Page 47 of The Missing Half

I close out the maps app and pull up my call history, tapping on Jenna’s name at the top of the list. It rings through to her voicemail, which is unusual. Normally, she answers my calls after the first ring. I pull up our text thread and type,Found something. Ready to talk to Brad. Call me.Then, for good measure, I call again, not caring how desperate it looks. But like the first time, it just rings and rings.

I think suddenly of Lauren, her eyes wide in fear at the sight of us when we showed up at her house. I think of the man hiding behindthe playscape waiting to tell Beth Anne his “secret.” I think of Brad leaning over me to point at my front door.

When Jenna’s voicemail clicks on, the realization hits me with a certainty as real and heavy as stone. She didn’t miss tonight because her plans changed or she forgot. She didn’t show up because something is wrong.

Chapter Twenty-five

Urgency tidal-waves through me, but it is so belated, I want to scream. I haven’t heard from Jenna since she walked out of my apartment on Tuesday night—five days ago. So much could have happened between then and now. I pray that I’m just being paranoid, that revisiting Kasey’s disappearance is fucking with my head, but I feel in my bones that something more is going on. Jenna’s words from the other week echo in my mind:Someone out there knows what we’re doing and doesn’t like it.

I stride to the door, my hand pausing on the knob. I need to get to Jenna’s house, but how? I biked to my dad’s, but it’ll be dark soon. Plus, biking to Osceola will take far longer than I’m willing to wait. My dad’s been drinking, so I can’t ask him to drive. And with my license suspended, he won’t let me borrow his car.

My fingers feel maddeningly slow as I pull up my Uber app. There’s no filter for cars with bike racks, so I click on the last option, cars with wheelchair access, hoping I’ll be able to contort my bike into the space meant for the chair. I balk at the estimated price of the trip—rideshares are a luxury I can’t afford—but that doesn’t matter right now. I order the car.

“Dad?” I call, walking through the house.

He’s in the living room, in his recliner, hand wrapped around a beer. On the TV is a baseball game.

“I have to go,” I say. “Thanks again for dinner.”

“Sure.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the TV. “Talk to you soon.” NoLet’s do it againorCome over anytime.Not that I was expecting it after our disastrous conversation, but still.

I pace for the entire six minutes it takes for my Uber to arrive. It’s a white minivan driven by a guy named Gabe, and when it finally pulls up, I yank open the sliding side door and am relieved to find one of the bucket seats has been removed.

“Can I put my bike in here?” I say before Gabe, a twenty-something guy with acne, has a chance to say hi.

“Oh, um…” He glances from me to the bike.

“Come on, dude. You have plenty of space. I’ll give you five stars if you let me.” The pettiest bribe. When he hesitates, I add, “One if you don’t.”

He rolls his eyes. “Sure. Whatever.”

I heave my bike into his car, then jump into shotgun.

“I have that you’re going to 200 Erie Street, Osceola,” Gabe says. “That right?”

“Yes.”

It’s not Jenna’s address. I’ve only been to her house once, and her neighborhood was a goddamn maze, so when Uber’s map popped up, I typed in Osceola, zoomed in on the area of town where she lives, and chose an address at random. Once I get there, I’ll have to hop on my bike and pray I can find it.

As we pull away from the curb, I call Jenna again, but again it rings through. I glance at the map on Gabe’s phone. Ten minutes to our destination. My knee jitters.

The moment we hit Osceola’s main road, I say, “This is good. You can just drop me off here.” I remember turning right into the neighborhood somewhere around where we are now, and I don’t want to risk losing my sense of direction.

“You sure?” Gabe says. “We’re still a few blocks away.”

“I’m sure.”

“All right, then.”

Before he’s even come to a complete stop, I fling open the door and jump out. I hear him mutter, “Jesus, lady,” as I tug open the sliding side door and lug my bike out of the back. A sudden pain shoots up my leg like a knife. I look down to see that one of my pedals has sliced my calf, and a line of blood is running down my leg.

I lift my head to ask Gabe if he has a napkin or something, but the automatic sliding door is already closing. “You know,” he calls through the shrinking gap, “those ratings go both ways.” And then the door is closed and he’s driving away.

I swing my bleeding leg over my bike, and as the air catches the cut, it stings all over again. I pedal off in the direction where I think Jenna’s house is, my calf throbbing as my bike lurches over the train tracks and into the residential area beyond.

The sun has set now, and what little light lingers on the horizon is quickly fading. The endless chirp of crickets joins the deafening buzz of cicadas, but otherwise the town feels still and quiet. Almost preternaturally so. I bike past dark houses and empty lots, the grass overgrown and wild. The streetlights flicker above me, casting an eerie yellow glow over everything I pass.

I’ve been riding for about five minutes when I notice the same rundown church I passed by a few minutes earlier. The same white steeple, the same peeling red paint. I’m going in circles. I pedal past, then take a right. It’s little more than a blind guess, and I pray I’m headed on a path I haven’t explored yet.

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