The Night She Disappeared by April Henry Read Free Book Online

palm on them, like you would try to soothe a frightened animal.
    “Well, you won’t be making deliveries anymore,” I point out. “But if you feel scared, you could just quit.”
    Her mouth twists. “What good would that do? If he wants me, he can get me whether I’m at Pete’s or not. In fact, it’s probably better that I’m at work, because at least there are other people around.”
    “What about your parents?”
    “They’re hardly ever home. They do a lot of trauma surgery, which means they’re on call twenty-four hours.” She picks at the lip of her paper cup, uncurling a tiny section. “I’ll wake up in the morning and realize I’m the only one in the house and have been all night. It’s spooky, even if the alarm is on.”
    I nod. It’s not the same, but sometimes my mom goes home with some guy she’s met. Still, the end result is the same: you wake up in an empty house.
    “Have you talked to the police? Maybe they could get you a bodyguard.”
    “Oh, right.” She rolls her eyes. “They seem to think it was someone who knew Kayla. You heard them today. They think the reason she got out of the car was because she knew the person. But he asked for me .” Gabie stabs her chest with her index finger. She’s wearing some kind of white gauzy blouse with a pink tank top underneath.
    “Maybe he asked for you to throw the cops off the scent like Thayer said. Maybe whoever it was already knew Kayla was working that night.”
    I don’t really believe it, but Gabie looks a tiny bit relieved.
    “Then who would it be?” Her eyes narrow. “Do you think it could be Brock? Kayla just broke up with him. Isn’t that when there’s the most danger for violence?”
    I try to imagine Brock angry, angry enough to hurt or kill Kayla. Underneath his half-closed eyes and barely passing grades, maybe there’s a coil of energy and rage, just waiting to spring out.
    But I don’t think so.
    “He could just wait until after school or go over to Kayla’s house on a weekend or something,” I point out. “Why go to all the trouble of calling in a fake pizza order?”
    “The same reason anyone would do it,” Gabie says darkly. “So they would have privacy, out there in the middle of nowhere. So they could do whatever they wanted to her with no witnesses.” She stands up, chugs the rest of her mocha in a single gulp, and tosses it in the garbage can. “Will you go somewhere with me?”
    I’ve worked with Gabie for fourteen months, but today I’ve said more to her than in all those months put together. Plus she keeps surprising me.
    “Sure. Where?”
    “I want to see.”
    “What?” I think I know what she’s saying, but I’m hoping I’m wrong.
    “I want to see the place for myself. Where it happened. Will you come with me?”
    “Okay,” I say and push back my chair. A snake uncoils in my belly. Is this really a good idea? I wonder if we’ll even be able to find where it happened. At Pete’s we have a big map of the area we can check before we go out on an order.
    I have a sudden flash of Kayla looking at it before she left, tracing her finger on a line running parallel to the river. And then she turned and said something to me, didn’t she?
    But I still can’t remember what.
    I’ve never been in a Mini Cooper before. It’s cool. The dash is wood and shaped like a T , with a speedometer as big as a plate. Instead of an annoying beep, beep, beep to remind you about the seat belt, it plays a three-note melody that sounds straight from the disco era. It almost makes me smile.
    As I get into the passenger seat, Gabie hands me some papers. It’s MapQuest directions to the fake address.
    “How did you get it to give you directions?” I ask. “I thought the cops said this address didn’t exist.”
    “I guess MapQuest doesn’t know that. It must just figure out where the address should be and give directions to that spot. Even if it’s not real.”
    Despite the directions, the address is hard to