The Missing
Lisa McMann
Save me. I’m alive. I need you.
When teens start going missing, Kendall’s carefully ordered world begins to fall apart… Thrilling YA paranormal mystery from accomplished US writer.
"An eerie, gripping, totally addictive, breathtaking whirl of a book with an ending that left me haunted for days…" Alyson Noël, bestselling author of THE IMMORTALS
The tiny town of Cryer’s Cross is shocked when a local schoolgirl disappears without a trace. Already off-balance due to her OCD, sixteen-year-old Kendall is freaked out by seeing the empty desk in the one-room school house, but somehow life goes on… until Kendall's boyfriend disappears.
Alone in her depression and with her OCD at an all-time high, Kendall notices something that connects the missing. She knows it's crazy, but Kendall finds herself drawn to the desk that they both sat at… Then she begins receiving messages. Can her boyfriend be alive somewhere? How can Kendall help him? The only person who will listen is Jacian, the new guy she finds irritating…and attractive. As Kendall and Jacian grow closer, Kendall digs deeper into the mysterious disappearances only to stumble upon some ugly – and deadly – local history.
Kendall is about to find out just how far people will go to keep their secrets buried…
Dedication
For Kennedy
Contents
Cover
Title Page (#u99275186-de10-5c75-b74b-a15623ad0b92)
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Acknowledgments
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Everything changes when Tiffany Quinn disappears.
Of the 212 residents of Cryer’s Cross, Montana, 178 join Sheriff Greenwood in a search that lasts several days from sunup to after dark. School is closed, all the students taking part, searching roads and farms, trudging through pastures of cattle and horses, through sections of newly planted potatoes, barley, wheat. Up to the foothills and back along the woods. They travel in groups of two or three, some nervous, some crying, some resolute. Shouting to the other groups now and then so nobody else goes missing—cell phones aren’t much good out here. Cryer’s Cross is a dead spot.
After five days there is still no trace of Tiffany Quinn. She is gone, impossibly. Impossibly, because to imagine that there has been foul play here in the humble town of Cryer’s Cross is laughable, and to imagine that sweet ninth-grade bookworm running away, going off on her own . . . It’s all so impossible.
But gone she is.
Still, they search.
Kendall Fletcher flinches and casts regular glances behind her out of habit. Scared about the younger girl’s disappearance, true, but also unsettled by this shake-up in her schedule. The final week of her junior year canceled—everything left unfinished, open ended. Her whole routine is off.
She walks the hundreds of acres of her parents’ farm and beyond into the woods, wearily counting her steps through the potatoes and grain fields and trees. Counting, always counting something.
Her best friend, Nico Cruz, walks next to her.
Boyfriend, he’d say.
But boyfriend means commitment, and commitments that she can’t keep tend to make Kendall feel prickly. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s run.”
She takes off through the field, and Nico follows. They pass an imaginary soccer ball between the rows, occasionally yelling out “Tiffany!” Once, after they cross over to Nico’s family’s land, they see a big brown lump where the barley field meets the gravel road, but it’s not Tiffany. Just a road-killed deer.
She’s not here. She’s not anywhere.
They take a break under a tree at the edge of the farm as rain starts to fall. Kendall stares and counts the drops as they hit the gray dirt, faster and faster.
Nico talks, but Kendall isn’t listening. She needs to get to a hundred drops before she can allow herself to stop.
Eventually the search ends. Nothing more can be done locally except by professionals now. It’s prime planting season. Farmers have chores, and students do too. Plus jobs, if they work in town or for one of the farmers or ranchers. Life has to go on.
It’s a long, hot summer full of hard work for Kendall. For everyone. After a month or two, people stop talking about Tiffany Quinn.
In September when school starts again, Kendall arrives as she always does, the first one to the one-room high school, except for old Mr. Greenwood, the part-time janitor, who retreats to his basement hideout whenever students are around.
Kendall is tan and not quite freakishly tall. Athletic. Her long brown hair has natural highlights from her driving a tractor and working on the farm all summer.
There was too much time to think up there on that tractor, since all it takes is a GPS to run it up and down the rows. And when your brain has a glitch and its lap counter is broken, the same thoughts whir around on an endless loop. Tiffany Quinn. Tiffany Quinn. Tiffany Quinn.
Kendall imagines every possible scenario for Tiffany. Running away. Getting lost. Being abducted. Maybe even raped, murdered. Wondering which one really happened, and if they’ll ever know the truth. She pictures all of it happening to herself, and it almost makes her cry. Pictures Tiffany screaming for help, begging to live . . . Kendall’s eyes blur as she remembers her summer, turning the tractor through the fields and obsessing about such horrible things. It seemed so real, so scary, as if someone were about to jump out of the woods and attack her.
She knows some of her thoughts are irrational. She knows it and always has known it, even in fifth grade, when she used to layer on clothes—four shirts, three pairs of underwear, shorts under her jeans—anxiously, frantically, crying her eyes out for fear people could see her naked through her clothes. What an awful time that was. Fear like that is constant, tiring. But the psychologist over in Bozeman helped. Explained OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder—and eventually that particular phase of worry went away, only to be replaced by other obsessions, other compulsions.
She’s not crazy. She just can’t stop thinking things when weird ideas get lodged in her head. She also can’t stop glancing behind her—it has become her latest compulsion. This whole thing with Tiffany has set her back some.
So she’s glad to be back at school, though feeling a little desperate because of how last year ended. And anxious to start this year fresh. Anxious to have new thoughts, new assignments bombard her brain, keep her mind occupied with non-scary things. Soccer practice starting up again. New DVD dance routines to learn. New things to keep her busy, body and mind. It’s a relief.
On this first day she tidies up the classroom in a way that old Mr. Greenwood doesn’t, turning the wastebasket so the dent is in the right place, straightening the markers on the dry-erase board and putting them in color order to match Roy G Biv as closely as possible, opening the curtains just so. Lining up the desks into their proper places in neat quadrants, one quadrant of six desks for each high school grade. Kendall creates aisles separating the quadrants to give the teacher room to walk between them, so she can address each grade individually rather than having all twenty-four desks together. It’s the way Kendall likes things.
Nobody’s ever complained.
Nobody even knows.
The desks are ancient and sturdy beasts from the 1950s, recycled by the state from who knows where. It’s a workout moving them all, but Kendall feels better when everything is back to normal. She sees where her old desk ended up, over in the freshman quadrant this year. Now the tenth graders will have an empty seat, unless the rumors are true. There’s a new family in town, according to Nico, though Kendall hasn’t seen anyone new around town yet. Kendall hopes they have a sophomore to fill the spot left by Tiffany, to make things in that section neat again. Though Tiffany coming back would be the best thing, of course. But Sheriff Greenwood and the local news anchors say that’s just not likely. Not after all this time has passed.
Kendall opens the curtains wide enough so that the edges of them hang in line with the sides of the windows. Her irrational fear gets the better of her and she checks the window locks, first struggling to open the windows to make sure the locks are sturdy, then running her forefinger over each lock in the same manner. “All checked and good,” she says. No one is there to hear her, but she has to say it out loud or it doesn’t count.
When she sees students walking up the yard to the little school, Kendall looks over her handiwork. The door creaks open. Kendall moves to her new desk in the senior quadrant, takes out an antiseptic wipe from her book bag, and cleans her desk quickly before anybody can see and make fun. She’s not a compulsive hand-washer, like some. But she likes to know the germ status of her own personal work space at the beginning of a school year. Doesn’t everybody?
Nico spies her and comes over. His straight white-blond hair hangs in his eyes. He’s got his father’s Spanish name but his mother’s Dutch looks. Nico swishes his hair aside and gives Kendall a half grin. Throws his book bag onto the floor and shoves his body into the desk just to the right of Kendall. “These desks aren’t getting any bigger,” he mutters, trying to fit his knees under the metal basin. He leans over and pecks Kendall on the cheek. “Hey. Sorry I was late. You want to go up to Bozeman this Saturday?”
“What for?”
“I gotta look at Montana State. Check out the nursing school.”
The guy behind them snickers. “Nurse Nico.”
“Shut it, Brandon,” Nico says in a calm voice. He whips his arm back without looking, and it connects with the side of Brandon’s head.
“Sure,” Kendall says. “I want to check out their theatre and dance program, just in case.”
Nico flashes a sympathetic smile. “Still no word?”
“No.” The chances of a rural girl with very little formal training in theatre or dance getting into Juilliard are probably less than zero, but Kendall sees no reason not to start at the top.
Kendall idly counts bodies as everyone else files in. She subtracts last year’s seniors and Tiffany Quinn, and adds the incoming freshmen. Ms. Hinkler explains the seating arrangement to the freshmen, new to this building. She also announces to the noisy room that there will be two new students this year, which is practically unheard of. The rumor of the new family must be true. Cryer’s Cross is, apparently, a boom town.
“Looks like it’ll be a full house this year,” Kendall murmurs. Twenty-four students. Perfection.
The two new students enter the room and everyone watches curiously. Ms. Hinkler checks them in and assigns them seats. She directs one of the new students to the senior section. He looks beyond Kendall and frowns.
“Hey,” Kendall says when he stops at the only empty desk, to the left of hers.
The guy mutters something, but he doesn’t look at her. He sits down and puts his backpack on the floor under his desk.
Nico leans over Kendall’s desk. “Hey. I’m Nico. How’s it going?”
The guy nods, almost imperceptibly, but remains silent.
Nico raises his eyebrow.
Kendall laughs. “Okay, then,” she says. “This should be fun.” She studies the new guy. He’s tough-looking and muscular. Medium-brown skin, his hair black and wavy. His clothes aren’t anything special, but they’re clean and neat. His shoes are dusty like everyone else’s. Cryer’s Cross could use some rain.
The other new student, a sophomore girl, has brown skin too, with a spattering of darker freckles across her nose and cheeks. Black wavy hair. They’re both striking. “Is that your sister?” Kendall asks.
The new guy closes his eyes, feigning sleep, arms crossed over his chest. Kendall sighs. She turns her attention to her new desk, reading the graffiti. But it’s already familiar—she’s been reading and memorizing desk graffiti for years now. She knows every desk by heart. She can’t help it. It’s one of those OCD things.
Being Kendall is exhausting.
Once Ms. Hinkler has all the freshmen students checked in, she introduces them to the rest of the class. Like everyone else, Kendall pretty much knows them all. Some of their parents work on the Fletchers’ potato farm. But all eyes are on the transfer students. They are introduced, brother and sister indeed. The girl is Marlena and the guy is Jacián Obregon. Ms. Hinkler stumbles over his name.
“Not JAY-se-un,” he says, suddenly awake again. “Hah-see-AHN.”
Ms. Hinkler blushes. “My apologies.” She repeats it the right way. Jacián Obregon. It sounds like a melody. Or a tragedy.
It’s a boisterous, testosterone-filled day for Kendall, wedged between Nico and Jacián, with stupid Brandon directly behind her and two more guys on either side of him—Travis Shank, and Eli Greenwood, who is the son of the sheriff and grandson of the janitor. It’s always been like this. Kendall’s the only girl her age in the entire town. It figures that when they finally get a new kid in her grade, it’s another guy.
But Nico’s there like always. He’s been her best friend ever since they were babies. He knows about Kendall’s OCD, understands it, and it doesn’t bother him at all. Best guy in the world? Kendall thinks so. She gives him a wide smile when she passes the syllabus to him.
At lunch Kendall and Nico trade sandwiches like they’ve done every day since kindergarten, except when Nico brings tuna salad, which Kendall can’t stand. They eat together in the grass, talking about college options and how it’s going to suck to be apart.
After school Kendall and Nico head to soccer practice out in the field behind the building. Soccer here is coed and all varsity since there aren’t enough high school girls in Cryer’s Cross to make up a girls’ team, and there aren’t enough students who want to play soccer to have a JV team as well. Kendall’s the only girl to stick it out. And she’s better than most of the guys.
As Kendall finishes stretching, Jacián shows up to the field, dressed in Nike soccer apparel like they’re sponsoring him or something. Kendall jogs in place, rubber band between her teeth, and whips her hair into a ponytail as she watches him walk. She can tell he’s an athlete. She says his name to herself so she doesn’t forget how to pronounce it— not a lot of Jaciáns around here.
A moment later Marlena appears, dressed for practice in less obvious designer sportswear. She sees Jacián and runs toward him.
Kendall stares. “They’re both playing?” she says under her breath to Nico.
“Looks that way.” Nico grabs a ball from the ball bag and tosses it at the ground in front of Kendall, who captures it with her foot and dribbles automatically away from the others.
“Well, we definitely have room on the team.” They pass the ball back and forth. Kendall thinks of the four team members they lost to graduation last year.
“Yeah, there’s too much room, and only one freshman that I know of wants to join us. And this new girl. I suppose Coach will take anybody with a pulse. But we’re still short. How many is that, number girl?”
“Eight,” Kendall says automatically.
“Yowch.” He scratches his head. “I hope Coach can recruit a few more, or we’re going to be killing ourselves playing against full teams.”
Kendall squints and shrugs. “We’re not the only team with low numbers. We can do it with eight. Though it’ll be hell playing Bozeman teams with the full eleven.” She watches the Obregons stretch, waiting to see what they can do. “You know, it might be nice having another girl around,” she says finally. “Jacián, on the other hand . . . Well, I guess it won’t make a difference.”
When Jacián plows into Kendall during a four-on-four practice scrimmage and leaves her with the wind knocked out of her, though, she realizes he actually might make a difference. “Asshole,” she mutters when she gets her wind back. “Coach, hello! That was a foul.” She gets back up and runs to help protect her goal, but it’s too late. Jacián scores against her team.
After practice Kendall follows Marlena to the tiny girls’ locker room, which is more of a lean-to against the school building than anything else. “You guys are good,” Kendall says.
Marlena smiles. “Thanks. Jacián is great. I’m just okay.” Her voice is warm and rich.
“You’re way better than Brandon,” Kendall says, feeling generous.
“Which one is he?”
“The immature senior loser with the light brown hair. Kinda big and dopey, about this tall.” She holds up her hand to about six feet four. “He sits behind me in school. I’m sure you know who I mean. The guy who didn’t actually manage to touch the ball the entire scrimmage but fell down multiple times.”
“Yeah. I think so.” She grins.
They strip down, clean up, and change back into street clothes, layering on deodorant. Couldn’t shower even if they wanted to, but there’s a sink at least. “So,” Kendall says, “what’s your brother’s problem?”
Marlena raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“He’s not very friendly. Hasn’t said a word.”
“Oh, that. He’s just upset,” Marlena says. She lowers her voice, even though it’s just the two of them. “He doesn’t really want to be here.”
“Why not?”
Marlena shrugs. “Moving away from all his friends for his senior year. Leaving his girlfriend, trying to do a long-distance-relationship thing. And then when we got here . . . Well, you probably know.”
“Know what?”
“About the sheriff coming over. Right when we moved in. Everybody seems to know everybody else’s business here.”
Kendall shakes her head. “I don’t know. I was isolated on a tractor twelve hours a day all summer. What happened?”
Marlena pulls a makeup bag from her backpack and starts applying eyeliner. “Well, we moved here in May, right after our school year was done down in Arizona. Right before that girl Tiffany disappeared, I guess. Sheriff Greenwood and the state police thought maybe Jacián had something to do with it.”
Kendall’s eyes widen. Her heart skips, and the irrational fear wells up. “Oh. . . .” The word gets caught in her throat, and bad thoughts start looping.
“He didn’t, though, obviously. After a while the sheriff stopped bugging him.” Marlena scowls as she swipes her lips with gloss. “Jacián was really pissed off, though. Called the sheriff a racist.”
Kendall swallows hard. “So . . . why did you guys move here?”
“My grandfather.” She replaces the cap and fishes around in her makeup bag. “He’s getting older, and his business wasn’t doing very well. He’s not keeping up with technology. Still uses horses to round up cattle. Can you believe that? My mother and father decided to come here and take care of things. Family is a big deal to them. To all of us.” Marlena turns to look at Kendall. “Are you all right?”
Kendall stops staring at Marlena and turns on the faucet, washes her hands, stares at the water instead. “Wait . . . so, who’s your grandfather? I don’t know any Obregons around here.”
“It’s my mother’s father. Hector Morales. A mile down RR-4.”
Kendall grins. “Oh, Hector’s Farm! Everybody loves him. We buy lots of stuff from him—milk, beef. I didn’t know he was having trouble.” Somehow, Marlena and Jacián being related to Hector makes them a little less scary.
“It’s not too bad, my mother says. He’s just not able to keep up with beef orders as well as he used to, and he lost some cattle over the winter. Plus, he’s too stubborn to hire help, so I guess he lost some commercial business. We’re trying to get it back.”
“Well, we’ll keep buying all our stuff from you guys, I’m sure. And the cool thing is you can ride. He’s got beautiful stables. You can even ride to school if you want. There’s a hitching post over on the side of the building.”
“No way, really?” Marlena grins and picks up her backpack. “This place is so old-fashioned. We rode back home too, but just for fun. It’s in the blood, I think. We’ll be switching Grandpa over to four-wheelers soon.” Somebody outside the building pounds on the wall, and Marlena startles.
“That’ll be Nico,” Kendall says. She grabs her bag. “Nice getting to know you.”
Marlena smiles. “Don’t let my brother get to you. He’s just pretty mad about everything right now.”
“No kidding,” Kendall says. She pushes the door open and comes face-to-face with Jacián Obregon.
He glares.
She glares back, but her stomach twists. “You fouled me,” she says.
He doesn’t speak for a moment. When he does, his voice is lower than she expects. “Stay out of my way, then, if you don’t want to get hurt.” He dismisses Kendall by the mere act of looking beyond her, to Marlena. “Come on, Lena,” he says sharply. He turns in the dirt and starts walking toward the parking area.
Marlena smiles an apology to Kendall and takes off after Jacián. “See you tomorrow,” she calls out.
Kendall waves halfheartedly at Marlena as Nico walks up. “He’s a jerk.”
Nico nods. “Yep. Pretty much.”
Kendall smiles and starts walking. “Let’s go. I’ve got chores and homework. Felt good to play again, though, didn’t it?”
“It was awesome. You get hurt at all?”
“No. I can take it. . . .” She trails off.
“What?”
Kendall looks over her shoulder as they cross the dirt road and cut the corner of a barley field. “Marlena said they moved here right before Tiffany disappeared, and that Eli’s dad suspected Jacián might have had something to do with it.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“Is it? I mean, how would we know? He’s mean. Maybe he’s unstable.”
“Kendall.”
“Seriously, what if he has her all tied up in the woods. Or maybe he chopped her up into little pieces. . . .”
“Kendall, stop it. That’s ridiculous.”
She’s not convinced.
They walk until they reach the halfway point between their respective family farms—directly across the road from each other. For a moment they stand in the middle of the road facing each other and holding hands. Nico leans in and kisses her sweetly.
“Don’t work too hard,” Nico says.
“You either. Call me at eleven?”
“Always.”
Kendall smiles, and they part company, each down their long driveways.
At home Kendall throws her backpack onto the big oak kitchen table. “Hi, Mom,” she sings, and gives her mother a kiss on the cheek.
“How was your first day?” Mrs. Fletcher stands at the sink watering her herb garden. She’s tall and dark-haired like Kendall, wearing capri jeans and a red-checked short-sleeved shirt, knotted at her waist.
“Fine.”
“Was it hard without Tiffany there?”
“Yeah, a little. Everybody noticed but nobody said anything—pretty much what I figured.”
“How’s the OCD? Do you feel a little better now that you’re back into the school routine?”
Kendall breaks off a piece of a bran muffin and shoves it into her mouth. “Immensely. Shit, I’m starving.”
“Honey. Inside language, please.”
“Sorry. Man, I’m starving. Better?”
“Yes. What else is new? Did you meet Hector’s grand-kids?”
Kendall tilts her head. “You know about them?”
“They’ve been around for a couple months.”
“Why am I the last to know everything?”
“I didn’t know you didn’t know. The girl’s been sitting at their market stand all summer. Such a striking young woman.”
“Well, I’ve been on that damn tractor all summer, watching my leg muscles atrophy. I’m all wobbly.”
“Language, Kendall.”
“Sorry. Got used to farm talk again. Maybe you shouldn’t make me work so hard with all those swearers.”
Mrs. Fletcher looks like she’s trying not to grin. “I know. But the work is good for you. Builds character.”
Kendall rolls her eyes and pulls the milk jug from the refrigerator. Its label reads fresh as heck from hector farms. How could anybody not adore Hector Morales? She pours an impossibly large tumbler full and drinks it all. Slams it on the counter, empty. “Any mail?”
“Nothing from Juilliard.”
Kendall screws up her nose, disappointed. “Okay. Well, what needs to get done before I start practicing?”
“Dad’s checking the southwest field today to see how close we’re getting to harvest. He wants you out there to show you how he does that. Then dinner. Then homework. Then you can practice.”
“Big sigh, Mummy,” Kendall says. “I am so sick of potatoes, I could scream.”
“Another six weeks and it’ll all be pretty near over.”
Kendall starts jogging to the field, but the milk sloshes in her stomach and her thighs burn from the soccer scrimmage, so she slows down to a walk. Even out here, on her home turf, Kendall feels uneasy walking alone. She heads for the southwest field, looking nervously over her shoulder every thirty paces or so.
After a few minutes she hears her father’s familiar yell and catches up to him. “Hey, Daddy!”
“How’s my girl?” Mr. Fletcher air-hugs Kendall. His hands are filthy.
“Good, now that I’m with you,” she says, demure. “Whatcha got?”
“This here is what we call a potato,” Mr. Fletcher says. “Fascinating.”
They walk the field together a few rows apart, stopping now and then to check for ripeness, rot, and bugs. Kendall’s mind wanders, remembering earlier in the day, picking up random thoughts to obsess over.
“Machines are good,” Mr. Fletcher says, taking on a teaching tone, “but they don’t compare to the human eye, or the touch of a hand. That’s the real way to keep crops, to be one with them, to create potatoes that love you back.”
“Yeppers,” Kendall says, but she’s not paying attention. She’s picturing Jacián sneaking off to kidnap, murder, and chop poor innocent girls into pieces.
By the time she gets her homework done, it’s nine thirty p.m. and her legs ache, but she’s not done. She slips a DVD into the player and sits down on her bedroom floor to stretch and warm up. By nine forty-five she’s running through ballet positions, and then she works into her routine, the one she choreographed herself for the Juilliard application video. It feels good. But she’s exhausted.
By the time Nico calls her phone line at eleven to say goodnight, she’s already asleep. But it’s a good sleep. Being busy and exhausted is about the best thing for Kendall’s brain.
She even forgot to check her window lock six times.
In the morning Kendall rises at six. She gets online and looks up the youth theatre in Bozeman, wondering what productions they’re doing this fall and if there would possibly be time to squeeze in a play on top of soccer and life. Last spring she got the part of Miss Dorothy in Thoroughly Modern Millie. It was the most fun Kendall has had in her entire life. The director called her a natural, and she even got nominated for a local youth theatre award. Not bad for her first musical.
But Kendall has always known she wants to sing, dance, act. She’s been doing it on her own since she was a little kid, always doing productions in the barn, using cats as her other actors if she couldn’t talk Nico, Eli, Travis, or even stupid Brandon into participating.
Nico usually played along. He is the closest neighbor, and their mothers have been friends since before Kendall and Nico were born. Nico was agreeable to doing almost anything Kendall requested, except when it came to singing or dancing, which Kendall thought was probably good, since he’s terrible at both.
Kendall pulls up the theatre’s website and sees they are auditioning for Grease. She scans the rehearsal schedule but knows it’s impossible. She can’t drive all the way out to Bozeman multiple times a week during harvest and soccer season. Too far away. Too many conflicts.
Too many stupid potatoes.
She checks her e-mail and then closes her laptop and gets ready for school.
At school things are pretty much just as they were yesterday. Kendall turns the wastebasket, straightens the markers, opens the curtains, tugs to check the windows, and runs her fingers over each window lock. “All checked and good,” she whispers. Then she makes minor adjustments to the desks.
She watches the students arrive, many of them walking, some driving cars or pickup trucks. Kendall tries to see Cryer’s Cross through the eyes of a newcomer like Marlena. Some of the students wear cowboy hats and boots, others wear Gap or Levi’s or Target or home sewn. It’s not that strange, she guesses.
When Nico comes walking up to the school, Kendall smiles. She’s really proud of him wanting to be a nurse. He’s been bandaging cats and farm animals since the two of them were little. The other guys aren’t jerks about it like Brandon.
The school day progresses. Ms. Hinkler assigns the upper-classmen various things to read and work on, and then she spends the most time with the freshmen, which she’ll do for this first week, until they get used to her and how things work.
In the senior section Brandon and Travis sleep. Eli Greenwood reads for a while, then jiggles his leg and doodles in the margins of his English book. Jacián does trigonometry problems on scratch paper until his work is done, and then he slumps in his seat and traces his finger over the desk graffiti. Nico props his head up with one arm and rests the other on the desk next to his open physics textbook. His eyes close. Kendall pretends to read, but she’s daydreaming about Broadway.
There is something about performing that soothes Kendall’s overactive brain. It’s like the concentration necessary for acting takes the attention away from the never-ending circle of thoughts that drives her sometimes irrational behavior. And she wants it—she wants that relief. That control over her list of obsessions and compulsions. Maybe this winter she can do another show once soccer and potatoes are done. Maybe.
In the sophomore section Marlena glances over her shoulder, catches Kendall’s eye, and smiles.
At noon everybody heads outside to eat lunch or hit the locker rooms for a bathroom break. Some go home for lunch if they live close to town. Nico and Kendall live just a little too far away to make that worthwhile.
“Bored yet?” Kendall lies down on her back in the grass next to Nico. It’s a beautiful day, a few clouds, maybe seventy-five degrees.
Nico is quiet. Kendall pokes him.
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you were bored yet. With school.”
With visible effort he pulls himself from his thoughts. “Oh. No. I think I’m going to like physics.”
“I wish we had more options. You know. Ceramics. Drama.”
Nico rolls to his side and looks at Kendall. Touches her cheek. “Me too, for you. No mail?”
“Nope.”
“Good.” Nico falls back again. “I don’t want you to go.”
Kendall laughs and punches him in the shoulder. “Stop! You’ll jinx Juilliard.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just wish you weren’t going to be way out in New York . . . I haven’t gone a whole week in my entire life without seeing you—since before you were born.”
“Well, maybe you should consider coming out that way too. Why do I have to be the one to stay around here?”
Nico winces. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” She sits up. Closes her eyes and sighs. “But the truth is, I’m not going to get into Juilliard, and we both know it. So. Saturday I’m checking out State with you.”
Nico grins. “Awesome.”
Back in the classroom, though, Nico acts distracted. He rests his head on his desk, eyes half closed.
Kendall pokes him when Ms. Hinkler is working with the sophomores. “Are you okay?”
Nico turns slowly to look at Kendall, a faraway look in his eyes. “Fine,” he says. He faces forward once again, his fingers sliding across the edge of his desk.
“You’re acting really strange.”
“Shh,” Nico says, distracted. He shakes his head slightly and doesn’t answer further. Then he puts his head back down and closes his eyes.
At soccer practice Coach works the team hard. They run drills and suicide competitions. It’s hard work, but Kendall savors it. It keeps her mind busy. But as she runs, something Jacián said yesterday keeps repeating in her mind, a syllable with every step. Stay out of my way, then, if you don’t want to get hurt.
Did Jacián say that to Tiffany Quinn, too, before he killed her? Kendall shakes her head, admonishing herself in jagged whispers as she runs the suicide drills. She glances at him. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Just run.
She beats everybody. It’s never happened before, but Kendall’s in her groove today. Jacián comes in second. Eli is third, with Marlena grabbing his shirt trying to pass him, but she ends up fourth. Nico’s off his game, coming in seventh out of the eight. Jacián walks away, gasping for breath.
Kendall smiles triumphantly before half the team shoves her onto the ground and piles on top. She gasps and laughs, trying to shield her face from kicking legs and waving arms. Briefly catches Jacián’s eye as he stands a few feet away, watching the congratulatory pileup. His eyes burn holes into hers. She flails and turns, and sees Nico, but he’s staring off at nothing.
In a minute she wriggles out from under the pile as Coach yells for everybody to get back to work.
At 11:05 p.m. Kendall calls Nico. “What’s up with you?”
“Huh?”
“You missed the call. You almost never miss the call.”
“Oh. Uh . . . I lost track of time, I guess. Got a lot on my mind.”
“You want to talk about it? Please? You’re starting to worry me.”
“No. No, thanks. I have to go.”
“Okaaay. . . .”
“Good night, Kendall.”
Kendall pulls the phone from her ear and stares at it for a second, and then puts it back up to her ear again. “Are you kidding me?”
But all she hears is a dial tone. Her stomach twists. Nico hung up on her. “Damn, boy,” she says. “This college thing must be huge for you, that’s all I can say.” She calls his private line again. Five times.
All she gets is a busy signal.
She checks her lock six times and then stares through the window, out over the front fields. Toward Nico’s house.
All is dark.
Kendall shivers.
The first week of school nears an end. The unspeakable absence of Tiffany Quinn is mostly forgotten, replaced by new assignments, new students, and a need for life to be normal. Kendall performs her morning routines—the wastebasket, the markers, the windows, the desks—and things are good. Mostly.
Jacián still doesn’t speak in class unless Ms. Hinkler asks him a question.
And Nico is completely lost in his own world, oblivious to Kendall.
He won’t discuss it.
Her brain goes into overdrive.
“Nico,” she says at lunch, outside on the grass. “Is it me? Is it something I did?”
He stares at the sky. His lips move, but no words come out.
“Nico?”
He turns to look at Kendall. “What?”
Kendall bites her lip, and tears spring to her eyes. “What’s wrong with you? Monday you were normal, and now everything’s really weird.”
He just shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Are we still going to Bozeman tomorrow?”
“Bozeman. . . . Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure.”
“Are you mad at me or something?”
He stares for a minute as if he’s trying to comprehend the question, and then he takes her hand. “No, baby. I love you. Like always.” He looks into her eyes and brings her hand to his lips. But his look is vacant. He kisses her knuckles, drops her hand, gets to his feet, and walks back into the school.
There’s no soccer practice on Fridays—not until games actually begin. Nico starts home after school without Kendall. She watches him, incredulous, and then she turns and walks up the street into town.
The town portion of Cryer’s Cross consists of one four-way-stop intersection with a handful of stores, a restaurant, and a big indoor farmers’ market that doubles for whatever else might require a large organized space throughout the year. Kendall climbs the steps to the drugstore, in desperate need of tampons.
Outside the building is a porch with an awning, and under the awning, sitting in aged wooden chairs, are old Mr. Greenwood and Hector Morales. Kendall grins and waves. The two men often sit together in the early evenings during good weather, not talking, just sitting. Old Mr. Greenwood is grouchy, but Hector brightens up when he sees Kendall.
“Miss Kendall,” Hector says. “Come here, please.”
Kendall goes over to the men. “Yes, sir?”
“You are a good friend to Marlena at school. Thank you for that. You hear me?”
Kendall smiles. Hector is such a sensitive man, so kind. She wonders how his offspring could have produced somebody so awful as Jacián. “Marlena’s a great girl,” Kendall says. “Really good at soccer.”
“And Jacián, he is our soccer champion,” Hector says with a proud chuckle.
“Yes,” Kendall says, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Yes, he’s really talented.”
“He needs the friends too,” Hector says, a little softer, but somehow with more punch. “People need friends.” He glances at Mr. Greenwood, who shifts uncomfortably. “You’re a good girl. You give him a chance, okay?”
“Okay,” Kendall says. What else can she say? “I’ll try.” And before she can help it, she adds, “And he should give everybody else a chance too.”
Hector looks thoughtfully at Kendall, his finger on his lips as he thinks. “I agree, Miss Kendall. You are wise for someone so young, and I thank you.”
Kendall can’t help smiling. She reaches and takes his hand, holds it for a minute. “Good to see you again.”
She goes inside the shop and wanders around, looking at things. Thinking about Nico, and wondering what’s really going on with him.
Then she pays and walks the mile home, looking over her shoulder every thirty paces. Walking alone always reminds her of Tiffany Quinn.
Kendall does her chores and homework, mopes about Nico but is glad they’ll have a chance to talk things out tomorrow on the way to Bozeman. Her parents say good night and turn in. By ten thirty Kendall falls asleep on the couch watching music videos.
Kendall wakes up to the doorbell ringing. Once, twice. Bright sunshine streams in through the living room curtains—she slept on the couch all night. Crap, she thinks. Overslept. Bozeman today. She goes to the door in her pajamas.
It’s not Nico.
It’s Jacián. With a side of beef.
“Delivery,” he says. He’s wearing dark sunglasses, and Kendall can’t see his eyes. She grips the placket of her pajama top in residual fifth-grade fear.
“Oh.” She moves out of the way as he brings a box inside. She wonders briefly if she has morning breath. If it were anyone else at the door, she might actually care.
“Freezer?” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“Downstairs. . . . Here.” Kendall runs her fingers through her tangled bed-head and leads him to the basement door, down the steps. It’s cool down here. Smells like rain and dirt. She opens the freezer door and hurriedly rearranges the containers of sweet corn she and her mother prepared and froze last month. She puts them into neat rows, stacking them just right.
“This is heavy,” Jacián says.
Kendall stops arranging. “Just . . . set it on the floor. I’ll pack the freezer.”
He sets the box down and heads up the stairs two at a time. “There’s another box,” he calls over his shoulder.
“I should hope so,” Kendall says. “Or else it’s a really small cow. One of them mini cows.” Nobody hears her.
A moment later Jacián is back. He flips his sunglasses to rest on top of his head, and he starts unpacking the box. Kendall blocks him from putting anything away. “It’s okay, really. I got it.”
“My grandfather said I’m supposed to do this,” he says. “It’s part of the Hector Farms’ service.” His voice turns sarcastic at the end, and Kendall remembers her conversation with Hector.
“It’s really not necessary.” Kendall is in the organizing groove, and she wants it done just right.
“You’re doing it wrong, anyway. Put all the steaks together, hamburger together, roasts together. Not by size and shape but by category, or you’ll never know how much of one item you have left.”
Kendall stops cold, stands up straight, and glares at him. She puts one hand on her hip and holds a two-pound package of frozen hamburger in the other. “Go force your condescending man-logic on the next house. You can go now.”
He glares back and doesn’t leave. He works his jaw, like he wants to say something.
Kendall’s mind flashes to Tiffany Quinn. She glances at the freezer, picturing it full of chopped-up abducted girls, and then looks back at Jacián, whose black eyes are on fire now. A wave of irrational fear moves through her chest, and she tries not to show it on her face. She’s down in the cellar with a kidnapper, nobody else home. “Go away. Please.”
Jacián’s eyes narrow, then soften. “Fine.” He steps back, turns sharply, and walks up the stairs. Kendall hears his feet and the click of the front door closing.
She glances over her shoulder nervously as she packs the beef in the freezer. By size and shape. It’s the only way she can stand to do it.
She rushes through her shower and gets ready. Waits until almost noon for him to show up. And then she calls Nico’s house. Nico’s line is busy. Kendall hangs up and calls the home line instead. Mrs. Cruz answers.
“Hey, Mrs. Cruz. Nico there?”
“Kendall! No, haven’t seen him up yet this morning. Leave a message?”
“Hmm.” Kendall thinks. “We’re supposed to go to Bozeman today. Maybe you should wake him up.”
“Sure thing. I’ll have him call you in a minute.”
“Thanks!”
“Bye, hon.”
“Bye, Mrs. Cruz.”
Kendall hangs up and flips on the TV. The news anchor talks about that sixteen-year-old serial killer in Brazil again—the girl who killed twelve people. Wow. Just wait until she tells Nico. Makes Jacián the teenage kidnapper look just a little bit lame.
Twenty minutes pass, and Kendall grows concerned that Nico hasn’t called. Just when she’s about to call him again, the phone rings.
It’s Nico’s mother.
“Kendall,” she says, her voice distressed, “Nico’s not home. His bed is made. There’s no note.”
Kendall’s stomach jumps into her throat before she can think rationally. “Is his car gone?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Well, that’s good, then, right? He’s probably just out somewhere.” Kendall’s tongue is thick. She swallows hard. Breathes.
“Yes, that’s probably it,” Mrs. Cruz says, and then she laughs anxiously.
Kendall whispers, “Maybe he went to Bozeman without me.”
They find the car. It’s not in Bozeman. It’s parked at the school.
And Nico’s not there.
After a cursory search through the town and all around the school grounds, Nico’s parents start contacting everybody they can think of, asking if they’ve seen him.
There is no sign of Nico Cruz.
Nico’s car engine is cold, and according to Sheriff Greenwood, there are no clues inside. Not in the car, or in the school. Still, they tape off everything as a precaution. After what happened with Tiffany Quinn, it’s never too soon to suspect a missing person. Everybody’s on edge.
When Kendall hears the news about the car, she runs the mile from her house to the school. The car looks so lonely sitting there, surrounded by onlookers. Air crushes her chest. She sinks to her knees, can’t catch her breath. People start crowding around her to see the car, the school . . . as if there is something to see. But there’s nothing. Just a car, a building. Yellow tape.
“He could be fine,” someone says. “Maybe we’re all overreacting. He’s practically a grown man. Maybe he’s out for a hike.”
“Maybe he’s hunting back in the woods.”
“Maybe his car ran out of gas and he pulled in here.”
“Yes, let’s not jump to conclusions.”
But the other whispers are there too, growing louder. “Another one. What’s happening to our safe little town? All the children are disappearing.”
Kendall tries, fails to tune them all out.
It’s all she can do to just breathe. And count.
Count breaths: thirty-six. Count stones in the dirt: more than fifty. Count people saying stupid things: all of them.
Count all the days she’s known him: infinity.
Maybe he’ll be back before she’s done counting.
Maybe not.
The buzzing noise of the people grows louder and louder, and Kendall can’t think. She can’t count with so much distraction. She stands up and shoves through the crowd, screaming, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! All of you just shut up!” Tears blur everything.
Someone grabs her sleeve. Blindly she whips her arm away and runs, runs like hell. Runs almost all the way home, until her feet can’t keep up with her and she plunges forward, down onto the gravel, shredding her palms and knees. And then she just lies there as a huge splash of hurt rips through her body, and she’s so grateful for the pain, because she can feel it. It lets something else loose. She sobs. There in the gravel on the side of the road in front of Nico’s farm, she sobs, under the old rusty mailbox where she used to put notes for him, grasshoppers and bees fly and buzz around her in a panic.
It’s not long before she hears feet crunching on the gravel. When the sound stops next to her, she lifts her head and looks up, squinting into the sun. Her lip starts quivering again. “Mom,” she says.
“I couldn’t run quite as fast as you,” she says, “but at least you ran in the right direction.”
Kendall slowly pushes herself up to her feet. Tries to wipe the gravel out of her hands and knees, but some of it’s stuck hard. She starts crying again and gives up as Mrs. Fletcher wraps her arms around the girl.
“Come on inside,” Kendall’s mom says. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Sheriff Greenwood is coming over in a few minutes. He wants to talk to you.”
Kendall jerks her head up. “Why?”
“Just to get an idea of who saw him last. Nobody thinks you did anything. They think he left the house late last night.”
“Why would he do that?” Kendall limps up the long driveway to their farmhouse. “I think my brain is going to burst,” she says. “My OCD is going crazy.”
“I know, honey. This is hard. But we’ve got to stay hopeful, okay? He’s a big strong guy. He can take care of himself. We just need to figure out what happened. Find out where he is.”
Kendall nods. Inside the house she works on cleaning her wounds. Mrs. Fletcher turns on the news, but there’s nothing about Nico yet. Takes a while for word to travel to civilization from way out here.
Sheriff Greenwood arrives, cowboy hat in hand. With him is someone Kendall doesn’t recognize.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Fletcher, Kendall. This is Sergeant Dunne from the Montana State Police. He’s here to help us find Nico.”
“Hello, please sit down,” Mrs. Fletcher says, pointing to the dining table. She walks through the great room into the kitchen, gets cups, saucers, and the coffee pot, and pours coffee automatically, as if the two cops come over for coffee every day.
They sit at the dining room table, and Sheriff Greenwood takes out a notepad. “For the sake of time, we’re going to get right into the questions here, okay?” He continues without looking up to see the nods. “Now, Kendall, can you describe your relationship with Nico Cruz?”
Kendall is immediately flustered. “What do you mean? We’re neighbors, best friends since we were little kids. You know that.”
Sergeant Dunne leans in and says, “Are you all dating?”
“Yes, I guess so. I mean, we don’t really go out all that much, but yeah . . . sort of.”
Sergeant Dunne nods. “So he’s your boyfriend?”
“No. I mean . . .” Kendall looks to her mother for help.
“Kendall doesn’t like to use that term because it feels too much like a commitment, but yes, for all intents and purposes here, Nico is Kendall’s boyfriend.” Mrs. Fletcher holds Kendall’s hand and squeezes it. She looks at Kendall and says, “Okay?”
Kendall nods. She agrees. She just can’t say it.
“Okay,” Sheriff Greenwood says. “When did you last see Nico?”
“Yesterday at school. I had to go into town to pick up a few things after school. He went home.”
“What things?”
Kendall blushes deeply. “Tampons. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Kendall,” Mrs. Fletcher says, “they’re just trying to figure things out.”
“Sorry, miss,” Sergeant Dunne says. “So that was at what time?”
“Three thirty-five, I guess.”
“You didn’t see him after that?”
“No.”
“Did you talk with him last night? E-mail, phone?”
“He calls me most nights around eleven.”
“Did he call last night?”
Kendall hesitates, trying to remember. “Actually, I don’t know. I fell asleep on the couch down here watching TV. Mom?”
“I didn’t hear your phone ring,” Mrs. Fletcher says. She turns to the men. “Kendall has her own phone line in her bedroom. It didn’t ring down here, as far as I know, but Dad and I were asleep by ten.”
“You go to bed early on a Friday night,” the sergeant says lightly.
Mrs. Fletcher looks at him sharply. “We live on a farm. Day begins at five a.m., sir. We don’t pause for the weekends.”
Sergeant Dunne nods. “Yes, ma’am.” He turns back to Kendall. “So you don’t think he called?”
“I don’t know if he called. I can’t hear my phone ring down here.”
Dunne looks at Greenwood. “I’ll have them check phone records. Please write your phone number here, Miss Fletcher. Nico’s, too, please.”
“Didn’t Mr. and Mrs. Cruz already give you Nico’s number?” Mrs. Fletcher asks.
“Ma’am, there could be more than one number. Teenagers hide things from their parents all the time. Don’t they, Kendall?” He glances at her.
She glares back at him. “I don’t.”
Mrs. Fletcher pours more coffee.
“All righty, Kendall,” Sheriff Greenwood says. “How has Nico been acting lately? The same as always, or different? Anything unusual that springs to mind?”
Kendall swallows hard. She doesn’t like Sergeant Dunne. Doesn’t want to say anything that might make Nico look bad. But she knows she has to tell the truth. “He’s been acting preoccupied the last few days.” Her voice catches a little, but she controls it. “We were supposed to go to Bozeman today to look at Montana State. He wants to be a nurse. So I think he had that on his mind.”
Sheriff Greenwood writes for a moment. “What else do you think could have made him act preoccupied? Anything?”
Kendall thinks hard. Shakes her head. “Nothing I can think of.”
“Were you two having relationship problems?”
“No. I mean, I asked him if he was acting weird because of me, and he said no, he loved me just like always.” Kendall chokes on a deep sob that comes from her gut. Mrs. Fletcher puts her arm around Kendall. She’s crying too now. The bad thoughts start going in Kendall’s head again. Stuff she can’t control. Could Jacián have done something to Nico, too?
Sheriff Greenwood writes a few more things, and then closes his notebook. “Okay. That’s it for now.”
Kendall looks up. “Are you going to question Jacián Obregon?”
Mrs. Fletcher turns sharply toward Kendall, surprised.
Sheriff Greenwood shakes his head firmly and says with an edge in his voice, as if he’s said it ten times before, “Jacián Obregon is not a suspect here or in Tiffany Quinn’s case. Do you have reason to think he should be? Real reason, I mean, not just rumors?”
Kendall opens her mouth, and then she closes it again. And then says, “No, sir.”
“Good. Then, let’s leave him out of it. He’s been through enough.”
Kendall stares at the sheriff. “I’m sorry,” she says after a moment.
He nods and smiles sympathetically, and suddenly he’s Eli’s dad again. “No harm done.” He stands up, and Sergeant Dunne follows. “We’re going to do everything we can to find him.”
“Are we going to do a massive search thing, like with Tiffany?” It strikes Kendall that a search could turn up absolutely nothing, just like last time. She can’t let herself believe it.
“It’s being planned right now, and the first responder teams are already out there, just in case. You should get a call this evening with instructions for an organized search first thing tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll find he’s just out hiking in the foothills or something and it won’t be necessary.”
“Thank you,” Kendall says. Mrs. Fletcher walks them to the door. Kendall lowers her head to the table. Numb. She knows he’s not hiking. He would never do that alone. Not without her.
Just then, Sergeant Dunne pops his head back in. “By the way, Kendall, what was the relationship between Nico and Tiffany Quinn? Did they know each other?”
Kendall lifts her head and looks at Sergeant Dunne. She narrows her eyes. “Of course. Have you seen the size of this town? Everybody knows everybody.”
He smiles disarmingly. “Did they ever do anything together? You know . . . maybe there was something going on between them.” He pauses. “It’s an awfully strange coincidence, two kids from a town this small.”
Kendall slowly sits up. “No,” she says. “No, there was nothing going on between them. She was just a kid.”
“At the time of her disappearance, she was fifteen. Nico was seventeen.” He stops, as if that explains something. “Were you and Nico dating then?”
Kendall speaks through gritted teeth. “Yes. Sort of.”
“Did he ever take you to any secret places, in the mountains or the woods, to get away from everybody? Maybe to be alone, have sex?”
“No!” she says, flustered. “We aren’t that serious. We aren’t . . . sexually active.”
“Oh, right. You said that you didn’t want a commitment in the relationship. Were you two free to see others, then?”
Kendall shakes her head, trying to grasp what he’s really saying, feeling like she’s in an episode of Law & Order: SVU. “He wasn’t seeing her. I know he wasn’t. Okay?”
Sergeant Dunne is quiet for a moment, looking at Kendall. And then he says in a low voice, “Well, maybe he is now.”
Mrs. Fletcher stands quickly as Kendall shoves her chair back and gets up. It makes an awful scraping sound on the wooden floor. Her hands are trembling. “What are you saying?”
“We’re just covering all our bases. Running through all the scenarios.” His cliché-laden monotone is deeply annoying.
“Why would he do anything to her? If they wanted to be together, nobody was stopping them!”
Sergeant Dunne tilts his head. “Maybe he got a little frustrated with your noncommitment and did something he was ashamed of. I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Well, you’re wrong!” Kendall’s voice breaks.
Mrs. Fletcher steps in, her voice clear and firm. “Sergeant, is there anything else?”
Sergeant Dunne doesn’t take his eyes off Kendall, though his gaze softens a bit. For a moment he doesn’t move. And then he says, “No, ma’am, that’s it for today.” He nods once and steps back outside. “Let us know if you think of anything else that might help us find your friend,” he says to Kendall.
Kendall flees the kitchen and runs upstairs to her room.
Falls apart. Sobbing. So lost in this situation, she cannot handle it. Her brain can’t handle it.
All she can do is try. Try to stop picturing Nico and Tiffany in some secret mountain hideout having sex together.
By early morning the national news networks pick it up. This small-town teen runaway story is no longer worthy of only a tiny blip on the radar of Bozeman TV. Within twenty-four hours it has become the unfortunate American horror sensation of the week. Nico’s face is splashed all over TV, and Tiffany Quinn’s entire history is resurrected and replayed along with Nico’s history. It’s not long before reporters try to connect the two in sinister ways, just like Sergeant Dunne did yesterday with Kendall. Did Nico “make Tiffany disappear” and now has disappeared himself? Where could they be? What is the dark side of Nico Cruz?
Oh, yes, it’s all speculation. The reporters admit it.
But you can tell they believe it.
Mr. Fletcher turns the TV off. Kendall stares at the blank screen, her hair disheveled, eyes red.
“Kendall,” he says. He puts his hand on her arm.
She doesn’t move.
“Honey.”
Kendall just shakes her head. Whispers, her throat sore from crying, “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Her father stands up, pulls her to her feet. Hugs her close and whispers, “Come on, pumpkin.”
Kendall nods, her cheek against his shoulder. When she pulls away, she sees the shine in his eyes.
He looks away. “Let’s go find him.”
There are helicopters. News teams are arriving, setting up camp in front of the Feed and Seed shop and inside the farmers’ market.
More police mill around than Kendall’s ever seen before in one place. Many people drive or walk to the town center, but several come on four-wheelers for the sake of faster off-road searching. Marlena and Jacián are among them. Kendall narrows her eyes.
Sheriff Greenwood stands on the steps of the restaurant with a bullhorn, and he holds it up, testing it out to get everybody’s attention.
Kendall looks around. It’s barely dawn on a Sunday morning, and everybody is here, just like last time. Except for Nico.
Students eye Kendall warily, sympathetically, looking unsure if they should approach her. Most don’t. Kendall and her parents walk over to Nico’s parents and stand quietly, the moms exchanging hugs. Nothing much to say. Lack of sleep is evident in all their faces, and that says it all. Kendall sees Tiffany Quinn’s mother standing in the crowd. She looks old, like she’s aged ten years since May. Kendall glances at Nico’s parents and wonders what will happen to them.
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