No riding school. No dude ranches. This place is nothing like what I thought it was going to be.”

“How long ago was this?” I ask.

“Thirty years. I have come here from Tennessee dozens of times trying to find out more about him. No one has ever been willing to help me. Then I find out about this damn mall and it makes me so angry I can’t even see straight. No one wants to even listen about my brother, but the whole area can’t shut up about this ridiculous place. And the thing is, he’s not the first.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Frank going missing isn’t a one-off event. Look into it. Over the years, there have been dozens of reports of people who have gone missing around here and no one ever talks about it. There are a lot of people around here keeping secrets. All the protests happening—you think they’re about them protecting their livelihood, but not all of them have a livelihood connected to the land. What they’re doing is protecting themselves. Look into it. You’ll see I’m right.”

“Sam, look at this,” I say, finding another article on the microfilm. “It’s another one.”

I jot down a few notes before moving away from the viewer so he can read what I just did.

“Reggie Constantino, 29, of Alton, was last seen driving toward Sherwood on the night of August 23. Friends say he was traveling to visit his pen pal who he’d struck up a close relationship with over the last few months. Despite promising to call when he arrived, he has not been heard from since,” Sam reads.

“A pen pal,” I say. “So now we have people going missing coming to Sherwood, Cherry Hill, or Heggs for various different jobs, to visit a pen pal, or because they were just passing through on a much longer drive.” I gesture at the case files, notes, and articles scattered across the table in the center of the room. “There are forty so far in the last twelve years. Forty people, Sam. How do forty people just go missing and we haven’t even heard about it?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Wait, did you notice this?”

“Notice what?” I ask.

“Look at the byline.”

I look at the article again. “By G. McCarthy. George? Did he write this?”

“Only one way to find out.”

We find George at the news station getting ready for yet another interview. He doesn’t seem pleased when we tell him that we need to speak with him.

“I’m very busy,” he says.

“I understand that. It’ll only be a minute,” I say.

We go into one of the small conference rooms and I lay out several of the articles I’ve printed out.

“Look at those,” he chuckles. “Talk about a blast from the past.”

It’s the most human I’ve heard him sound in all the times I have interacted with him.

“So, these are yours?”

“They are. From my print journalism days. That’s when I thought I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. Maybe investigative reporting. I loved doing that. That was such a rush in getting details about a crime that nobody else could get and being the first to report on something sensational. I loved playing with the words until I could get them to fit together just right so the readers felt like they were right there, living the story rather than just being told,” he says.

“It sounds like you really enjoyed writing. Why did you decide to go into television reporting?”

“Visibility,” he says. “Success. A good-looking face and a nice voice will make far more on TV than in a newspaper. And it’s the live reporters that get to do the most exciting projects. They don’t send a newspaperman in to report on a storm or send them into war zones.” He sifts through the articles and shows me one. “This one. God, I remember writing this one. I thought it was going to turn into my first big investigative piece, but it never went anywhere. I’ve wanted to look into it again so many times, but there’s nothing to look into according to everyone else. I must just be seeing things that aren’t there.”

I look at the article, then hand it to Sam.

“Horse Kills Owner with Kick to Head,” he reads. “That’s rough.”

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