I swipe open my message history with Abigail, and then to my shock I see three little dots flickering in the bottom corner. She’s there. She’s writing back to me, right now. I feel the flutter of relief, then anger, and it’s an effort of will not to start typing something myself right now. But I don’t want her to know I’m right here waiting; I don’t want to make her skittish. So I just wait and watch the three dots pause, disappear, then start again…and pause, for longer this time, and once again flicker into motion. I clench my hands to avoid the temptation to just hit Call. I hold my breath, waiting. A car passes and I look out the window.

When I allow myself to look down at my phone again, the dots are gone…and I wait, but they stay gone. What feels like a full minute more goes by, until it becomes clear my sister doesn’t mean to send that message after all.

Abigail, I text. What is it? What’s going on?

Silence.

Just tell me, I text. But this time when I hit send, instead of showing up blue, my message turns green. Not delivered. I catch a breath. This better not mean what I think it means.

I hit Call, and sure enough, after just one ring it goes straight to voicemail, confirming all my worst suspicions.

She’s turned it off. My runaway sister’s gone and turned her damned phone off.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

I’ve channeled my nervous energy into a full deep-clean of the kitchen when I hear Mom’s car in the driveway. I’m so angry at my sister right now. I’m beginning to think Oliver was right about the affair. If whatever was going on right now was halfway acceptable, she would just tell us.

I hear the door close, and then Sam’s voice indistinctly in the corridor. Mom says something and then there’s the crackle and swell of the television turning on, and some sports presenter speaking. I hear Mom’s footsteps in the hall, and then she appears in the kitchen doorway.

“Gillian…Sam and I were talking in the car.” She looks at me. “It sounds like Abigail was acting rather oddly for a few days before all this happened, according to what he said.”

I was about to share my rage with her over what just happened with Abigail’s phone, but now I hit pause on that.

“Sam says,” Mom goes on, “that she was on her laptop and phone all the time during the past couple of weeks. Very distracted, he said; hardly knew he was in the room sometimes.” Mom pauses. “And apparently on a few occasions her eyes were red like she’d been crying.” She looks at me, frowning. “What do you make of that?”