Read Alexandra, Gone for Free Online

vanished.”
    “As in gone?” Elle said.
    “Gone.”
    “Is it possible she …hurt herself?” Leslie asked.
    “No,” Tom said firmly, “it’s not.”
    “I know it’s been a long time, but I agree with Tom. That just doesn’t sound like the girl I knew.” Jane sighed and shook her head. Her eyes filled, but she didn’t cry.
    “What do the police say?” Leslie asked.
    “They say they’re doing the best they can. They’ve been very good to us really.”
    “How’s Breda?” Jane asked, referring to Alexandra’s mother.
    “Devastated, completely and utterly devastated.”
    “I’m so sorry,” Jane said. “Breda was always so kind to me. When I had my son she knitted him a blue blanket. He didn’t go anywhere without that blanket for years.”
    “I remember that. He called it ‘manky,’” Elle said.
    “We were trying for a baby for a long time,” said Tom. “Alexandra gave up work after Christmas hoping it would help …” He trailed off as if he’d already said too much. Alexandra would kill him if she knew he was talking about their private life to strangers, even if she had been friends with one of them when she was young. And already so much of their private life had been laid bare.
    “It’s a nightmare,” Leslie said. “An absolute nightmare.”
    “She was wearing black trousers, a black blouse with a bow, and black boots,” Tom said, repeating the information he had repeated so many times before. “She took her handbag. She never really kept a lot of cash on her, but she hasn’t used her cards since. She was fine that morning, in good humor—she had planned to meet her friend Sherri in Dalkey at five. She was fine.”
    Suddenly Elle felt the urge to cry, but she couldn’t because it would have been deeply inappropriate, and yet it was becoming harder to fight the tears. She stayed silent and breathed in and out much like her sister had earlier. The full enormity of Alexandra’s disappearance and Tom’s desolation was causing her actual physical pain.
    “I’d like to help you,” Jane said to Tom. “I know we’re strangers, but if there is something I can do?”
    Tom shook his head. “That’s kind of you, but I just don’t know how you can help.”
    “We’ll think of something,” Elle said, and she looked at Leslie, who stared at her blankly.
    “What?” Leslie said, after enduring Elle’s stare for what seemed like an eternity.
    “Aren’t you going to help?” Elle said.
    “I wish I could,” Leslie said, “but if the police can’t, I can’t, and unfortunately neither can either of you.”
    “I disagree,” Jane said. “I’d rather try than stand by and do nothing.”
    “Well, good luck,” Leslie said, and she meant it.
    “Leslie’s right,” Tom said, moved by the two women’s kindness, “but thank you.”
    “We’re going to help whether you like it or not,” Elle said. “Besides, you look like you could do with some direction. Handing out leaflets at a gig? What’s that all about?”
    “If you can think of something better, I’d be happy to give it a go.”
    “I’ll put my thinking cap on,” Elle said. “I take it postings in Dalkey are taken care of?”
    “Yes.”
    “Right. I had to ask.”
    After that Jane reminisced about Alexandra making others laugh. She told them about the time Alexandra had insisted that they sneak out of her parents’ house during a sleepover. They had to get out of a second-story window, jump down onto the extension, and shimmy down the pipe, and when they finally made it to the ground without killing themselves and were busy high-fiving, they failed to notice Alexandra’s father standing on the porch having watched their every move. When he made himself known to them, Alexandra stuck out her arms in front of her and, zombielike, she walked toward her dad, pretending she was sleepwalking.
    “And what did you do?” Tom asked.
    “I wet myself,” Jane admitted, “but Alexandra kept up the act until her dad