Chap­ter 4 opens with Mag­gie sug­gest­ing a twelve-thir­ty arrival for lunch, but we didn’t reach New Hamp­shire until clos­er to eleven, which meant we had to rush to make up for lost time. As we drove through the pic­turesque lakes region on Inter­state 93, the two-lane high­way stretched ahead of us, pass­ing small towns with their charm­ing gas sta­tions, road­side pro­duce stands, and sports bars. The quaint­ness of the towns was fur­ther high­light­ed by the sight of res­i­dents sell­ing fire­wood on the hon­or sys­tem, a tes­ta­ment to the close-knit com­mu­ni­ty where trust and sim­plic­i­ty still thrive. Despite the peace­ful sur­round­ings, a ner­vous knot tight­ened in my stom­ach as I real­ized we were still forty-five min­utes from Osprey Cove. The clos­er we got, the more I thought about meet­ing Errol and Cather­ine, who, along with their exten­sive net­work of friends, seemed like an intim­i­dat­ing force in this small town.

Tam­my noticed the anx­i­ety creep­ing over me and gen­tly point­ed out that I had been bit­ing my nails. I admit­ted that I felt uneasy, large­ly due to a news report I had seen ear­li­er that day about a woman who had lost every­thing in a dev­as­tat­ing fire. The report had struck me deeply, and I couldn’t shake the feel­ing that it was an omen for the day ahead. Tam­my, ever the calm­ing pres­ence, reas­sured me that pre-wed­ding nerves were nor­mal, and she too was feel­ing some­what out of place since she had nev­er been to a sum­mer camp before. As much as I appre­ci­at­ed her com­fort­ing words, my main con­cern was not embar­rass­ing Mag­gie. This week­end was cru­cial for both of us, and I didn’t want to ruin our chance for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion or spoil what should have been a joy­ous occa­sion for her.

Our jour­ney con­tin­ued, and as we crest­ed a hill, the mag­nif­i­cent White Moun­tains came into view, their vibrant blue lake dot­ted with sail­boats, cre­at­ing a pic­turesque scene that momen­tar­i­ly dis­tract­ed me from my wor­ries. We passed through Hopps Fer­ry, a vil­lage that exud­ed fad­ed charm, and it was there that Tam­my urgent­ly request­ed a bath­room break. We stopped at a quaint road­side restau­rant called Mom and Dad’s, where Tam­my and Abi­gail quick­ly head­ed inside. I, how­ev­er, remained out­side, too pre­oc­cu­pied with my mount­ing anx­i­ety to engage with strangers. My atten­tion was drawn to a bul­letin board filled with local fly­ers, and one in par­tic­u­lar caught my eye. It was about a miss­ing woman named Dawn Tag­gart, who had been miss­ing since Novem­ber 3rd. As I stood there read­ing the fly­er, a man approached me—Brody Tag­gart, who claimed to be Dawn’s uncle.

Brody imme­di­ate­ly launched into a pas­sion­ate account of how his niece had dis­ap­peared after reach­ing out to Aidan Gard­ner for help. His warn­ing about the Gard­ners imme­di­ate­ly raised red flags, and I could­n’t help but feel a sense of unease. As Brody spoke, his con­cerns became more intense, and he warned me about the dark his­to­ry he believed the Gard­ner fam­i­ly was hid­ing. This tense con­ver­sa­tion only esca­lat­ed when a police offi­cer arrived and inter­vened, attempt­ing to de-esca­late the sit­u­a­tion. The offi­cer dis­missed Brody’s claims, sug­gest­ing that he was the town’s known trou­ble­mak­er, and went on to praise the Gard­ners for their long-stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty. Tam­my and I exchanged a look, both of us skep­ti­cal about Brody’s cred­i­bil­i­ty, but also slight­ly relieved by the officer’s reas­sur­ances.

Still, as we processed the encounter, the strange events weighed heav­i­ly on our minds. Tam­my reas­sured Abi­gail, brush­ing off Brody’s out­burst as noth­ing more than a prod­uct of the town’s eccen­tric­i­ties. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feel­ing that some­thing wasn’t right. Brody’s impas­sioned warn­ings about the Gard­ners lin­gered, and the more I thought about it, the more the gath­er­ing at Osprey Cove began to feel like a com­pli­cat­ed web of fam­i­ly secrets and unre­solved ten­sions. It was becom­ing evi­dent that the dynam­ics sur­round­ing the Gard­ners were far from straight­for­ward, and our upcom­ing fam­i­ly gath­er­ing at Osprey Cove promised to be more than just a sim­ple reunion. Every­one in the town seemed to have their own nar­ra­tive about the Gard­ners, and I was left ques­tion­ing who to trust as we con­tin­ued on our jour­ney into this com­pli­cat­ed sit­u­a­tion.