Page 79 of The Thinnest Air
I laugh at his ridiculous suggestion. “My sister would never hook up with my ex. And I was with Harris all day, every day, at the shop, morning till close. There’s no way he had some secret relationship going with her.”
“Okay.” He rubs his fingers along his lips, squinting into the late-afternoon sun. “This doesn’t make sense. Where’s the motive? Harris was in New York the day Meredith went missing, right?”
Exhaling, I nod. “Yes.”
“And we know she didn’t leave willingly because why would she leave her things in her car and make it look like she was taken?”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.” I tug on the strap of my seat belt, uncomfortable under its restraint. Cars make me feel claustrophobic, and road trips put me on edge the moment boredom and anxiety marry impatience.
For a moment, I wonder if perhaps these two things are unrelated. If Harris ran off to be with another woman while I was gone ... but that doesn’t add up either. He was free to be with anyone he wanted, and he wouldn’t have told me he wanted to get back together if he were seeing someone else.
My mind spins, but the thoughts are old and tired. It’s like I keep considering the same plausible scenarios over and over, trying to piece together a puzzle that doesn’t fit.
Perhaps she and Harris had something going on the side all along? Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to be with me anymore? Maybe that’s why she ran off with him—she couldn’t bear to come forward with this?
Exhaling, I concentrate on counting the number of blue cars passing us. I need a distraction, a momentary reprieve. My mind is screaming for a break from this nightmare.
Seventeen miles and two blue cars later, my thoughts return to Meredith and Harris.
I try to imagine them touching, kissing, and then my stomach churns. Rolling down the passenger window, I gasp for fresh air until the sensation subsides.
“All right. Let’s think.” Ronan forces a rugged breath between his lips, his jaw flexing. Everything about him is on edge today, like he’s ready for a confrontation. Before we hit the road, I watched as he pulled his gun case from his bag, assembled and loaded it, and then slid it into a pocket holster.
If this nightmare didn’t already feel real, it came to life in that very moment.
“We have to examine this from every angle,” Ronan says, brows furrowed.
Pulling my phone out, I bring up CNN’s website and nearly choke on my spit when I see a flashing red banner across the top of the screen with the scrolling words BREAKINGNEWS. “Oh, my God.”
“What?” Ronan springs to life, whipping his attention toward me.
Pressing the flashing banner, I’m redirected to an article that takes forever to load, and I’m finding it impossible to breathe.
“Breaking news,” I manage to say, reaching for the air and cranking it up. Surely if something happened, my mother would call. I wouldn’t expect to hear from Andrew, but I can’t imagine anyone would let me find out about it this way.
The white page finally loads, filling with text, and the photo of a blonde, pigtailed toddler fills the top of the screen. The headline reads ALABAMATODDLERKIDNAPPED INBROADDAYLIGHT.
I exhale, eyes scanning the article about a little two-year-old who was kidnapped while playing at a park. Her mother was there, but apparently she was chatting with another parent. When she turned back, her daughter was gone. There was a witness who claimed they saw a gray minivan speed away about that time.
I stop reading.
The article already has 3,782 comments, and it’s been up all of twenty-nine minutes.
Tapping back to the front page, I scroll down. The headline with my sister’s name in it is at the very bottom, like it’s old and stale and a few news stories away from being pushed into oblivion.
This is what’s wrong with our society.
We treat tragedies like entertainment, the American public priding ourselves on being armchair detectives trying to solve these crimes, but the second the sensationalism dies down and the case grows cold, we move on to the next exciting thing.
And the media. That’s another thing. They need headlines that sell. Stories that stir up emotions and garner web traffic and ad clicks.
I hope to God they find that Alabama baby, but watching the public forget about my sister is a stab in the heart.
“Have you heard anything lately?” I ask. “From the department?”
Ronan’s hand grips the wheel, and his mouth purses. “Nope. Heard they sent out a cadaver dog the other day, but they found nothing. That’s a good thing, though. For now. The volunteer searchers have combed as much as they can. They’re starting to go home. There are a few that’ll stay a while longer, but they can’t stay forever. They’ve got lives to go home to. Jobs. Families.”
“I know.” I rest my head against the window. “That Bixby’s an ass by the way.”
