Wendy frowned. Jordan never missed a chance for gossip. Any time anything interesting happened in the hospital—like a local boy shooting off his friend’s toe when they were illegally hunting in the woods or a doctor making one of the medical assistants cry—Jordan was all over it. She bounced from person to person, poking for details and prodding for information, before finding Wendy and divulging everything she found out.

She was hiding something.

“Hey, hold on,” Wendy said as tension clawed into her shoulders.

“Sit!” Jordan pushed her into a seat at the lopsided round table littered with paper plates and leftover takeout utensils. “Okay, I know you don’t like celebrating your birthday—” Jordan blew through the room, snatching a pair of plastic forks and grabbing a Tupperware container from the old fridge. “But you’re turning eighteen! So, I had to do something.”

“Jordan.”

“I made your favorite!” Jordan didn’t so much as look up as her hands fumbled to get the Tupperware lid off. “See?” The smile on Jordan’s face was shaky at best as she busied herself with placing a yellow cupcake on a small plate in front of Wendy. The dollop of chocolate frosting was melting down the side of the paper. “It didn’t come out quite right, but you know I suck at baking.”

Wendy’s heart drummed in her throat. Why wouldn’t Jordan look at her? “Jordan.”

“But my dad ate, like, three and hasn’t showed up at the emergency room,” Jordan mused as she stuck a purple candle into the cupcake and lit it with a yellow lighter. “So it can’t be that bad!”

“Jordan,” Wendy pressed insistently.

Jordan pushed the cupcake at Wendy, her wide smile looking more like a grimace. “Make a wish!”

“JORDAN!” Jordan cringed and even Wendy jumped at the loudness of her own voice. Finally, Jordan glanced up, her eyebrows tipped and lips pressed between her teeth. “What’s going on?” Wendy repeated, her words much more uneven now as she leaned forward. The heat of the candle brushed her chin. “Why are there so many cops here? What happened?”

When Jordan spoke, her voice was gentle. “Ashley Ford went missing.”

It was like a giant hand pressed all of the air from Wendy’s lungs. “Missing?” Automatically, Wendy pulled out her phone. She hadn’t received an AMBER Alert, but the file room was concrete and got no cell phone reception.

“Earlier today,” Jordan continued. She watched Wendy carefully as she spoke.

The room tilted. Wendy gripped the edge of the table with sweaty palms to steady herself. “But I just saw her this morning.”

“Apparently, she was playing in the front yard. Her mom walked inside to get something, and when she walked back out, Ashley was gone.”