The question hangs in the air between us as it registers in my brain.

"No idea. She barely said anything to me after school." I say, hoping that will be the end of the conversation. Hoping this isn’t anything serious.

"I’m going to need you to meet me outside the mall where I dropped you off, in about five minutes." Only then can I acknowledge the tension in his voice, the anxiety. He has to be overreacting. I don’t answer, so he prods me for a response. "Reagan. Just tell me you understand. I’ll see you in five minutes."

"Do I need to come now?" I spit out the question without thinking. This is just starting to go so well. "I can find my own way home." Rhiannon should call any second now, but my night is already ruined.

"Reagan, we both have to get back to the house. Rhiannon could be missing. We’re not sure, but no one can get a hold of her and she’s not at home. She didn’t tell she was going out and she’s not answering her phone. Five minutes."

My dad has already hung up the phone, so there’s nothing left to do but to pull mine away from my ear and stare at it as though that will make what he just said make sense. But it really doesn’t help at all.

Rhiannon is missing? I take a breath. That has to be some kind of mistake. There’s a difference between not knowing where someone is, and them being missing.

I open my phone again and search for my last text from Rhiannon. It was at lunchtime yesterday.

Rhiannon: No idea.

She’d been answering my question about what we were having for dinner. Before that, we’d been texting about plans to marathon Planet Earth a few days earlier. It was all business as usual.

"Everything okay?" Kent is standing behind me, his hand reaching out as though to touch my shoulder but hovering in midair between us.

Right, Kent. I look at my phone for a few seconds more, and then shake my head to try and clear my thoughts. "I have to go."

Kent’s expression falls at once from worried to disappointment. He thinks I’m leaving because of him. He has to. So while family drama isn’t usually something I’d want or need to broadcast to anyone, I tell him what my dad just told me, then wait for him to respond as though somehow, he’ll be able to make sense of this where I can’t.

He nods once. "Okay, let’s go. I’ll walk you out front and wait till your dad gets there. Everything is going to work out."

I gather my stuff and we start moving through the mall. I feel like I should be sprinting or something, but I’m in a daze. More than once, Kent gently nudges me when I go in the wrong direction. It’s been less than an hour since I first walked through this mall, and already everything looks foreign and new.

"How are you going to get home?" I ask when the thought occurs to me. He probably just had someone drop him off too, someone who could be back home in Fairview by now.

"Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure it out. I’m sure my mom will come back and get me."

Sure. I nod like that makes perfect sense. A moment later, we’re outside and the bite of the air is stinging my face. My dad’s car is already waiting at the curb. I see him before he sees me, leaning against the steering wheel and tapping his hand impatiently.

I walk toward the car but then remember Kent behind me. "Thanks," I say. "I’ll see you at school on Monday?" My voice has no tone at all. I sound like a robot, even to me. But I’m already walking toward the car before I can make it better.

"That’s Kent, right?"

"Yeah." I answer, buckling myself in. There’s so much I want to ask, I’ll wait until we’ve at least pulled away and are heading back toward home.

"He’s not on his own, is he?"

"What? Yeah. The rest of our friends bailed, so he’s going to wait for a ride home."

"Don’t be silly. Tell him to get in, I’ll drive him back to Fairview so he’s not stranded here by himself. His mom can come get him from our house."

On any other day, I’m sure that my dad would have been more suspicious of the fact I’d told him I was meeting with the big group of friends and then show up with only a guy for company. But the thought doesn’t even seem to occur to him, which worries me more than anything he’d said earlier.

Kent is still standing huddled in the door, using the protection of its frame to shield him from the frigid weather. I’m sure he’s watching and waiting for us to leave to be polite. He looks at me when I wave him over. Once he’s standing beside the car, I roll down the window. "We can drive you back to Fairview. Could your mom come and get you from our house?"

"Don’t worry about me." he says.

I do my best not to huff impatiently. This conversation is now holding us up from getting back to my sisters. "It’s no trouble. Just get in. We’ve got to get going, but we’re not going to leave you here either."

Kent doesn’t argue. As soon as he’s settled in the back seat, my dad pulls away from the mall. Only then do I realize that Kent is about to see the dark side of Gregory Donovan because even when there isn’t a family crisis going on, his driving is less than ideal. My relaxed, goofy father becomes something of a demon when there are other drivers involved.

I sink into my seat as Dad yells something obscene at a little old lady who he doesn’t think is going as fast as she should be. We haven’t even left the mall’s parking lot yet. It’s just enough to pull me back into my own head, out of the fog that overtook me after my dad first called.

This all has to be a big misunderstanding. By the time we get home, someone will have already found Rhiannon and dragged her back home from some study session, or to the bookstore where we both have been known to lose track of time.

I gaze down at my phone but there are no new messages or missed calls. No news yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not coming.

The van swerves suddenly into the left lane. I look back and mouth a quick ‘I’m sorry’ to Kent who’s gone a little pale in the back seat.

If nothing else, at this rate, we will be home in no time.

By the time we pull onto Oakridge, I’m having trouble sitting still in my seat. Dad invites Kent to come inside and wait for his mom to get him, but as we step through the front door, looking at Kent's expression, I'm guessing he would've rather waited outside than to get involved in our family drama. My mom and other sisters are already waiting in the living room, each of them on their phones. Reece does a double take when she sees Kent standing behind me but says nothing.

"Nothing new?" Dad asks, dumping his coat over a dining room chair rather than hanging it up, before he moves to go sit beside my mom.

She shakes her head. Dad leans over, putting his arm around her and giving her shoulders a quick squeeze. "She'll be okay. Something like this was always going to happen eventually. Kids act out. I'm sure this is all that is. I’m sure she’s fine." Somehow, he almost manages to sound like he believes it.

"I wish she’d just call to tell us she's okay. What if this isn't her acting out? I've been trying not to overreact, trying to let this play out and hoping she’ll just show up any minute."

My head spins as she talks. What if something's happened? What is she even considering? A kidnapping? Maybe Rhiannon’s been hit by a car and is lying in a ditch somewhere.

I look helplessly over at my sisters and catch Reilly's eye. "What did we miss?"

It’s Reece who answers. "Not much. We were calling earlier and her phone was ringing, but now we go straight to voicemail. She's turned it off. Like she's sick of us pestering her, and worrying about if she's okay. We’ve only gotten one text from her since we noticed she was gone, and it didn’t say much of anything." Reece's voice is hard with anger, but I can hear the waiver of worry underneath what she's saying. What if it wasn't Rhiannon who turned off her phone?

"So, we call the cops," I say. As soon as thoughts of worst-case scenarios entered my mom's head, we should have called the police. One vague text doesn’t mean she’s safe.

"What if this is nothing? I'm worried it will only make things worse. Rhiannon's been so unhappy since we got here, and if she's just hiding out somewhere to get some space and we send the police after her, I'm sure she won't thank us."

"She doesn't need to thank us. If she's in enough trouble that the police are needed, then this is the only move. If not, then I'm guessing she's in a whole lot of trouble anyway and no one here cares what she thinks. What did the text say?"

Reilly looks down at her phone, shaking her head. "It was right before you guys got here. It was just ‘I'm fine, leave me alone.’ And that's around when she turned off her phone."

"I know." My mom looks up and locks eyes on Kent, who has as far as I know, has been hovering behind me since we got home, trying to stay in view of the driveway so he can sprint out of here at the first opportunity. My mind screeches to a halt, but as it starts working again, I just know I’m worried about the same thing my mom is. He can leave our house, right to his mother's car. His mother the reporter who showed up at our house on moving day, completely uninvited who seems to think news about our family is the only way to sell papers.

I’d bet good money that no matter how this turns out, Mindy Harris would be very interested in the details on what’s going on at the Donovan house tonight.

"You won't say anything will you?" I ask, turning on Kent. "I mean, I know she's your mom. but no one here thinks a fifteen-year-old girl being M.I.A. is news, right?" Unless, she really is missing. I don't say that out loud, I don't allow that to be a possibility.

For a brief moment, Kent looks hurt by what I’m suggesting. I have to assume he is a bigger fan of his mother than I am. I know if one of my friend’s siblings didn’t come home, I’d tell my parents in a heartbeat. It's not a judgment, but an unavoidable conflict of interest.

"What can I do to help?" is what Kent says instead. "If you guys need to call the police, you don't want this getting out more publicly, I can keep her distracted." Kent looks down at his feet, not loving having five sets of eyes boring into him. "Or, if you want the entire town on a looking for Rhiannon, I'm pretty sure I can do that too. I know my mom would want to help. She can be a bit much sometimes, but when it comes to rallying the troops, you really can't do better." He looks over at us helplessly, I turn to my parents. Whatever happens next is up to them.

"Do you know the chief of police here in Fairview?" Mom asks Kent. "If we wanted to keep this fairly quiet and just get more eyes on the street, could we do that?" It hasn't been that long yet, maybe forty minutes, but I'm still surprised that my mother is even considering holding off on the no holds barred attitude. She's not one to panic, but Rhiannon's safety could literally be at stake here.

I hate to think it, but it's very possible that my mom is still letting Rhiannon's grudge get the best of her. She's doing what she thinks will piss Rhiannon off the least. I do know my sister, and having her picture broadcasted on all the local TV stations, or having a radio announcer tell everyone that she's not at home would be her worst nightmare. If she is fine, and she hated living in Fairview before, I can't see her getting past something like that after. Is it possible I’m the one over-reacting here, rather than my mom under-reacting?

"Okay." I say. "So we call the police as a precaution. Say we know it's probably not an emergency but ask for help. That's what they're there for right?"

Kent nods. "Constable Williams is a good guy. His daughter is just a couple years younger than us. He might even have more ideas about how to help without blowing all of this up."

"We will go try to find her too. All of us." As I speak, an idea forms in my head. Because, in a town as small as this one, there are only so many places she could be. Sitting around here waiting for her to come home will not help us at all. "One of us will wait here, just in case she comes home or calls. The rest of us will look." I glance out the window and wish it wasn't quite so dark outside even though it's not that late at night yet.

Although, it's not like she's going to be hiding in the bushes or anything, so light or dark, it probably doesn’t make a difference.

A set of headlights pulls up into our driveway.

"What do you want me to do?" Kent asks, already backing out of the living room towards the front door.

"Nothing. It's fine. I feel weird asking you to hide something from your mom."

Kent smiles so little, I almost miss it. "So you do want me to hide this from my mom then?"

I grimaced apologetically. "You said it, not me. Keep your phone on, I’ll let you know if anything changes." From out of nowhere, I'm smiling. Kent has started to act like part of this team with absolutely no trouble at all. It's something I need to thank him for once I've thoroughly yelled at Rhiannon for causing all of this drama in the first place.

If she's okay. God, I hope she's okay. Even if she's safe, there has to be something big that caused her to do this. She's not one for random acts of defiance, at least not before we moved here. Lately, I never know what to expect from her anymore, which is probably what makes this so scary. I can't imagine what she's going through that had her acting like this was her only option.

Kent mumbles an uncomfortable goodbye before slipping out of our house and out into the night.

This was not how our night was supposed to go.

A minute later my parents, Reece and I change into our winter clothing as well. Reilly will stay at home and keep trying Rhiannon's cell phone. When it comes down to it, she's the one who's most likely going to get a response, she’s the most unintimidating option. I can tell she wants to be out helping too, but we all agree that this is our best plan.

It's only once were outside and on the porch that we realize none of us have much of a game plan. If my parents are both taking their cars, that means Reece and I are limited to where we can walk to.

But odds are wherever Rhiannon has gone, it’s somewhere she has to have been able to walk as well, unless she took the bus. She also has a head start.

Yeah, this whole thing is kind of a disaster. I try to stop myself from second guessing my every thought and to go with my gut. There are days I understand Rhiannon better than I do myself, that has to count for something.

"Mom, can you drive me to the town square? I'll start there so Reece and I are covering different ground."