Ignoring her comment, I walked into the kitchen, where Dawn was keeping herself busy. She grated cheese, stopping every few seconds to stir beans on the stove. She hadn’t stopped doing something for the last few days—keeping herself busy to stop herself from going crazy waiting. The house phone was beside her wherever she went; if she moved an inch, it went with her. “Lewis, have a seat. It’s almost ready,” she said, glancing at me for a second before returning to her stirring.
My dad sat at the table looking over a map with Daniel and Henry. Daniel looked up and half smiled. “We’re just going over the areas that aren’t in the official search.” That was something that bothered me. Although the search had widened, what if it wasn’t wide enough? What if Summer was just a mile out of that area—or even a few feet? That was why we had widened our search. The area closest to us was more than being covered with the official search, which now included the wide forest area. The reason you searched a forest was if you were looking for a body.
I sat down and tried not to think about the possibility of Summer being dead. She couldn’t be dead. I couldn’t picture her cold and pale. I couldn’t even force myself to believe her being dead was a possibility. Until I knew otherwise, she was alive and well.
“Apparently this part of town is where runaways go,” Dad said, pointing to the town that was about twenty minutes away.
“Summer didn’t run away,” I said, frowning at his suggestion.
“I know that, Lewis, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t check it out. It may be that someone there has seen her with someone.”
The person that took her. “Okay, let’s go then.”
“Ah, ah! Not until you’ve eaten. I’m serious, Lewis,” Mum said. Her eyes were wide, stern. I felt like a kid being told off for swapping the sugar for salt.
I inhaled my food, barely tasting a thing, and within minutes I’d finished. It wasn’t until I had eaten that I realized how hungry I had been. “Okay, now?” I said, pushing my empty plate away. “Let’s go.”
Dad, Daniel, and Henry stood up. “Lewis, you pick up Theo from home and then go to the east side of town; the three of us will start west, and we’ll meet in the middle. Stick to the back areas first. If there’s something to be found, it’s most likely going to be there,” Dad said. He was good at things like this, organizing people. I don’t think he knew what he was doing more than any of us, but he could think calmly and logically while I just wanted to run around and search every little corner of the world. Daniel and Henry had also been calm, unlike Dawn. I think they were trying to stay strong and refused to believe we wouldn’t find her alive.
“Theo’s ready?” I asked. There was no way I was waiting around for him.
Dad nodded. “Ready and waiting, so let’s get a move on.”
***
I pulled up outside my house and honked the horn, tapping the steering wheel impatiently. Come on, Theo. The front door opened and my brother walked out. I put the car in first, ready to go as soon as he got in.
“So we’re going into town?” Theo asked. I pulled away as soon as he shut the door.
“Yeah.”
He nodded and looked out of the window. Unless we were talking about finding Summer, we barely spoke at all. We used to talk about most stuff. Theo was only a year older, so we were close, but not right now. Everything we used to talk about and care about was nothing now; none of it mattered anymore.
“What’s the plan?”
“We search east to west and meet Dad, Daniel, and Henry somewhere in the middle.”
“You have pictures of her?”
Only about a thousand on my phone. “Yeah.” I had a copy of the same one the press released. It was a close-up of Summer. Her golden-blond hair framed her beautiful face. She had these deep emerald-green eyes that always smiled. I loved waking up to those eyes, right before I snuck out of her room.
“Lewis…”
“What?”
“How are you doing? Really doing?”
Terrible. Not knowing where she was or how she was torture. All I wanted was for her to be safe. Sighing, I replied, “Fine.” Theo frowned and turned back, looking out of the window. “What do you want me to say, Theo?”
“The truth.”
“The truth! The truth is I feel like I’m fucking dying. There, is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes,” Theo replied. “We’ll find her.”
I drove through town and thought about Theo’s words, We’ll find her. I had no doubt that we would find her, but when? Anyone could have her and I didn’t even want to imagine what she was going through. I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. What if someone was hurting her?
“Park in there,” Theo said and pointed to a run-down multistory parking garage. Colorful graffiti covered almost every inch of the dull concrete structure. My car probably wouldn’t be here when we returned. A couple weeks ago, I would have never parked my car in a place like that. Now I couldn’t have cared less if it exploded.
I parked in the space closest to the exit, and we walked into town, taking back streets. “I don’t really know where to start.”