Thief River Falls

Lisa goes upstairs and discovers that Purdue isn’t in bed. Lisa runs to the back of the house and sees that the backdoor lock is undone. Lisa stands outside and calls out, but nobody answers. She assumes he must have run off.

Back inside, Lisa finds the goodbye note from Noah, which she keeps in her wallet. At that moment, Lisa hears Purdue’s voice and sees him standing in the kitchen doorway. Seeing Purdue, Lisa feels “a warm rush of emotion, like sunshine pushing away the white clouds” (50). Lisa hugs Purdue and asks why he ran away. Purdue explains that he was only pretending to be asleep when Laurel came into the room to look at him. Purdue says, “I didn’t like the way she looked at me” (51) and explains that he got the feeling Laurel knew who he was. Purdue snuck out after Laurel made him nervous, and only returned to the house once he was sure she was gone. Lisa assures Purdue that Laurel would have told her if she knew Purdue, and that Laurel is her friend and wants to help them.

Lisa makes eggs and bacon for herself and Purdue, but when she sets down the plates, she notices that Purdue isn’t eating anything. Purdue asks Lisa about her family. Reluctantly, Lisa explains that they are all dead besides her twin brother, Noah. Lisa’s mother died in a car accident about two years ago. A month later, her father committed suicide. Shortly thereafter, Lisa’s youngest brother had a stroke in his sleep, which she believes was caused by the stress of losing their parents. Three months after that, her other two younger brothers were driving through a thunderstorm when their car was swept away on a flooded street. Lisa and her twin brother, Noah, the only two family members still alive, refer to that period of time in their lives as The Dark Star.

Purdue asks if he can stay with Lisa; he suggests, “You don’t have a family; I don’t have a family. I could live here” (54). Lisa says she wants to figure out who Purdue is and where he comes from. At that moment, Purdue reveals that he remembers voices saying, “You saw what he did to her. Make him scream” (55). Purdue can’t remember who was speaking or who they were speaking to. Lisa pulls out the spent gun cartridge she found in Purdue’s pants pocket. Seeing the cartridge, Purdue remembers seeing policemen with guns, as well as severed fingers lying on the ground.

Lisa decides to take Purdue for a drive around the area, to see if the landscape helps him remember the events of the previous night. Lisa carries her gun in her vest pocket and drives Purdue around in her pickup truck. As they drive, Purdue reminds Lisa that he didn’t walk by any busy roads; instead, he walked through the fields which led him to the back of Lisa’s property. Lisa decides to circle around and approach her property from the back. As they drive, Purdue asks Lisa about her career as a writer. Lisa explains, “To me, every place turns into stories and crimes and characters and mysteries” (61) and describes how just looking at a landscape makes her imagine made-up people and events taking place there. As they drive up a dirt road, Purdue sees a black Volkswagen parked outside a house. Purdue is certain it is the same Volkswagen he stowed away in the night before. Purdue hid in the back of the Volkswagen, and when it stopped, he snuck out and ran through the fields toward Lisa’s house.

Lisa tells Purdue to wait in her car and approaches the house to knock on the door. The woman who answers, Mrs. Lancaster, recognizes Lisa as the bestselling thriller author. Lisa tells Mrs. Lancaster about the boy and asks if she knows where the Volkswagen had been the night before. Mrs. Lancaster explains that her husband was making deliveries at the hospital before driving home; Mr. Lancaster must not have noticed the boy hiding away in the back of his car. Lisa asks if anything unusual happened the night before. Mrs. Lancaster remembers that the police had stopped by their house late at night. According to Mrs. Lancaster, the police were visiting every house in the area, searching for a dangerous man involved in trafficking children across the border. 

After speaking with Mrs. Lancaster, Lisa wonders again if she should take Purdue to the police, but she hesitates, remembering Purdue’s insistence that the police want to kill him. Back in Lisa’s pickup truck, Purdue has fallen asleep. Lisa reaches over to touch Purdue’s knee, but at her touch, he bolts awake and opens the car door, trying to escape. Lisa catches Purdue in a hug and assures him he is safe, and that he was only having a nightmare. Remembering who Lisa is, Purdue hugs her back. Lisa is surprised by the hug, but she likes how it makes her feel “[n]eeded. Wanted. Loved. And more than anything, not alone anymore” (66). Purdue tells Lisa he was dreaming that he was being chased by a white alligator. Lisa tells Purdue the driver of the Volkswagen had driven home from the hospital and asks Purdue if he was at the hospital when he snuck into the car. Purdue insists he can’t remember, but Lisa thinks, “this time, he looked like a boy who was keeping secrets from her. A boy who was lying” (68). Lisa asks Purdue if this has anything to do with a man who takes children away from their families, but Purdue continues to insist he can’t remember.

Still hesitant to call the police, Lisa decides to call an old friend of hers, Will Woolwich, who works for the FBI and lives in Minneapolis. Over ten years ago, when Lisa was just starting out as a thriller writer, Woolwich helped answer questions about how the FBI deals with cases. Lisa suspected Will had a crush on her. Lisa and Will haven’t spoken in years. Lisa calls Will, and he answers right away. Will congratulates Lisa on the success of her books and asks how he can help her. Lisa asks Will if he can look into human trafficking cases in northwestern Minnesota. Will says it may take some time to find anything, and he may have to withhold confidential information, but he agrees to look into it. Before he hangs up, Will offers his condolences on the death of Lisa’s fiancé several years ago.

Purdue overhears Lisa and Will on the phone, and when Lisa hangs up, he asks who Danny is. Lisa and Purdue get out of the pickup truck and walk down to a nearby pond. Lisa explains that Danny and Noah, her twin brother, were friends in high school. The three of them would spend a lot of time together. Lisa and Danny fell in love, but they broke up after high school when they both went off to college. Danny’s father wanted him to go to law school. On Lisa’s twenty-seventh birthday, Danny showed up at Lisa parents’ house and revealed that he had quit his job and begun training to become a firefighter. Lisa and Danny got engaged and rented a house near Lisa’s parents’ house. One summer, Danny decided to volunteer fighting fires in California. Danny died helping people escape the fires. Lisa wishes she had told Danny not to go and sometimes blames herself for his death. She never got to tell Danny when she sold her first book.