I am so miserable and I want to go home. I wish I had never come here. It’s not fun and my dad is always gone. Ms. Erika with a k says he goes to jail because he gets in trouble a lot, so I always have to stay here with her and April. We move all the time, and I don’t have any friends and they won’t let me call my mom. Please God, I just want to go home. I can’t be here anymore!

Deven blinked back tears as she thumbed forward a few more pages, her sister’s words painting ugly, rancid pictures of abuse and drugs and neglect and negative influences and mingling with the wrong type of crowd. She felt the little girl’s pain leaping from the page and clutching her heart like a vise grip, desperate and longing. Why didn’t anyone help her? She read another passage:

I’ll be 16 tomorrow and April is taking me down to the Juvenile Court so I can fill out my emancipation paperwork. I’ll be so glad when all this is done so I can get my life started. We’re in Charlotte now, far away from my mom and sister because I’m pretty sure they’re still in New Jersey. As soon as I can, I’m getting the hell out of here and going back to my mom’s. Fuck Keith and Erika. I’m done with this shit.

That was the last entry Kennedy wrote while at her dad’s. Her next entry was a year later, apparently her first night after moving back in with Deven and her parents. So, Erika had been right. Kennedy was emancipated at sixteen and moved out. She had used drugs and been homeless for a little bit. The Kennedy now was completely different from the horrors that were described in her childhood, and Deven could only attribute that to Kennedy turning her life around after they connected on social media. But that still didn’t answer the question. Where was her sister now?

Thinking fast, Deven pulled out her phone, ignoring the numerous missed calls and text messages. She snapped pictures as quickly as she could, first of the diary, then a few of the photos of Erika and Kennedy. Just as swiftly, she opened a message and scrolled through the texts Paul had sent. He was urging her to call him. I found out who Erika Garrett is, the last message read. Deven’s fingers flew over the keys. Me too. Look! She knows Kennedy and she knows where she is. Tell Officer McKinney. Then she attached the pictures.