Not the lawyers or the cops. Not her friends or family. Not even the boy who loved her more than anyone. And most certainly not the United States Marshals Service. You know, the people who run the witness protection program or, as it’s officially called, the Witness Security Program? Yeah, the WITSEC folks definitely don’t want me talking to you.

But I don’t care. I have to tell someone.

If I don’t, you’ll never know how completely wrong things can go. How a single decision can change everything. How, when it really comes down to it, you can’t trust anyone Not even yourself. You have to understand, so it won’t happen to you next. Because you never know when the person sitting next to you isn’t who they claim to be...and because there are worse things than disappearing.

The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan

Gia Cribbs

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Gia Cribbs asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9781474084031

For my daughters. Never stop chasing your dreams.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

Prologue

I couldn’t shake the feeling of someone watching me.

Dropping the blindfold, I kicked away the ropes by my feet that, a few seconds earlier, had been wrapped a little too loosely around my wrists to keep me bound.

I couldn’t see a thing.

Thunder crashed, making something metallic sounding rattle to my right. I held my breath and waited for a flash of lightning to illuminate the pitch-black room, anything to give me a clue about where I was. But when I heard more thunder a minute later, my heart sank. There are no windows in this room.

My pulse raced. I had to get out and I didn’t have much time.

Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to concentrate, to ignore what I was feeling, and picture every windowless room in the school. The clean, slightly antiseptic edge to the air didn’t smell like the gym locker room. The kitchen? I inched toward the metallic rattling, arms braced in front of me. Even through my gloves, the metal shelves felt cool when my fingers brushed against them, feeling the buckets and sponges and spray bottles lined up along their edges. The supply closet.

I followed the shelving around the room until I came to the door. Without a sound, I eased it open slightly. After a few seconds of blinking furiously at the light that came pouring in, I could see well enough to tell the hallway was empty.

I glanced at the rooms directly across from me. Almost all the classrooms had windows, but most were too high and too small for me to fit through. There were side doors at the end of the hall to the left, a good two hundred feet away. Those doors were the closest exit, but making a run for it down the bright hall, even if the lights were dimmed at night, seemed too risky. I needed to stick to the shadows. Which left the only other way out of this part of the school: the gym.

I inched the supply closet door open farther and slid out, stepping over the rags that had been stuffed under the door to block the light. In only three steps I was in the chemistry lab, the one with doors to two different hallways. I dashed across the dark lab, careful not to bump into anything, and was about to step into the hall that led to the gym when everything went completely dark.

I was out of time.

I raced into the hall, willing my outstretched hands to find the gym entrance. Just as one hand skimmed the smooth metal gym door, something behind me squeaked. It was a quick, barely there sound. But it was also immediately identifiable: a sneaker skidding against the floor.

I froze.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, but I could feel him closing in.

I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out a handful of pebbles—the only thing I’d been able to grab outside—and threw them down the hall. At the tiny plink of stone meeting linoleum, I crept in the opposite direction.

My fingers trailed along the wall, telling me where to turn. As I rounded the corner, an explosive flash of lightning lit up the entire hall. I peeked over my shoulder and saw him kneeling, picking a pebble off the floor. His head was just turning in my direction when the hall went dark again and thunder rattled the windowpanes.

I ran.

A full-on sprint around another corner to the side doors I’d seen earlier. I couldn’t hear whether he was chasing me over the sound of my feet pounding against the floor and my heartbeat thumping in my ears. Where are the damn doors—

I burst through the double doors with such force they slammed against the brick wall of the school before swinging shut. I took in everything: the trees straight ahead, dense and good for hiding; the sound of a car passing on a nearby street; the lights from a house off in the distance, blurry from the rain. I allowed myself a single second to smile before I reached down and clicked the stopwatch hanging from my neck.

When Mark finally pushed through the doors thirty seconds later, his brown hair escaping from under his black hat and his hazel eyes searching franticly, I was leaning against the brick wall, using the roof’s overhang to keep dry. I cocked an eyebrow when his surprised gaze landed on me.

He sighed and nodded at my stopwatch. “What was your time?”

“Three minutes, sixteen seconds. A new record.” I fought hard to keep a grin off my face.

“Hmph.”

“Don’t be a poor sport.” There was something about his hat that made him look older, more his age and less the college student he was sometimes mistaken for. I yanked it off in one swift move, leaving his hair wild with static. “You’ve caught me more times than I’ve gotten out. Remember Nebraska? You trapped me in the band room in a minute flat.”

The corners of Mark’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, but that was when you were young and easy to trick. Now you’re almost too good. I mean, pebbles? That was a nice touch.”

“If it makes you feel better, you almost got me with the blackout. How’d you manage that one?”

His smile grew wider. “Light switches in the front office.”

I shook my head. “Did you have to use all of them?”

Mark’s eyes locked on mine, more serious than they’d been a second before. “Lesson number one.”

My smile faltered. It was easy to joke around, to pretend it was only a game, especially this time. But we both knew it wasn’t.

It was a test. A way to see how well I knew the school, how fast I could get out if someone was chasing me.

I held Mark’s gaze. “Remember how to escape.”

When I entered witness protection, it was the first lesson I learned for a reason. Escaping wasn’t just about crawling through a window or shimmying down a vent. It was mental. Knowing how to push past the fear and stay calm and think was the most important part. Maybe breaking and entering wasn’t the best way to start off in a new town, but it was our routine, our way of preparing for every possibility.

Plus, a little extra practice disabling a security system never hurt a girl.

I took a few steps back, letting the rain, which had lightened considerably, mist over me. Everything smelled fresh as I examined the school, shadowy in the moonless night.

Mark moved to my side, his shoulder brushing against mine. “New school, new you,” he said, as soft as the rain.

I nodded.

“I’m going to make sure everything’s back the way we found it. You coming?”

“In a sec,” I whispered as he disappeared back into the school.

I stared at the brick wall in front of me, darker in spots from the rain. The breaking in, the chase, the cleaning up after ourselves—it was all familiar. Yet the more I studied the rough bricks, the more my stomach twisted.

Thunder rumbled low in the distance. For a second, I thought I saw a flash of blue against the faded red of the bricks. But when I blinked, it was gone.

A tight knot settled in my chest.

It was just another wall of just another school. It was all familiar, except for the tiny voice inside my head that warned, This time’s going to be different.

One

Out of all the names I’d had in the last five years, I liked this one the best: Sloane Sullivan. It looked right, printed there at the top of my new class schedule. Good thing too, since it was the last one I was ever going to have.

“There’s just one more thing I have for you and you’re all set,” the secretary said. She was a little hard to hear over the buzz of voices coming from the hall on the other side of the glass wall behind me and the incessant ringing of phones inside the front office.

I glanced up from my schedule to find the secretary smiling. Her short, curly white hair and deep crow’s feet screamed helpful grandmother. She actually looked a little like our neighbor eight towns back who was a grandmother of eleven. I didn’t trust her for a second.

“I figured it must be hard to transfer so late in your senior year,” the secretary continued, “so I marked up a map of the school with the location of your classes. That way, at least you won’t get lost on your first day.”

Okay, I thought. That’s actually kind of sweet. I peeked at the nameplate sitting on the side of the tall counter separating me from the rest of the office. “Thanks, Mrs. Zalinsky. That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Little did Mrs. Zalinsky know that, thanks to my adventure with Mark last night, I already knew where every classroom was located. We didn’t use our more nefarious skills, like lock picking and camera tampering, just to practice escaping. I’d realized pretty quickly that having to ask for directions or stumbling into classes late didn’t help with blending in. And that was always the goal: to blend in. Blend in, follow the rules and don’t let anyone get too close. That’s what I’d learned after almost six years on the run.

Besides, if we got caught snooping around, Mark could just flash his badge and we’d get off scot-free. Of course, then we’d probably have to move again.

Mrs. Zalinsky grinned, pleased to be appreciated. “You’re welcome, Sloane.”

The little thrill that always shot through me when I heard someone say my new name for the first time danced in my chest. Sloane. I liked the way it sounded too.

“Let me grab the map for you.” Mrs. Zalinsky headed for an immaculately clean desk on the other side of the office.

I gazed at my name again, still surprised Mark had agreed to it. I’d thrown Sloane out on a whim and he didn’t even blink. He just nodded in that slow way of his, which made his thick hair, which was dark brown at the time, fall into his eyes, and said, “Sure.” I knew he would’ve preferred Sara or Samantha or something more mainstream for my nineteenth identity. He’d totally vetoed some of my more unusual suggestions—being Leia like the princess from Star Wars would’ve rocked—but he let Sloane slide by. Maybe it was because we were both counting on this being the last time we had to switch names.

I rubbed my thumb over my name. God, nineteen different people in almost six years. Well, twenty if you count my real name. But I don’t remember who that girl was anymore.

“Here you go,” Mrs. Zalinsky said, interrupting my thoughts. She handed me a map. “I circled your classrooms in order based on the colors of the rainbow. You know, Roy G. Biv? Red for first period, orange for second, and so forth. Except since we only have four periods, I stopped at green.”

I let out a low whistle. “That’s some serious organization. I’m impressed.” And I was. It sounded like something Mark would do, and I didn’t think anyone was as anal as he was.

“It takes a lot of organization to keep a school of more than 1,800 kids running smoothly,” Mrs. Zalinsky explained as she straightened an already perfectly aligned stack of papers.

I grinned. 1,800 kids. It was going to be so easy to be invisible in a school this size. All I had to do was coast through these last nine weeks of my senior year without any complications and I was free. In more ways than one. I’d be Sloane Sullivan forever. There was no going back to the person I was for the first twelve years of my life. I’d asked, but the Marshals felt dropping me back into my old life so soon after the confession was too risky, even with a plausible cover story. But honestly, I didn’t care. If being Sloane was what it took to get out of witness protection, I’d do it.

Out of WITSEC. I never thought it was possible.

“I’m not sure you’re going to need the map, pretty girl like you.” Mrs. Zalinsky nodded in my direction. “You’ll have the boys lining up to escort you to class if you smile at them like that.”

I took a moment to let the compliment sink in. Usually, I ignored anything people said about my appearance because it was never about me. Not the real me anyway. It was about a person with dyed hair or colored contacts or—after one horrendous experience with a hairdresser who had to have forgotten her glasses that day—a frizzy black wig that felt like a steel wool scouring pad. But this was the closest I’d looked to my true self in almost six years.

I was wearing contacts that turned my green eyes dark brown, but my hair was its natural pale blond. “The color of real lemonade,” my mom always said when I was a kid. Mark had never agreed to my natural color before. He’d deemed it “too light and distinctive,” and I hadn’t seen it since we left New Jersey. But since this was the person I was going to be for the rest of my life, I’d begged to go back to my roots. Washing my hair seventeen times in a single shower to get out the temporary auburn color I’d had as Ruby had been totally worth it.

I shook the piece of paper in my hand. “Thanks, but I don’t need any boys. I’ve got a color-coded map!”

“You’re welcome, dear. And if you ever have any trouble, just come to me. I marked the office with a bee.” Mrs. Zalinsky pointed at her nameplate on the counter. Two bumblebees were drawn hovering around the Z in her name.

I examined the map. Sure enough, there was a little black-and-yellow bee floating next to the office. “I’ll bee sure to do that,” I joked.

Mrs. Zalinsky chuckled as she reached for a ringing phone.

I waved over my shoulder and opened the office door. The volume level rose considerably as I entered the bustling hallway. I glanced at the map just in case Mrs. Zalinsky was watching—I’d been well trained to keep up appearances—and turned left toward physics, my first class of the day.

Despite the fact that I’d arrived early, people were everywhere: crowding the hall, cramming books into lockers, making out in front of classrooms. They were just like the students at the six other high schools I’d attended, except here there were more of them. I loved it.

A sudden burst of sound to my left caught my attention. A group of about twelve guys, standing in a slightly curved line and wearing matching navy blazers, had started singing. An a cappella group? That’s new. A crowd surrounded them, snapping and nodding along to something I recognized after a few seconds: “The Longest Time” by Billy Joel. A song I hadn’t heard in years wasn’t exactly what I expected from high school boys. Homesickness pricked my chest as I tried to figure out where I’d last heard it.

I slowed, watching the tallest guy singing lead in the center of the group as I passed. He had light brown skin and short dark brown hair, but even seeing the words come out of his mouth couldn’t make the memory hovering at the edge of my brain come into focus. When his eyes met mine, I ducked my head. I hadn’t even been watching him for a full minute, but it was all the time I needed to see it: the way the other boys took their cues from him; the slightly larger amount of space around him than any of the other guys, like his all-around awesomeness needed room to breathe; how every eye in the crowd followed him. He was popular. Charismatic. Not one to blend in. Therefore, not someone I wanted to know.

I kept my head down and studied my feet—lack of eye contact makes you more forgettable—as I turned the corner to the hall that would take me to physics. Which is why I didn’t see the person barreling toward me until right before we collided.

I had just enough time to spread my feet and bend my knees slightly. I felt the crash in my whole body, muscles tensing, air rushing out of me in a muffled umph, but a tiny step back was all I needed to absorb the impact. The other person hit the floor with a loud thud, knocking everything I was holding in my hands across the hall. Before I could even cringe at the lack of blending in, a prickly sensation crept up my neck at the feeling of eyes on my back.

My chest tightened as the velvety a cappella voices, the mass of students, the entire hall disappeared. Fragmented images flashed in my mind: feet pounding on concrete, a hand tight on my arm, a broken piece of wood. Then, as fast as the images had come, they were gone, replaced with the hum of conversations and a person sprawled on the ground in front of me and too many students gathered around us. I swallowed hard. They’re not watching you, they’re just curious. No one here knows you.

I took a deep breath, trying to loosen the knot in my chest. “Walk much?” I mumbled, quiet enough I knew the guy who’d run into me wouldn’t be able to hear. And I was certain it was a guy. The level of solidness I felt before he bounced off wasn’t something a girl could achieve unless she was a professional bodybuilder from Russia.

“I’m so sorry,” a deep voice said. “I shouldn’t have been running. Are you okay?”

I didn’t glance at him or any of the people now whispering about us as I bent down to gather my stuff. “I’m fine,” I replied without any malice. I wasn’t really annoyed at him, I was annoyed at myself. That’s what you get for letting some stupid Billy Joel song distract you. Remembering never helps anything.

“Here.” The guy shifted on the floor and collected the map from where it had landed a few feet away. He smoothed it out, even though it didn’t have a mark on it, reached around the legs of a few nosy onlookers and held it out to me.

I grabbed it and shoved it into my bag. All I wanted was to get to physics and disappear into a seat in the back.

“Sloane Sullivan?”

My heart skipped a beat at hearing my name from some random guy. I flexed my hands, my always-on-alert muscles ready to put my self-defense skills to use. Then his hand came into my field of vision. He was holding my schedule, his thumb resting next to my name, and I almost laughed at how jumpy I was being. Get a grip. It’s not like you haven’t done this first day thing before.

“Cool,” the boy said. “My grandfather’s first name was Sullivan.”

My eyes locked on the scuffed floor as my breath caught in my throat.

“Everyone should have two first names.”

Every inch of my body froze as a completely different image popped into my head: black hair sticking up in all directions, deep blue eyes bright with amusement, mouth quirked into the same goofy grin it always wore when he said those words, words he’d said so many times before.

My pulse took off as the guy crouched in front of me, making it all but impossible to stand without facing him. “Let me help you up. It’s the least I can do for a fellow double-first-namer.”

The whole world slowed to a crawl as I forced myself to look up.

Right into the unmistakable deep blue eyes of Jason Thomas.

Two

I studied the wide eyes staring back at me from only a foot away. It was impossible they belonged to Jason. But the pools of almost green around his pupils that melted into a deep ocean blue set against an even darker blue ring around the edges were exactly like I remembered. Exactly like I’d stared into a million times before.

This is bad. Very, very bad.

It had happened once before. Three and a half years ago, when we were living in Flagstaff. I thought I’d seen Ms. Jenkins, the elderly widow who lived across the street from me in New Jersey, come out of a gift shop one Thursday afternoon. I’d been inside a bookstore next door and was certain Ms. Jenkins hadn’t seen me, but I still took the long way home and told Mark. Three hours later, we were in the car on the way to our next lives.

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