Chapter 27 Summary and Analysis: 'Twenty-Six'
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens with Drew reeling from Officer Bowman's flat declaration that the girl he picked up is Mary Boone, not Lola Scott. Officer McCurry, visibly unsettled, follows Bowman into a copy room to argue privately. Drew presses himself against the wall outside the door to eavesdrop.
Inside, McCurry presses Bowman on the odds of picking up a girl who looks exactly like Lola—same age, same hair, same eye color, same distinctive jacket. Bowman counters that Mary Boone is a seventeen-year-old from McMinnville whose father provided at least half a dozen forms of identification without complaint. He explains that the girl couldn't even remember her own name after the accident, and that he would never release someone that vulnerable to anyone claiming to be family without verification. He offers to bring McCurry up the mountain to check on Ben Hooper's wife and stop in next door to see Mary and her father in person.
McCurry agrees that's reasonable, but Bowman's finality—his insistence that Lola Scott and Mary Boone are not the same person—lands like a verdict. He tells McCurry the kids need to go home and that they won't help their friend by getting in the way.
Drew is crushed. Autumn finds him outside, tears streaming down her face. She hands him a folded piece of paper—one of Ben Hooper's fliers—with Ben Hooper's address written on the back in her handwriting: 93 Ridge Road, Alton, Oregon. She explains that when McCurry got up to argue, he left his computer screen unlocked, and she copied the address from his open file. The Boones live right next door. She tells Drew to go see for himself, and that Max knocked over a coffee pot in the back to give him cover to slip out unnoticed.
Drew drives up the mountain, passing a police car heading the opposite direction with its lights on. He finds the Hooper house, a ranch-style home with the family name painted on a sign, and then a log cabin with a rusted mailbox marked 91. He pulls over short of the driveway, planning to fake car trouble, when he spots a gray van with peeling paint parked down an incline beside a basement door, hidden between the house and the trees.
A branch moves. A man bursts from the trees, strides across the yard with his back turned, and heads for the basement door carrying something over his shoulder—a girl, facedown, with short brown hair and a jean jacket with pastel floral sleeves. Drew recognizes her instantly. It's Lola.
Key Events
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Officer McCurry confronts Bowman in the copy room, but Bowman dismisses the possibility that the girl is Lola Scott.
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Bowman insists Mary Boone's father provided multiple forms of identification and that the girl lost her memory in an accident.
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Autumn copies Ben Hooper's address from McCurry's unlocked computer screen and gives it to Drew.
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Drew drives up the mountain, passing a police car heading the other way.
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He locates the Hooper house and the neighboring log cabin, where he spots a gray van hidden beside a basement door.
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A man emerges from the trees carrying a girl over his shoulder—short brown hair, jean jacket with floral sleeves—whom Drew recognizes as Lola.
Character Development
Drew moves from despair to decisive action. At the start of the chapter, he's paralyzed by Bowman's certainty, convinced there's nothing more he can do. By the end, he's driven up the mountain alone, willing to risk everything for a glimpse of the truth. His internal debate about whether to knock, fake car trouble, or simply watch shows how far he's willing to go—and how much he's grown from passive worry to active pursuit.
Autumn demonstrates quiet resourcefulness and loyalty. She doesn't argue with Drew or try to comfort him with platitudes; instead, she takes a concrete risk—copying an address from a police officer's unlocked computer—and hands him the means to find answers. Her line about knowing Drew won't let this go without some kind of absolute shows she understands him deeply.
Officer McCurry emerges as a partial ally. He's the one who pushes back against Bowman's certainty, noting that too much of the kids' story adds up. His willingness to check things out himself, even while Bowman dismisses the kids, shows he's not entirely closed off—though his authority is ultimately limited.
Officer Bowman represents institutional complacency. He's confident, well-meaning, and wrong. His insistence that he verified everything, that he would never be careless, is precisely what makes him dangerous—he trusts his own process more than the evidence in front of him.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Mistaken identity and the doppelgänger. The chapter hinges on the impossibility of a girl who looks exactly like Lola, wears her one-of-a-kind jacket, and can't remember her name—yet is supposedly someone else. Drew's internal question—what are the chances of even three of these coincidences happening together?—drives the tension. The doppelgänger motif underscores how easily identity can be erased or overwritten.
Institutional skepticism vs. vigilante investigation. The police, represented by Bowman, trust paperwork and procedure over eyewitness accounts. Drew and Autumn, by contrast, trust what they've seen with their own eyes. The chapter sets up a direct conflict between institutional authority and personal conviction, with the kids forced to take matters into their own hands.
Concealment and abduction. The gray van hidden beside the basement door, the man carrying Lola over his shoulder, the remote mountain setting—all reinforce the theme of concealment. The cabin is isolated, the van is deliberately parked out of sight, and the abduction is happening in plain sight of a house Drew almost missed.
False resolution. Bowman's declaration that Lola and Mary are not the same person feels like a dead end—a false resolution that would send everyone home. But Drew refuses to accept it, and the chapter's final image proves the resolution was never real.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is the turning point where the investigation shifts from official channels to personal action. The police have effectively closed the case—Bowman has declared it resolved, and McCurry has agreed to check things out but with no real urgency. Drew and Autumn's decision to bypass the system entirely, using information copied from a police computer, marks a decisive break from institutional trust.
The chapter also delivers the first concrete confirmation of Lola's whereabouts and the identity of her captor. The gray van, the basement door, the man carrying her—these details transform the search from abstract suspicion into immediate, visceral danger. Drew's recognition of Lola's jacket and hair is the first time the reader sees her alive and in the captor's hands, raising the stakes for everything that follows.
Finally, the chapter sets up the climax by placing Drew alone on the mountain, outside the cabin, with no backup and no plan. The police are heading the other way, his family is likely on their way to the precinct, and he has only his own conviction to guide him.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Officer Bowman dismiss the possibility that the girl is Lola Scott?
Bowman trusts the documentation he received from Mary Boone's father, who provided multiple forms of identification without complaint. He also believes the girl's memory loss is explained by the accident, and he's confident he verified her identity before releasing her into her father's custody. His certainty comes from procedure, not from examining the coincidences the kids have pointed out.
2. What motivates Autumn to copy Ben Hooper's address from McCurry's computer?
Autumn knows Drew won't be able to let the case go without seeing Mary Boone for himself. She takes the risk of copying the address because she shares his conviction that the girl is Lola, and because she trusts Drew to act on the information. Her action is a deliberate act of defiance against the police's dismissal of their claims.
3. How does the chapter use the gray van as a symbol?
The gray van, hidden beside the basement door and tucked between the house and the trees, symbolizes the concealment at the heart of the abduction. It's deliberately out of sight, just as Lola's true identity is being deliberately hidden behind the Mary Boone cover story. The van's peeling paint suggests neglect and secrecy, and its placement—down an incline, away from the road—reinforces that the captor has gone to lengths to avoid detection.