Kendra quickly shook her head.
“No. I swear.”
So I believed her.
For days, search teams combed through the woods surrounding the lake.
Divers searched beneath the water.
Police examined roads, security cameras, nearby stores, cabins, bus stations, and hospitals.
Her phone had been turned off and couldn’t be tracked.
There were no helpful witnesses.
Nothing.
My daughter had vanished without a trace.
For months, I existed inside the darkest possibilities a mother could imagine.
I stopped sleeping normally.
Every night, I left the porch light burning.
Sometimes a car would pass outside at two in the morning, and I would rush to the window, certain Mallory had finally returned.
I left her bedroom exactly as it was.
Her laundry basket still held the jeans she had worn the week before the trip.
A half-empty bottle of peach perfume remained on her dresser.
The calendar above her desk was still turned to May.
