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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2022 by David Bell

  Cover and internal design © 2022 by Sourcebooks

  Cover design by Katie Klimowicz

  Cover photo © Claudia Lommel/Stocksy

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567–4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of Congress.

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Video #1

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Video #2

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Video #3

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Seventy-Eight

  Seventy-Nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-One

  Eighty-Two

  Eighty-Three

  The Final Video

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For Molly

  Video #1

  I push the red record button.

  I’ve never made a video like this, never tried to talk so openly to strangers. Icy sweat trickles down my back. I don’t know what to say or how to begin.

  My face beams back at me, pale and thin from the time I spent in the hospital. I wear a small white bandage on my forehead, and I’m still feeling the effects of the concussion. Bright lights make me wince like a vampire exposed to the sun. If I move too quickly, I get nauseated, and my ears won’t stop ringing.

  It’s time to talk. My phone is recording, and I can’t just sit here staring.

  I almost turn it off—shut it down.

  But I need to talk. I need to get this out.

  “Hi,” I say, before realizing how simple that sounds. “My name is Hunter Gifford. I’m seventeen years old. A senior. I don’t know, maybe a lot of you already know who I am. I guess everything that happened has been in the news. That’s why I’ve stopped looking at my phone. Or talking to anybody. Or maybe they’ve stopped talking to me. I’m not really sure. But it has the same effect. Normally, I like to write things down to make sense of my life, but I haven’t been able to write since the accident. I just stare at the blank page and nothing comes out. So I decided to give this a try.”

  I clear my throat and watch the red light. My face looks even whiter than when the video started…if that’s possible.

  I remind myself to keep talking.

  “I’m making this video because of all the things that happened that night. Because of the accident. And because my girlfriend, Chloe Summers, hasn’t been seen since then. A whole week ago. She was in the car that night, but no one has seen or heard from her since. I guess I should back up. I think she was in the car that night. She should have been. We’ve been dating. We went to homecoming together.” I try to swallow again, but I can’t produce any spit. “We went everywhere together. So I assume we left the dance together, but I don’t know for sure. Because of the accident, and what happened to my head…”

  I see myself point to the bandage. My movements look awkward, but I don’t want to stop and start over. If I stop, I may not start again.

  “I don’t remember the accident. I don’t remember much of that night. There are holes—blind spots I just can’t see. And that means I don’t know what caused the accident. Or what happened to Chloe. The police told me we drove into a tree in Dad’s Charger, and somehow I ended up at the hospital. The truth is, no one even knows how I got there. The police think a Good Samaritan found me dazed, wandering on the side of the road, and dropped me off. But Chloe was gone. Everything she had with her—her purse, her phone, even her shoes—was still in the car. But no Chloe. Gone without a trace. That’s what they keep saying on the news.”

  My mouth is dry, and my lips look like cracked pottery, but I need to finish.

  “So I’m hoping someone out there knows what happened. To Chloe, I mean. Everyone is worried. Her parents. Her friends. Her teachers. Me. If you know, just call the police. Or message me. Or tell a teacher or somebody. Because she’s somewhere, right? And she might be hurt. She might not remember anything just like I don’t. And she’s probably scared or confused or cold or completely out of her mind.”

  The next part makes me nervous. I’ve thought about leaving it out. It’s really personal. Everyone thinks people my age just spill everything all over social media, but I’m not like that.

  But it feels right. It does.

  “And, Chloe, if you’re seeing this…well, I don’t know what happened that night. I don’t remember. I really don’t. But I remember that I love you.” I pause. I don’t even try to swallow because I can’t. “And I want to know where you are and that you’re safe. I just want to know that more than anything. Even if you don’t want to see me or date me, I need to know you’re safe.”

  I take a deep breath. The red light blinks back at me.

  I should probably smile. My whole life, people have told me to smile more. Smile when I have my picture taken, and smile when I meet a stranger. But I don’t like smiling that way because it feels weird and fake.

  My skin feels itchy, my limbs stiff. I don’t want to smile, but I want to look concerned.

  Worried. Or whatever I’m supposed to be.

  But I don’t know how to do that, either, so I end my spiel.

  “Just let me know, okay?”

  I push the red button to stop recording.

  One

  The alarm rings, but I’m already awake.

  I slept maybe an hour, and my eyes burn like they’ve been scoured with bleach.

  I groan, a noise full of desperation, and pick up my phone to silence the screeching alarm. The concussion effects make it sound ten times louder.

  My screensaver taunts me. A photo of Chloe and me taken on a day we spent at the lake during the summer. We’re both smiling, and a burst of sunlight pops over her right shoulder. Like she’s glowing. Her eyes are bright blue.

 
; During the brief time I slept, her face filled my dreams. She was alive and by my side. I reached out to touch her, to take her hand. Contact with her skin always sent an electric jolt through my body, and every cell in me jangled with energy when we were close.

  But then I woke up and landed in reality with a cold splash. I groan again. No words, sounds, or thoughts are enough to sum up everything that has gone wrong. Chloe is missing.

  My head hurts, a constant reminder of the crash. I take in the familiar surroundings of my bedroom, the things that used to make me feel at home. A shelf full of science fiction and fantasy novels. The covers worn, the books well-read. A poster of the movie Dune—the original—that Mom bought years ago. A cactus Chloe gave me that she named Harriet after her favorite book, Harriet the Spy. A few of the soccer trophies and ribbons I still display.

  My phone tempts me. I posted the video last night, and then checked the page about fifty times a minute.

  Big mistake.

  The number of views was nothing to write home about. But the comments…

  You killed her.

  You know the truth.

  You’re a liar.

  Memory loss. Right.

  But I kept looking, hoping for the one person who might have posted something helpful—the one person with the missing piece of the puzzle. But it never came. I finally put down the phone around 4:00 a.m. and tried to sleep. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t help. Awake or asleep, I only see Chloe’s face, the wrecked car, the lonely spot by the woods on County Road 250. Chloe was there that night when the car crashed…wasn’t she?

  Where is she now?

  Water runs in the bathroom down the hall. My sister, Olivia, getting ready for school. I know where I have to go today. I just don’t know what lurks ahead.

  The rumpled covers and the soft pillow tempt me to stay in bed, but if I do, I’ll only think about Chloe all day. I’d stare at photos and texts all day. I’d start to read the hateful comments again, the conspiracy theories and accusations. The stories claiming Chloe was taken into the woods by Satan worshippers. I know I’d give in to it all.

  I’ve been hiding in my room for almost a week, ever since I came home from the hospital. The therapist said to go back to school, return to my normal life.

  Routine is therapeutic, she told me.

  I grab the jeans I threw over a chair last night. A shirt from the closet. Socks and shoes. I’ll give her advice a try, even though I don’t believe for one minute anything will be therapeutic. And nothing will ever make me feel normal again.

  Two

  In the kitchen, a bizarre sight greets me. Dad stands at the stove holding a beat-up wooden spoon, stirring something in a pan. Whatever it is appears to be smoking and smells like hot tar on a summer day. I gag.

  Dad is dressed for work. Tan pants, olive green sweater with the sleeves pushed up. He smiles at me, but it’s forced. The way you’d smile at someone you feel sorry for.

  “I’m making oatmeal,” he says. “I thought…well, this is what you eat in the morning. Right?”

  “I usually have cereal.”

  “Oh, I thought…not oatmeal. Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure, Dad.”

  “Do you want me to…” He points at the refrigerator. “I can make the cereal.”

  “I can make cereal,” I say.

  “Okay. I mean, if you’re sure. I just wanted to…”

  Dad teaches history at the community college. He’s always reading something or grading papers. His words frequently trail off in the middle of sentences. People who’ve taken his class tell me it’s so inspiring how much he loves history, that when he lectures about some important topic like D-Day or the Civil Rights Movement, he goes on and on until one of the students reminds him the period is over.

  When I ask if they’ve ever gone to his office hours, they say, “I’ve never done that. He’s not really the kind of professor you go talk to.”

  I always want to tell them, He’s not that kind of dad, either.

  Which is why the oatmeal is so weird. Dad last made breakfast…never. At most, he points to the coffee he brewed or the loaf of bread for toast before he rushes out the door for his way-too-early office hours.

  He hands me the wooden spoon like it’s a fragile ancient artifact. “Here you go. If you put some cinnamon in there…the burning taste or whatever.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Since he’s made the effort, I grab a bowl, slide the pan off the burner, and scrape out some oatmeal. Dad just stands there by the table, holding his coffee mug like he has all the time in the world. Like a guy trying to show no sense of urgency. And utterly failing.

  This is about me going back to school. I can feel it.

  “I’m okay, Dad. I can handle it.”

  “I know, I know. I don’t doubt that.” He takes a loud sip of his coffee. “It was on the news this morning that the latest search didn’t come up with anything. They’re not…not sure when they’ll do a big search again.”

  “Are they giving up?” I ask.

  “Not that,” he says. “It’s just…to get that many volunteers out.”

  “People have short attention spans.”

  Dad nods. He has as much faith in humanity as I do.

  His overstuffed messenger bag and his laptop sit by the door. He taps his foot against the tile, shifts his weight.

  Dad is almost fifty but still thin, not like most dads. He rides his bike on the weekends, rarely overeats. Once a month he sits in the backyard looking at the stars and smoking a cigar that smells worse than the burnt oatmeal. He must think about Mom on those nights, but I never ask.

  “You see, Hunter, people can be…cruel. They can say things. You’ve been in the news, and some people always think the worst about the boyfriend when something like this happens.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “I’m just saying…”

  The spoonful of oatmeal nearly chokes me. It tastes scorched, like he stirred ashes into the pot as a seasoning. I don’t want to hurt his feelings but…

  “I’m just saying that if you want to stay home today, or if you just don’t…I mean some kids get homeschooled. I can certainly help with that. And my colleagues on campus can help, too.”

  Mom died of breast cancer a year and a half ago. Since then, Dad has pretty much had to do everything. He works a lot and pays the bills. He drove us around everywhere until I got my license. He tries in his own weird way to be both parents, even though it’s not his strong suit. Things are always a little awkward with him.

  Tears form in my eyes. I stare at the gross oatmeal like it’s the most important thing in the world. Like black tar breakfast is my absolute favorite. I can’t look at him. Not now.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” I say. “I’m ready. I need to do it sooner rather than later. Besides, it’s better than sitting around the house just…thinking.”

  “And your head, it’s... Is it feeling better? The nausea?”

  “No nausea,” I say. Unless I eat more oatmeal. “Just a little headache. It’s getting there.”

  Dad nods. Maybe he even looks a little relieved. He wants me back in school, getting on with my life. And he hates having his routine disrupted.

  He finishes his coffee and sets his mug on the counter with a little thump. “Well,” he says.

  One of our awkward silences descends on us. He’s ready to go but doesn’t know how to leave.

  And I don’t have anything else to say to him. As usual.

  Olivia clomps down the stairs. She comes into the kitchen like a miniature hurricane, her phone clutched in her hands, her eyes and mouth wide.

  “Oh my God, you guys,” she says. “Did you see this?”

  Three

  “See what?” Dad asks.

  He looks like a poisonous snake has just curled up next to his foot. His son is a murder suspect, and he can’t handle any more bad news.

  Olivia is holding her phone like it’s a holy book she’s about to read from. She’s fifteen and dressed in her usual outfit: combat boots, tight jeans, black T-shirt, flannel shirt tied around her waist. She has a new streak of color in her brown hair. Purple this time. Last week it was pink.

  Dad is about to get blindsided. He would have told me not to do it. To keep my mouth shut and put my head down until everything blows over. As if it ever will…