“Sure.” But we both know that isn’t going to happen, even if she does make it home before I go to bed. I tug the strap of my backpack higher on my shoulder and head for the door.

“Beckett,” my mother calls. I turn, and the way she’s looking at me now is all Mom. “I know that couldn’t have been easy. Finding the baby. I’m so sorry that … Well, I’m just sorry. I hate that you had to see something so sad.”

Again.

She doesn’t say that part out loud, but I know she’s thinking it. Because I am too.

I miss you, Dad.

In the parking lot, I start my car, but before I head home, I text Jake.

come over. now. i found your duffel bag.

Chapter Three

THREE

My dad’s truck is in the driveway. It’s my brother’s truck now, but it always takes me a second to remember that, even seven months after the funeral.

Before my dad died, Penn and I shared the car I drive now—a ten-year-old Corolla with a dented rear bumper that Dad always said he was going to pound out with a rubber mallet. But he never got around to it.

I run into my brother on my way into the house. He’s wearing sweats, running shoes, and a Clifford High hoodie.

“Hey,” he pants, jogging in place on the front porch, and I can see from the sheen of sweat on his forehead that he’s already done the first part of his workout, which was probably a million push-ups, or something equally insane.

“Hey.” I let the screen door slam behind me as I head through the living room and into the kitchen.

A second later, the door slams again as he follows me back into the house.

“Where’s Landry?” Penn asks from the kitchen doorway, and now he seems to be jogging in place just to annoy me.

“Isn’t she here?”

“Beck, you were supposed to pick her up.”

“Oh shit.”

Mom never gets off work in time, so Penn and I take turns driving half a mile to the middle school after seventh period, and he’s right. Today was my day.

“I forgot.” I close the fridge door—we’re out of sodas anyway—and text my little sister.

sorry i’m late. on my way

It’s after four o’clock. She’s been out of school for more than an hour, probably sitting on a bench out front, all by herself. Why didn’t she text?

Her response comes almost immediately.

kitchen window

I pull back the curtain hanging over the sink, and there’s my little sister, waving from the kitchen window of her best friend Norah Weston’s house, next door. Norah’s sister, Anna, is a senior. I think she has a couple of classes with Penn.

I call Landry.