Lisa McMann - The Missing

Kendall does her chores and homework, mopes about Nico but is glad they’ll have a chance to talk things out tomorrow on the way to Bozeman. Her parents say good night and turn in. By ten thirty Kendall falls asleep on the couch watching music videos.

Kendall wakes up to the doorbell ringing. Once, twice. Bright sunshine streams in through the living room curtains—she slept on the couch all night. Crap , she thinks. Overslept. Bozeman today. She goes to the door in her pajamas.

It’s not Nico.

It’s Jacián. With a side of beef.

“Delivery,” he says. He’s wearing dark sunglasses, and Kendall can’t see his eyes. She grips the placket of her pajama top in residual fifth-grade fear.

“Oh.” She moves out of the way as he brings a box inside. She wonders briefly if she has morning breath. If it were anyone else at the door, she might actually care.

“Freezer?” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“Downstairs. . . . Here.” Kendall runs her fingers through her tangled bed-head and leads him to the basement door, down the steps. It’s cool down here. Smells like rain and dirt. She opens the freezer door and hurriedly rearranges the containers of sweet corn she and her mother prepared and froze last month. She puts them into neat rows, stacking them just right.

“This is heavy,” Jacián says.

Kendall stops arranging. “Just . . . set it on the floor. I’ll pack the freezer.”

He sets the box down and heads up the stairs two at a time. “There’s another box,” he calls over his shoulder.

“I should hope so,” Kendall says. “Or else it’s a really small cow. One of them mini cows.” Nobody hears her.

A moment later Jacián is back. He flips his sunglasses to rest on top of his head, and he starts unpacking the box. Kendall blocks him from putting anything away. “It’s okay, really. I got it.”

“My grandfather said I’m supposed to do this,” he says. “It’s part of the Hector Farms’ service.” His voice turns sarcastic at the end, and Kendall remembers her conversation with Hector.

“It’s really not necessary.” Kendall is in the organizing groove, and she wants it done just right.

“You’re doing it wrong, anyway. Put all the steaks together, hamburger together, roasts together. Not by size and shape but by category, or you’ll never know how much of one item you have left.”

Kendall stops cold, stands up straight, and glares at him. She puts one hand on her hip and holds a two-pound package of frozen hamburger in the other. “Go force your condescending man-logic on the next house. You can go now.”

He glares back and doesn’t leave. He works his jaw, like he wants to say something.

Kendall’s mind flashes to Tiffany Quinn. She glances at the freezer, picturing it full of chopped-up abducted girls, and then looks back at Jacián, whose black eyes are on fire now. A wave of irrational fear moves through her chest, and she tries not to show it on her face. She’s down in the cellar with a kidnapper, nobody else home. “Go away. Please.”

Jacián’s eyes narrow, then soften. “Fine.” He steps back, turns sharply, and walks up the stairs. Kendall hears his feet and the click of the front door closing.

She glances over her shoulder nervously as she packs the beef in the freezer. By size and shape. It’s the only way she can stand to do it.

She rushes through her shower and gets ready. Waits until almost noon for him to show up. And then she calls Nico’s house. Nico’s line is busy. Kendall hangs up and calls the home line instead. Mrs. Cruz answers.

“Hey, Mrs. Cruz. Nico there?”

“Kendall! No, haven’t seen him up yet this morning. Leave a message?”

“Hmm.” Kendall thinks. “We’re supposed to go to Bozeman today. Maybe you should wake him up.”

“Sure thing. I’ll have him call you in a minute.”

“Thanks!”

“Bye, hon.”

“Bye, Mrs. Cruz.”

Kendall hangs up and flips on the TV. The news anchor talks about that sixteen-year-old serial killer in Brazil again—the girl who killed twelve people. Wow. Just wait until she tells Nico. Makes Jacián the teenage kidnapper look just a little bit lame.

Twenty minutes pass, and Kendall grows concerned that Nico hasn’t called. Just when she’s about to call him again, the phone rings.

It’s Nico’s mother.

“Kendall,” she says, her voice distressed, “Nico’s not home. His bed is made. There’s no note.”

Kendall’s stomach jumps into her throat before she can think rationally. “Is his car gone?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Well, that’s good, then, right? He’s probably just out somewhere.” Kendall’s tongue is thick. She swallows hard. Breathes.

“Yes, that’s probably it,” Mrs. Cruz says, and then she laughs anxiously.

Kendall whispers, “Maybe he went to Bozeman without me.”

They find the car. It’s not in Bozeman. It’s parked at the school.

And Nico’s not there.

After a cursory search through the town and all around the school grounds, Nico’s parents start contacting everybody they can think of, asking if they’ve seen him.

There is no sign of Nico Cruz.

Nico’s car engine is cold, and according to Sheriff Greenwood, there are no clues inside. Not in the car, or in the school. Still, they tape off everything as a precaution. After what happened with Tiffany Quinn, it’s never too soon to suspect a missing person. Everybody’s on edge.

When Kendall hears the news about the car, she runs the mile from her house to the school. The car looks so lonely sitting there, surrounded by onlookers. Air crushes her chest. She sinks to her knees, can’t catch her breath. People start crowding around her to see the car, the school . . . as if there is something to see. But there’s nothing. Just a car, a building. Yellow tape.

“He could be fine,” someone says. “Maybe we’re all overreacting. He’s practically a grown man. Maybe he’s out for a hike.”

“Maybe he’s hunting back in the woods.”

“Maybe his car ran out of gas and he pulled in here.”

“Yes, let’s not jump to conclusions.”

But the other whispers are there too, growing louder. “Another one. What’s happening to our safe little town? All the children are disappearing.”

Kendall tries, fails to tune them all out.

It’s all she can do to just breathe. And count.

Count breaths: thirty-six. Count stones in the dirt: more than fifty. Count people saying stupid things: all of them.

Count all the days she’s known him: infinity.

Maybe he’ll be back before she’s done counting.

Maybe not.

The buzzing noise of the people grows louder and louder, and Kendall can’t think. She can’t count with so much distraction. She stands up and shoves through the crowd, screaming, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! All of you just shut up!” Tears blur everything.

Someone grabs her sleeve. Blindly she whips her arm away and runs, runs like hell. Runs almost all the way home, until her feet can’t keep up with her and she plunges forward, down onto the gravel, shredding her palms and knees. And then she just lies there as a huge splash of hurt rips through her body, and she’s so grateful for the pain, because she can feel it. It lets something else loose. She sobs. There in the gravel on the side of the road in front of Nico’s farm, she sobs, under the old rusty mailbox where she used to put notes for him, grasshoppers and bees fly and buzz around her in a panic.