A small goodbye feels safe—until it’s the last one. On May twenty-fifth, nineteen seventy-nine, Etan Patz steps onto a New York City sidewalk, ready for his first walk to the school bus alone. A wave from his mother, the city still yawning around him. He never arrives.
In these last-seen moments, the ordinary becomes the hunting ground. It is not a choice the child makes, but a choice made for...
