1 The night my sister went missing, I sat in a back corridor of the police station, staring at a tinted glass window to an inner room. The lights were off in there, and so the window looked like a black screen. I remember how my insides felt as blank as that window. Its a good thing, that numbness, because it keeps you from spiraling into the black-hole-falling routine. Somethings telling you that you dont need those panic-stricken thoughts yet.No body had washed up. The police hadnt found any blood on the pier near the spot where Casey went over. The gunshot, which had sounded more like a weather-wet firecracker, could not possibly have hit one of Caseys vital organs. Of course, there are always the thoughts that threaten youlike how blood in the ocean draws sharks, and how a storm at sea had created endless riptides this week. But thoughts like that bounce in the first hours after your shock.The good thoughts strike you and stick. Like, my sister was probably a better swimmer than I was, even though I was a lifeguard. And I thought of Casey having so many friends. None of our friends had any streak of violence. No one had any reason to hurt her.It had been too dark to see anything but a few clusters of our friends up on the pier in silhouette, and I tried hard not to put anything in my mind that wasnt real.The gun had been real, whether I liked it or not. But it was a stupid little collectors gun, a derringer, or ladys pistol, as my buddies called it, brought to a dune party as a joke. It all seemed surreal now. And all of it smelled of accident. Nobody whod sneaked up on the old pier with us would intentionally hurt Casey. Nobody.Maybe this was all a big prank that had gone over the top. I thought of Casey painting drops of blood out of the cafeteria this year, and also pulling the fire alarm to relieve friends from a couple of boring classes. Maybe she was holed up on some sailboat in the back bay, laughing her airhead butt off, ignorant that the coast guard and the police were searching the ocean around the pier.I hadnt seen or heard much in the light of a half-covered moonexcept Id still swear I heard Caseys laugh, and it was after the little Crack!Id been able to relay all that over the phone to our parents in a miraculous calm. Still, they were scrambling to catch the red-eye back from L.A., where my dad had been in film negotiations with Paramount. It was the first time one of his novels had been optioned by a movie companyand the first time our parents had left me and Casey alone overnight since we were fourteen and twelve. I was now seventeen, and I stared at that tinted glass window, seeing Dads cockeyed grin in it and hearing his speech about how he trusted a twelve- and a fourteen-year-old home alone far more than he trusted a fifteen- and a seventeen-year-old.He had tried to tempt us. Come on, Kurt . . . maybe Ill strike it rich finally. You kids need to be there. And you and Casey could do Disneyland, whileI had stopped Excerpted from The Night My Sister Went Missing by Carol Plum-Ucci All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
