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"Yesterday."

"Who else knows?"

"My chief."

"No one else?"

She shakes her head.

"I wanted another opinion before I started telling people impossible things."

I can't blame her. If someone had described this to me a week ago, I'd have assumed sloppy recordkeeping or bureaucratic incompetence. Now…

Now I wasn't so sure.

"I've requested copies from Albany."

"They're already on the way."

"And?"

"They called this morning."

My eyes meet hers.

"The copies they have are missing the same pages."

Silence settles over the room. Impossible. That word keeps appearing. I don't like impossible. Impossible usually means someone hasn't found the explanation yet. But explanations are becoming harder to come by.

Molly breaks the silence.

"The environmental reports concern me just as much."

She hands me another folder. Power outages. Streetlights flickering. Cell towers dropping service without warning. GPS systems briefly placing people miles from their actual locations.

One report mentions an unexplained thunderstorm that developed almost instantly yesterday afternoon. I remember the weather alert that came through during the factory fire.

"It wasn't forecast."

"No."

"How localized?"

She points to a map. A red circle surrounds the historic district. Then another circle farther east. Both overlap near Hollow Lane.

I study the map. Everything seems to converge there. Power. Communications. Missing records. Missing people.

"What else is on Hollow Lane?"

Molly thinks for a moment.

"Mostly older homes."

"Anything significant?"

"Not unless you believe in local folklore."

I look up. She smiles faintly.