Paige makes the drive to pick my dad up from the airport. A storm front delayed his layover, and he spent a day in the terminal before finally getting on a flight here. Mom is at the police station again when he arrives, Margot with her for moral support, so I’m the welcome committee when they show up at the house.
“Jo,” my dad says, pulling me into a hug on the front porch. I go rigid in his arms, reluctantly hugging him back. I’d known he was coming, prepared for it, but now that he’s in front of me, it’s asif his absence all these years is a neon light shining in my eyes. He doesn’t fit here.
I peel out of his arms, clearing my throat.
I don’t realize how much resentment has been stirring in me until he’s right in front of me. And I can’t help but wonder how things might be different if he’d stayed.
We probably never would have moved back here. We’d still be in our apartment in Denver, the tiny one I spent my whole life in. Full of books and instruments.
“It’s good to see you,” he says. “Wish it was under better circumstances, but…” He runs a hand through his hair. Turns back to Paige, like she’ll save him from this increasingly awkward encounter, but she merely slips past him and into the house. “I’ve got to meet your mom at the station. But we’ll catch up later, okay?”
“Sure, we will,” I tell him, though I know we won’t.
—
Detective Gonzales has stopped in twice to give us updates, and the updates are that they have no updates. Browning came once.
Despite my deep reservations, my parents and aunt are thrilled to have the detectives on board. My mom is sure they’ll find Jasper. I don’t know how to tell them they won’t.
The last thing I want is to make more problems for a woman already drowning in them: my mother, whose husband decided he’d made all the wrong choices and left her with three kids to raise. Who dropped everything when her daughter fell apart, who moved back to the hometown she left behind to keep me afloat.
But I know something. Not enough to help, but enough to build hope in my chest like a beehive, buzzing so loud I can’t keepthe words in my mouth. Not anymore. Not with that pained, haunted expression on my mom’s face.
I only make it thirty seconds into my wild explanation about the connections between every kid who didn’t make it home in this town before she cuts me off. Springing it on her right when she got home from the station may not have been the best move, but I’m in too deep now.
“Enough.” Mom’s eyes narrow, and her lips purse. I know instantly I’ve made a mistake.
“I know how it sounds, but—”
“I said enough,” she snaps. “It’s not some big conspiracy. Your brother is gone. And this”—she gestures to me, all of me, like my being itself is the issue—“is not helping.”
“Mom—”
“I said leave it, Joanna,” she says.
And I do.
Holden, who was halfway between the front door and the kitchen with a stack of pizzas, gives me a supportive smile. “She’s stressed out of her mind. Don’t take it too personally,” he says.
“I’m guessing you think I’ve lost it, too?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t say that. But I know what it’s like to look for answers where there aren’t any. Grasping at straws and all.”
It’s a kinder dismissal than my mom’s, but it still stings.
“Shouldn’t you be getting home? It’s almost ten,” I say.
His brows pull together. He nods. “Just dropping off some food.”
I don’t meet his eyes, folding my arms over my chest, staring at a blank spot on the wall as he deposits the pizza boxes in the kitchen and heads out the front door.
Once again, I’m in retreat. I didn’t realize I’d slipped out of it these last few months.
That day Finn popped into my room, when I met Aisha and Sloane, the tiny world I’d curled up inside expanded. Despite my best efforts, the three of them slid under my skin like splinters.
When Finn materializes in my room, I’m struck with how different things have become. That first night, he was a haunting. I’m not sure what he is tonight.
I sit up in bed, lifting my chin. A sick curiosity bubbles up inside me.
