My mother was the worst when it came to remembering. And my spare key was useless. She insisted that I have a key, yet she wouldn't stop changing the locks.

"Mom! Dad!" I banged on the door for the third time.

It was obvious someone was home. Voices were seeping through the cracks of the window from the TV. My parents never left their TV on. And Nev Schulman's voice had a distinction like no other. The same went for the other voices playing from an episode of Catfish. My mother loved Catfish, so I knew she had to be home watching it on the DVR.

"Goodness grief," I muttered through clenched teeth. One last snarl snapped from in between my jaw before I circled around on my heel.

"Sweetheart? What are you doing?" As I reached the last step, a figure stood in front of the house with two brown paper bags in hand.

"Daddy! Thank goodness. Where is your wife? She won't answer the door. Why do you keep letting her change the locks?" I sighed dramatically.

Laughter fell from his mouth. "That's your mother. One second." I hummed to the tune of the wind while my father jiggled his key in the lock. A satisfying click rang between us as the door pushed open.

"Octavia!?" he yelled.

"Yes? Oh, Angie!" my mother threw her hands up happily, glancing between dad and me.

"Don't give me that grin. Geez, mother. What were you doing? I was standing out there for over ten minutes." I scoffed. She eyed my hands, watching the useless pair of keys dangle from my fingers. Their nickel silver structure clinked together gently.

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear the door. Next time, knock louder, okay?" Laughter bubbled out of her. I rolled my eyes. My annoyance was amusing to her, apparently.

"It's nice to see my girls are as lovely as always." My father chuckled.

We walked further into the house with her hot on my tail. The deeper my feet led me, the darker the house became, filled with more Halloween decorations than the outside. The inside of the house was almost completely unnoticeable. It felt like I had entered a maze. Though I knew my way around. The patterns were hooked into my brain, having grown up here until I was twenty before John swept me away.

My body lured itself into the kitchen as it always had when I was younger.

"How was your appointment yesterday?" my mother started.

"It was okay. She gave me some more prenatal pills and told John to make sure he's looking after me. It wasn't anything she doesn't do every other time we meet." I shrugged.

My mother chuckled. I could already tell why she was chuckling. She knew Dr. Welsh better than any of us. Dr. Welsh had delivered Cory and me when my mother was pregnant. I guess you could say she was our family obstetrician.

"Oh! And before I forget." I dug into the pocket of my sweater, fishing for the sonogram photo. "Here's Rosemary's latest sonogram."

"Oh, look at her! She is going to be just a precious little thing," my mother cried. My father peered over her shoulder to get a better look.

He then smiled and said, "Beautiful."

"Have you eaten today, Angie?" She pondered in the direction of the cabinets, grabbing two mugs from inside. Then, she placed them carefully on the counter beside the stove.

"I had yogurt before I got here." I shrugged again.

She paused and gave me a look. "Angie. . ."

"What? I had a banana on the side!"

"Sit," she demanded. I groaned under my breath but did as told, plopping myself onto a stool under the kitchen island.

Nostalgia hadn't waited to make its presence known as my eyes laid on the drawings Cory and I did in elementary school. With magnets shaped like fruit, they stuck to the middle of the refrigerator on display. My heart swelled, but I shook it off with a slight chuckle, averting my gaze elsewhere.

This time I could see the Halloween decorations with a clearer distinction. I noticed the mini skeletons hanging off the ceiling, and stickers of witches riding broomsticks, placed along the walls. Thin, fake, cotton webs danced their way through the skeletons on the ceiling around the house.

"Wow. You two went all out this year, huh."

"You know your father has more spirit than any of us combined." She laughed. "He insisted we do this."

"That sounds like Daddy," I mumbled and folded my hands over the island top.

"Are you two talking about me while I'm standing right here? I don't hear any complaints when I get this baby all dolled up." He gestured around the house with his hands. My mother laughed and waved him off.

"What are you and John doing for Halloween? Halloween is Monday, you know"—she held up two of her fingers—"that's in two days."

"Well, John has to work later than me. But he'll be home in time for us to give out candy to the children in the neighborhood. Are you two doing the same?"

"Like every year," he said. I smiled and nodded.

Sometimes it felt like I never left. With them still living in West Greenbush, everything felt the same. But it wasn't. I rubbed my hands against my lap, softly digging my fingernails into my pants. Nothing was the same. It was just another slap in the face.

There was a cold, dark distance in the stem of my mother's pupils. What had once been warm and welcoming over time was now uninviting. It was as if someone drained the ecstatic, bright brown from her eyes and traded it in for a new, heart-sinking color.

Other people wouldn't have noticed if they didn't know her or what happened. She didn't think I'd ever notice. But I did. I always had. I noticed everything about my parents and the small things they did. My father hadn't even glanced at a picture of Cory since then. There were hardly any pictures of him around the house anymore.

It only made sense that I picked up on the little things about the people I'd spent most of my life with. This was their fucked-up way of moving on when they had nothing left to look forward to except me and a grandchild. We were all they had left to cherish.

And the pressure all fell on me. The pressure not to die before they could say goodbye.

I remembered when I had to break the news to them. The words barely stumbled out of my mouth before the storm blew in. A hurricane of madness, it was. All it took were the words dying and Cory to destroy their peaceful state. They didn't care how I said it. They only cared that it happened, and they could do nothing to stop it.

Rolling my shoulders back, I rubbed at the nape of my neck. The tense feeling in my upper body wouldn't go away. A mournful frown set the tone for my face as much as I rebelled against it. What a fucking mood killer.

"Is something wrong, Angie?" my mother asked.

"What? Oh, uh . . . no. Sorry, I was just thinking."

Her eyes pushed for more, but her lips moved no more. I was thankful she decided against speaking out. I wasn't prepared for this conversation with her or my father. It didn't feel like they were prepared for this conversation with me either.

Sometimes I wondered if I was a failure of a daughter and wife. I couldn't help my parents get through this. Neither could I help John. I could barely help myself. It sucked not being able to discuss the things I should have been able to with her.

"That's all right, then"—my mother's hand tugged on my chin—"hey, chin up, buttercup. You have to help me make this omelet. Then, you have to tell us more about our soon-to-be granddaughter!" She huffed.

I laughed under my breath and muttered, "Okay."

* * *

Cory knew more than anyone gave him credit for. The details were portrayed all over his notes. Maybe he hadn't told anyone how much he knew. But surely, he would have had to report back to the chief. That's what I thought.

There were three things all thirteen children had in common. The freckles on their face, the fact that they were girls, and they each went missing from the same couple of neighborhoods in town. But those were things I had already known beforehand. It was strange just how close their neighborhoods were, though.

They were so close; the families could have known each other. That screamed connections to me. It was too perfect. That also meant it could have been someone on the inside. Someone who the families would have least expected to plot against them.

Anyone who was around during the time of each child's disappearance could've been a suspect. Anyone who was capable of luring a child into their grip. The more I read up on his notes, the more likely Charles seemed like a suspect. He'd been the one name crawling through my mind all evening since I left my parents' house.

I had forgotten to bring Charles up to my parents, so that was another dead end. It was probably better that I didn't anyways. I would have had to explain myself. And though he was a main suspect, he wasn't the only one.

Mary's parents could have been deemed suspects. So could Mary's sister. A teenager could be capable of just as much as an adult. According to Cory's notes, they all were. His suspect list was long. There were names written in his journal I recognized too.

The most he was able to dig up was a possible reasoning for each suspect, but nothing that went into detail. That's where his notes became difficult to use for the case. This must have been where most of his stress stemmed from. With only the pictures of the children, background information, and small details gathered up, I could only imagine his troubles.

At this point, his case was a broad web of lies. His notes weren't any better. There was a broad circle of theories and acknowledgments worth the questioning. The least I could say was his theories had meaning, and possibility as well as some truth. The only area that lacked was hardcore evidence. Maybe that was why they closed the case before Cory could get any further.

But Cory didn't give up. According to John, he refused.

A noise from my phone drove me out of my thoughts. I peeked at the notification on my screen. Evelyn's name was glowing above the text message.

Hey, are we still on for coffee tomorrow?

I sighed and threw myself back against my seat.

Shit. I forgot I promised to meet with her tomorrow morning.

I sent her a quick reply, stating I'd still meet with her. Then, I returned to the task at hand. I knew I was stalling. I had been parked outside Charles' house for the past twenty minutes now. It was nerve-wracking. Once I knocked on that door, there was no going back. I wasn't even sure what I could say to the guy.

"Hey, I heard you're a pedophile and I wanted to see if it was true. Oh, by the way, do you know anything about the missing thirteen's case? Maybe you could help me!" I mocked myself in the mirror. That was bat-shit crazy thinking. But if I didn't think of something, I'd be out here forever. It was now or never.