“That’s great,” Paige says. “If anyone can find Ingrid…”
“Maybe you could hand some out to your clients at the vet,” Harriett says to Holden. And to Paige, “I know your corkboard is full up, but—”
“We’ll take down the old poster and put up the new one,” Paige says, reaching for a stack. “It’s not a problem, Harriett.”
Holden holds out a hand and takes a stack. “Anything to help,” he says.
Soon the couple departs, and I take one of the posters from Paige’s stack.
Ingrid Halstead. Missing four years. Now aged eighteen. Blond hair, brown eyes. A little over five feet tall.
Four years. Four years is a long time to be gone without a trace. Once upon a time, it might have been possible to disappear, but this new world is connected to cameras. Traffic stops and security cameras and doorbells.
A teenage girl doesn’t vanish off the face of the earth because she wants to. And she isn’t the only one. The faces on the corkboard at work, on electrical poles, and in store windows.
This town is littered with the empty spaces where kids should be. The ones who I can still see are watched by everyone. No one is immune to cautionary tales, certainly not small towns, but this is a different story. Real enough to leave an air of fear hanging over us all.
Six
Two days later and I’vebeen staring at my notebook for two hours. It’s 11:37 p.m., and I have yet to shower off the sticky sweat from working in the hot bookstore. I’m going to regret it in the morning.
I haven’t finished a song since Harper died. Haven’t played or sang more than three times, either. I started writing years before we met in eighth grade, but for four years, she was my partner. Now that she’s gone, it’s like the music is gone. None of the pieces fit together the way they used to.
That hasn’t stopped the itch in my fingers or the flurry of lyrics and notes, which means a lot of nights like this one, hunched over a notebook full of partially finished songs.
The words on the page are blurry fragments sticking together, disordered; trying to force them out is only making my head throb. With a huff of frustration, I toss the pen to the floor, rip the page from the notebook on my lap, crumple it into a ball, and toss it over my shoulder.
Something crackles behind me. I push to my feet, reaching to the side to shut the window on impulse; the wind is stronger here than back home and this wouldn’t be the first time it has sent papers off my desk.
My fingers hit the closed window before my eyes do. Pain sparks in my fingertips, and I wrench my hand back with a curse.
I twist, heart beating like a kick drum, stomach in my throat, and find the sheet of lyrics I crumpled up and threw on the ground spread open on the wood like it was coaxed with a feather’s tip.
A bed creaks across the hall in Margot’s room.Margot.
I step out of my bedroom and into the dark hall, leaning into Margot’s cracked door and nudging it open.
With half-maroon, half-white walls split by gold trim, it is in no way Margot’s style, and the scrunched look on her face when Aunt Paige showed her to her room was incredibly satisfying. My sister sits cross-legged atop a thick duvet that matches the walls, a novel propped on her lap. She lowers it so the cover isn’t visible at my entrance, but I don’t need to see it. She refuses to admit it, but she’s been on a romance-book kick for the last year. I’d wager my meager bookstore paycheck that the cover has at least one muscular man on it.
Her eyes are hesitant as they meet mine.
“Can I help you?” she asks. She probably means for it to come off as snarky, but there’s a softness riding under her words.
“What are you reading?” I ask. My voice sounds wrong, too. I lean against the doorframe, folding my arms over my chest.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “A book.”
“I figured.”
Margot licks her lips. Dog-ears her page and closes the book, setting it beside her, front cover down.
“Did you need something?” The sourness in her words needles me. And I can’t say I don’t deserve it, even if it does sting.
“Were you in my room just now?” I ask.
All at once, her false confidence turns to real irritation. Her lips turn down, her body stiffens. “If I was in your room, wouldn’t you have seen me?” she asks.
I press my lips together. “Someone messed with my—”
