My favorite part of the pool is at the bottom. Not the glint of the surface, or the way my hands slice through the water at the beginning of a dive, but after I jump in, when I can push my hands above my head and drop myself down. My body moving farther until I’m deeper, then deeper still.
I take several breaths before crossing my legs and sinking below.
Down, down, down I go.
And in the deep end, such beautiful colors. The water not looking white or blue, but indigo and gray. Ivory and silver. Shimmers of diamond-like sparkles reflecting off the walls.
My body is suspended. My hair free of a swim cap and floating in all directions, the bubbles escaping from my mouth as I open my eyes wide, taking everything in. I can stay down here for up to a minute, sometimes more.
More often these days, I’d rather be here than anywhere else. A place where it’s quiet, where I don’t have to talk to anybody. Where the only secrets are my own.
I stare up at the wobbly shape that is my house, the house I’ve grown up in, and imagine a light coming on in the living room and my stepmother passing by one of the windows. I wonder what she’s up to, Vanessa. Probably about to cook dinner. She knows Dad will be arriving home from work soon. I’ve got time and can stay here a little while longer.
But a shadow appears on one side of the pool. The shape of someone standing above and staring down at me at the bottom—it must be Vanessa. She’s come to get me early. Or I’ve been down here longer than I thought.
I like Vanessa well enough. I know she means well and she makes my dad happy, but I can’t help the sadness I feel sometimes. I miss my own mom. I wish she was here with me instead of Vanessa.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Mom lately. I always think about her, but it’s been happening more and more. Consuming me, taking over my heart until I feel the loss of her and how terrified I’ll be if I can’t remember what she looks like anymore or the way her voice sounds. I see what my other friends have and there are times when I wish I could run to my mom for help. She would understand better. She would know what to do.
I wish she could see me swim. Would she be proud of me and all I’ve accomplished? What would she think of me now I’m thirteen?
The dark outline of the person towers above. A sound cuts through the water, an echoey call layered over the gurgling of bubbles. The sound is garbled, but I can tell by the way it’s repeating itself, the way Vanessa is motioning her hands toward the house, that she needs me to get out.
I hear a different tone this time, the ping of my eardrum, the pressure building inside my head until it hurts. My chest is hurting too, and I know I’ve been down here for far too long. It’s time to come up. If I don’t, I’ll run out of air soon …
There is a strange moment in time after something terrible happens, when you’re the only one who knows it’s real but you don’t dare say anything yet. Because saying it out loud will mean something’s happened. Telling someone else will mean it’s true.
Mia is missing—my thirteen-year-old stepdaughter. Vanished from the backyard pool.
I didn’t leave her for that long, I tell myself. A couple of minutes tops.
She should have been fine outside. She should have been okay alone. I would have heard her cry out—if she’d had a reason to.
Shock waves crawl the length of my body. My skin is on fire. I hear a rasping sound and realize it’s my own breathing: short, jagged spurts as if a hundred-pound brick has been placed on my chest. Not enough to kill me but enough to make me hurt, a tight knot wedged at the back of my throat; every second that’s passing, the muscles are clamping down stronger.
I spin on my heel. Several more steps and I’m pressing hard against the kitchen counter, my eyes making a giant loop around the room, searching for her, looking for something—anything—that that will convince me she’s here.
“Mia,” I say out loud. “This isn’t funny anymore.”
But there’s no answer.
All the rooms are empty. I yank open closet doors, pull bathroom shower curtains to one side.
Earlier today—was it an hour ago? I can’t remember—Mia went out to swim in our backyard pool. I’m not sure if she took the time to tuck her hair under a swim cap. Not positive if I noticed the exact time she went. But she walked out the back door, I’m sure she did, wearing her black swimsuit like she always does, her favorite pink towel draped over one arm, long legs carrying her to the patio as the door behind her clicked shut. Swim practice in the backyard pool, something she does every day after I pick her up. Her practice is so engraved in our routine I hardly notice it anymore. She’s a champion swimmer at such a young age. We’re very proud.
Mia. Blonde hair. Narrow pointed shoulders on a tiny athletic frame. Blue eyes peeking from behind dark lashes. A smile on her face when she throws a sideways glance, the one that insists she’s being playful, the one that makes me think she has something on her mind. My beautiful and clever stepdaughter.
I stare at the back door.
No Mia. No movement.
Only dead air—and the sound of my own breathing.
She should have finished her laps by now …
Maybe if I wait long enough she’ll show up—yes, that’s it. If I wait just a few minutes more, she’ll throw open that door and walk inside as if nothing’s the matter, surprised at seeing me standing there, amused curiosity at the wild look on my face. She’ll shrug and tell me it’s no big deal, it was just a game. She wanted to stay in the deep end a little longer. She’ll say, “Scared ya, didn’t I?” with that impish grin of hers, and I’ll feel a weight drop from my shoulders.
But that’s not what happens. She doesn’t come out. No shouts of surprise or water dripping down her arms, past her knees. No puddles. No sign of Mia anywhere. And I realize I’ve never wanted to see my stepdaughter so badly before.
Fear grips the rest of my body, a sickening churning in my stomach as white spots fade in and out, clouding my vision. I blink, forcing myself to get a grip, to understand what is happening. Time is ticking. Every second I stand here waiting is another second no one can help. I’m the only one who knows Mia is gone.
I reach for the phone, my hands shaking so badly I feel as if my fingers could rattle loose from my body. Tears sting my eyes. It’s the first time I remember crying, the first time I realize that—holy shit—this is happening. When I make that call and Tripp answers, I know I’ll be saying the words out loud.
I haul in a deep breath and listen to the phone ring.
Once … twice …
The ratcheting pain in my head …
“I’m five minutes out.” Tripp answers as he often does, not giving me a chance to speak first.
“Mia,” I hear myself tell him. “I can’t find her.”
He sounds bemused. Distracted. “What are you talking about?”
“Mia,” I repeat, the knot in my throat getting bigger. “She’s missing.” My words start tumbling out. “I’ve looked everywhere. The pool. The house. She was swimming, and then she wasn’t. Coach told her to get more laps in, she needed the extra practice. We were home—we’ve been home since school—but then … I don’t know. She’s gone. I don’t know what happened.” A sudden realization hits me, my eyes lifting, and for a split second I suck in my breath, waiting for the moment of relief. Tripp will know where she went and this will be over. He’s known all along that she’s safe and we’ll have this solved by dinner time. “Has she called you?”
“No, she hasn’t. Vanessa, sweetheart, slow down. What do you mean, you can’t find her?”
My moment of hope is gone as fast as it arrived. “Mia is missing!” I’m shouting now, desperate for him to catch up. “She was in the pool and now she’s not. She’s not in her room. Not answering her phone. This isn’t like her—you know it isn’t. She wouldn’t take off like this, not without telling us first.”
“The neighbors …”
“She wouldn’t go without saying anything.” I stare again at the back door, knees wobbling. “It’s like she got out of the pool …” I hear my voice drifting, “It’s like she just got out and walked away.”
“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”
I feel a shooting pain in my head.
He clears his throat. “Let’s think this through. Where would she go?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. I don’t know!”
Another long pause. I can picture him: he’s driving, wearing a collared shirt, sports coat tossed to the side in the passenger seat. It should have been a regular Wednesday afternoon, Tripp coming home for dinner, except now everything has changed.
It’s starting to sink in. I can hear it in the tightening of his voice. “Vanessa, stay right there. Do not leave the house, do you hear me? Do not leave. I’m almost home. Stay on the phone …” The urgency is creeping in and I hear the roar of the engine as he speeds up.
I look at my watch. It’s nearing 5:30. He’ll be here in minutes.
I rush to the living room, my head wrenching left, then right, not sure what I’ll find, not certain what I’m searching for since I’ve covered this ground before. The sofa. A rug. The high shelf against the wall. Some sort of clue. Something she’s dropped. Something that will tell me where she’s gone. But all I see is a stack of notebooks, her laptop on the ottoman. Her backpack on the hook.
I toss pillows to the floor, nearly trip over the rug, pull back furniture, slam drawers shut. I’m revisiting all the places I might have missed, doing a second run-through of the house, searching for where she might have left a note.
But there’s nothing—nothing at all. Nothing that says: I’ll be right back. See you in a sec. Not a single message left on my phone.
“Have you tried calling anyone?” Tripp asks. “Her friends? Maybe she went to someone’s house?”
I slam another cabinet door. “She wouldn’t leave, Tripp.”
“Maybe she didn’t have time to tell you. Maybe she meant to but forgot.” His words are desperate. “She has to be somewhere, Vanessa.” His voice is guttural, choking. “I mean—you were watching her, weren’t you?”
And there it is. Inside my head: a thunderclap and a boom. I stop dead in my tracks. My face flushes hot at his words.
Is this the first time it happens? The first time I think my husband starts blaming me? Or am I imagining things? Am I imagining he thinks I’ve lost his only child? Our child.
But I don’t have time to think about that right now. We need to find Mia.
“What about calling her phone?” Tripp asks. “Or tracking it?”
It takes me a moment to answer. “I’ve tried both. Her last location is in our house.”
“Have you searched the street?”
“She was in her bathing suit. She’d be soaking wet. You know she wouldn’t go walking around like that.”
He’s starting to say something, but I cut him off. “Her towel.” My eyes shoot toward the backyard, the lawn that spreads out from our historic two-story home, the luxury designer pool at the center. The towel she would have carried outside. The one she may have left behind.
I tear across the house, still holding the phone.
Outside, the temperature is dropping, afternoon shadows beginning their long, wide stretch across the yard. I feel the nip on my cheeks, the slight chill, another reminder that spring is slow to come to Huntsville even though it’s mid-March. The humidity of another Alabama summer is just around the corner. But my heart is racing, and despite the cool air, I’m sweating.
I scan the yard, my feet tripping down the steps, the stone patio stretching before me. I reach the pool—not a ripple, no sign of her in the water—and rush to find her towel, plush and oversized, tossed to the ground like an afterthought. It’s still dry—she never used it—and something clicks in my head, a particular dread, as I clutch the towel in my hands, crushing the soft material against my chest.
She got out of the pool.
She never dried off.
My heart races.
Something happened. She didn’t walk away on her own.
Someone dragged her from this pool.
“It’s still dry,” I say.
“What is?”
And I startle, not realizing I’ve said the words out loud, for the moment forgetting I still have Tripp on the phone.
“Her towel,” I tell him. “She didn’t use it.”
“Why wouldn’t she …” But Tripp doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t finish what he was thinking because something has distracted him, his voice trailing off, and for a moment I think: thank God, he’s found her. He’s spotted her on the street and is pulling over to give her a piece of his mind. For some unknown reason, she’ll tell us she went for a walk in her bathing suit.
But that’s not what happens at all.
What I get instead is a muffled sound.
“Tripp? What is it?” I’m desperate, my voice hoarse.
I spin to face the house. He’s on our street, I know it. Within moments, he’ll be bursting through our front door. He’ll be here to help, his face red and anguished just like mine as we race through the backyard.
A crack in his voice. “What the hell?”
I squeeze the phone tightly, holding it like a lifeline. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“Smoke.” His voice grows louder. “Vanessa, are you there? Are you all right?”
My hand braces the side of my head. What is he saying? Why wouldn’t I be all right? I want to remind him: Mia is the one we’re searching for.
“Smoke. A lot of it. Fire trucks.” His breath is coming in jagged puffs, and I realize he’s gotten out of his car and is running toward me, the words coming in quick bursts. “There’s a fire—oh my God, a huge fire. The Campbells’ house.” His voice is frighteningly shrill. “Vanessa—is she … Is she inside?”
And it’s at this point I stop moving. My knees and legs lock in position and I stop what I’m doing.
But somewhere in my head, pieces and puzzle parts are cranking into action. Fragments of the day. Memories shredded but slowly coming together, a gradual rise toward clarity leading to this moment, the sheer panic that is taking over my spine.
And I remember what else is happening—the catastrophic event that is taking place next door. The hell on earth that is occurring at the exact same time I’ve been looking for Mia. The additional nightmare that is so surreal I’ve been blocking it out.
My husband is shouting. I hear him through the phone—he’s running and shouting—and I’m having trouble holding the phone to my ear.
Because when I look to the sky, the evidence is floating down around me: pieces of gray ash cascading through the air and resting on my shoulders. Gray specks landing on my feet. Heavy black clouds and the smell of something on fire.
The terrifying reality that my stepdaughter is missing.
And something else: my neighbors’ house is burning to the ground.
I hear people shouting. Sirens. The slamming of car doors.
But none of this is for Mia—not yet, at least.
It’s not that I didn’t hear the sirens or firefighters. It’s not that I hadn’t already run outside to see the fire. But when I rushed back in to check on Mia, to tell her that it wasn’t safe and she needed to get out of the pool, she wasn’t where she said she would be. My chest filled with panic, my mind turned into a one-track tunnel. And nothing else mattered—it couldn’t. My whole body and mind was focused on finding Mia.
Tripp bursts through the front door. “Vanessa, thank goodness you’re okay.” I hear his voice through his chest as he wraps his arms tightly around me. I’m willing him to keep me safe.
He pulls away. “Are you sure you’re all right?” His eyes search my hands and body. “Are you burned?” My voice is gone. He shakes me gently. “Are you hurt? Sweetheart, talk to me.”
I look past him to our street, my eyes widening at the noise, the smoke and flames, the two fire trucks that are parked haphazardly and blocking our neighbors’ driveway, red lights flashing, enormous streams of water shooting arcs against the Campbells’ three-story home. I can see and hear—and almost feel—the spray forcibly hitting the roof in giant torrents, the windows next, puddles of water below. Firefighters yell things I can’t understand as they crank another hose to life.
I look down at my arms and legs, touch my face. Burned? Why would I be burned? To my relief, my clothes and skin are untouched. I’m not burned. I’m okay. I’m safe here.
But Mia …
My head snaps back to him.
“Mia,” I whisper, finding my voice at last.
“What happened?” Tripp asks. “When did you last see her? Did you know there was a fire?”
His questions shoot at me, and all I can do is stand mute. Is this what shock feels like? Is this what happens when you feel like you’ve stepped out of your body?
Sweat trickles down Tripp’s forehead. He waits for me to say something—anything—that will make sense, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to tell him.
Yes, there is a fire next door. Mia is missing. I don’t think these two things are related, but I’m not entirely sure. I do know that we don’t have much time. Tripp, we really must hurry. We have to find our girl.
“Vanessa! Please.” He looks straight at me.
I blink.
My God. Mia. Our little girl is missing.
And I’m starting to remember more. Bits and pieces of information coming to me now: the back door closing, Mia swimming.
But when I open my mouth to tell Tripp, nothing comes out.
He leads me to the couch. “You’re in shock. You need to sit down.” He squeezes my hand one more time, encouraging me to sit, but then he’s off, racing to the backyard. I can’t sit still, so I chase unsteadily after him, fired by a small surge of hope that in these last few moments there will have been a miracle: Mia will have returned. We’ll find her sitting by the pool.
Tripp is fast. Manic. I can’t keep up. He reaches the edge of the pool, comes close to falling in, his body lurching at the edge, the toes of his shoes gripping the concrete lip. I watch him regain his balance, his eyes sweeping the length of the pool, his head pivoting from one side to the other as if I might have missed something, as if he has suddenly developed X-ray vision. But there is no child needing to be rescued. At one end of the pool, the custom-made waterfall built out of limestone gurgles and splashes against the rocks. That sound used to be so tranquil—not anymore.
He stares beyond the pool at the rest of the backyard. The wide stretch of grass that leads to a fence at least six feet tall at the back of the property. The large shed in the corner. A loud pop catches his attention and his head jerks toward our neighbors’ house: toxic clouds of smoke billowing into the sky, red flames shooting through the roof. Black smoke so dense it’s covering the trees.
It’s the first time I realize: that smoke is getting awfully close.
Tripp races back toward our house and I follow close on his heels. “Vanessa, where did she go? Did you know there was a fire? Did she? How long before you knew—” The sound of breaking glass stops him, and his eyes dart toward our neighbors’ house again.
I clutch his arm so tightly I know I’ll leave a mark. “The fire,” I say at last, finding my voice.
The blood drains from his face. “She didn’t … she wouldn’t …”
“We need to call 911, Tripp, now.” Suddenly my mind is clearing. We need to find Mia.
“Wait here, I’ll tell them.” Before I know it, he is rushing back through the house, knocking over a table, weaving his way to the front door until he is catapulting across the porch and into the front yard. He rushes to the nearest firefighter and begs him to help. My heart is breaking; I feel it in my chest like a deep tearing. I can hear what he’s saying, the horrifying realization of where he thinks our daughter has gone.
Then suddenly he’s dashing toward the burning house. “No!” I cry and start toward him. But the firefighters are quicker than me. They tug at his arms and pull him back.
. . .
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