I can’t keep doing this. I want to go home. I’m scared Mom will never forgive me. Please tell her everything. Please ask her to come get me.
Beneath it was an address.
I grabbed my car keys.
Kendra caught my sleeve.
“She asked me to make you promise to keep this quiet.”
I turned toward her.
“For a year, people searched lakes, forests, roads, and ditches for my daughter. Her teachers blamed themselves. Police spent hundreds of hours searching for her. I stood beside that lake wondering whether my child was dead.”
Kendra cried quietly.
“There are no more secrets.”
The drive to the Mercers’ home lasted nearly four hours.
I barely remember any of it.
All I remember is gripping the steering wheel while thinking about every version of Mallory I had known.
The baby who wouldn’t sleep unless I held her.
The seven-year-old who wanted star-shaped pancakes.
