Chap­ter 12 unfolds on a blis­ter­ing after­noon in a neigh­bor­hood where the streets bear the names of trees yet lack any real foliage. Jerome finds him­self on Sycamore Street, stand­ing out­side Vera Steinman’s mod­est home. The air is thick with heat, and the hum of an over­worked air con­di­tion­er strug­gles against the oppres­sive warmth, its efforts as futile as Vera’s fad­ing hopes. She greets Jerome with weary eyes, her pos­ture stiff with the ten­sion of some­one who has spent years brac­ing for bad news but receiv­ing noth­ing at all. He isn’t here to offer clo­sure, only to dis­cuss the tan­gled web of miss­ing per­sons cases—Bonnie Dahl’s dis­ap­pear­ance and how it might be con­nect­ed to Vera’s long-lost son, Peter Stein­man.

Peter had been gone for years, van­ish­ing before the pan­dem­ic changed the way the city func­tioned, before miss­ing per­sons cas­es became even hard­er to inves­ti­gate under the weight of soci­etal break­down. At the time, his dis­ap­pear­ance had been heav­i­ly scru­ti­nized by author­i­ties, but the pre­vail­ing the­o­ry remained that Peter had cho­sen to leave, seek­ing an escape from a life that had become unbear­able. His strug­gles at school, the lin­ger­ing fall­out from his par­ents’ bit­ter divorce, and the drink­ing prob­lem his moth­er had long bat­tled all seemed to feed into a sin­gle, log­i­cal explanation—he ran away. The details of his last known where­abouts were murky, but school coun­selor Katya Graves had shared that Peter often spoke of leav­ing for Flori­da, where his uncle lived near Dis­ney World, an imag­ined escape he had clung to in the face of mount­ing per­son­al strug­gles.

Yet some­thing about that the­o­ry nev­er sat right with Vera, and in her heart, she nev­er ful­ly accept­ed it. She had spent the year before Peter’s dis­ap­pear­ance try­ing to turn her life around, cut­ting back on drink­ing, work­ing on repair­ing their strained rela­tion­ship, and attempt­ing to rebuild a sense of nor­mal­cy for her son. They had begun to mend the cracks, at least on the sur­face, and then one day, with­out a trace, Peter was gone. He hadn’t left behind a note or tak­en any­thing valuable—just dis­ap­peared, as if the earth itself had swal­lowed him whole.

As she speaks, Vera’s voice wavers between con­vic­tion and exhaus­tion, her belief in Peter’s death con­flict­ing with the ever-present tor­ment of uncer­tain­ty. The weight of not know­ing, of wait­ing for answers that nev­er come, has led her back into destruc­tive habits, drink­ing more fre­quent­ly in an attempt to dull the relent­less ache. Her appear­ance reflects the con­tra­dic­tion of her existence—her clothes are clean, her pos­ture care­ful­ly com­posed, but her eyes betray her suf­fer­ing, the years of grief and guilt carv­ing deep lines into her face.

Jerome lis­tens, feel­ing the famil­iar weight of frus­tra­tion that comes with cas­es like these. He has dealt with miss­ing per­sons before, and he knows the hard­est part isn’t always find­ing answers—it’s what those left behind are forced to endure. The wait­ing, the end­less ques­tion­ing, the con­stant bat­tle between hope and despair. Vera recounts the dis­cov­ery of Peter’s skate­board, found aban­doned in a park not long after he van­ished, a silent tes­ta­ment to his last known pres­ence. There was no evi­dence of foul play, no sign of struggle—just a child’s worn skate­board left to the ele­ments, the only trace that he had ever been there at all.

The empti­ness of the case gnaws at Jerome. Miss­ing chil­dren don’t just evap­o­rate into thin air. There is always a sto­ry, a hid­den truth wait­ing to be uncov­ered, but some­times the peo­ple search­ing are left grasp­ing at shad­ows. He con­sid­ers the con­nec­tions between Bon­nie Dahl and Peter Stein­man, their dis­ap­pear­ances sep­a­rat­ed by years but shar­ing an eerie sense of unre­solved mys­tery. If there was a link, he need­ed to find it before anoth­er per­son dis­ap­peared into the same void.

As the sun begins its descent, cast­ing a gold­en haze over the cracked pave­ment, Jerome sees Vera for what she is—a moth­er frozen in time, unable to move for­ward yet unable to let go. The con­ver­sa­tion lingers in the air between them, nei­ther will­ing to say what they both under­stand: the like­li­hood of Peter still being alive is slim, but the pain of admit­ting it is unbear­able. With no new leads, no fresh clues, only the ghost of a boy who may nev­er return, Vera remains in lim­bo, lost in the pur­ga­to­ry of the unknown.

Jerome walks away know­ing that clo­sure is a lux­u­ry few peo­ple in these sit­u­a­tions ever receive. Miss­ing per­sons cas­es don’t always end with answers—they often end with more ques­tions, with wounds that nev­er tru­ly heal, and with the ago­niz­ing real­iza­tion that some peo­ple sim­ply van­ish, leav­ing behind only mem­o­ries and spec­u­la­tion. As he steps off Sycamore Street, he feels the weight of his work press­ing down on him, remind­ing him that not all mys­ter­ies get solved, and not all ghosts find their way home.