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how much you know about your brother’s disappearance.”
    “Not much,” Eric said. “I was a baby when it happened.”
    “Did you parents ever discuss it?”
    “Never. My father’s been mostly out of the picture since I was two. My mother didn’t like to talk about it.”
    Not that she needed to. Her actions spoke volumes. There were no photos of Charlie on display in the house. Eric hadn’t even known any existed until he accidentally found a box of them in the basement one December when he was snooping around for Christmas presents. He spent the rest of that afternoon staring at image after image of his brother. Ten years of photographs, hidden away in shame.
    The same was true of his brother’s bedroom. Instead of clearing it out and putting it to different use, Eric’s mother had sealed the room off like a tomb. The door was locked. The key was God knows where. Usually, Eric didn’t think about it. But sometimes he’d walk by the door and pause, wondering what was on the other side. He always imagined something empty and pristine, like the room of a Benedictine monk.
    Eric never brought up the photos, not even as his mother was dying. He never asked about the bedroom, either. He knew Maggie didn’t mention them because it was too painful, and that talking would only bring the pain back.
    Fortunately for Eric, the rest of Perry Hollow had no such reservations. They talked plenty about his brother. Everything he knew about the incident came from people in town—classmates, store clerks, parishioners at the church his mother had dragged him to during a brief religious phase. He didn’t know how much of it was the truth, but growing up, he didn’t care. Any morsel of information was a feast to him.
    What he learned—and what he told Nick—was that on the night of July 20, 1969, Charlie left the house and never returned. The only trace of him was his bicycle, which his mother, Kat’s father, and a deputy saw drift over Sunset Falls. The bike was found the next morning, smashed against the rocks at the base of the falls. His brother was never seen again. After several days of news coverage, search parties, and tense living-room vigils, Chief James Campbell made his official ruling. His brother, Charles Olmstead, accidentally rode his bike into the water, tumbled over the falls, and was swept away by the current.
    “But your mother didn’t believe that?” Nick said.
    “Apparently not.”
    Kat, who had been quiet up to that point, leaned forward. “What do you believe?”
    “I honestly have no opinion. Charlie’s gone. In my mind, he’s always been gone. I’m just hoping you’ll be able to find out what exactly happened to him.”
    “But why now?” Nick asked. “It’s been more than forty years since your brother disappeared.”
    “It was my mother’s dying wish.”
    Eric had inherited it, along with Maggie’s house, her car, and whatever money she had managed to tuck away over the years. He planned to sell the house. The car would be donated. The cash, too, would go to charity. When it was all gone, Eric would only be left with the words. Although nearly two weeks had passed, he still heard his mother’s urgent whispers, riding on her final breaths.
    They didn’t believe me. They’ll believe you. Find him. Find your brother.
    At the time, Eric had been too overwhelmed by emotion to fully comprehend those last words. He thought Maggie had been delusional as death approached and wanted him to summon his brother, gone so many decades before. It was only a few days later, after a funeral service mostly attended by people he didn’t know, that he realized the importance of her words. His mother had truly meant what she said. She wanted him to find Charlie. It was the last order from mother to son in a lifetime that had been full of them.
    This was confirmed the day after the funeral, when his mother’s lawyer contacted him about the house, the car, the cash. The lawyer then dropped this