I look down and expect to see some kind of lacy lingerie or a little silk slip, but when I unfurl the green bundle, it unfolds into a long-sleeved dress. It’s got brown and yellow flowers printed all over it and looks secondhand.

  “What?” I ask. “What is this?”

  “It’s a dress.” He laughs, as though I’m stupid.

  I can see that, obviously. I can also see that it’s hideous. There’s no way I’m putting it on, I don’t even know why he’d want me to.

  “You’re joking, right?” I say.

  Quinten looks hurt. “You don’t like it?”

  Of course I don’t like it. It looks more like a pair of ugly curtains than a dress, but I don’t want to hurt Quinten’s feelings.

  “I just thought maybe we could… you know.” I place the dress over the end of the couch and try to guide Quinten to come sit back down, but he’s not budging.

  “I want you to wear the dress, Mory.” His eyes are steely and focused on mine.

  “Well, I don’t want to,” I say, crossing my arms defiantly.

  His expression stays the same and he remains unmoving. Something about him has changed, he’s not acting like he usually does. This is getting annoying. I wanted to come here today so we could be alone together, make love and enjoy one afternoon where we don’t have to hide from everyone around us. But instead, he’s taken me to a run-down old building that stinks, and he wants me to wear some disgusting old dress that looks as bad as the ones in the photos my mom found of those girls.

  My stomach turns. This is all wrong. I look around at the wood-paneled walls.

  No. I shake my head to clear away the terrifying thoughts that are now streaming into my mind.

  Quinten picks the dress back up and holds it out to me. “Put it on.”

  “I… I need to get my phone from the car.” I back away, my legs barely holding me up. “I really have to call my mom.”

  Why is my body doing this? Why does my mouth feel sticky every time I talk?

  Quinten catches my arm as I stumble, but his grip remains firm once I’m steady. His eyes flash with an intensity I’ve never seen before. “You’re not going anywhere, Mory.”

  46

  RUBY

  I open the door to see Hutch looking agitated and Felicity with a soothing hand on his shoulder as they stand in the darkness of my doorstep.

  “Has Mory come home yet?” Hutch asks, his voice breaking with concern.

  “No, she hasn’t.”

  I usher them both inside, seeing that young Leo is trailing behind them. Cameron wastes no time grabbing him by the arm and dragging him off to play in the living room with him and Xavier.

  “Sorry.” Felicity grimaces. “I didn’t want to intrude on you like this, but with Quinten away on work I couldn’t leave Leo alone at home, and I wanted to see if I could be of any help here.”

  “It’s no problem,” I say loud enough for her to hear over the three boys’ shrieks of joy. “Thanks for coming over.”

  We move through to the relative quiet of the kitchen and Felicity reaches out and rubs my arm reassuringly. “I’m sure she’s fine, Ruby. We all made our parents worry like this as teens at some point.”

  Hutch’s face is twisted in confusion. “She told me she was going to be too busy to meet up today. She said you guys were doing family stuff.”

  “So, she lied to you, too,” I say. “That’s not like Mory at all. I mean, she worships the ground you walk on.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” Hutch mumbles.

  Both mine and Felicity’s heads turn at this.

  “What do you mean?” Felicity asks her son.

  Hutch shifts his weight uncomfortably to the other foot. “I don’t know. I mean, we spend a lot of time together, but she always seems distracted. I took her on that one date on her birthday, and I thought that was going to be the start of a real relationship, but… I guess she’s not that interested in me.”

  I glance at Felicity, who looks about as confused as I do.

  “You two were holding hands at the party, I remember you sitting together most of the night,” Felicity points out.

  Hutch laughs gently, but there’s no smile on his face. “Yeah. We’ll talk for hours on end, she’ll hold my hand… but every time I think things are going well, she’ll pull away. You guys all keep calling us lovebirds.” His fingers air quote. “But we’ve never even kissed.”

  I can see from the look on Felicity’s face that she’s as surprised by this as I am. For months, Mory has practically been living over at the Parkers’ house and has never corrected me when I’ve referred to Hutch as her boyfriend. But by the sounds of it, I’ve gotten it all wrong.

  “I guess I just got the wrong impression,” I say. “What with how much time you two spend together, doing robotics builds. Not to mention all the nights she sneaks out of the house to meet you.”

  Hutch cocks his head to the side. “At night? What do you mean?”

  I smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve known for a while about your little night-time rendezvous. She said you guys like to hang out by the falls together.”

  Hutch shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never met up with Mory at night.”

  My heart drops and silence washes over the three of us, broken only by the sounds of the kitchen clock ticking its way slowly towards 9pm. It’s becoming increasingly clear that I don’t actually know my daughter as well as I thought I did. What exactly has she been hiding from me? And from Hutch, for that matter? If her night-time trips aren’t to go meet Hutch, then who? My heart begins to race and I feel a little dizzy.

  “Ruby, maybe you should sit down,” Felicity suggests, pulling out a chair and guiding me into a sitting position.

  She gets a glass from the cupboard and pours some water before passing it to me.

  I take a sip with trembling hands. “I just wish she’d come home. I want to talk to her. Ask her why she’s been lying to me. But what can I even do about it? Ground her? How do I enforce consequences at her age?”

  “One step at a time, Ruby. Let’s just focus on tracking her down first, before you begin to overreact.”

  “You think I’m overreacting?” I let out a demented laugh. “You should see how her father will react if he finds out I let her go missing. He’ll try to get full custody of both the kids. I’m sure of it.”

  “Oh, stop it.” Felicity shoos off the idea with her hands. “He wouldn’t have any grounds to do that.”

  “How about me being dragged home drunk from your party last night—not even knowing where my kids were?” Tears spring to my eyes. “And now this! Mory up and leaving, and I don’t even know any of her friends’ names or phone numbers to check if she’s with them.”

  I suddenly feel like the worst mother in the world. Maybe Mory and Cameron would be better off living with their father.

  Felicity sinks down into a crouch in front of me. “Ruby, look at me.”

  I sniff and swipe at my wet eyes, lifting my gaze to her determined stare.

  “You are doing the very best you can by those kids. It’s okay if you make a few mistakes here and there. Lord knows, all of us mothers do.”

  “She’s got that right,” Hutch chimes in.

  Felicity shoots him an annoyed look before turning back to me. “You’re the best mom those kids could ever ask for. Don’t you ever think otherwise.”

  Ugh. Why is this woman so great? It’s annoying.

  “Thanks, Felicity,” I say, feeling a little better. “I just know that if Mory were with her dad, this would never happen. He doesn’t even let her fly home from Arizona without—” I stop.

  “What?” Felicity asks. “What is it?”

  But I don’t answer. Instead, I grab my phone and dial Aaron’s number.

  47

  MORY

  The rough material of the dress itches at my arms and the collar digs into my neck. I want to rip it off. I want to run out of this old cabin and flag someone down for help, but I can’t even get up. I barely have the strength to move. My eyes are trying to close but I won’t let them. I refuse to lose what little power I still have left.

  “You have such beautiful hair. You know that?” Quinten stands behind the couch, pulling a comb through my hair. “I don’t usually have time to do the hair.”

  I’m not listening. I’m trying to think of a way out of here. But even if I could get to the door, I couldn’t run. He put something in my soda earlier, I think. And even if I could run, there’s nothing around for miles. We didn’t pass any houses for a long time before we arrived.

  “You left those photos at my mom’s house,” I say quietly. “You brought those girls here.”

  Quinten stops brushing my hair and lowers his head right next to mine above my shoulder. I close my eyes.

  “You like my pretty pictures?” he says softly, his breath hot, making the hairs on my neck bristle. “Those are my special girls.”

  There’s something about how he says this that sends a shiver through my core.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, soothingly. “You’re special, too.”

  This does not make me feel any better. I don’t know how this is the same man I’ve come to know. The man who would kiss me the moment Hutch left the room. The man who waited for me by the waterfall all those nights and gave me his jacket to wear when it got cold. The man who wrapped his arms around me in a secret embrace when the lights were out and everyone waited in the darkness ready to surprise his wife last night.

  This man looks the same. He has the same floppy blond hair that falls into his eyes as he moves. He has the same clothes, the same face. But the man inside seems to be gone now. I don’t know who I’m talking to anymore.

  My eyes droop, but I force them back open and when the room comes into focus, I finally see it. I was so caught up in being alone with him here that I didn’t notice how familiar those wood-paneled walls looked. They are in the background of each of the pictures Mom found.

  “Where are those girls? What did you do to them?” I ask, terrified of what the answer might be.

  Quinten resumes brushing my hair. He’s silent for a long time, and I can hear my heart beating faster with every second as I wait for him to reply.

  “We used to come here every summer. Me. My mother, Beth. My father, Charlie,” he says. “I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and there were no neighbors for miles, so I’d make my own fun.”

  The flickering light from the dim bulb casts his shadow out in front of me as he speaks. I suddenly feel like a child as I look at that shadow. There’s a monster behind me and I want more than anything for my mom to come and take it away. But she has no idea I’m here. She has no idea who I’m with.

  “I had my own ways of keeping myself entertained. Sometimes, I’d take a stick and carve shapes into the mud. Other times, I’d catch frogs and pin them to tree trunks with my knife. Boyhood exploration. I wanted to see how long they would wriggle around, trying to escape, before they’d stop moving. Gauge their tolerance. Like my father would do to my mother.”

  I have an eight-year-old brother, I know what kind of games boys play and it’s never that.

  “My memories are wrapped up in these woods. By that lake.” He stops brushing my hair and puts down the comb before moving to the window, as though lost in his past.

  “Please… just let me go.” My whining plea is pitiful even to my own ears, but Quinten pays it no attention.

  “You know, when I’d tell my mother about my adventures in the woods, she’d listen so carefully, as if I were narrating the greatest story ever told. She always knew how to see the beauty in the darkness.”

  Quinten’s gaze snaps back to me. His eyes are dark and intense, they bore into mine, almost searching for a reaction.

  “You know, my father would punish me for my little experiments, but my mother…” he pauses. “She was the closest thing this world will ever see to an angel. She always wore a smile. It didn’t matter what my father did. He’d choke her, kick her, spit in her face, but she’d never let me see her pain. He would roar and rage, throw her around, and I would cry. But she never once let me see her shed a tear. She’d wait until his back was turned and you know what she’d do to let me know she was okay?”

  I say nothing but I watch as his dark eyes now begin to glisten in the low light. I see something in his hands as he spins it absentmindedly. It’s an old-style instant camera.

  “She’d give me a smile.” His voice wavers for just a moment. “A big, beautiful smile. Wide and open. A special, secret smile. A smile just for me.”

  48

  RUBY

  “What do you mean you can’t find her, what’s happening?” Aaron’s voice rises.

  I hear a worried Caitlyn in the background asking what’s going on.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.” My confident tone belies my fear. “She’s probably just with a friend.”

  “Well did you try calling around? Have any of her friends seen her today?”

  I try to bypass this, not knowing how to break the news to my ex-husband that I know exactly zero of our daughter’s friends. Well, that’s not entirely true, I guess, since Hutch revealed that Mory has kept him strictly in the friend zone.

  “She’s a sensible girl, Aaron. She’s not a small child anymore, she’s seventeen. We aren’t always going to know where she is.” I pause for a moment before continuing. “But even so, can you give me her location from your tracker?”

  There’s a sigh on the other end of the line. “Yeah. Yeah. I’ll check the app now and text you the location. But, Ruby, if I haven’t heard back from you in the next hour that she’s home safe and well, I’m calling the cops.”

  “That’s fair,” I say before we hang up.

  It’s well after dark now and the boisterous noises from upstairs seem to have quieted down. Maybe the three boys have fallen asleep.

  Felicity brings me a cup of herbal tea, which I take gratefully. The warm liquid soothes my chest as it goes down, somewhat calming my nerves.

  “Any word from Justin?” Hutch asks. He looks tired, dark bags beginning to form under his eyes.

  “Nothing yet. But if he does spot her around town, I know he’ll call me straight away,” I assure him.

  A warm feeling of gratitude washes over me. At least Mory has one friend who is looking out for her. It seems so strange, though, for her to have shied away from taking their relationship further. I know how much she cares for him. A memory suddenly hits me; that phone call we had over the summer, while she was staying in Arizona with her father. I remember she was so torn up, crying—sobbing big, choked tears—and telling me she missed him so much and that she loved him. But… if she wasn’t talking about Hutch, then who was she talking about?

  My phone dings with a message and I open it to see that Aaron has sent me a screen shot of the tracking app.

  This is the last place her phone was located before it turned off. Familiar at all?

  I stare at the image. There is a red pin stuck in a map, green terrain surrounding it for what looks like miles. Above the pin reads ‘White Crane Road’.

  “What the hell?” I murmur.

  “What?” Felicity is suddenly behind me, looking over my shoulder.

  “This is where her phone was last tracked to. Nearly two hundred miles north of here,” I say, incredulously. “What on earth is she doing out there in the middle of nowhere?”

  Hutch jumps up and joins his mother, looking down at the screen in my hands.

  “White Crane Road,” he reads. “That… that kind of sounds familiar.”

  I whip my head around. “Do you know anybody who lives out that way? Someone from school?”

  Hutch shakes his head. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. But I… I don’t know. It just rings a bell is all.”

  I try not to get frustrated with Hutch, but he’s giving me enough to think there might be a good reason for Mory to be out there, miles from home, but not enough to actually help me.

  My phone pings again. Aaron.

  Ruby, this is all wrong. I’m calling the cops.

  Two minutes ago, I might have protested out of fear we were overreacting. But now that I’ve seen the image from the tracking app, I know he’s right. I type back:

  Okay. I’m going to drive out to that location now.

  I quickly pull up the map on my phone, which determines the pinpointed area is nearly a three-hour drive from here. I’m not waiting around for the cops. I need to find Mory and see for myself that she’s okay.

  I call Justin and give him the update. He says he’ll come back now to stay with the boys while I make the drive.

  “Felicity, do you think you could stay here and look after the boys until Justin gets back?” I ask. “He won’t be long, and I need to leave right now.”

  There’s no response from Felicity who is staring at the window, into the darkness outside.

  “Felicity?” I say again.

  She looks back at me, apparently only just hearing me now. She opens her mouth to say something and then stops. “Sorry, what?” she finally mutters.

  “I said could you stay here with the boys? I’m going to drive out to White Crane Road. Hopefully Mory isn’t far from where her phone was last tracked.”

  Felicity looks dazed. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her. It’s not like it’s her daughter who’s missing, but she looks as white as a ghost.

  “Um… yes. Of course. I’ll stay here with the boys.” There’s a strange warble to her voice, but I don’t have time to worry about what’s going on with her right now.

  “Thanks.” I grab my keys from my purse and start for the door. “If Cameron asks, just tell him I’ll be back in a while.”

  I wait for a response from Felicity, but she’s gone back to staring out the window.

  Inside my car I prop my phone up inside the holder on the dash, punch in the location and listen as the robotic female voice starts giving me orders. I pull on my seat belt and start the engine up, but before I can put my foot on the gas, the passenger side door suddenly opens and a figure jumps in beside me.