It had been over a day since she’d had the interview with the police, and Rebecca had yet to leave Riggs Crossing. She’d spent a sleepless night staring at the clock, punching the pillow and wishing she could sleep, but memories of her sister kept creeping into her brain: Megan crying on the first day of kindergarten. Megan falling off her bike and scraping a knee. Megan getting caught smoking cigarettes in junior high. Megan’s first heartbreak when some kid in eighth grade dumped her, and then the incredible highs and deep lows of her high school years, the high drama that was forever a part of her life.

And then, of course, the betrayal of James Cahill.

Leave.

Everyone knows you’re trying to find Megan: The police. James. Even the stupid press. So let it go. Just leave. You’ve made your point and done all you need to do, all you can do.

So get the hell out.

You can’t help Megan.

God knows, you’ve tried.

Over and over again.

To what end?

So that she could hurt you? Backstab you? Then come running back for you to solve her problems?

Face it, Rebecca: You can’t fix her. No one can.

And she doesn’t want to be fixed.

No matter where she is; no matter what’s happened to her.

Rebecca’s heart ached for a second, but she forced that pain backward just as she had all her life.

As she had when her biological father had left.

As she had when her adoptive father, Donald, had divorced Lenora.

As she had when Megan had stolen James.

But she couldn’t give up.

Not yet.

She had to make a public statement, begging for Megan’s release if she were being held against her will, even though as yet no ransom request had come through. Sometimes women were kidnapped for other reasons, used by their captors. Her skin crawled at the thought of the sex slaves she’d read about, or the people drawn into cults.

Her throat was dry.

She had to do something. Her phone was charging on the small desk in her hotel room, and she snatched it up and scrolled through her recent calls. Reporter after reporter had left messages, the most persistent being Charity Spritz, but she was with the newspaper, and Rebecca thought her plea needed to be televised.

She imagined herself staring into the camera as she begged for whoever held Megan captive, if she were alive, to release her.

That would be effective.

Everyone, including James, would take her impassioned pleas to heart.

But could she go through with it?

Why did she feel like such a phony?