Annabelle's face clouded with worry. “Well, I'm not sure. I think it's more than that.”
“More?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
She looked around nervously. “The neighbor girl came home from school today. She knows Josiah is in the play and she said that some of the other kids in school said Amanda was actually missing.”
“Neighbor girl?”
Annabelle nodded. “She helps me out around the house a couple of days a week. You know, with the boys...”
Annabelle had four boys under the age of ten and she walked around as if motherhood had permanently shell-shocked her. I had four kids and I knew how demanding they could be, but Annabelle seemed to struggle more than the other homeschool moms I knew. I was happy to hear she'd found someone to help her out.
“She's missing from school?” I asked. “Amanda?”
She shook her head. “No. Well, yes, she wasn't there. But I mean missing. As in, no one knows where she is.”
Two teen boys carrying large pieces of plywood shuffled down the aisle, heading toward the stage area. Set design. I was glad I hadn’t been selected for that volunteer job.
“Like ran away?” I asked once they passed by. I raised my eyebrows. “Or...?”
“I don't know,” Annabelle answered. She wrung her hands nervously. “We didn't really talk much about it. I...I only had a couple of hours.”
I opened my mouth to respond that a couple of hours would have been plenty of time to talk to her about it, but then I realized what she was saying. She'd only had a couple of hours to herself, a couple of hours that the neighbor girl would be there to help.
So I just smiled and nodded and made a mental note to ask the younger girls if they'd want a playdate with the Kingston boys any time soon. I was pretty sure Annabelle wouldn't object.
The side entrance to the theater opened and kids spilled in, single file, ready to march back on stage. Grace and Sophie waved at me. I waved back, but my mind was focused on one thing.
Snow White really was missing.
THREE
“Was she back?” Emily asked as soon as we walked in the door from rehearsal.
Her sisters ignored her, kicking off their shoes and stripping out of their jackets before scurrying past her, headed for the stairs. We’d had to leave for rehearsal right as a Barbie wedding was commencing and they were eager to resume the nuptials.
“Who? Snow White?” I asked, struggling to get my own shoes off. I’d worn boots and the laces were double-knotted, making it impossible to just slip them off. “No. And she's apparently no longer in the play.”
Emily leaned against her doorframe, her mouth hanging open. “She's out of the play?”
I nodded. “That's what we were told. Which I guess I understand if they can't find her.”
“Well, no one knows where she is,” Emily said.
“And how do you know?” I asked before turning my attention to the sink full of dinner dishes I’d left behind.
She followed me into the kitchen and grabbed a blueberry muffin from a Ziploc bag on the counter. “I just...heard about it.”
“From who?”
“No one.”
I blasted hot water into the sink and poured in dish soap. “So, what?” I glanced at her. “You were just talking to the sky and the sky responded?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. Duh. I just mean that people are, like, talking about it.”
“She doesn't even go to your school,” I pointed out.
She shifted her attention to the paper wrapper on the muffin. “Well, yeah, but I know people who go to Moose River High. I talk to them and stuff.”
Will bounded into the kitchen and tried to grab the muffin out of her hand. She swatted him away and gave him a death glare. He just laughed.
“Who do you talk to at Moose River?” I asked. “Since when?”
“I just know kids there, Mom.” She sighed, like she couldn’t believe she had to explain something so simple. “Like from Instagram and Twitter and stuff.”
Will ripped a bag of chips down from the top of the fridge.
“Didn’t we all just eat dinner like two hours ago?” I asked, looking at both of them.
Will shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m hungry.” He stuffed a potato chip in his mouth. “And she talks to Andy…”
Emily's face immediately shaded crimson. “Shut up, Will.”
He popped another chip in his mouth and chuckled, happy to have gotten a reaction from her. “She talks to Andy a lot.”
“Who's Andy?” I asked.
“Probably her boyfriend,” he said, grinning.
Emily made a lunge for him. “Shut up!”
I wedged my arm between them, nearly clotheslining her, and stopping her forward progress. “Ignore him.”
“Andy knows people in the play,” Will told me. “That's probably how she knows stuff.”
“I'm going to kill you,” she whispered. “And how do you know?”
Will shrugged and munched on another chip. At the rate he was shoveling them in, he’d devour the entire bag within minutes. “I follow you on Twitter and Instagram.”
“No you don’t. I have you blocked.”
“Blocked?” I raised my eyebrows. “What?”
“He’s annoying,” she said. “I don’t want him seeing my stuff. Which is why I blocked him.” She stared at him, her mind working. Then her eyes widened. “Oh my god. Did you hack my accounts?”
Will smiled.
“Oh my god! Mom! You can’t let him keep doing that computer stuff!”
I turned my attention to Will. “Did you hack into her accounts?”
“No,” he said.
But I wasn’t convinced. I frowned at him and waited.
“I might have tried out a couple of passwords…”
“I knew it!” Emily wailed.
“Will,” I began.
“Look, we’re always telling her to make strong passwords. I was just… testing some out. To see. Call it a free security check…”
“You and I will talk about this later,” I said to him. I shifted my attention back to Emily. “What have you heard?” What I really wanted to do was ask for more details about her so-called boyfriend, but the story about the missing girl had me curious. “Anything specific about Amanda?”
She gave her brother one more stare full of daggers before shifting her eyes to me. “Just that no one knows where she is.”
“Like, not even her family?”
“I don't know,” she said. “I don't know her. I just know of her.”
“Because she's Andy's ex-girlfriend,” Will chimed in.
Emily's face went red again and she charged into my arm, determined to rip the arms off of her brother and beat him to death with them. I caught her and wrapped her up and walked her back into her room, abandoning the dirty dishes and shutting the door behind us.
“Don't let him get your goat,” I warned her. “He likes to push buttons. You know that. And he knows your buttons. All he wants is for you to react. If you ignore him, he'll shut up.”
“He's a troll,” Emily said, sitting down on her bed, frowning. “I'm gonna kill him.”
“No, you're not. Because I might,” I said. I sat down on the edge of her bed and pasted on what I hoped was a neutral, nonchalant, I don’t-really-care smile. “Sooo, does Andy go to Moose River?”
Now her face was more pink than red. “Mom.”
“I’m just asking a simple question.”
She snorted. “Ha. A simple question that will lead to a million other questions…”
“Just tell me. Or I'll badger you to no end. You know I'll do it.”
“Whatever.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “No, he goes to Prism with me.”
Prism. Her charter high school that I’d spent too much time at recently, getting entangled in the theft of their school computers.
I decided to cut to the chase. “And is he your boyfriend?”
“No,” she said quickly. “We're just...I don't know. Friends.”
“Do you like him?”