The Disappearance Of Sloane Sullivan

Jason motioned to the left as Sawyer and Livie took off running to the right. The mass of seniors thinned fast, and soon we were the only two rounding the school toward the back athletic fields. “What do we need to find first?” I asked. My stomach was a jumble of butterflies and nausea, giddy excitement for the hunt and the bet...and fear of being alone with Jason and being discovered.

“‘Evidence of the school’s first couple,’” Jason replied.

I stopped walking. I’d been expecting “picture of the school mascot” or “someone wearing school colors,” not proof that some historical couple once existed. “How are we going to find that?”

Jason pointed to a large tree, standing alone at the edge of a soccer field in the distance. “See that tree? That’s where we need to go.”

“We’re going to find evidence of a couple at a tree?”

Jason sighed and stopped a few yards ahead of me. “Yes, Ms. Doubtful. Now come on!” He veered off the sidewalk and headed down a grassy hill in the direction of the soccer field.

I watched him for a few seconds, this boy I wasn’t supposed to be with but somehow kept ending up with anyway. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way.

If the scavenger hunt had really been it—the last time I was going to be around Jason—I would’ve quietly followed him, stopped asking questions and let him lead the way just to get it over with. But I had a signed senior trip permission slip burning a hole in my back pocket. I was going to have some level of contact with Livie—with all of them—for the next few weeks. And while it didn’t seem like Jason remembered who I was, being in his house and seeing those pictures had brought back a flood of memories. Even though I wasn’t in any of the photos I’d seen, what if he had something else in his house? Something that would spark a memory that made him wonder about me?

I rubbed my thumb across my bottom lip. Maybe staying away from Jason once all the First Day Buddy stuff was over wasn’t the best move. Maybe I needed to keep him close. To know what he was thinking and prove I was a completely different person from the girl he’d grown up with so he’d never believe it was me even if his brain tried to make the connection. And I knew just the way to start.

Anticipation thrilled through me. I bounced on my toes for a beat, a tiny smile creeping its way onto my mouth. This is going to be fun.

“Come on, slowpoke,” I called over my shoulder as I zoomed past him, running down the hill as fast as I could, “or I’m going to beat you there!”

The girl Jason knew had been a terrible runner, slow and easily winded. But thanks to lesson number eleven, I’d left that girl in the dust.

He made an indignant noise and took off after me. He may have been a few inches taller, but I was fast and had a head start. I was in the lead until about forty feet from the tree, when Jason grabbed a fistful of my shirt, yanked me backward and sprinted in front of me.

I gasped and rushed forward, trying to hip check him out of the way.

Jason wrapped one arm around the front of my body as I got close, angling me behind him and attempting to hold down my arm. “You can’t beat me if you can’t touch the tree!”

I giggled and spun out of his reach, but before I could get all the way free, he smacked the tree in triumph. “You are such a cheater!” I tried sounding angry, but the fact I was still laughing ruined any chance of that.

Jason’s grin in response was deviously unapologetic.

I decided he needed a good hip checking anyway. But instead of knocking the sexy grin off his face, I tripped on an exposed tree root and stumbled into him.

“Whoa,” Jason said as he gently placed his hands on my waist to steady me.

My laughter died away and it was suddenly hard to breathe. I watched Jason’s chest rising and falling under his superhero shirt. He smelled like my childhood, like cookies and the beach, but there was a spicy boy scent I’d never noticed before. I looked up into his blue eyes.

He chuckled. “I think your attempt at thwarting my totally fair victory messed up your hair.” He reached out with one hand and tucked a few strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail behind my ear.

The spot on my waist where his hand had just been tingled.

He held my gaze for a second, then stepped back and cleared his throat. “So this is the Kissing Tree.”

I gulped. “Kissing Tree?”

“Take a look.”

I turned and my mouth dropped open. “Wow.”

Every inch of the tree’s bark, from where it disappeared into the ground to taller than even Sawyer could reach, was covered in initials.

“It’s another school tradition,” Jason explained. “Couples come here to kiss and then carve their initials into the tree.”

I circled the tree, letting my fingers trail over the letters. “There are so many. How do you know which one is the first?”

“It’s this one here.” Jason pointed to a spot in front of him at eye level. It was a simple E loves L inside a heart with a date below it. “That date is from the first week the school was open. It’s the oldest one on here.”

I traced the heart with one finger, slowing when the set of initials to the heart’s left caught my eye: J + S.

“You’re killing that tree.”

Jason looked up from the base of the oak tree in front of his house. “I am not,” he said over the soft sounds of his dad’s favorite Billy Joel song wafting from the open windows.

“Then what are you doing?” I bent down and noticed the initials carved into the tree’s trunk about two feet off the ground. I smiled.

He brushed off the tiny J + S. “I’m letting everyone know that we’re going to be best friends forever.” He pushed the tip of his dad’s pocket knife into the S, making it deeper.

“You don’t have to hurt the poor tree to prove that, Jase. The whole fourth grade knows that already. Everybody knows that already.”

Jason glanced up, grinning, and the knife slipped, slicing into his left hand. He jerked his hand away. The knife dropped to the ground, covered in blood.

My heart skipped a beat. “Hold on!” I pressed the edge of my T-shirt against the bloody spot above his left thumb. Blood soaked through the shirt almost instantly.

“Mrs. Stacy!” I yelled, knowing Jason’s mom would hear me through the open windows. All the color had drained from Jason’s face. “Bet I can annoy more nurses at the hospital than you,” I whispered.

He gave me the tiniest hint of a smile.

“It’ll be okay,” I promised as his mom came rushing down the steps toward us. “We’re best friends, remember? I won’t leave you.”

“Have you ever done that? Carved your initials into a tree?” Jason asked, pulling me out of the memory. He pointed to the Kissing Tree carvings.

I hadn’t thought of that day in years. My eyes darted to his left hand, which hung at his side. Does he still have the scar by his thumb? “No,” I replied. Which was the truth. He had, not me. “Have you?”

He kicked the ground with one of his sneakers. “Yeah.”

“Let me guess. There’s a J loves L on here somewhere.” I pretended to search the tree.

“No. Livie and I aren’t... It’s not...”

I peeked around the tree at him. “I was only teasing. You don’t have to explain.”

A wrinkle appeared in between his eyebrows. “It’s...complicated.” His eyes locked on mine. “But I’m not sure it’s an immortalize-it-in-wood-forever kind of thing.”

“Oh.” Oh. “I just thought... I mean, Livie was kind of throwing off an it’s-serious vibe when she was talking about the senior trip.”

Jason’s cheeks turned pink. “Yeah. She’s got lots of ideas about the senior trip that she’ll apparently share with anyone.”

“I can be your wingman on the trip if you want,” I blurted. “If things are still complicated, just give me the secret signal and I’ll mummify her in rolls of duct tape so she can’t leave our room.”

He laughed. “You’d do that for me?”

I shrugged. “Sure. What are friends for?” Friends. Saying that word to Jason made my pulse race. I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand as I gestured to the tree with the other. “Well, hopefully friends are for taking pictures of tree carvings when their partners choose to exit the world of cell phone ownership.”

Jason pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Friends are definitely for that. Why don’t you move closer? I’ll get you too.”

I took a large step away from the tree. “Nope. I don’t do pictures.” Pictures end up in yearbooks and on the internet and other places immortalized forever where people can find them, with names I don’t want them to know. “I’m not very photogenic. I always blink or make a face. It’s a mess.”

“I highly doubt that,” Jason muttered as he captured proof of the school’s first couple.

We got pictures of the next eight items on our list in no time, including Jason’s favorite: “Ms. Benton’s agreeable band,” which turned out to be his science teacher’s collection of Beatles bobblehead dolls. “What’s the last item?” I asked as we left the chemistry room.

“‘The Z’s bees,’” Jason read aloud. He stopped walking.

“Oh,” I replied, turning toward the hall that would take us to the front office.

Jason stayed still, his eyebrows scrunched together. “Huh.” He scratched his head.

“Wait.” A slow grin spread across my face. “You don’t know what that means?”

“No.” He glanced up from the list. “Do you?”

My smile grew wider.

“Tell me.”

“Hold on.” I held my hands out to my sides. “I want to spend a moment basking in the glory of knowing something about this school you don’t. Me, the new girl. Who knows nothing about finding anything on our list.”

Jason shot me a look. “What does it mean?”

I leaned toward him. “Not yet. Still basking.”

He reached up and gently yanked twice on my earlobe. It was a familiar gesture, one he’d picked up from his dad, and one that had always annoyed me as a kid.

I smacked his hand away with a laugh. “God, Jase. Cut it out.”

He was already reaching for my ear again when he stopped midreach and lowered his hands to his sides.

“What?” I asked.

“You called me Jase.”

Crap! Lesson number eight, Sloane, I reminded myself. Don’t get complacent.

It had always been like that with Jason, easy when everyone else required a little more work. Being around him was effortless. Now, that was dangerous.

You have to stay on your toes if you’re going to pull this off. And you need to pull this off. So stop making mistakes!

Before I could come up with an excuse for using my childhood nickname for him, Oliver Clarke appeared trailing behind his scavenger hunt partner. I didn’t know where he’d come from, but the deserted hallway was long enough that it was possible he’d seen my whole exchange with Jason, ear yanking and nickname calling included.

Oliver eyed us as he approached, pressing his lips together to hold back a laugh. He remained silent until he was right next to us, then said in a low voice meant only for me, “Hey, Sweet Potato.”

The snort escaped me before I could stop it.

Oliver’s eyes lit up.

I knew I was supposed to be avoiding him because of the whole gossip and mean ex-girlfriend thing, but no one else was around other than Jason and Oliver’s teammate, a guy I recognized from the a cappella group. And I couldn’t just ignore him after a reaction like that. I tipped my head in his direction. “Choir Boy.”

Oliver’s mouth dropped open. “Insults are not a good start to our friendship. I think you mean Singer of Very Manly Songs.”

I pointed at the corner his partner had just disappeared around. “Or maybe I mean Misplacer of Teammates.”

“Oh, shoot,” Oliver grumbled as he hurried around the corner.

I shook my head and peeked at Jason, who was biting his lip, watching the spot where Oliver disappeared. “Sorry about the Jase thing,” I said. “I have a cousin named Jason and that’s what I call him. It just slipped out.”

“It’s okay. It’s what my mom calls me.”

I know. She stole it from me. “That’s because it’s a good nickname.”

Jason smiled. “Yeah, it is.”

“So.” I clapped my hands together. “We need to find some bees, right?”

He raised one eyebrow. “Are you done basking?”

“No, but the basking can continue on our way to the office.”

When I opened the office door, Mrs. Zalinsky smiled at me from behind the tall counter. “Sloane, dear. Back so soon?”

The genuine warmth in her voice melted away my lingering annoyance at her part in giving me a First Day Buddy. She was only trying to help and it hadn’t been that bad. “We need a picture of your bees for the scavenger hunt,” I explained, pointing to Mrs. Zalinsky’s nameplate for Jason.

“Ah,” he mumbled. “I never would’ve gotten that. I haven’t been in here in forever.”

Mrs. Zalinsky eyed Jason as he took the requisite picture. “I told you you wouldn’t need that map,” she whispered to me.

I leaned closer to Mrs. Zalinsky, like we were old friends sharing secrets. “Trust me, I need a map for that. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Are you two done chatting?” Jason asked, suppressing a grin. “Because we’ve got a scavenger hunt to win.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Z!” I called as I followed Jason out of the office.

We sprinted for the courtyard, but when we arrived, we found Mrs. Thompson sitting on a bench with a line of about ten pairs already waiting for her to verify their photos, including Sawyer and Livie three groups ahead of us.

I groaned as Sawyer and Livie did a ha-ha-we-beat-you dance. I pulled Jason in line on the off chance everyone in front of us ended up disqualified. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have spent so much time basking.”

“It’s okay,” Jason said with a shrug. “We didn’t actually bet on anything, so all Sawyer gets is bragging rights. Plus, I liked the basking.”

I peeked in Mrs. Thompson’s direction, trying to see if she was eliminating anyone, but my gaze caught on the brick wall behind her instead. I rubbed the back of my neck and studied it.

“So what was with you and Mrs. Zalinsky back there?” The smile in Jason’s voice didn’t match the tightness forming in my chest.

“That was girl talk,” I said lightly, not taking my eyes off the faded bricks. It was the same brick wall I’d stood in front of the night we’d broken into the school. It had the same dark wet patches, this time due to the early morning rain. And looking at it again was giving me the same creepy feeling.

“How can you already be having girl talk with the secretary? You just got here.”

The air shifted, more thick and humid than it had been a second ago. I sucked in a ragged breath as my fingertips started to tingle, like I’d just scraped them along something rough. I balled my hands into fists.

“Sloane?”

I knew it was coming. But my breath still caught in my throat when I saw a flash of blue against the faded red of the bricks.

Something brushed against my arm and I jumped.

“Did you hear me? The pair with those Team Hot Stuff shirts won.” Jason nodded at the students around us, slowly making their way back toward the school.

“Oh yeah, sorry. Let’s go.”

But as Jason hurried to catch up to Sawyer and Livie, I took one last look at the brick wall and shivered.

Because I hadn’t just seen a blue blur against the bricks. I’d heard a voice inside my head. A voice too insubstantial to identify, yet familiar enough to make my heart trip. A voice that said three little words: You can’t hide.

Six

I’d remembered something.

Not the recurring nightmare or the flashes I got when it felt like someone was watching me, but something new. I was certain. But I wasn’t certain I wanted to tell Mark about it. Not after the conversation we’d had that morning about remembering.

I pulled open the screen door after school, still debating what to do, when Mark’s voice stopped me.

“She doesn’t know anything.”

I froze. Is someone here? I scanned the kitchen, the only room I could see from my vantage point at the back door, but there was no sign of Mark. I could hear him, so he had to be close. The family room? I hovered in the doorway, one hand propping open the screen, and waited to see if anyone else spoke.

“I’ll take care of it.” Mark sighed. “You promised I could do this my way.” There were three quick footsteps, a pause, then three footsteps again.

He’s pacing, which means he’s on the phone. Is he talking about me?

“Then let me handle it,” he snapped. “Yes, it’ll be soon. Have a little faith... I’ve got to go. She’ll be home any minute.”

The faint sound of a long sigh was followed by what possibly could’ve been Mark dropping onto the couch, but I wasn’t thinking about him on a couch. I was thinking of him in an elevator.

“Thanks for taking me to the carnival.” I grinned at Mark. My hands were sticky from cotton candy and caramel apples and my voice scratchy from hours of screaming on the rides—I’d had fun. Actual fun for the first time since the day we’d left ten months ago. “Which floor?”

“Three,” Mark replied as we stepped into the elevator. “I’ll take you back to your place before I tackle the long commute home.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, because one floor down is sooo long.”

He chuckled. “It’s too bad your dad wasn’t feeling well. I bet he would’ve had fun too.”

“Yeah.” My good mood deflated. I wasn’t sure whether Dad really hadn’t been feeling well or whether that had been an excuse not to leave the apartment. He’d had a lot of excuses lately.

The elevator dinged its arrival on the third floor. “Maybe he’ll be feeling better tomorrow and we can go back,” Mark suggested.

“Really? That would be great!” I’d make Dad come tomorrow. I’d tell him about all the fun rides and games and he’d have to want to come. “It’s too bad the carousel didn’t have rings to catch. I bet I could get more than both of you. I’ve got a secret method.”

“Oh really?” Mark knocked on my apartment door. “I’d love to see you try to beat me.”

“I’d do more than try,” I said, then laughed at his doubtful expression.

He nodded slowly. “I like seeing you smile. It looks good on you, Kid.”

I knocked again, eager to tell Dad about the carnival, but he still didn’t answer. A slight chill ran down my spine.

Mark pulled his keys out of his pocket, eyebrows furrowed. “Maybe he’s asleep.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

A man wearing a suit and a gun on his hip was standing in my kitchen.

Fear clawed its way up my throat. I took a step back, ready to run, but Mark wrapped a hand around my arm, pulling me close.

He led me into the apartment, shoulders tense, the skin around his eyes wrinkling slightly. “What are you doing here?” he asked as the door swung shut behind us.

Despite the surprise in Mark’s voice, he obviously knew the man, and the man wore a suit like all the other Marshals I’d ever seen. An ominous feeling settled in my chest. Mouth dry, I asked, “Where’s my dad?”

The man’s gaze darted to me and back to Mark in silence.

Mark leaned closer and squeezed my arm once. “Stay here,” he whispered. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He motioned for the guy to follow him into the bathroom and closed the door.

I dragged in a few deep breaths, trying to steady my racing heart and trying not to look at the closed door to my dad’s bedroom. It didn’t work. In the time it took me to take a single breath, I was in front of the door, my eyes searching for any explanation as to where Dad was. I reached out with a shaky hand. My fingers were just about to wrap around the doorknob when the bathroom door flew open.

I jumped away from the bedroom door, my heart nearly exploding out of my chest.

The man in the suit stalked out of the apartment without even glancing at me. Mark locked the door and rested his head against it.

I moved behind him. “What’s going on?” I whispered.

Mark turned and I knew. It was like my mom all over again. Tears welled in my eyes.

“Something happened and...”

My throat felt like it was closing but I forced the words out. “He’s dead?”

Mark winced.

My heart beat as fast as the possibilities racing through my head. “Did someone find us?”

“No. He...” Mark swallowed hard. “He killed himself while we were at the carnival.”

“What?” Hot tears streamed down my face. “Why? Why would he do that?”

Mark tried to wipe my tears away. “That was an agent. Your dad called the emergency hotline before he... He wanted someone to find him before we got home. They tried to talk him out of it and get here to stop him but...it was too late.”

I shook my head.

“He told them he couldn’t take being on the run anymore. But he wanted you to know that he loved you, very much.”

“Yeah, he loved me so much he left me by myself!” I could feel something inside me breaking, shaking into loose bits.

Mark cupped my face in his hands. “No. You have me, do you hear me?” I tried to jerk away but he made me look at him. “Listen to me, Kid. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll take care of you.”

He wrapped his arms around me and rocked me as I cried. He started humming something, the sound vibrating in my chest. It wasn’t until he began to softly sing the words that I recognized the tune to “Have a Little Faith in Me” by John Hiatt. It was the song my dad always sang to my mom when she was upset.

I listened, transfixed, until the song ended. I wiped away tears that were still falling and asked, “Where’d you learn that song?”

“I used to sing it to my little sister when we were younger. I took care of her a lot.”

It was the first time he’d ever mentioned anything about his real life, but I didn’t have any trouble imagining him taking care of a little sister just like he’d often taken care of me. I realized he was right. I had to have faith in him. He was all I had left. “So what are we going to do?”

He wiped more of my tears away. “We’ll start over someplace new. We’ll live together from now on, okay?”

I took a shaky breath. “I need a new name?”

Mark nodded. “Do you have one in mind?”

“Faith.”

I took a deep breath. In the almost five years since that day, I’d only heard Mark say “have a little faith” a handful of times. Only when something was important, when it was big. And this time, he’d been talking about me not knowing anything. I buried the echo of the voice I’d heard deep inside my head. I don’t know anything.

I silently counted to twenty and let the screen door slam behind me in what had quickly become my way of announcing I was home. “Hey!” I called, forcing my voice to be light.

A moment later, Mark poked his head into the kitchen. “Hey! How was your day?” He sounded like he hadn’t just been sighing and snapping and faithing at someone.