Missing Read online

  MISSING

  CHAPTER 1

  The first night Mom and Dad didn’t come home, Mark and I weren’t terribly upset about it. In fact, we had a party.

  It didn’t start out to be a party. We were feeling kind of lonely, so Mark invited Gena over. Then I called my new friends from school, Lisa and Shannon. And they invited some kids, and before we knew it, there were about twenty of us partying all over the large living room that was still so new and uncomfortable to Mark and me.

  We had just moved in two months before at the beginning of September, just in time to start school at Shadyside High. And even though the house was twice as roomy as our old house in Brookline, it was older and kind of run-down.

  The kids we met at school always acted surprised when we said we lived on Fear Street. They were always telling us stories about horrible things that happened around Fear Street and in the thick woods that ran behind the houses—stories about strange creatures, unexplained disappearances, ghosts, and weird howls and stuff.

  I think Mark believed the stories. He always believes everything people tell him. Even though my brother is a year older than I am, I think I’m a lot more cynical than he is.

  Mark is just a straightforward guy. I mean, what you see is what you get. Sure, he looks like a jock with those broad shoulders and the big neck, the blond, wavy hair, and those green eyes, the cute dimple in his chin that he hates to be teased about. But he isn’t dumb or anything. He just trusts people. He never kids other people, and I don’t think he realizes it when other people are teasing him.

  Mark makes friends in a hurry. Kids like him right away. I think my sense of humor, my cynical way of looking at the world turns some kids off. So most of the people at the party were new friends Mark had made at Shadyside in the two months we’d been going there.

  I’d become pretty good friends with Lisa and Shannon, who were in my homeroom. But we weren’t exactly best buddies yet. And I certainly hadn’t found a guy I was interested in—not the way Mark had found Gena Rawlings.

  Gena was the reason for the big fight at our breakfast table that morning. Yeah, Mark had a big blowout with Mom and Dad before school. Mom and Dad just didn’t approve of Gena, and they didn’t want Mark to see her. He was seeing a lot of Gena. I mean, like, every day. They were what you could call inseparable. It was kind of sweet, really. Mark is always really intense, but I don’t think he ever felt so intense about a girl.

  So when he asked Mom and Dad what it was they didn’t like about Gena, and they couldn’t really tell him, he just blew up.

  He had good reason, I think. Mom and Dad are pretty smart people, and they’ve always been really good at saying what’s on their minds. So what was their reason for disliking Gena?

  “It’s gonna hurt your schoolwork,” Dad said. Pretty lame. Mark has always had a solid B average. He works really hard in school, much harder than I do, and takes it as seriously as he takes everything else.

  So I don’t blame Mark for jumping all over Dad for that one. Of course Dad started screaming back and said a lot of things he shouldn’t have. Which forced Mark to turn real red in the face and scream a lot of things he shouldn’t have. And then Mom got into it, and it got so noisy I thought the peeling yellow kitchen walls might crack and fall!

  I just slumped down in my seat and stared at my Pop-Tart. The strawberry stuff was oozing out onto the plate. I didn’t really feel like eating breakfast, anyway. I’m not that crazy about Gena, but I don’t think Mom and Dad had any business giving Mark a hard time about her—at least not first thing in the morning when we were trying to have breakfast.

  It was the worst screaming match we’d had in a long time. The last one, I guess, was back in Brookline, when Mark and I borrowed the car without telling our parents, and they reported it stolen. We were both grounded for two months for that little episode. No big deal.

  But this one was a big deal to Mark. “I’m sixteen. I know what I’m doing!” he screamed.

  Mom and Dad laughed, which was a really horrible thing to do.

  Mark was really furious now. He picked up his Pop-Tart and started to throw it across the room. I pictured it hitting the wall with a splat. I’m really bad.

  But Mark stopped himself just in time and instead tossed it back onto his plate, turned, and stomped out the kitchen door, slamming it as hard as he could behind him. The window glass in the old door shook inside its frame, but it didn’t fall out.

  Mom and Dad had gone very pale. They looked at each other across the table and shook their heads, but didn’t say anything. “You’ll be late for school,” Dad said to me a while later. His voice sounded shaky. I guess the screaming had him really upset.

  Our parents had both been really nervous ever since we moved to Shadyside. I figured it was just the strain of moving and everything—although they should be used to it. Because of their work, we move all the time. We’ve lived in six different places in the last eight years.

  That’s not easy on them—or on Mark and me. I’ve always found it hard to make real friends knowing that in a year or so I’d be moving away and leaving them behind. My mom puts me down a lot for being a loner, but what choice do I have? I mean, why get involved with people when you’re only going to know them for a short while?

  Anyway, I got my bookbag and looked out the kitchen window. There was Mark, a scowl on his face, in the backyard with his bow, shooting arrows one after the other into a poor, defenseless maple tree.

  My brother is an archery freak. The first thing he did when we moved here—even before he took a look at his room—was to search out the right tree in the backyard to hang his target. He’s really very good at it. He’s a great shot, but of course he should be when you consider the hours and hours he spends doing it.

  “It’s a good way to let out your frustrations,” he always tells me. I guess he was pretty frustrated this morning because he was looking really intense, even for him, shooting an arrow and not even looking at where it went before pulling another from the sheath.

  “He’s going to shoot his eye out one day,” Mom always complains. Sometimes she tries extra hard, I think, to sound like a mom because it doesn’t come naturally to her. She’s pretty young and pretty cool. And when she’s home—which isn’t very often because of work—she’s a lot of fun to be with.

  Dad’s okay, too, although he’s very serious and intense—like Mark. Sometimes I think he’s really hard to talk to. It’s like he always seems to have something else on his mind. But maybe that’s just my problem.

  Anyway, we don’t have too many fights like the one this morning. We get along pretty well, I think. Or maybe it’s just that Mom and Dad are away at work so much, we don’t have time to fight.

  I grabbed Mark’s jacket and bookbag, ran out the back door, and somehow managed to pull him to the bus stop. We didn’t even say good-bye to Mom and Dad.

  We didn’t realize that it might be the last time we ever saw them.

  “What’s wrong with Gena, anyway?” Mark asked as we waited for the South Side bus.

  “Maybe they think she’s too short for you,” I joked. Gena was about a foot shorter than Mark.

  “Huh?”

  “Just joking,” I muttered. Why do I always have to tell Mark when I’m joking?

  Gena was short, but to put it bluntly (which I’m good at), she had a great bod. She also was really pretty, with long, straight black hair down to her waist, creamy white skin without a blemish, and beautiful black eyes that absolutely drove boys crazy. All of the guys at school think Gena is really sexy—and she is.

  Now, at ten o’clock at night, with no Mom and Dad around and with the impromptu party in full swing in our living room, there was sexy Gena sitting on my brother’s lap on the sofa.

  I thought
about the fight that morning, and I looked at my watch and wondered where Mom and Dad could be. They usually called if they were going to be late at work.

  The speaker was really cranked up. Someone was playing some heavy metal group at top volume. Lisa’s boyfriend Cory was having a tug-of-war over a can of soda with some guy I’d never seen before. The can seemed to explode in their hands, a foam of soda erupting over the living-room carpet.

  Oh, please, I thought, don’t let this party get out of control.

  Mom and Dad should be home any minute. And then…

  I looked back to the sofa at Mark and Gena. She had her hands wrapped around his neck and she was leaning down over him and kissing him, her eyes closed. It was quite a kiss.

  I didn’t mean to stare—but give me a break! You could be arrested in some states for a kiss like that! I told myself.

  And then I thought I heard the front doorbell.

  There was loud laughter in the corner by the den. Gena and Mark didn’t move. They were in their own world. No one else seemed to hear it.

  I ran to the living-room window and looked out. There was a big blue Chevy Caprice in the driveway. Twisting my head against the glass, I could see a tall man wearing a dark shirt and wrinkled chinos standing under the porch light. He saw me peering out at him and held up a badge, a police badge.

  Surrounded by all the music and noise and laughter, I suddenly went numb. My heart seemed to stop. Everything seemed to stop.

  I knew why the policeman had come.

  Something terrible had happened to Mom and Dad.

  CHAPTER 2

  The policeman smiled as I pulled open the door. “Good evening,” he said, looking me up and down.

  The porch light sent a glare onto the screen door, and it took me a while to focus on his face. He wasn’t young. There were streaks of gray on his mustache. He was staring hard at me through the screen door with the coldest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, icy blue like a frozen lake in winter. “I’m Captain Farraday,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “My mom and dad—are they—”

  “Are they home?” he asked, and he smiled, revealing straight white teeth.

  “No. They—”

  “They’re not here?”

  “No. They’re working late, I think.”

  He stared past me into the hallway.

  “You didn’t come to tell me something about them?” I asked, feeling relieved.

  He didn’t seem to understand the question. “No. Uh… I’m investigating a burglary in this neighborhood.”

  “A burglary?”

  “Yeah. Three houses down. I’m going house to house, seeing if anybody saw anything suspicious. You know, a strange car or something.”

  “Oh. Well… no, I haven’t see anything.”

  A burst of laughter from the living room was followed by a crash of shattering glass. The heavy metal music sounded even louder here in the hallway.

  “You notice anyone on the street? You know, anyone you haven’t seen before?” His blue eyes stared into mine.

  I looked away. “No. No one. I never see too many people on this street, Captain. We’re pretty new in the neighborhood, so—”

  “Expecting your parents soon?”

  “Probably. I don’t know. Sometimes they work really late.”

  We stared at each other for a long moment. Then he reached into the shirt pocket of his uniform and pulled out a little white card. “Here. Take this.” He opened the screen door and handed me the card. “It’s got my special direct line on it. If you see anything suspicious, call me—anytime.”

  I took the card and thanked him.

  “Keep it near your phone,” he said. “Just in case the burglar decides to try this neighborhood again.” Then he turned and stepped off the porch.

  I stood there listening to his boots crunch over the gravel driveway. I watched him climb into his big old Chevy. I wondered why he wasn’t driving a police car. “He must use it to trap speeders,” I told myself. The big car didn’t make a sound as it pulled off the curb and disappeared into the night.

  I shoved the card into my jeans pocket and walked back into the living room. It struck me that the room was suddenly very quiet. I glanced over to the sofa. Gena was still in Mark’s lap, but she had turned around to face me. Both of them were staring at me. Someone had turned the music down.

  “I’m really sorry, Cara,” Cory Brooks, Lisa’s boyfriend, said quietly. He looked very upset.

  “What?”

  What on earth is going on? I wondered. What happened in here while I was talking to Captain Farraday?

  “I was just clowning around with David Metcalf over there, and I guess I… well… I wasn’t feeling too well, and I guess I got a little sick.”

  I glanced over at Mark, but he had his face buried in Gena’s hair.

  Then I saw it. A disgusting puddle of green-and-brown vomit dripping down over the side of the coffee table.

  “Nice move, ace,” Cory’s friend David muttered from against the wall.

  “Ohh, I’m gonna be sick, too,” a girl I’d never seen before groaned, covering her mouth with her hands.

  “I’ll help you clean it up,” Cory said, looking really embarrassed.

  “That’s okay. Just get a spoon,” I told him. “I’ll eat it before it clots!”

  “Ohh! Total gross-out!” Gena cried.

  I bent down and picked up the phony rubber vomit. And then I heaved it at Cory.

  Everyone laughed. Cory looked really disappointed.

  I had believed it was real for a few seconds, but I’d never give him the satisfaction of telling him that.

  “Cory, what a nerdy thing to do,” Lisa said, giving him a hard shove on the shoulder.

  Cory is big and solid. Her shove didn’t move him. “It was David’s idea,” he said, laughing. He tossed the disgusting rubber joke at his friend.

  “I think we should end the party on this high note,” I said. A lot of kids groaned in protest. My brother had wrapped his arms around Gena and was nuzzling her neck. I could see that he was going to be no help at all.

  “Come on. It’s a school night. And the police were already here once.”

  They all uttered cries of surprise. They were so busy partying, they hadn’t even noticed the policeman at the door.

  “My parents will be home any minute,” I said. I hoped that wasn’t a lie. I was beginning to get worried about them. It was nearly eleven.

  Kids reluctantly started to leave. I said good night to Lisa and Shannon. They were the only friends I had actually invited, and I hadn’t had two seconds to talk to them.

  I noticed a big wet stain on the edge of the carpet. This one was real, not rubber. “Oh, well. It’s good for the carpet,” I muttered to myself.

  From the front entranceway, I watched everyone head down the front lawn to their cars, laughing and joking.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Not if I see you first.”

  I hoped the grouchy neighbor down the block was enjoying all the shouting and loud laughter.

  Feeling a little chilled, I closed the front door and walked back to the living room, rubbing the sleeves of my sweatshirt to get warm. I couldn’t believe it—Mark and Gena hadn’t moved from the couch!

  I’m gonna have to turn a hose on them! I thought.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, raising my wrist and taking a long look at my watch. A subtle hint.

  The two lovebirds ignored me.

  “How’s Gena going to get home?” I asked.

  Mark actually looked up at me. “I’ll drive her,” he said. He had lipstick smeared all around his mouth. He looked like Bozo the Clown.

  “In what?” I asked. “Mom and Dad took the car to work, remember?”

  “Oh.” He thought about it. An evil smile spread across his usually innocent-looking face. “I guess she’ll have to spend the night.”

  “You pig!” Gena laughed, and tried to smother him with one of th
e crushed-velvet sofa pillows. They started wrestling around as if I weren’t even there.

  Maybe Mom and Dad are right about her, I thought, feeling annoyed—and jealous—at the same time. Why didn’t I have some guy to wrestle around with and act like a jerk with? A loud knock on the door interrupted my peevish thoughts.

  “That’s probably Mom and Dad,” I said, just to scare Mark and Gena.

  It didn’t work. “Why would they knock?” Mark asked.

  I ran to answer the door. It was Cory Brooks. “I forgot my vomit,” he said a little sheepishly.

  He followed me into the living room. He searched for a while, then found his treasured item under a chair cushion. He carefully folded it up and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans jacket.

  “Hey, Cory, can I have a ride home?” Gena was actually standing up. She straightened her blue cashmere sweater, which had become twisted.

  “Sure. If you don’t mind riding in the backseat with Metcalf.”

  Gena made a face. “Maybe I’ll walk.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ll tie him up with the seat belts,” Cory said. She followed him out the door after standing up on tiptoes to give Mark a last long, lingering kiss.

  A few seconds later, Mark and I were alone in the cluttered living room. “You’d better wash the lipstick off your face,” I told him, trying not to laugh at how ridiculous he looked. “Then we’ve got to clean up.”

  He didn’t say anything, just hurried off to wash away the evidence. He came back to the living room a few minutes later, looking somewhat dazed.

  As I said, he’d never had a girlfriend like Gena before. I was going to say something to him about it, but of course I didn’t. Brothers and sisters can’t really talk about stuff like that. Only on TV. In all the sitcoms, brothers and sisters have these long, serious heart-to-hearts. Then they hug each other and go to the kitchen for snacks.

  But it isn’t that way in real life. If Mark ever hugged me, I’d call a doctor!

  “Some party,” he said, shaking his head. I think he actually looked a little guilty. “How are we gonna clean all this up?”

  “Quickly,” I said. “Before Mom and Dad walk in and see it.”