That’s pretty much it. A recreational computer person I am not. I don’t game or chat or role-play. If I have an hour to myself I’d rather read a book, or, if my brain is really stressed, veg out watching one of my shows.

So I don’t know how to write code or mess with the hardware or hack into encrypted programs. Which means I’m able to open Kelly’s e-mail program, but I can’t get into the files where she actually keeps her saved mail. Files marked with enticing names like Girltalk, Junk-o-la, Facers, S-man.

Girltalk. Very clever, my daughter. This will be where she keeps all the gossipy stuff. And every time I click on the file it comes up File locked, enter code. Which I would gladly do if I knew the code.

I try Kelly’s birthday.

Log-in did not complete for the following reason(s):

Log-in Information Is Missing Or Invalid

I try her never-to-be-mentioned middle name. (Edith, my mother’s name—there I said it. Kelly Edith Garner. Live with it.)

Log-in did not complete for the following reason(s):

Log-in Information Is Missing Or Invalid

I try the date when she got the all-clear from her cancer. Hit return, fingers mentally crossed.

Log-in did not complete for the following reason(s):

Log In Information Is Missing Or Invalid

I try, what the hell, SETH. Banging hard on the keys, S-E-T-H, take that!

Log-in has timed out. Please exit program.

Three strikes, I’m out, and it’s all I can do not to push the insolent little computer off her desk, thinking there ought to be an emergency button for mothers.

Maybe it’s not being able to make the computer give up its secrets; maybe it’s having been more or less dismissed by the Nassau County cop. Whatever the reason, suddenly I’m having my first major meltdown.

Heart racing, lungs gulping far too much air.

Panic attack.

It’s been years. Okay, weeks. Part of me able to make the diagnosis, the rest of me huffing like a fish pulled out of water.

Paper bag. I’m supposed to get a paper bag, breathe into it so I don’t pass out. But the bags are in the kitchen, a million miles away. Can’t possibly make it down the stairs. Finally I put my head between my knees, and that helps. Constricting the diaphragm.

Whoa, that’s better. Big sigh.

I’m in the kitchen, uncapping a spring water, when my cell goes off.

I flip it open, hoping it’s Kelly. No such luck.

“Hi, Sierra. Thanks for calling back.” My heart instantly tripping again, hands so slick it’s hard to hold the phone.

“You said it was an emergency,” Sierra says, adopting a tone of whiny accusation.

“It is an emergency. Kelly is missing and I think she’s in trouble. I need to call Seth, do you know how I can do that?”

After a pause she says, “Seth? Seth who?”

“Her boyfriend, Sierra. She must have mentioned him.”

“Uh-uh. Nope. There’s a Seth in my math class but he’s like fourteen. A freshman. Him?”

The very idea of a freshman boy offends her.

“This Seth is older,” I tell her. “He might be nineteen or twenty. Maybe even older.”

“No way!”

“Way,” I insist. “I can’t believe she wouldn’t mention a new boyfriend. You’re still best friends, right?”

Another long pause, I can sense her fidgeting, imagine the face she’s making. “Not exactly?”

“Not exactly? What does that mean?”

“We’re, like, still friends and everything.”

“You’re not sharing?”

“Not exactly.”

Not exactly. The adolescent equivalent of “that’s for me to know and you never to find out.”

“Please, Sierra, I need your help. Kelly took off in the middle of the night. I assume with Seth. I’ve reported her missing but the police need somewhere to start. Like with the boyfriend.”

Big gasp. “You’re going to have her arrested? Your own daughter?”

“No, of course not. I’m trying to find her. She called me and said she needed help, but her cell phone got cut off before she could tell me where she is.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I wouldn’t bother you otherwise.”

“Mmm, okay, sure,” Sierra hems and haws for a while. “It’s like, Mrs. Garner, it’s like you’re not bothering me exactly. I just don’t know anything. Sorry.”

I tell her about the photo album, the images of Kelly skydiving. “You don’t know anything about that, Sierra? She never mentioned skydiving?”

“No way!” she squeals, excited again. “She really jumped out of a plane?”

“I think her friend Seth was flying the plane.”

“Oh. My. God.” And then, to whomever she’s with, a shout to the side. “It’s Kelly Garner! She jumped out of a plane! That’s so cool!”

And so it goes. There’s probably no way to know for sure, not without hooking Sierra up to a lie detector—and maybe not even then—but I’m starting to believe she really doesn’t know anything. Not that she’d tell me if she did. At least not directly.

We chat for another few minutes. According to Sierra, Kelly has been like out of the group, you know? An older guy makes like so much sense, because she never wants to hang with them anymore even though she’s been like superficial friendly and everything and one time Sierra went to Kelly, she went, what’s up with you lately? and Kelly gave her this like Mona Lisa smile thing that, I’m sorry, Mrs. Garner, but it really pissed me off.

I know that silent smile, how infuriating it can be.

“Sierra, can you do me a big favor? Can you ask around?”

“I guess.” Sounding like she’d rather extract one of her own wisdom teeth with a pair of rusty pliers.

“It’s very important. Please?”

“Yeah, okay, whatever.”

Then she breaks the connection. Not goodbyes, just a hang-up. Not that she means to be rude, or even knows what rude is. And I’m left with basically nothing, not a clue, or even a sense of where to go next. Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. Where are you, baby?

11. When The Scream Stays Inside Your Mind

Kelly Garner wakes up dead. Dead and floating.

That’s the feeling. Her body isn’t there; she’s left it behind. All that remains are a few dim thoughts flickering in the dark nothing. The sensation of flying, of falling through the air. His face, his voice holds her attention briefly, earnestly, then fades. Can’t think of his name. Name on the tip of her tongue, if only she had a tongue. Then gone, leaving nothing behind.

It’s just herself alone now, the part of her that lives inside her mind, the dark, knotted core of her innermost self.

Warm.

There, she actually feels something, a physical sensation. Where is it coming from? Is death warm? No, no, she’s feeling the warm on her skin, on her forehead and scalp. That’s where the warm message is coming from.

Beads of perspiration on her scalp. Sweat in her eyes. She blinks instinctively, feels her eyelids respond.

How very strange. Her eyes are open but she sees nothing. And although she’s starting to detect the numbing tingle of a body beyond her face, it’s very distant, as if her limbs have been hidden over the next horizon. Not that she can see the horizon in the dark.

Dark.

That’s why she can’t see! It’s dark. The absence of light.