Free Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay Page A

the same time they are her.
    Elizabeth doesn’t say anything and rearranges the pages on the table, playing the shell game, until they are in their proper order from left to right. She gets up so Janice can take her seat. She avoids physical contact with her mother as they pass each other. Janice sits and holds up the first page close to her face and her hands tremor a little. Elizabeth turns away and finishes making the cup of coffee her mother started.
    â€œOh my goodness, where did you get these?”
    â€œWhen I got up this morning, I found them in the middle of the living room floor.”
    â€œWhat do you mean in the middle of the floor?”
    â€œThey were there.” Elizabeth makes a circular motion with her right hand. “In a pile on the throw rug. No book or anything to go along with them, just these three pages.”
    â€œHow did they get there?”
    â€œNo idea. I’m guessing you didn’t put them there.”
    â€œNo, of course not. Why would I do that?”
    â€œI’m not saying you would do anything, Mom. You want your coffee?” Elizabeth places the steaming cup on the kitchen table, then backs away and leans against the kitchen counter.
    Janice carefully puts the pages down in a neat stack, safely away from the coffee. She says, “I don’t understand.”
    â€œHi.” Kate pokes her head into the kitchen but leaves the rest of her body out in the hallway like she’s ready to bolt, a prairie dog nervously surveying the plains for hawks. She tucks her purple-streaked hair behind her left ear and half-smiles.
    Neither Elizabeth nor Janice responds right away. The way Elizabeth feels right now, she would be content to never have to say anything to anyone ever again.
    Janice finally says, “Hi, Katie, my dear. Come sit next to me, honey.”
    Kate shuffles into the kitchen and looks at Elizabeth with her head slightly turned in a way that silently asks if she’s in trouble. She’s so easy to read sometimes. Kate says, “What’s going on? Oh my God, do you know where Tommy is?” She dashes across the kitchen and sits at the table and leans against her grandmother.
    Janice says, “No, dear, no. We haven’t heard anything new about Tommy from the police, but we want to share something your mother found this morning. Right, Elizabeth?”
    Elizabeth remains at her post, leaning against the kitchen counter, arms folded across her chest. She quickly runs through for Kate the what and the how of her finding Tommy’s pages this morning.
    Kate goes monosyllabic with, “Huh. Wow.”
    And sometimes, she isn’t so easy to read. Kate looks the pages over and her cheeks turn red right before she swaps the first page for the second. She must’ve read the “fine print” section that was directed at her.
    Janice fidgets, waits for Kate to be done reading, and says, “Have you seen these before? You have been spending a lot of time in Tommy’s room.” She enunciates each syllable properly.
    Kate says, “I’ve been in his room, I guess, yeah. No. I’ve never seen these. Not these ones.”
    Elizabeth repeats what Kate says as a question. “Not these ones?”
    â€œYeah. I mean, I went looking through some of his notebooks and stuff but they’re all drawings and sketches.” The first half of her sentence is quiet and then she gets really loud, almost to the point of yelling. Her cheeks go an even deeper shade of red, like when she gets a high fever.
    Janice has one hand on the center of Kate’s back and she rubs little circles. “Where’d you find his notebooks? Are they out in the open?”
    â€œI know I shouldn’t have been looking through—”
    â€œIt’s all right, it’s all right. Where’d you find them?”
    â€œThey’re next to his desk. In the milk crate. But those notebooks aren’t like this.” Kate holds