The Disappearance Of Sloane Sullivan. Gia Cribbs

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      I looked at Jason. His eyes were gleaming. Two, three, four, five, he mouthed in quick succession. I win.

      I groaned, but couldn’t help laughing as I turned into the hall. My smile grew even larger when I realized it was lined with framed photographs.

      There were some I didn’t recognize, but many more I did. Five-year-old Jason on Christmas morning straddling a bike that matched the one I’d found under my tree. Seven-year-old Jason with a wide front-teeth-missing smile and a dripping ice cream cone. Ten-year-old Jason sitting in the lifeguard chair at sunset, laughing that giant childhood laugh of his I hadn’t seen here yet. I’d been there for all of them—I’d even taken the lifeguard picture myself. So when I came to a closed door on the left side of the hall that had to be Jason’s room, I didn’t care that I couldn’t see what it looked like. I knew Jason. I didn’t need to see inside to find out who he was now. I grinned and whirled around to find the bathroom.

      Instead, I found myself staring at a photo of two women at the beach. And not just any beach. Home. Jason’s mom’s long brown hair was blowing in the breeze and she had her arm around a beautiful woman with dirty-blond chin-length hair, a million freckles and a thin scar through her left eyebrow. They were sitting on colorful beach towels, wearing the matching purple bathing suits their kids had given them for Mother’s Day the month before. The sides of their heads were resting together and their smiles were as bright as the sun shining down on them. I reached up and touched the blonde’s face with a fingertip as tears welled in my eyes. I hadn’t seen my mom in almost six years.

       I couldn’t stop my leg from bouncing as I glanced at the man sitting next to me in the too-cold room. He wore jeans and a navy T-shirt, not a suit like the guy who’d just taken my dad into the motel hallway, but I knew he was one of them. His shaggy brown hair and big brown eyes made him look younger than the rest of the suits I’d seen that day, but he was too serious to be anything other than an agent.

       He rubbed the back of his neck and took a deep breath. I decided I liked him, even though he hadn’t really said much to me. He was the only one who looked like I felt: sad and exhausted and totally freaked out.

       “No...no!”

       I flinched at the cries that rang through the paper-thin motel walls. My dad’s cries.

       I jumped up, heart pounding, desperate to help him, but the man grabbed my arm. I stared at him through tears I couldn’t blink away. He silently shook his head.

       I hadn’t known I’d been asking a question with that stare until he answered, but now I wanted him to take the answer back. “What’s your name?” I whispered, my voice cracking.

       He held my gaze for a long moment. “Agent Markham. But everyone calls me Mark.”

       “You’re wrong, Mark.” I tried to say it as forcefully as I could, but that didn’t make it true.

       When we’d left home that afternoon, the agents said they were sending someone to get my mom from work to speed things up, and that we’d all meet at this motel. We’d been waiting for hours. She hadn’t shown up.

       Mark swallowed hard. “They got to her first.”

       The words were like ice in my veins.

       “She left work before we got there. Her boss had given her the afternoon off and she was coming home to surprise you and we didn’t know. We tried but...they got to her before we did.”

       “No.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep the truth out. “No. She’s just late, that’s all. She’s coming.”

       “I’m sorry.”

       It was the softness of Mark’s voice, barely above a whisper, that made me look at him. And his eyes did me in. They were so full of sorrow and anger and guilt that I couldn’t pretend he was lying.

       My whole body started to shake as tears streamed down my face.

       Mark knelt in front of me and held me tight and even though I’d just met him, I didn’t want him to let go. I forced the words out between shaky breaths: “Are they going to find us too?”

       This time when he spoke, Mark’s voice wasn’t gentle. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

      I wiped away my tears so I could see the photo more clearly. I hadn’t been allowed to take any pictures with me when we left, but it hadn’t mattered because my mom was supposed to be with us. Now I tried to soak up her smile and memorize her face. Because I’d forgotten exactly what she looked like.

      “You’re going down!”

      Sawyer’s shout from the rec room made me jump. I hurried into the bathroom, flushed the toilet—appearances—and splashed cold water on my face to get rid of the blotchiness the tears had caused. I walked back to the rec room as casually as I could and found Sawyer and Livie in the middle of an intense video-game battle that involved both of them yelling at the TV. I walked over to Jason, who was sitting on the couch, just starting to draw a yellow line on a T-shirt. “Hey, I need to get going.”

      He frowned. “Already?”

      “Yeah. I...I totally forgot the cable guy is supposed to come hook everything up today. I promised my dad I’d be there. Sorry about not helping with the shirts.” I started to back away.

      “It’s okay. Do you want me to walk you out?”

      “No. I don’t want to interrupt the fun.” I gestured to the TV. “I’ll show myself out. Tell everyone I said bye, okay? Thanks for having me over.” I rushed up the steps before he could stop me.

      Because I didn’t own a car and Jason’s house was only a few blocks from mine, I’d walked there. But as I closed Jason’s front door behind me, I cursed my inability to make a quick getaway. I eyed the cars parked along the street, wishing I could start one up and escape faster. Instead, I hustled down the block and kept crossing streets and ducking through people’s backyards, checking over my shoulder as I went, until I ended up several blocks away in the opposite direction of my place. If anyone had tried to follow me, I was pretty sure I’d lost them.

      I sat on a bench and buried my face in my hands. The picture of my mom burned bright behind my eyelids. Even though I wasn’t near the beach, I could hear the crash of the waves, feel the hot sand on my feet, smell the way my mom’s perfume and suntan lotion mixed to create the flower-coconut scent I’d loved. Silent tears ran down my cheeks and I shook my head at my own stupidity for breaking down in the middle of the hall where anyone could’ve seen.

      You’re not her. Just because things felt familiar back there does not mean you’re that girl anymore. You can never be her again. Too much has happened. Jason doesn’t know you and you don’t know him. You’re Sloane, and he needs to believe you’re Sloane.

      I took a deep breath and wiped away my tears. Blend in, follow the rules from here on out and don’t let anyone get too close. Especially not your former best friend.

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