Dan's room is exactly what I expected. The bed is a crumpled mess, posters of his favorite bands line the wall, a desk with clutter over what I think is a laptop, and clothes lay in piles strewn across the floor. The walls are done in a soft earthy brown and darker hard woods covers the floor, at least what you can see of the floor. A flat screen is mounted to one wall with a PS3 on the entertainment stand underneath. A guy's room all right. It smells just like him too—woodsy and clean.

Well, a guy's room, with one exception. There are white boards spread everywhere with my drawings tacked up beside the actual photo of the missing kids they correspond to. He's got maps with places marked on them with thumbtacks and notes written everywhere on the boards and on Post-Its. The boy's been busier than I gave him credit for. Brownie points to Officer Dan!

"Sorry for the mess," he mumbles and clears off a spot on the bed. "Have a seat."

Instead of sitting, I step over to examine the boards more closely. My sketches had been pretty accurate. It's so strange to see the missing kids smiling out of normal looking pictures, the damage gone and no ugly bullet holes anywhere.

Janey Morris, age twelve, read the first picture. Missing June 2009 from the Rowan County fair. Blonde hair, blue eyes, 5'1.

Emma Johnson, age ten: missing March 2007 from the Rowan County fair. Blonde hair, blue eyes, 4'7.

Michael Sutter age eight: missing December 2009 from the Hickory Mall. Brown hair, brown eyes, 4'9.

Melissa Jenkins age seven: missing October 2010 from the Concord Mills Mall. Red hair, blue eyes, 4'3.

Eric Cameron age seventeen: missing March 2006 after a Statesville high school basketball game.  Black hair, blue eyes, 6'1.

Mary Roberts age sixteen: missing January 2013 from her home in Charlotte. Blonde hair, brown eyes, 5'6.

Sally Myers age fifteen: missing from her home in Charlotte. Blonde hair, gray eyes, 5'5.

There was nothing really connecting them together. It all just looked so random. They had been taken from different locations at different times. Busy places mind you, but still completely random. No distinguishing features, at least not that I can see, made them look similar in any way, except for the bullet holes in my sketches.

"Your drawings helped a lot," Dan says from behind me. "I was able to run them through our database of missing kids and come up with almost perfect matches for most of them. Your mirror boy there was the hardest. I could only get an eighty seven percent match. There wasn't a lot to go on."

My eyes stray back to Eric Cameron, aka Mirror Boy. It might or might not be him. The face is the same shape and the eyes the same color, but aside from that, I just can't tell. His face was pretty mangled last I'd seen it and that's how I'd drawn him.

He's actually really cute, or he was. His black hair is slightly curly at the bottom and those blue eyes of his are actually quite striking. They are full of laughter too. Quite a difference from the ghost I'd met, but then again, being tortured and murdered might put a damper on anyone's personality. I'd be angry too. I gave myself a mental shake. Mirror Boy was the enemy and a ghost. No need to get all doe eyed over a ghost.

"At least you know I'm not as crazy as you suspected," I say lightly while reading through his notes. All had been taken in the open. There one minute, gone the next. None of them knew each other. Mary went missing the night before Sally did. So does that mean Sally saw something she shouldn't have? If that's true, then she'd have to have seen it at the house and we'd already ruled out Mr. Olson. So that left me...nowhere.

"Well, I wouldn't go that far," he grins at me. "You are one weird chick, Mattie Louise Hathaway."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Officer Dan." His map has my attention now. It looks like all the kidnappings had taken place in three counties: Rowan, Mecklenburg, and Iredell. It's a fairly small area. Why had no one picked up on this? I ask Dan just that.

"Well, Mattie, until you told me they each had bullet through the head, nothing connected them. They were all random disappearances spread out over several years. There was no reason to think they were related. If I had to guess, I'd say Mecklenburg is the center of the activity."

"Why?"

"Two disappearances in less than forty-eight hours."

"Mary and Sally. That's bugging me," I frown.

"Me too," Dan admits. "It leads me to think that Sally saw something she shouldn't have, but how would she have seen that if she didn't leave the house?"

"Which implies the Olsons."

"We cleared them though."

"Are you sure?"

Dan rolls his eyes.  "I know how to do my job."

"Do you, now?" I smile wickedly. "Weren't you the ones who didn't even search Sally's room? The ones who didn't look to see if she took anything before writing her off as a runaway?"

"You're not going to let me forget that are you?"

"Not a chance, Officer Dan."

"Well, I did do my job here," he insists. "I personally went to the factory where your foster father works and looked at his punch card. I spoke to people who remembered him being there on shift. He wasn't home when Sally disappeared."

"And I don't buy Mrs. Olson would have done anything to her either," I tell him. "She cares about us. It's hard to find someone who does and she wouldn't hurt Sally."

"Then where does that leave us?"

"Neighbors maybe?" I ask.

"That's one angle we can look at," he nods. "Can you get me a list? I'll run them and see if anyone has a record and pops up in the system."

"Tell me about Mary."

"I talked to her mom. She had just come home from a long shift and went to bed. When she woke up, Mary was gone. Her bike too, so she thought she was out for a morning ride at first. Two hours later she got worried, started calling friends, and then went out looking for her along the bike trails Mary liked to ride. She called the police around nightfall. We haven't been able to find anything to give us a hint as to her whereabouts."

"It's wet and cold," I tell him softly.  "There's standing water somewhere near her."

"How do you know that?"

"I could smell it."

"You really think she might be alive?"

"I don't know," I say and walk over to sit on the bed, suddenly tired. "I usually only see ghosts, but I don't think Mary's dead. Dying maybe, but not dead."

"I think you are the bravest person I've ever met, Mattie."

My head snaps up. He's staring at me in all seriousness. There isn't a hint of laughter in those warm brown eyes of his. Dear Lord, he believes me. He really, truly believes me. The truth is there in his eyes.

"Of course I am," I say flippantly.

He shakes his head. "I'm trying to be serious here."

"I know," I tell him. "You make me nervous when you get serious." Why did I tell him that? He so did not need to know he makes me nervous.

"I make you nervous?" he laughs. "I didn't think anyone could make the great Mattie Hathaway nervous."

"Yeah, well, don't let it go to your head," I grouch.

"DAN!"

"YEAH DAD?" he yells back.

"MIKE'S ON THE PHONE FOR YOU!"

"TELL HIM I'LL CALL HIM BACK!"

I can't help but to smile at the yelling. We don't do that at the Olsons. Mrs. O hates loud noise. She doesn't even like the TV on above a whisper. Dan would give her a stroke yelling like that.

"Hang on a sec, let me call Mike and see what he wants." Dan fishes his phone from his pocket. "Why he doesn't call my cell I don't know."

I don't pay much attention to Dan as he starts to talk. Mirror Boy's picture has caught my attention again. His face calls to me. He is the key to this. In that moment, I understand this to be perfectly true. But I don't know how I know, but I do. I can feel it. The truth of it rings in me like some kind of gong or bell. How, though? Why is he so important to this? Aside from causing all sorts of nastiness?

"Squirt, Mike needs me to pick him up for practice today. Mind if I drop you off a little early?"

"No, that's fine," I tell him, still staring at Mirror Boy. I needed to do research of my own. I have to find out why he is important.

"Do you see something I don't?" Dan asks, brows lifted.

My shoulders lift in a shrug. "I don't know. Let me think about it. Are you ready to go?"

"You want to leave now? We haven't done anything yet."

"Sure do, besides, I need you to help me with something."

"Help with what?"

"Are you any good at breaking and entering?"