Page 84 of Just Another Missing Person

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Emma

“What did she say?” you say to me. “Is my arrest imminent?”

I stare at the phone in my palm. “She’s—gone,” I say, not comprehending it. Thecall failednotification. I try to call her back, but it goes straight to voice mail.

“Gone?” you say.

“I—I don’t know. She just—went. I was saying what I found, the diner... and she—she disappeared. Off the line. There was maybe a—I don’t know? A scuffle? I heard something...”

To my surprise, your fury, your desperation, seem to evaporate. “A scuffle?” you say. “What kind of scuffle?” You step toward me. A passing car lights up our living room in a brief white flash.

“I don’t know. We were talking and then she went.”

You walk this way and that across the room, your thumbnail in your mouth. In this whole debacle—after Sadie disappeared, your initial interview, Olivia, your second arrest—this is the first time I have seen you truly unsettled. You’ve been irritated, gutted sometimes, but nothing like this. It’s like you’re walking on knives, your gait is strange, your movements quick.

“Is she okay?” you ask.

“I have no idea,” I say plainly, factually, caring more about you than about DCI Day. The nonsensical way parents feel. It wouldn’t matter who you were, and what you did, whether or not I handed you over to the police. I would always love you, the boy who grew in my body.

You glance at me across the living room and—I can’t explain it—it feels like the first time we have made eye contact in months. Maybe in over a year. Your blue, intense stare burns on to mine like laser beams. “I...” you start to say. You’re still looking at me.

“What?” I say, but I only whisper it, not wanting to frighten you. Another car streaks by outside, too fast. We both watch the brake lights disappear into the distance, observe the darkness redescend, rain seen tumbling only in the glow of the streetlamps.

“She can’t go to that diner,” you say.

“Why?”

“She’s in danger,” you say. “We all are. Anyone who knows.”

“What?” I stand, my body as quick as an animal’s, ready to defend, to protect you. Ready—at last?—for answers.

You pause, swallow, looking at me. “Sadie’s at that diner. And Day—if Day finds her...”

I gape, absolutely speechless. It’s something people say, isn’t it, but it’s never once happened to me. Zero ability to find any words. All I can do is stare at you. My whole body goes cold, my teeth begin to chatter. “Sadie’s alive?”

“Julia will be being watched, if she’s trying to find Sadie,” you say.

“Why is Sadie there?” I say, still unable to comprehend it. Alive, after all this time. And it’s a surprise only to me, evidently.

“Listen to me,” you say, frustrated, anxious. “I promise, this is life or death. Someone will follow Julia there.”

“Who?”

You look straight at me, now. “Was Julia at home?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know her address?”

“No, I... I barely know... she was about to tell me.”

“Was she going to go to the diner?” he asks, but we both know the answer: of course Julia would check out the diner.

“You’re going to need to explain this to me,” I say.

“There’s no time.” You rush into our hallway, begin putting your trainers on. You struggle with the laces, then the tongues, pulling them out, irritated. “We need to find out where she lives.”

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