The Return

lt;b>Rachel Harrison was born and raised in the weird state of New Jersey. She received her bachelor's in Writing for Film & Television from Emerson College. After graduating, she worked on TV game shows, in publishing, and for a big bank. She lives in Rochester, NY with her husband and their cat/overlord. This is her first novel.

I.

What do you mean she s missing?

I watched frantic ants descend upon a nearby apple core and a face-down slice of pizza. A renegade splinter faction marched across the parking lot with tiny bits of food on their backs. The raccoons must have been in the garbage behind my office again, and I made a mental note to report it when I got back inside, but of course I forgot.

She s missing, Molly said, her exasperation creeping in through the receiver. I don t know how else to explain it to you.

She s not missing.

Above all else, I knew two truths about Julie. The first was that she was the most stubborn, most determined person I d ever met. And the second was she loved attention. Julie would never be missing. She might go dark, intentionally disappear herself for a few days here or there just to make sure someone noticed. A pop quiz: Do you love me? That she was capable of. That I believed. But missing, as in milk cartons and posters and hounds in fields, no way.

I told Molly as much.

What year do you think this is? Milk cartons?

That s my point. People don t go missing anymore.

What? What world are you living in?

I d been asking myself that question for a long time. I didn t have an answer for her.

She left her house last Friday morning to go hiking and she never came back. Tristan filed a Missing Persons report. They have a team out looking for her.

Looking where?

Acadia National Park.

How d you find out?

He called me.

He called you?

I don t know why me, Elise, so don t start.

Tristan was Julie s husband. None of us had ever met him. They had gone to the same high school and reconnected when Julie returned to her gloomy Massachusetts hometown to take care of her sick mother. They got married before her mom died, so she could be there. The ceremony and reception were held in someone s backyard. We were sent two pictures from that day. One of them cutting a two-tiered, pale yellow cake topped with sugared daisies. The other was of Julie standing in a patch of generous sunlight, smiling with her head back, like she was mid-laugh, or the weight of her happiness was too much for her neck. She wore a birdcage veil.

It was a shock to all of us. It might have been the shock of our lives had she not gone missing.

What do we do? I asked Molly.