Bel awoke with a start, something hard against the inside of her cheek. A face hovering inches above her own in the morning gloom.
She blinked and so did they.
Bel spluttered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Hello, sleepy,” Carter said, sitting on the bed, Bel’s body dragged toward the dip she made.
“I thought you were fucking Rachel.” Bel clutched her chest, relocating her jumped-up heart. “Did you just poke me in the mouth?” she said, feeling around with her dried-out tongue.
“You poke me all the time,” Carter said, her back now turned.
“Not in the mouth while you’re sleeping, you freak.” Bel kicked her, cushioned through the comforter. “I think maybe I’ve been a bad influence on you.”
“I said your name twice and you didn’t wake up, so I had to resort to drastic measures.”
“I’ll show you drastic measures.” Bel kicked her again, double-footed until Carter had no choice but to tumble off the bed.
She stood up, holding on to the strap of her yellow backpack, the bulk of it trailing on the floor.
“How was ballet yesterday?” Bel asked, gathering her static hair back into a ponytail.
“Fine,” Carter said, sharply, cutting that off. “I thought we could hang out today. My mom’s driving me crazy.”
Carter didn’t know the true meaning of that phrase.
“Thought we could bake cookies with Rachel or something,” Carter continued. “Or go to the movies. Just, please, entertain me.”
Bel swiveled her legs, climbing out of bed. “Me and Dad were planning to go on a hike today. You can come if you want.” She picked up the hoodie lying crumpled on the floor, pulled it on. “Is he downstairs?”
“Haven’t seen him.” Carter headed for the door. “Rachel’s down there.
Said she might attempt pancakes this morning.” “Sounds ominous.”
“Bel,” Carter said, elbowing her in the ribs.
They walked down the stairs together, Bel pushing Carter in front, a shield as they entered the kitchen, and the sputtering sounds from the stove.
“Morning An–ah–Bel, almost had it that time,” Rachel said, cautiously lifting the edge of one chunky pancake, glancing back to smile at them.
Rachel looked tired, darker circles under her eyes, like that lock on her door had done her no good and she still wasn’t sleeping.
“Morning.” Bel cracked the bones in her neck. She, on the other hand, had slept too hard.
“Coffee’s in the pot, help yourself,” Rachel said. “Carter, pancakes for you too?”
“Yes please, Rachel.” Carter grinned, sitting at the table. Her smile faltered. “I-if that’s OK?”
“Of course that’s OK. You can even have the first batch.” Rachel slid the pancakes onto a waiting plate.
“Where’s Dad?” Bel asked, pouring coffee into her favorite mug, plain with a yellow B. B for Bel, not A for Anna.
“Haven’t seen him.” Rachel turned back to the pan, pouring more
mixture.
“Is he in the house?”
“Don’t think so.”
Bel didn’t trust her answer.
“Dad?” she shouted, wandering away to the bottom of the stairs. “Dad?!” she called up.
Nothing.
“Not here.” Bel returned to the kitchen, Rachel handing her a plate with a stack of three pancakes, chocolate chip.
Maybe he’d gone to get sandwiches for their hike. Bel sat down, pulled her phone out of her hoodie pocket. No texts from Dad. Just one from Ash: Let me know if you want to do anything today. She shouldn’t have given him her number, that was a mistake. Dad was right: the film crew couldn’t be trusted.
She took one bite, the batter turning into a thick paste in her dried-out mouth. She swallowed and stood up again, chair screeching against the tiles.
“Where are you…,” Rachel began, sitting down herself.
Bel didn’t answer, heading for the front door, the knot in her gut making itself known, stretching and yawning. She pulled the door open, standing on the threshold, looking up and down the street, as though she could summon Dad over the horizon. He would be back from the store any second, if that was where he’d gone. The road was quiet, too quiet, like something was missing: there were no news vans parked outside. Not one. Rachel Price had officially tipped the scales into Old News, eight days in. Was this the beginning of the end?
Bel’s eye caught on something else, something that wasn’t missing, but should have been. Dad’s truck. It was right here, parked in front of the garage in his usual spot, Rachel’s car tucked beside it. So…he hadn’t gone to the store.
“Dad?!” Bel called through the house again, shutting the door behind her.
“Annabel, your breakfast will get cold,” Rachel’s voice rang out in response.
Bel wandered through, hanging in the doorway, neither in the room or out.
“Doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, more to herself. “Dad’s truck is here, but he isn’t.”
“Eat your pancakes or I will.” Carter swung her legs as she ate. “Did you see him this morning?” Bel stared at Rachel.
“No.” Rachel swallowed. “He must have left before I got up. Didn’t hear anything.”
“But his truck is here.”
Rachel split a pancake in half. “Maybe he had plans with someone.”
“He did have plans,” Bel said, “with me. We were supposed to go on a hike today. He promised.”
They’d both made a promise last night, and Bel was keeping hers. So where was he?
She called him, gripping the phone too hard against her ear. It didn’t even ring.
“Hello, you’ve reached—Charlie Price,” his voice cut in, gruff and prerecorded, “who is unable to take your call right now. Please leave a message after the tone.”
“That’s weird. Straight to voicemail.”
Bel brought up their message thread. Texted: Dad, where are you? Call me back.
It didn’t deliver, the blue bubble of text waiting in the ether, stuck somewhere between her phone and his.
“An–B-Bel, your pancakes.”
“Not hungry.” Bel turned away. There was no room in her stomach, the knot spinning and growing, feeding itself on every bad thought, and one question: Where was Dad?
She sat in Dad’s chair, and she waited. She tried another number.
“Hello, this is Bryson Auto, Gabe speaking. How can I help?”
Bel cleared her throat. “Hi, Gabe. This is Bel Price, Charlie’s daughter.” “Hi, Bel. How’re you doing?” Gabe said, voice whistling through his
back teeth.
“Just wondering if my dad’s there, if he’s working today? He said he’d be home today, but I can’t find him.”
Two rattling breaths leaked out the speaker, into her ear. “Your dad’s not in today. He doesn’t usually work weekends.”
“Right.” Bel chewed her thumb. “But you’ve been busy, he worked late yesterday, and he’s been working late all week, so I just thought—”
“If anything, he’s been leaving early. Family stuff, he said,” Gabe replied, some tool clattering in the background. “Wasn’t in yesterday either. But hey, if I see him, I’ll tell him to give you a call, OK?”
“Y-yeah, thanks.” Bel stared down at the phone before she hung up.
Stared afterward too.
Dad hadn’t gone into work yesterday, hadn’t been working late all week like he said, missing dinner every night. Telling Bel he was at work and telling work he was at home. So where had he really been, and was he there now?
“Still can’t get hold of him?” Rachel’s voice cut in behind her, making her jump.
She shook her head.
“Well…we can go on a hike, you, me and Carter,” Rachel said. “If that’s what you wanted to do today. We could do the Mascot Mine trail.”
“They’ve got barriers up around there,” Carter said, standing on Bel’s other side, trapping her between. “Some kids from school broke open the grate into the mine shaft. I wasn’t there,” she clarified, holding up her hands. “You guys go ahead,” Bel said, removing herself. “I’m going to wait for
Dad. He said he’d be home today. He’ll be back.”
She had no reason to believe that other than he had to, because Dad was the one who always came back. And Bel would wait right here for him to prove her right.
Carter and Rachel played Monopoly. Bel was supposed to be playing too: she rolled the dice, but she bought no properties, happy to sit in jail for three turns.
She tried Dad’s number every thirty minutes. Voicemail. Voicemail. Voicemail. Her text still hadn’t delivered. Why was his phone off? He never
turned his phone off.
Carter left and Rachel stayed, hovering around her.
“I’m sure he’ll be back later.” She reached out, like she was about to rest her hand on Bel’s shoulder.
Bel jumped up before she could.
“I’m going to go look for him,” she announced, thundering upstairs to get dressed.
—
Bel walked past the Royalty Inn and her school, both Sunday quiet. All the way up to Bryson Auto, to see if Gabe was somehow wrong. There was someone else working there too, tinkering beneath a red car, a set of legs and boots.
“Dad?”
The man rolled out; it wasn’t him. “Sorry.”
She stood outside, called Jeff.
“Have you heard from Dad?” she said when he picked up. “Since last night.”
“Hello to you too. No, I haven’t. Why, he not home?” “Or at work,” Bel said. “Not picking up his phone.”
“I’m sure he’s fine. Stop worrying,” he said, which was pretty perceptive for Uncle Jeff, because Bel was worried now, heart nudging up her throat, on a fast track toward panic.
Where was he? Where was he?
She tried every bar and coffeehouse in Gorham, tried them a second time: “You again, you’re underage, get out.”
Sent another text. Called him again, body betraying her, soothing itself at the sound of his recorded voice, “Charlie Price.” Fucking idiot, that wasn’t the real him, riling her heart up again.
Dialed the landline at Grandpa’s house, asked Yordan if he’d seen him. “Not since Friday night. Sorry.”
What was Bel going to do?
She headed back toward home, just in case they’d missed each other, coming and going. Ramsey was on the street outside the hotel when she passed, zipping up his jacket.
“Hey.” A smile split his face, familiar and overfriendly. “What a coincidence. Do you have a sec?”
No, she didn’t.
“Sorry, can’t.” She barreled past. “I’m looking for Dad.” “Why?” Ramsey’s voice floated after her. “He disappeared?”
Said like a joke, but it doubled Bel over, giving shape to her worst nightmare.
“No,” she called back. “He’ll be at home.” He wasn’t at home.
She waited another hour. Then two. Giving Rachel one-word answers, watching the front door, willing it to open.
“He’ll be back for dinner, I’m sure,” Rachel said, eyes fixed on Bel’s hands, jangling in her lap, pressing against the knot in her stomach. “Do you like salmon?”
At seven, Bel went to check Dad’s room.
The bed was unmade. That wasn’t unusual; Dad often left the sheets in a bundle, telltale signs of where he’d climbed out. Bel traced her fingers along his pillow, as though she could get some sense of him through the fabric. Where he’d gone after he got out of bed this morning, what was in his head. To his closet next. She studied the hangers: some were empty, swinging when she ran her hand past, but those sweaters and shirts were probably just in the laundry basket. Something else was gone too. The khaki canvas bag Dad packed whenever they went on a weekend away. The bag was gone, wasn’t in its usual place on the floor of the closet. Wasn’t in any unusual
places either. It wasn’t here.
“Fuck.” The knot outgrew Bel’s stomach, looking for other soft places to make its home.
Where was the bag? Dad couldn’t have packed a bag, because that sounded like someone who wanted to leave. And Dad wouldn’t do that. Dad
didn’t leave.
“Found anything?” Rachel asked at the bottom of the stairs. “No.” Bel shrugged her off, avoiding her eyes.
She went to the sideboard in the hall, where Dad kept his keys and wallet. The wallet wasn’t here but his keys—both truck and house—were. Bel picked them up to be sure, studying the key ring: a grinning photo of the two of them, at Story Land for her twelfth birthday. Dad hadn’t taken his truck, but wouldn’t he need his house keys, so he could come back home when he was ready?
Bel opened the drawer of the sideboard. Papers and bills. She dug her hand to the back corner, where they kept their passports.
There was only one here. She checked, patting her hand around the rest of the drawer. She pulled the passport out, flicked to the photo page. Annabel Price and her own stony face, staring back.
Where was Dad’s passport? It should have been here, right here with
hers.
No, no, no. The knot twisted, pulling its deep-buried strings, Bel’s fingers twitching with it. Her heart had bulleted through panic, kicking harder and harder.
Something was wrong. Something was really, really wrong. “You ready for dinner?”
No, because she was waiting for Dad. He didn’t have his keys, so he’d need someone to let him in. Bel would wait right here by the front door, to be that someone.
She watched the darkening street out the window, face between the slats of the shades, eyes flickering to any sign of movement: a woman walking a dog with a green LED collar, a kid on a scooter, an older kid chasing after him, a man hurrying past, pulling at the peak of his baseball cap.
Bel checked the clock on her phone. He would be back by nine for dinner, with an easy smile and an even easier explanation of where he’d been, why his phone was off. Nine was the deadline; he had to be back by then.
But that ticked by too.
“Do you want me to heat this up for you, Anna-sorry-Bel? You should come sit down.”
Bel waited until 9:59 p.m.
Then she unlocked her phone, called a different number. The one for Police Chief Dave Winter.
The sound chimed through Bel, echoing in her empty chest, a click when he answered.
“Hi, it’s Bel, Annabel Price. My dad is missing.”
