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Another short pause before Nicole typed again.

No one ever saw her again.

Sad.

Nicole stared at the screen and at the wordsadas it popped up in the dialog box. She typed.

Still miss her.

Ever think about what Julie went through? Try to put yourself in that situation?

Nicole watched as the question popped onto her screen. This was why she was helplessly addicted to their conversations. She’d thought about this very thing for years. She wondered how Julie was taken and how she felt when she realized she wasn’t going home. She wondered if Julie climbed into his car by herself, or if he forced her. She wondered where he took her and what he did to her. Morbidly, she thought aboutthese things. During the days and sometimes when she slept at night. Mostly, she and Julie chased fireflies in her dreams, but within the darker imaginings were murky images of Julie crying in a dim closet, too scared to push open the door and run for help.

Finally, Nicole’s fingers moved over the keyboard.

All the time.

Long pause.

Me too. I think about my brother, Joshua. Picture him in some dark place, scared and all alone. It makes me want to cry but I can’t stop thinking about it. Does that make us weird? These thoughts?

I don’t know. I don’t think so. Better than pretending Julie never existed, the way my mother and aunt do.

Nicole sat still and waited for a reply. Finally, it came.

I’ve got a secret, if you promise to keep it.

I promise.

Nicole stared at the screen. There was a short pause before Casey’s reply popped up.

I know a club.

Oh yeah? What kind of club?

The kind I think you’d really like.

CHAPTER 7

July 2016

Four Weeks Before the Abduction

Actually a chain of four lochs connected to one another by channels, Emerson Bay was the largest and most populated, and ran via the Chowan River to the Atlantic Ocean. Homes colonized the shores and were stacked deep inland away from the bay. Matt Wellington’s house sat on the banks of Emerson Bay and, like Rachel Ryan’s, was a sprawling hillside estate whose backyard spilled down to the water’s edge. By ten p.m., Saturday night’s party was in full swing.

The Wellingtons’ pool was dug into the side of the hill, with boulders and granite creating a backdrop where the bulldozer had cut into the earth. Spotlights highlighted the granite, and underwater bulbs made visible the kicking legs of kids treading water in the deep end. Girls screamed as they sat on guys’ shoulders for chicken fights. Matt Wellington’s parents made an appearance every so often, walking out to the pool to check on things. The kids resorted to sneaking beersdown by the bay. Stairs cut through the hill and led to the water. Out of sight from the house, a cooler filled with cold Budweiser was quickly losing its bulk as kids chugged beer, squashed the cans, and tossed them in the bay.

Megan McDonald sat with her friends at a patio table. Some girls walked around in bikini tops and cutoff shorts. The bolder ones lost the shorts and paraded around in full bikinis.

“She’s a total slut,” Megan said. “Look at her.”

Megan was hanging with her cheer team friends, a huddle of ten girls. They watched Matt hoist Nicole Cutty onto his shoulders by dipping his head underwater and swimming between her legs before standing, his hands firmly planted on her thighs. Nicole screamed as she wrestled Jessica Tanner, who was sitting on Tyler Elliot’s shoulders.

At some point during the chicken fight, Nicole reached over and pulled Jessica’s bikini down to expose her breast. The boys hooted at the skin show before Jessica screamed and fell backward into the water, one arm crossed over her bare chest, the other extended straight at Nicole with her middle finger raised until the deep end swallowed her.

“Who does that?” Megan asked.

“They’re so desperate for attention,” Stacey Morgan said.