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of going to the farm for Christmas. It wasn’t even brought up as a possibility for the regular summer visit. Ella had collapsed that spring in a nervous breakdown.
    Ashley finally forced herself out of bed, into the shower, to get dressed, pack some things for her trip. Her grandmother’s death had been expected for months. Grief had long ago morphed to a dull acceptance, possibly even relief. It had not been a kind death. She had become ill with cancer, had surgery, and spent her last two years in a nursing home in Frankfort. Grampa had stayed with her, leaving the house empty, and a tenant farmer managing the farm.
    During a visit to the nursing home, Ashley had seen Nathan again, the first time since that summer. They had kept in touch since then. He would go to the funeral, he had told her, and they planned to attend the church service and the funeral itself, and then duck out of the family gathering afterward. Gramma and Grampa had many living relatives in the Frankfort area, nephews, nieces, their offspring, cousins. Ashley knew very few of them.
    The problem was what to do about Grampa. Decisions had to be made. He wanted to go back to his own house, his farm, back to the daily chores he had done all his life, but he was also developing dementia. An indelible image in Ashley’s head was of Grampa shaking Nathan, demanding to know what he had done to Joey.
    When Ashley thought of Joey, he was always running, screaming in the black void until he went mad and died.
    It was a long drive, but done in one day, and she had a motel reservation for when she arrived. She had left her departure date open. There was little need for her to return home at any given time, working as she did for a Web design company whose employees worked at home for the most part.
    The service was as awful as she had feared, and her mother insisted that she ride in the limousine with the family to the cemetery. That part, at least, would be brief, Ashley thought, and went with them. At the graveside the preacher had just begun a prayer when suddenly Grampa jerked away from Uncle Walt and pointed at Nathan, who had been standing as far from him as space permitted.
    “He’s the one!” Grampa yelled. “He’s the one who killed my Billy! He’s the one!” He began to cry.
    Everyone turned to stare as Nathan walked away swiftly. Ashley jerked loose from her mother’s grasp of her arm and hurried after him.
    She caught up at the parking lot and fell into step at his side, nearly running to keep up. “He’s demented, Nathan. Really demented.”
    “Yeah, I know. Did you come in a limo?”
    “Yes.”
    “I drove myself. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
    They were both silent as he drove aimlessly, out into the countryside, back to the city, out again. Finally he pulled up at a tavern. “Let’s get a beer,” he said.
    In a corner booth in the nearly empty tavern with steins of beer before them, he said, “It’s been hell, hasn’t it?”
    She nodded. “More for you than for me. I just had counseling and shrinks for a couple of years.” She took a long drink of beer. “They tried hypnosis to make me remember what really happened.”
    “That’s the question, isn’t it? What happened? After Mother’s breakdown, as soon as I turned twelve, it was off to a boarding school for me. I never really lived at home again. Boarding schools, summer camps, prep school.”
    She hadn’t known that. “You said you were studying physics. In college, I mean.”
    “And philosophy, and psychology. A lifetime studying, and the question still is what happened? I’m something of an expert on disappearances, and even alien abductions. Ask me anything.” His smile was without mirth. He drained his stein and held it aloft to signal for another one. “You know Gramma left us some money?”
    She shook her head. “I didn’t even know she had money of her own.”
    “Dad told me. A hundred thousand for each of us. Maybe more than that. Apparently she