The Missing by Lisa McMann

Author:Lisa McMann
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780007460502
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

By mid-October, Kendall is stuck in a loop of depressing thoughts that won’t leave her. Lost without a goal, lost without her best friend, lost in a thousand acres of potatoes. There is no meaning, no plan. No sense in anything. All she can do is just plod through it. Get the work done so she can get up again the next day and start over. Go to bed before eleven so the missing phone call doesn’t hurt so much. Get to school early so she can do what she has to do, her OCD ball and chain dictating her every waking hour.

Every night she stands by the upstairs window and looks out toward the Cruz farm. She doesn’t know why. It’s just . . . for memory’s sake. And every night it is a dark and lonely view. “I’ll say I’m your girlfriend if you just come back,” she says, her breath fogging up the window. “I promise.”

Tonight she sees a vehicle go down the gravel road slowly, and she watches its brake lights flicker as it navigates potholes. When it’s gone from view, the world is dark again except for the stars and the harvest moon that casts an orange glow over the fields. “I know you can see this moon too, Nico,” she whispers. “Somewhere.”

Just as she turns away from the window, something moving halfway down the driveway catches her eye. She squints and makes out a figure standing there. Her heart jumps. Could it be Nico? She stares harder. It can’t be! In a daze she moves down the stairs, telling herself it’s not him. Someone would have called with the news. By the time she reaches the door, she’s growing scared. If it’s not Nico, then who is standing in their driveway at this hour?

Kendall stops short of flying through the door to gather her senses. Maybe it’s the abductor, ready to grab her. She sucks in a breath and slowly pushes aside the curtain of the window next to the front door and she peers out, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the darkness again.

But there’s no one there. No one that she can see, anyway. Not with so many places to hide . . . long grass, trees, barns, tractors to hide behind. She spins around and runs back upstairs to the window. And from there she sees a figure—a man, she’s sure—running away, cutting the corner of the front field.

She flies over to her phone and dials Eli Greenwood’s number. Sheriff Greenwood answers. “Hello.”

“I just saw a man watching my house.” She’s breathless.

“Mrs. Fletcher?”

“No, it’s Kendall. There was a man standing halfway down our driveway just a couple minutes ago, and I thought it might be Nico, but then he turned and ran away when I went downstairs for a closer look.”

Sheriff Greenwood is quiet. “I’ll head out. Can you give me any description? Do you think it really was Nico?”

Kendall hesitates. “I did at first, but that was probably because I was thinking about him.

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