Heartstopper by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online

else?”
    “Of course. I called all of Liana’s friends.”
    “They are …?”
    “Tanya McGovern and Ginger Perchak. They’re her best friends. I called them first.”
    John scribbled down the familiar names. Tanya had played one of Amber’s sisters in Torrance High’s productionof
Fiddler on the Roof
last year. Liana Martin had played the other.
    “And then I phoned Maggie Mackenzie and Ellen Smythe. I even called Victor Drummond.”
    “Victor Drummond?” her husband asked. “Why would you call that freak, for God’s sake?”
    “Well, he and Liana played lovers in
Fiddler on the Roof
, and then she was partnered with him on that science project for Mr. Peterson earlier in the year, and she said he was really nice, that he wasn’t weird at all once you got to know him, and I had the feeling that she always kind of liked him—”
    “Liked
him? What are you talking about?”
    “—so I thought I’d take a chance.”
    “She wasn’t with him,” John stated softly.
    Judy shook her head. Her hair didn’t move. “No one has seen her since yesterday afternoon. Tanya said she called Liana’s cell phone a bunch of times and left a slew of messages, but that Liana never called her back.”
    “Have you tried her cell?” John asked, although he already knew the answer. Of course they’d tried their daughter’s cell.
    “The last time we tried it was in the car on the way over here,” Howard confirmed. “She’s not picking up.”
    “It’s like she’s disappeared off the face of the earth.” Judy bit her quivering lowering lip. Her eyes filled with tears. The tears teetered precariously on her lower lids.
    “Has she ever done anything like this before?”
    “Never,” Judy said adamantly.
    “We’re not saying she’s perfect,” Howard amended. “She’s stubborn and headstrong, and she has a mouth on her when she gets mad, but all in all, she’s a good kid.”
    “Can you think of any reason she might have had to run away?”
    “Run away?” her mother asked. “From what?”
    “Were there any problems at home?”
    “What kind of problems?”
    John hated when people answered his questions with more of their own. “Was she upset about something? Or angry? Maybe you’d imposed a curfew …,” he continued before they could ask for specifics.
    “She didn’t have a curfew. She wasn’t angry or upset. There were no problems.”
    “Has she been anxious, maybe a little depressed?”
    “Anxious? Depressed?” Judy repeated.
    “Well, you said she’d had a fight with her boyfriend …”
    “They were always fighting,” Howard said dismissively. “To them, it’s foreplay.”
    “What are you getting at?” Judy asked John, a wrinkle of worry furrowing her otherwise unlined brow. “You think she might have done something to hurt herself?”
    “Kids this age are very vulnerable,” John said, thinking of Amber. “If she was upset about anything …”
    “She wasn’t,” Howard said.
    “Would she tell you if she was?”
    “She’d tell me,” Judy said. Then less assuredly: “I think she’d tell me.”
    “Is there any chance she might be pregnant?” John asked quietly, hoping the softness of his voice would offset any potential explosion from the other side of the desk. It had been his experience that parents, no matter how open-minded they considered themselves to be, were uncomfortable imagining their children’s sex lives.
    Howard Martin covered his lips with his hand, cursed under his breath. Even still, the words were clear: “Son of a bitch.”
    “She was on the pill,” Judy volunteered after a pause of several seconds.
    “What?” her husband asked.
    “She’s eighteen,” Judy said. Then forcefully: “Lianawasn’t anxious. She wasn’t depressed. And she wasn’t pregnant. She certainly wouldn’t have done anything to hurt herself.”
    “And she wouldn’t just take off without telling us.”
    “Have you checked her computer?” John asked.
    “Her