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Summary

PART III: When Lost (continued)

Tracy: August 1975: Day One—Judyta: August 1975: Day One 

Tracy: August 1975: Day One  

Scared and alone, Tracy sits in the woods and yells, "I'm lost" over and over. She soon stops, feeling embarrassed and realizing she needs to conserve her voice. Looking around at the blurry landscape, she is frustrated with herself for not wearing her prescribed glasses. As her fear grows, she calls out for her mom and dad. Suddenly, she spots a figure in the distance and calls out, but no one responds. 

Louise: August 1975: Day One 

The state troopers set up a command post in the Great Hall, using the dressing rooms as interrogation spaces. Louise sits alone in one, while next door, Annabel cries. Earlier, Annabel had run through the campgrounds, shouting for Louise and informing a nearby trooper that Tracy was missing too. Now, both are surrounded by police and bombarded with questions. Louise tries to catch Annabel’s eye, silently reminding her of their promise to keep quiet, but Annabel refuses to look at her. 

Hayes steps into Louise’s interrogation room and asks if she remembers him. He explains that he used to live in Shattuck and knows her mom. She notices his wedding ring, but she doubts that would have stopped him from having a relationship with her mother. Nothing about her mother surprises Louise anymore, especially after she got pregnant with Jessie when Louise was only eleven. Her mother has admitted she didn’t even know who Jessie’s father was. For a brief moment, Louise wonders if it could be Hayes and hopes it is not. 

They exchange small talk before Hayes shifts to interrogation. He asks where Barbara might have gone, but Louise insists she doesn’t know. As she fights back tears, Hayes warns her not to say anything she can’t take back, making it clear that lying now will cause problems later. 

Hayes then says he’s about to question Annabel and tells her that if their stories don’t match, it will look bad for both of them. He reassures her, saying he knows she’s a good kid. He advises her to ask for a lawyer, and on impulse, Louise blurts out that she already has one. As he leaves, Louise feels the weight of her mistake. She has put herself in an even trickier situation by lying, and now she has no way out. 

Alice: August 1975: Day One 

Alice sits in shock in an Adirondack chair as a ranger drapes a towel over her shoulders, assuring her they’ll find Barbara. When another ranger asks for a pair of Barbara’s underwear to help the search dogs, Alice is appalled, and she tells them to ask a counselor instead. 

Peter tells Alice not to talk to anyone until Captain LaRochelle arrives from Albany; he’s the same officer who handled Bear’s case. Peter partially trusts him, but in reality, he trusts no one. Most assume Barbara ran away, but Alice fears something worse has happened, like it did with Bear.  

Alice thinks about how Barbara has always been difficult. As a toddler, she threw terrible tantrums, but Bear had never been like that. When Barbara was young, they sent her to Emily Grange, a boarding school, but they received a call from the headmistress, Susan Yoder, explaining that Barbara had been caught with a boy in her room. Peter blamed the school for letting the boy in, but Miss Yoder tells him Barbara was responsible for her own choices.  

Peter decided that Barbara’s school couldn’t handle her, and he now plans to send her to Elan in the fall, a strict reform school in Maine. Alice realized that she never cared about reputation until she married into the Van Laars. Peter once told her that banking and their family ran on trust, and that’s why the Van Laars were so careful about who they let into their world. 

Back in the present, Alice still hasn’t told Barbara about Elan but plans to tell her at the end of summer. Then, snapping out of her thoughts, Alice hears a young girl crying in the distance. 

Judyta: August 1975: Day One 

Judy watches as Mr. and Mrs. Van Laar Sr. cross the lawn, thinking about how men like him never truly like their wives. Her own father, though strict, adores her mother and can be romantic. Back in the main room of Self Reliance, young men and women around Judy’s age linger around the fireplace; she’s not sure how they fit into all this case, but it’s her job to find out. Needing a break, Judy decides to stop interviewing and explore the house, where she finds what looks like Barbara’s room. She sees an open suitcase on the floor with clothes spilling out, and freshly pink painted walls, a rushed attempt by Alice to make things presentable for their guests.  

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