All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda Read Free Book Online Page A

us.
    â€œIt’s my family,” I said.
    â€œI don’t want you staying here,” he whispered, pointing to the backyard that stretched as far as we could see, disappearing into the trees. “A girl went missing from right there.”
    â€œI’ll take that prescription, and I’ll try to sleep more, I promise. But I have to stay.”
    He kissed my forehead and mumbled into my hair, “I don’t know why you’re doing this.”
    Wasn’t it obvious? She was everywhere I looked. On every telephone pole. In every store window. The same places I’d hung posters of Corinne, stapling them with a knot in my stomach, handingthem out faster and faster, as if my speed could somehow change the outcome.
    Annaleise on those posters now, with her huge, open eyes, telling me to open mine. Everywhere I looked, there she was. Look. Look. Keep your eyes open.
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    THE TAXI COMPANY SAID a car would arrive in twenty minutes, but I guessed it would be more like forty. Everett was leaning against the laundry room doorjamb, watching me dump his clothes from the dryer into the warped plastic bin with half a smile on his face. “You don’t have to do that, Nicolette.”
    I cleared my throat and balanced the laundry basket on my hip. “I want to,” I said. I wanted to fold his clothes and pack them up and kiss him goodbye. I wanted him to get home and open his suitcase and think of me. But I also just wanted him to go.
    He watched me fold his clothes into perfect squares on the dining room table. And then he watched me stack them in his suitcase, as if performing a delicate surgery. “See if you can break your lease,” he said, striding toward me, wrapping his arms around my waist as I folded his last shirt. He brushed my ponytail to the side and put his lips against my neck. “I want you living with me as soon as you’re back.”
    I nodded and kept my arms moving. It should be easy for me to say, Yes, of course, yes. It should be easy for me to envision: me, with my clothes taking up half his closet; us, cooking together in his kitchen, curled up on his couch with the red throw blanket over my legs because he kept the temperature about five degrees cooler than I liked it. Him, talking about court. And me, talking about my students as I poured two glasses of wine.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Everett asked.
    â€œNothing. Just thinking of everything I need to do here first.”
    â€œDo you need anything?” he asked, stepping back. He cleared his throat, tried to make his voice seem natural. “Money?”
    I flinched. He’d never offered me money. We’d never even talked about money. He had it and I didn’t, which meant we circled the topic like a fire that could quickly burn out of control and consume us both. It was why I never brought up the wedding, because then he’d have to mention the prenup that I knew his dad would demand I sign, and I would, but there it would be, out in the open, ready to burn. “No, I don’t need your money,” I said.
    â€œThat’s not what I— Nicolette, I just meant I can help. Please let me help.”
    He’d told me, back when we first met, that I was the embodiment of everything he wished he could be. Setting out in a car by myself, working my way through school, self-made.
    But as I’d told him back then, you have to come from nothing to have that chance. You have to pay your debts.
    â€œYeah, well, I have ten years’ worth of loans,” I’d said.
    Sometimes I wondered if, when we got married, he would pay them off. If that would make me a different person. If he’d like me quite as much.
    â€œEverett, thank you, but money isn’t going to help.” I zipped up his suitcase and leaned it against the wall.
    I heard a car turn off the road in the distance. “Your cab’s here,” I whispered, bringing my arms around his waist and resting