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bare finger. I dropped my hand back to my lap. “I’ll find the ring,” I said.
    â€œI’m not worried about the ring. I’m worried about you. ”
    Maybe he was talking about the way I looked: hair thrown back in a messy ponytail; shorts that had fit two weeks ago but were now hanging off my hip bones; an old T-shirt I’d found in my closet where it had been hanging for the last ten years. Meanwhile, his hair was cut and styled, and he was dressed for work like this was all part of the agenda: Take Nicolette to the doctor because she hasn’t been sleeping; follow up on paperwork re: future father-in-law; take cab to airport and prepare for trial.
    â€œEverett, honestly, I’m fine.”
    He reached over and brushed back the wisps of hair that had escaped my ponytail. “Really?” he said.
    â€œYes, really.” My eyes burned as they drifted back to Annaleise’s picture. Only a sane person would realize how close he or she was to the edge. Not like my dad, who didn’t know when he was teetering too close to that chasm, didn’t seem to notice the change in velocity as he went tumbling into the abyss.
    But I knew. I knew how close we all were to that edge. And if I knew, then I was fine. Those were the basic rules of holding one’s shit together, according to Tyler.
    â€œNicolette, I don’t want to leave you here alone.” A car behind us laid on the horn, and Everett jumped, revving the motor of my car as he sped through the green light.
    I stared at the side of his face, watched the road blur past behind him. “I’m not alone. My brother’s here.”
    Everett sighed, and I could hear the argument in his silence.
    Missing girls had a way of working their way into someone’s head. You couldn’t help but see them in everyone—how temporary and fragile we might be. One moment here, and the next, nothing more than a photo staring from a storefront window.
    It was a feeling that settled in your ribs and slowly gnawed at you from the inside—the irrational fear that people were slipping away right before your eyes. I felt it, lingering just under the surface, in the haunting monotone of Tyler’s voicemail recording, and in Daniel’s increasingly unreadable expression. I felt it with greater urgency every time I walked into Grand Pines. Two weeks back in Cooley Ridge and everyone in danger of disappearing.
    Everett pulled into the gravel driveway, parked, and got out of the car without speaking. He was staring at the front of the house, like I’d done when I first arrived home.
    â€œI need to get my dad out of Grand Pines,” I said, walking toward him. Everett had stopped the cops from questioning Dad forthe time being, but I knew it was only a matter of time before his ramblings about “that girl” earned him another visit from detectives desperate for a lead.
    Everett put a hand around my waist as we walked inside. I felt him grasping the loose fabric of my shirt between his fingers. “You need to take care of yourself right now. The doctor said—”
    â€œThe doctor said there’s nothing wrong with me.”
    Everett had insisted on coming into the exam room with me. First the doctor asked about my family history, which was depressing but unrelated. Then came the When did it start question, and Everett answering about Annaleise—my neighbor —who went missing, and the doctor nodding like he understood. Stress. Fear. Either. Both. He scribbled a prescription for some anti-anxiety medicine and a sleeping aid and issued a warning about my mind getting duller, slower, if I didn’t start getting some more sleep. And the elevated risk for daytime blackouts the longer this went on, which was how Everett ended up with my keys.
    You try sleeping, I wanted to tell the doctor. You try sleeping when there’s another missing girl and the police are trying to question your father,