You just have the worst timing in the world.
Mom leans forward and throws her arms around my shoulders. There was a time in my life when a hug from my mother made everything right. But that time has long since passed.
I walk her to the door and stand by the window to make sure she drives away. But evenafter she’s gone, I don’t budge from the window. I stare out into my neighborhood, thinking about everything that happened today. A girl has disappeared and Liam may be somehow responsible. My father is alive and has been in prison for murder.
There’s nothing I can do about the former, but there’s something I can do about the latter. For all these years, I thought about what it might be like if my father had lived. I thought about the conversations we would have had, him standing proudly at my graduation, shaking his head when he didn’t approve of one of my boyfriends, going fishing together out on the lake. And all along, he’s been alive—albeit in no position to take me fishing.
And he might look for me.
Of course, I don’t have to wait for him to look for me. I could look for him. I bet Frank could track him down in five minutes flat. After all these years, I could lay eyes on my father. The man I believed to be long dead.
Then my eyes settle on my Toyota 4Runner in the driveway. The car Liam took last night out to Olivia Mercer’s house. And then lied about it.
My father is going to have to wait. I have much worse problems.
Chapter Twenty-Five
OLIVIA
Iwake up and everything is black.
Where am I? What’s going on?
I clutch my face, pushing away a throbbing sensation in my forehead, right between my eyes. How did I get here? The last thing I remember is…
Hop in the car. Just for a few minutes.
No. No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t.
Oh my God. I think I’m going to be sick.
I retch but my stomach is empty and nothing comes out. I swallow, doubled over on the ground. I blink a few times, trying to adjust to the blackness, hoping the world will jump into some sort of focus, but it doesn’t happen.
I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. I can’t see where I am or one foot in front of me.
Why can’t I see?
Oh my God, have I gone blind?
But no. When I look up, there’s a tiny slice of light in the distance. There is nothing wrong with my eyes. Thereis simply no light wherever I am.
My head is swimming, which makes it that much harder to get my bearings. The ground is moist and grainy. Dirt? It’s so hard to tell. I sit up and reach out into the distance, feeling for something—anything. My fingers finally touch something solid. It’s the same consistency as the ground. Also dirt.
I think I’m in a hole.
Oh God. Oh God. I’m in a hole. I’m in a hole in the ground.
My fingers start to tingle as my panic mounts. I’m not claustrophobic, but it feels like… like I’ve been buried alive. One minute I was kissing Liam, one of the best moments of my life, and now I wake up here.
Why?
I’ve got to get out of here. There must be a way out. There’sgotto be.
There is that slice of light above me—a way out. If I could reach it, maybe I could climb out. I get to my feet, but that’s when I become aware of another sensation.Pain. Agonizing, brutal pain in my left ankle. So severe that I immediately collapse back down into the dirt.
What iswrongwith me?
I pull up the leg of my jeans to feel my left ankle. It’s swollen.Reallyswollen. And warm. And even touching it gently sets off a wave of unbearablepain. My guess is when I was thrown into this hole, the fall broke my ankle. Or at least, hurt it really badly.
