Page 111 of Veil of Silence

Nora and Austin chose a pew near the back.

The sanctuary filled quickly. Most people appeared to know the Daltons, and conversations carried the easy anticipation of an audience expecting to enjoy itself.

Nora barely heard them.

She watched Linda take her place onstage beside her husband and three adult children.

The pianist began the opening notes, and the sanctuary quieted.

Nora had expected the music to pull her into the present.

Instead, the first harmony carried her backward.

She was sixteen again, standing beneath hot stage lights while Wren adjusted her microphone and Marlowe tried not to laugh about something. Mom waited beside the piano. Dad watched from the wings with Christian tucked against his side.

Her hand tightened around the program.

Onstage, Glen told a story about traveling through three states in two days when the children were young.

Austin shifted beside her. His arm rested close enough that his sleeve brushed hers.

Nora didn’t move away.

She had felt safe with Jacob too. Austin hadn’t given her a reason to doubt him, but she couldn’t let herself mistake wanting him close for knowing she could trust him.

She thought of her parents beside the bonfire, laughing with the boy they believed was their son. For three weeks, the Loveless family had stopped counting because they thought everyone was finally there.

They had been wrong.

The music swelled around her. Nora closed her eyes, but the DNA report remained at the forefront of her thoughts.

The folder was thicker than Austin expected.

Glen Dalton placed it on a table inside a small Sunday school classroom after the concert. The blue plastic had cracked near the spine, and a large rubber band had been wrapped around it twice to keep the contents from spilling out.

Nora sat beside Austin while Linda closed the door. The rest of the Dalton family remained in the sanctuary talking with people from the church, their voices carrying faintly through the wall along with the scrape of equipment being moved from the platform.

Glen removed the rubber band. “I started collecting these after Zander disappeared.”

“You never believed he ran away?” Austin said.

“Not for one second.” Glen opened the folder. “Zander loved traveling with us. He wouldn’t have left without saying anything, and he certainly wouldn’t have stayed gone.”

Linda rested a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “The police disagreed.”

“So I started looking for other cases.” Glen glanced toward the closed door. “Linda knows. We never told our children how much time I spent on it. I didn’t want them believing I’d become obsessed with something I couldn’t prove.”

The first clipping came from a Kentucky newspaper. The yellowed headline announced that a fourteen-year-old boy had disappeared after a revival service. His school photograph showed a thin teenager with braces.

Beneath it was an article about a boy who had vanished from a North Carolina campground where several ministry families stayed between performances. Another was eleven and had last been seen near a church parking lot in Georgia. A fourth disappeared while his family loaded equipment after a concert.

Every missing child was a boy.

Austin read the dates and locations while Nora studied the photographs.

One boy had supposedly run away. Another disappearance was blamed on a custody dispute. A third child might have wandered into the woods and suffered an accident.

The cases would have remained separate forever if no one had a reason to place them side by side.