Forget Me Not: A gripping, heart-wrenching thriller full of emotion and twists!. A. Taylor M.

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СКАЧАТЬ then that’s okay. And I know yesterday must have been hard for you, not to mention today, but we just want you to stay on the right track.” He said it all in a slight rush, even though he normally spoke slowly, thoughtfully. He’d obviously worked up to this a bit, not wanting to spook me, as if I was a highly strung racehorse. I wondered if he and Mom had discussed it before she left for work that morning, or maybe even the previous night when I stumbled in through the front door, a little worse for wear.

      I thought about every bitten back word I’d never spoken to my parents, and every catapult line I’d thrown out at them and wished I’d pulled back on. It had been a long ten years, and I couldn’t help feeling that I’d made it even longer. The guilt I felt over losing Nora had seeped out, into, and over everything, and eventually evolved into a guilt about feeling guilty; hell, it might even have been guilt over having any feelings at all. There’s no manual for grief, and there certainly isn’t one for being someone a missing person leaves behind; but however you were meant to act in the face of the impossible, I was pretty sure that I’d failed. Everything I did was filtered through that failure, grimy with that guilt, and as much as I hated asking for help, I seemed to be in need of it, all the time. I wanted, desperately, to get to a place where that helping hand didn’t immediately feel like a punch to the gut, but I had no idea how to get there, no idea if I ever would.

      I nodded, staring into my coffee cup. I could feel the grief building in me. The small round rock of loss that lived somewhere around my abdomen and rose through my stomach and lungs, and up through my esophagus until it stayed somewhere right at the back of my throat, threatening tears and an inability to breathe. Sometimes it rose even further and lived for days inside my head, growing moss, clouding my thoughts and vision. Those were the days my limbs felt too heavy to get out of bed. Those were the days that had taught me that sometimes it was easier to say nothing at all. I had to be careful here, to maneuver myself around all the ways I might trip up, or fall down, or however you want to put it, because if I didn’t, if I didn’t look for the signs and pay attention, that rock would get bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier and I wouldn’t make it out of the house, let alone back to Madison.

      “You want me to make you breakfast?” Dad added gently once it became obvious I didn’t have it in me to reply.

      I shook my head again, this time a little more forcefully and said: “I’ll just have cereal.”

      I was sitting in the breakfast nook eating my cereal when Ange called me again.

      “Hey, I’m just finishing up my breakfast,” I said on picking up, assuming she was parked outside somewhere waiting for me to come out, “you want to come inside and wait for me here?”

      “Maddie,” she said, her voice a breathless straight line.

      “Yeah?” I said, suddenly sitting up a little straighter. There was something about the shape of her voice that instantly shook me, old memories rattling around in my ribcage making my heartbeat pick up.

      “I … I—”

      “Ange, what’s going on? What’s happened? Are you okay?” My voice was snappy and sharp, but I couldn’t help it, I knew where conversations like that went and my fear translated to frustration all too easily.

      “I was just driving through town to come get you and all these police cars passed me.”

      There was no way I could have possibly known, so of course I thought of Nora, blindly following my memory back, racing those cop cars as fast as they could go to a morning so vivid it could have happened yesterday.

       ***

       I wake up slowly, one side of my face still smashed into the cool blue of my pillow case. When my eyes open the room is an even, cold grey. Ange is already up, the bed empty and the curtains opened halfway, not that it’s made much difference. Outside the world is one single color. White.

       I reach for my phone, checking to see if there are any calls or texts from Nora, but there aren’t any. There’s one from Nate but I don’t read it, not yet anyway. I can smell hot butter and coffee, and I pull on my bathrobe and slippers before heading downstairs to the kitchen. Cordy is sat in the breakfast nook, her back to the window, feet on the bench and knees pulled to her chest while she texts someone feverishly and almost completely ignores me as I walk into the room. Instead of my mom at the stove, Ange hovers over the skillet, spatula in her right hand, waiting to turn the French toast over. She’s still dressed in her pajamas, one of my hoodies pulled over her T-shirt to keep her warm. Mom walks in through the garage door, waving a bottle of maple syrup triumphantly in one hand.

       “I knew we had more somewhere,” she says, closing the door behind her, “disaster averted.”

       “Since when do we put guests to work?” I ask, waving my hand towards Ange, and then staring pointedly at my sisters.

       “Ange isn’t a guest, honey,” Mom says, squeezing Ange to her side, and kissing her on the side of her head, “she’s family.”

       “Yeah, she’s family. And family makes family breakfast,” Cordy says.

       “You’re all disgusting. And Ange, I apologize.”

       Ange laughs and flips over four slices of bread in the huge cast iron pan, one by one.

       “Have you heard from Nora?” I say to her, helping myself to a cup of coffee from the machine.

       She shakes her head. “No, nothing. Have you?”

       “Not since before I left work last night. You think we should be worried?”

       “I dunno. It’s not like her, but maybe she went up to the lake house and forgot to take her charger or something?”

       “Yeah, maybe.”

       Just then I hear the sound of the front door opening, and my dad’s low chatter as he welcomes whoever it is that’s just appeared. They walk into the kitchen together, Dad hanging back in the doorway as Bright enters the room. He’s running the rim of his hat through his fingers as Mom smiles at him.

       “Michael, what are you doing here? You know Serena’s back in Chicago, right?”

       Bright nods his head but doesn’t answer my mom, instead looking from me to Ange who’s still studying the progress of her French toast.

       “Maddie, Angela, have either of you heard from Nora today?”

       We look at one another, Ange’s face suddenly slack, and I shake my head at Bright. “No, we were just talking about her. Neither of us have heard from her since last night. Why?”

       “When last night?” Bright asks.

       “Um, she left a voicemail on my phone.” I pull out my phone from the pocket of my bathrobe and head to recent calls. “At about 7:30. 7:27 to be exact.”

       “What’s this about, Bright?” Ange asks.

       “Nora took her dad’s car last night, and it was found earlier this morning, unlocked, СКАЧАТЬ