All the Little Raindrops

Seven years later, Evan, now 27, declines his father’s call. He doesn’t want another lecture about how he squandered his opportunities to pursue criminal justice. Instead, Evan meets Aria Dixon, an officer from the police department in Reno, Nevada. They had a short affair a year ago that she hopes to rekindle, but Evan is busy building his career as a private investigator. He’s been looking into abductions like his own, and Aria has found something of interest: an old man named Lars Knauer who claims that he was confined to a cage in a Texas warehouse. Because the man has an addiction and a criminal record, the police didn’t take his claims seriously. Aria also discovered that Noelle’s father reported a friend, Dow Maginn, missing a few days before Noelle disappeared. Maginn was later found dead, and Meyer learned of his daughter’s disappearance two days later. Maginn owned a computer-repair shop and was known to be prone to drinking and fighting.

Evan travels to Texas to interview Lars, who is currently incarcerated. Lars tells Evan that he was kidnapped outside a bar and woke up inside a cage. A second cage housed another man, Hanh. During their imprisonment, captors attempted to get Lars and Hanh to sacrifice each other to save themselves, just like with Evan and Noelle.