Read What Comes Next for Free Online

that was in every high school student’s three-ring binder. The handwriting was careful, a script formed by someone who wanted to make certain that each word was clear and legible. It was not something that had been rapidly scribbled by a teenager eager to head out the door and do what the note said she was going to do. It was a note that had been worked on. Perhaps it was even the third or fourth carefully constructed draft. Terri guessed if she searched hard she could find discarded alternatives in a wastebasket or in the trash containers out back. Before she responded Terri read through the note three times.
Mom,
I’m going to the movies with some friends I’m meeting at the mall. I’ll get dinner there and maybe spend the night at either Sarah or Katie’s house. I’ll call you after the movie to let you know or else just come home then. I won’t be too late. I’ve finished my homework and have nothing new due until next week.
    Very reasonable. Very concise. A complete falsehood.
    “Where was this left?”
    “Stuck to the fridge with a magnet,” the sergeant said. “Right where it couldn’t be missed.”
    Terri read it through a couple more times. You’re learning, aren’t you, Jennifer? she thought. You knew exactly what to write.
    Movies —that meant her mother would assume her cell phone was shut off, and it gave her at least a two-hour window when she couldn’t reasonably be reached.
    Some friends —not specified but seemingly benign. The two names she did provide, Sarah and Katie, were probably willing to cover for her, or were themselves unavailable.
    I’ll call you —so her mother and Scott would sit around waiting for the telephone to ring while valuable minutes were lost.
    No homework —Jennifer removed from the equation the biggest external excuse for her mother to call her.
    Terri thought it was clever the way Jennifer had bought a block of time, sent her mother in directions other than the right one, and hidden the real purpose of her plan. She looked up at Mary Riggins.
    “You telephoned her friends?” she asked.
    Scott answered. “Of course, detective. After the last showings at the theaters we called every Sarah and Katie we could think of. Neither of us could ever recall Jennifer talking about any friend with either of those names. Then we went through every other name we could remember ever hearing from her. None of them had been to the mall, and none had made plans to meet with Jennifer. Or had seen her since school ended in the afternoon.”
    Terri nodded. Smart girl.
    “Jennifer doesn’t seem to have that many friends,” Mary said wistfully. “She’s never been good at a lot of the social networking of junior high or high school.”
    This statement, Terri guessed, was a repetition of something Scott had said in many “family” discussions.
    “But she could be with someone you don’t know?”
    Both mother and boyfriend shook their heads.
    “You don’t think she has some secret boyfriend that she’s maybe hidden from you guys?”
    “No,” Scott said. “I would have picked up on those signs.”
    Sure, Terri thought. She didn’t say this out loud but made a notation on her pad of paper.
    Mary gathered herself together and tried to respond in some less tear-strewn manner. But her voice quavered, endowing each word with a shakiness that perfectly captured her fear. “When I finally thought to go to her room, you know, maybe there was some other note, or something, I saw that her bear was gone. A teddy bear she named Mister Brown Fur . She’s slept with it every night… it’s like a security blanket. Her father gave it to her not long before he died, and she would never ever go anywhere and leave it behind.”
    Too sentimental, Terri thought. Jennifer, taking that teddy bear along with you was a mistake. Maybe the only one, but a mistake nevertheless. Otherwise you would have had twenty-four hours instead of the six you’ve successfully stolen.
    “Was there anything