Page 8 of You'll Be Sorry

“Your dad, he was the first on scene that night?” Theo, doing the honors. “He must’ve talked about it.”

“No one ever found a single trace of the family?” Raquel arched a brow. Mandy was beginning to recognize the tell. The brunette, pretending to play it cool. As if there wasn’t a sudden charged current in the air.

Mandy finished up her last bite of brownie. It really was damn good. Then she gazed out the jutting expanse of windows, the view so vast and clear they could indeed have sailed off into the pewter-gray sky.

Some folks theorized the two parents and four kids had raced out into the storm and in the dark fallen off Widow’s Peak. Except why, when, how? Not to mention no bodies were ever found. Others speculated about a possible mafia hit. Or vengeful business partners determined to take out Dave Dixon and his entire family over a perceived slight. Maybe he’d had a lover who’d angrily destroyed the entire family. Or maybe she’d had a lover who’d angrily destroyed the entire family.

Theories, rumors, increasingly wilder and wilder ideas. So many had cropped up over the past thirty years. And still, no breakthrough discovery on what had actually transpired.

Ambiguous loss. The term for a tragic incident without any closure. A loved one never seen again following a natural disaster. Asoldier listed as MIA after heading off to war. A plane disappearing mid-flight without a trace of the wreckage.

Could an entire town spend three decades suffering from ambiguous loss, existing in a state of frozen grief?

Mandy’s father had certainly thought so.

“You must’ve done your own homework,” she commented at last, tone neutral.

“We read all the newspaper accounts,” Theo volunteered readily. “Plus watched the TV episode. That footage was something else. The image of all the family’s jackets hanging next to the door, shoes lined up below. The partially consumed food and wine waiting on the table. Talk about CAF.”

Creepy as fuck. Not a term Mandy’s father had ever used, but one that definitely fit.

“Their vehicle in the garage,” Raquel murmured. “Her purse, his wallet, car keys sitting on the entryway table. Plus all their personal possessions still in the bedrooms.”

Mandy nodded. These details were well known, the stuff of local legend/real-world ghost stories. The entire family, spotted out and about several times during the previous day. The kids running around the village green, Dave Dixon grabbing some caulking for a drafty window, Janet swinging by the library to drop off her last load of well-thumbed paperbacks. Not a mood, step, action to indicate anything was amiss. And yet, within twenty-four hours…

“From everything we’ve read,” Theo continued, “sounds like the family vanished sometime Tuesday night? Given the half-consumed food still sitting out, that kind of thing.”

Mandy nodded. That was the prevalent theory.

“The entire town lost power that night, correct?” Raquel’s turn. “Due to a bad thunderstorm? Surely there must be record of when the electrical grid went dark?”

Oh, there were records all right. Not to mention her father’s personal storyboard, an entire wall of his office covered with crime scene photos, interview statements, and weather charts, many linked by an ever-expanding mass of colored strings as he sought to connect the dots. Growing up, Mandy had been under strict orders never to enter her father’s study. So naturally she did so every chance she got, spending hours staring at the four beaming Dixon children. In the standard gray backdrop school photos, they looked perfectly normal. Henry, Violet, Josie, and William. She could picture them sitting beside her in a classroom, especially William, who’d been only a year older. Or attending driver’s ed, going to the prom, celebrating graduation with wild cheers and a toss of their mortarboards in the air. Except they never did any of those things. Instead, they became a white noise of tragedy, buzzing through the town day after day, year after year, decade after decade.

The Dixon family disappeared one stormy night. Their ghosts, however, remained firmly entrenched in the community, including Mandy’s own house.

Theo and Raquel were still waiting patiently for her answer.

“The power went out a little after six,” Mandy granted. “At least, that’s what I remember reading.”

“And the next day?” Theo asked. “What time did your father arrive at the house?”

“Shortly after five. The postmistress was just locking up for the day when she noticed the dog.”

“The Dixons had a dog?” For the first time, the couple appear surprised. “We never read about a family dog,” Raquel continued.

“I don’t think it was an actual pet, more like a stray that’d taken to hanging around. I never heard what happened to the dog afterward. Probably went back to its nomadic ways.” Her father had spent months trying to find that dog. Called area shelters, put up posters,contacted vets. The dog named Dog, who’d befriended the four Dixon kids and was last seen sitting on the front porch, howling in misery as blood dried on its fur.

Her father had found a snapshot some tourist had taken of the canine. The Polaroid had been tacked up next to the children’s photos, growing increasingly blurry and green tinged, as if bruised by time itself.

“What kind of dog?” Raquel asked.

Mandy shrugged. Details about the dog had been purposefully withheld by her father. She saw no reason to change that now.

“Twenty-four hours,” Theo mused finally, “between the loss of power and arrival of the police. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours.”

Mandy didn’t disagree.

“Sounds like the search efforts were quite extensive.” Raquel again. “County sheriff, state police, even the National Guard spent months combing the woods, roadways, rivers, and streams.”