The Never List

me, like in the old days.
    Her voice was clear when she finally spoke. “I’m not afraid anymore,” she said. “Now nothing scares me.”
    That was all. Then she looked away. The horror of it pierced through me like a knife. She wasn’t the same person anymore.
    I tried to console myself with the thought that, whoever she was now, she would be safe going forward. She’d be safe where they would put her. Where nothing could ever hurt her again.
    I wondered if there was any chance they could restore her to thatgirl in my attic bedroom. I made a pact with myself then and there that I would be there for her from now on. I’d try to save her for real this time, if there was even the remotest possibility that she could be saved.
    She had been taken away by the time Jim walked over to me, in a corner of Jack’s yard, as far as possible from the barn. The paramedics were wrapping Ray’s foot, and Christine was being interviewed by one officer, Tracy by another. Adele sat alone in stunned silence, watching as the police unspooled yellow tape around the perimeter.
    Jim sat down beside me, plucking at a piece of grass he turned between his fingers. He kept his distance.
    “That was pretty tough in there. Are you okay?”
    “Okay? No, not really.”
    “I understand.” He looked at me intently. “Sarah … Box one eighty-two? One of our guys took a photo of Jack Derber. Showed it to the postal agent who worked in River Bend all those years ago.”
    “And?”
    “She called him Tommy Philben. That’s the name he’d used on the form.” He paused, letting me take that in.
    “So they’ve always been in it together, haven’t they? One way or another. Noah and Jack.”
    “Seems like it.” We sank back into silence.
    “Sarah, I spoke to Dr. Simmons. She wants to help.”
    “No, thanks.” I turned toward him. “There isn’t going to be any ‘getting over it’ this time. I realized something in there.”
    “What?”
    “That no matter what I’ve been telling myself, at some level I was only looking out for myself all those years ago. I was selfish, weak. And that’s how I’d gotten so close to becoming like Jennifer. Now that I see that, I have to change something.”
    “Change what?”
    “The other fifty-four.”
    “What?”
    “I need the list.”
    “Sarah, I can’t give that to you.”
    “Jim.”
    I didn’t look at him. I just waited.
    We sat in silence for a few minutes. Then without another word, he got up and went over to his car.
    A moment later he walked back over to me holding a manila envelope. He sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and handed it to me.
    “You didn’t get this from me,” he said.
    I took out the sheet of paper and looked at the names. The typeface blurred in front of my eyes for a moment. I took a deep breath.
    “Got a pen?” I asked. He reached into his pocket and handed me one.
    I clicked it open and wrote at the top of the list, in the familiar big block letters of those long-ago journals, S YLVIA D UNHAM .
    I handed him the pen and the empty envelope, folded the paper into a small square, and put it in my pocket.
    I wondered where Sylvia Dunham could be, that girl in the photograph. Junior year. The girl who was lost somewhere without a name. But I would find her. Find her somehow and help her parents understand that she hadn’t chosen evil over them. I wanted to erase that pain at least, if I could do nothing else.
    And I felt that sense of purpose burning inside me. Burning away the hollowness, the emptiness. Taking away my own sorrow, swallowing it up in this need. This need to fix things. To save them all.
    I looked at Jim. He was smiling. We both stood up. I wondered if the change in me was visible.
    I reached out my hand to him. He looked surprised but took it in his own, and we shook. His hand was warm, and his skin smooth. His grasp felt safe and comfortable. I looked into his eyes. I’d never noticed they were green before. Then we were both smiling.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    I would like to thank my brilliant agent, Alexandra Machinist, who expertly shepherded this book from the initial draft; Dorothy Vincent, for her excellent international representation; Tina Bennett, for opening the first door; Pam Dorman and Beena Kamlani, for their skillful and insightful editing, and the entire team at Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, for their hard work and commitment to this book; my husband, Stephen Metcalf, who helped me enormously, both emotionally and editorially, in