Лиза Гарднер - Before She Disappeared

Also by Lisa Gardner

novels

The Perfect Husband

The Other Daughter

The Third Victim

The Next Accident

The Survivors Club

The Killing Hour

Alone

Gone

Hide

Say Goodbye

The Neighbor

Live to Tell

Love You More

Catch Me

Touch & Go

Fear Nothing

Crash & Burn

Find Her

Right Behind You

Look for Me

Never Tell

When You See Me

short works

The 7th Month

3 Truths and a Lie

The 4th Man

The Guy Who Died Twice

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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Copyright © 2021 by Lisa Gardner, Inc.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Names: Gardner, Lisa, author.

Title: Before she disappeared : a novel / Lisa Gardner.

Description: [New York] : Dutton [2021] | Series: Before she disappeared 3

Identifiers: LCCN 2020042627 (print) | LCCN 2020042628 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524745042 (hc) | ISBN 9781524745059 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3557.A7132 B44 2021 (print) | LCC PS3557.A7132 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042627

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042628

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover image by Magdalena Zyzniewska / Trevillion Images

pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

To all those who search, so that others may find

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by Lisa Gardner

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

T he water feels like a cold caress against my face. I kick deeper down into the gloom, my long hair trailing behind me like a dark eel. I’m wearing clothes. Jeans, tennis shoes, a T-shirt topped with an open windbreaker that wings out and slows my descent. My clothing grows heavier and heavier till I can barely flutter my legs, work my arms.

Why am I in clothes?

Wet suit.

Oxygen tank.

Thoughts drift through my mind but I can’t quite grab them.

I must reach the bottom of the lake. Where the sunlight no longer penetrates and sinuous creatures lurk. I must find . . . I must do . . .

My lungs are now as heavy as my legs. A feeling of pressure builds in my chest.

An old Chevy truck. Dented, battered, with a cab roof sun-bleached the color of a barely lit sky. This image appears in my mind and I seize it tightly. That’s why I’m here, that’s what I’m looking for. A sliver of silver in the lake’s muck.

I started with sonar. Another random thought, but as I sink lower in the watery abyss, I can picture that, too. Me, piloting a small boat that I’d rented with my own money. Conducting long sweeps across the lake for two days straight, which was all I could afford, working a theory everyone else had dismissed. Until . . .

Where is my wet suit? My oxygen tank? Something’s wrong. I need . . . I must . . .

I can’t hold the thought. My lungs are burning. I feel them collapsing in my chest and the desire to inhale is overwhelming. A single gasp of dark, cloudy water. No longer fighting the lake, but becoming one with it. Then I won’t have to swim anymore. I will plummet to the bottom, and if my theory is right, I will join my target as yet another lost soul never to be seen again.

Old truck. Cab roof sun-bleached the color of a barely lit sky. Remember. Focus. Find it.

Is that a glimpse of silver I see over there, partially hidden by a dense wall of waving grasses?

I try to head in that direction but get tangled in my flapping windbreaker. I pause, treading my legs frantically while trying to free my arms from my jacket’s clinging grip.

Chest, constricting tighter.

Didn’t I have an oxygen tank?

Wasn’t I wearing a wet suit?

Something is so very wrong. I need to hold the thought, but the lake is winning and my chest hurts and my limbs have grown tired.

The water is soft against my cheek. It calls to me, and I feel myself answer.

My legs slow. My arms drift up. I succumb to the weight of my clothes, the lead in my chest. I start to sink faster. Down, down, down.

I close my eyes and let go.

Paul always said I fought too much. I made things too hard. Even his love for me. But of course, I didn’t listen.

Now, a curious warmth fills my veins. The lake isn’t dark and gloomy after all. It’s a sanctuary, embracing me like a lover and promising to never let go.

Then . . .

Not a spot of silver. Not the roof of an old, battered truck that was already a hundred thousand miles beyond its best days. Instead, I spy a gouge of black appearing, then disappearing amid a field of murky green. I wait for the lake grasses to ripple left, then I see it again, a dark stripe, then another, and another. Four identical shapes resting at the bottom of the lake.

Tires. I’m looking at four tires. If I weren’t so damn tired, I’d giggle hysterically.

The sonar had told the truth. It had sent back a grainy image of an object of approximately the right size and shape resting at the bottom of the deep lake. It just hadn’t occurred to me that said object might be upside down.

Pushing through my lethargy now, urgency sparking one last surge of determination. They’d told me I was wrong. They’d scoffed, the locals coming out to watch with rolling eyes as I’d awkwardly unloaded a boat I had no idea how to captain. They called me crazy to my face, probably muttered worse behind my back. But now . . .

Move. Find. Swim. Before the lake wins the battle.

Wet suit. The words flutter through the back of my mind. Oxygen tank. This is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But in my befuddled state, I can’t make it right.

I push myself forward, fighting the water, fighting oxygen deprivation. They’re right: I am crazy. And wild and stubborn and reckless.