Read About That Night for Free Online

“Unless that girl is a good cook.”
    â€œShe says she’ll call if she hears from him.”
    â€œWell, then,” Richard says. “That takes care of that, don’t you think?”
    But it doesn’t. Especially as the night wears on and the numbers on the clock flip to 12:00 midnight. Especially not after Marsha has left at least a dozen messages on her son’s phone, five of them in the last hour. Especially when Jordie hasn’t called yet and isn’t responding to voicemail messages either. And especially not when Richard is snoring beside her.
    She takes the cordless phone from the cradle and carries it out into the upstairs hall. This isn’t, strictly speaking, an emergency—at least, she’s pretty sure the police wouldn’t consider it one—so she has to call directory assistance to get the police nonemergency number. When an automated voice prompts her to press the number sign if she wants to be connected to a living, breathing body, she does so. Then ensues a ten-minute conversation with a police officer whose name she can’t remember, and she is too intimidated to ask him to repeat it. The police officer tells her the same thing Richard has told her with increasing impatience: maybe he’s with friends, maybe he’s partying, maybe he’s with a girl, he’s almost eighteen, isn’t he, do you have any reason to suspect foul play, does he have a medical condition you’re concerned about? No? Well then, I suggest you wait it out, and if he doesn’t turn up by morning, call his friends. If he still doesn’t turn up, get back to us, and we’ll take a missing-person report.
    Marsha is in tears when she finally hangs up. Missing person? Her son? That can’t be. It can’t. Then she wonders how many other mothers have thought the same thing, only to later see their child’s face on the side of a milk carton.
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    â€œStill nothing?” Jordie’s mother asks the next morning when Jordie drops the phone handset back onto its base. Mrs. Cross is at the stove making oatmeal, the best way to start the day—hot, hearty and extremely low on the glycemic index.
    â€œShe’s freaking out,” Jordie says. At first, Mrs. Maugham’s voice was just shaky. But it quickly devolved into something more liquid. It sounded to Jordie as if Mrs. Maugham was crying. “She thinks he’s been in an accident or something. He’s not answering her calls or her texts.”
    â€œIf it was you or Carly, I’d be freaking out.” Mrs. Cross shudders at the thought. “Have they called the police?”
    â€œFirst thing this morning. He’s officially a missing person.” She can’t quite believe it. Where is he? She can understand if he’s angry with her for what she said—and with Ronan for showing up at the house and starting everything—and, because of that, doesn’t feel like responding to her texts. But what does he have against his mom? Why is he acting like that to her?
    â€œI still don’t understand why he left the house,” Mrs. Cross says. “He didn’t say anything to you about where he was going?”
    Jordie shakes her head but feels guilty, even though the gesture represents the truth. Derek took off sometime after Jordie more or less accused him of lying and theft. He didn’t say anything about leaving. But she can’t shake the idea that she’s the reason he’s gone. She’s been thinking about it all night and has now concluded it’s unlikely that Derek took the bracelet, despite what Ronan says he saw. Derek is an open guy—too open—and the look on his face was one of pure innocence. He can’t hide anything—his feelings, what he did, what he didn’t do—and people who can’t hide anything can’t lie. At least, they can’t lie and get away with it. Can they?
    No, they