Chapter 3 - Two Days of Silence
The next morning she climbed onto the bus next to Brooke without once looking back at me.
"Text me the second you get there," I called.
"I know, Mom."
"Love you."
She held my eyes about a second longer than felt normal.
"Bye, Mom."
Brooke leaned across the aisle and grinned. "Don't worry, Ms. Delaney. I'll make her send pictures."
Maddie shot her a look I didn't understand yet.
She sent pictures anyway. The first day, my phone lit up all afternoon.
Maddie mid-jump off the swimming dock.
Maddie next to Brooke at the barbecue grill, both of them squinting into the sun.
Maddie by the campfire, holding up a marshmallow that had caught fire.
Careful, Mads, I typed back.
She looked so happy in those photos that I let myself relax. Maybe the trip was exactly what she'd needed. Maybe we'd talk it out when she got home.
Then came day two, and every call I made went straight to voicemail.
At first I told myself they were all out on the water. Then I decided her battery had died. By two in the afternoon I'd sent three texts.
Honey, call me when you get a chance.
Are you okay?
Maddie??
At three, my phone rang. It was one of the chaperones, Mr. Coleman.
"Rachel," he said, and something in the way he said my name made me stand up.
"What's wrong?"
"We can't find Maddie."
"What do you mean, you can't find her?"
"She was with the whole group on the beach this morning. Brooke said she walked back to the tent to lie down. When Brooke went to check on her, she wasn't there."
"Wasn't there? Where did she go?"
"We don't know yet. We've got everyone looking."
"Did she take her backpack?"
"No. Everything's still in the tent. Her clothes, her toothbrush, her sleeping bag."
"Her phone?"
He paused a beat too long. "We can't find her phone."
I grabbed my keys off the hook and drove ninety minutes to Pinecrest Campground with my heart slamming so hard I thought I'd black out at the wheel.
By the time I got there, adults were spread along the shoreline shouting her name. Kids stood around in little clumps, some of them crying. Brooke was sitting in the dirt beside the tents with her knees pulled up and her eyes swollen red.
I dropped down in front of her. "Where is she, Brooke?"
She shook her head hard. "She said she wanted to lie down. I went after her a few minutes later, and she was just — gone."
"Did she say anything else? Anything at all?"
"No."
"Did you see anybody near her? A car? A stranger?"
"No. Nothing."
"Look at me. You swear?"
Her chin was shaking. "I swear, Ms. Delaney."
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So I believed her. Of course I believed her. She was fifteen and falling apart in front of me.
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