8. July 23, 2021

In Chap­ter 1 of the book dat­ed July 23, 2021, we are intro­duced to Hol­ly, who along­side Jerome, inter­views a group of boys about the dis­ap­pear­ance of their friend, Peter Stein­man, referred to as “Stinky.” The boys, includ­ing Tom­my Edi­son and Richie Glen­man, offer var­ied accounts about the night Peter dis­ap­peared, men­tion­ing the­o­ries rang­ing from him run­ning away to Flori­da to being abduct­ed by Slen­der Man, an urban leg­end. Despite their the­o­ries, Hol­ly is more inter­est­ed in find­ing a link between Peter’s dis­ap­pear­ance and anoth­er case, that of Bon­nie Dahl. Their inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues as Hol­ly picks up an ear­ring she believes belongs to Bon­nie and debates the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the boys’ accounts with Jerome.

Jerome decides to look into Stein­man’s dis­ap­pear­ance more thor­ough­ly, hop­ing to con­firm it’s unre­lat­ed to Dahl’s case. Hol­ly then reflects on the strange­ness of Bon­nie leav­ing her bike hel­met behind if she indeed decid­ed to leave town spon­ta­neous­ly, con­tem­plat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Bon­nie was abduct­ed.

The chap­ter shifts to Hol­ly’s per­son­al life as she deals with the estate left by her late moth­er, Char­lotte. She’s con­tact­ed by David Emer­son, the execu­tor of Char­lot­te’s will, who informs her that her moth­er left every­thing to her, a rev­e­la­tion that sur­pris­es Hol­ly due to past finan­cial mis­for­tunes blamed on a swindler named Daniel Hai­ley. As Hol­ly process­es this new­found wealth and the respon­si­bil­i­ties it entails, she also grap­ples with her feel­ings about her moth­er and the house filled with painful mem­o­ries. Despite her reluc­tance, she agrees to meet Emer­son to inspect the prop­er­ty, moti­vat­ed by a sense of duty and a need for clo­sure.

Through­out the chap­ter, Hol­ly bal­ances her pro­fes­sion­al ded­i­ca­tion to solv­ing cas­es with her per­son­al strug­gles, espe­cial­ly the com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions regard­ing her fam­i­ly and inher­i­tance. She shows a keen obser­va­tion­al nature, a prag­mat­ic approach to her work, and a deep, albeit trou­bled, con­nec­tion to her fam­i­ly’s past.