Vanished (2 page)

“You can be so mean to Houston,” Jeri said.

“Like when?” Nikki protested, all wide-eyed innocence.

“Like when you locked him in the tack room, for one thing.”

Nikki snorted. “Come on, it was hilarious! He was all panicky, kicking the door and yelling. A grown man!” She snickered. “I thought he’d strangle me when he finally got out.”

“I would if I were him.”

As she ate, Jeri glanced at the door every few minutes, but no one else arrived. She picked at her chicken and rice, and her unrest about Rosa increased. A sense of urgency nibbled now at the edges of her mind. Where was she? Why was the bus so late?

Abby tucked her blonde hair behind her ears. “Too bad we won’t know which dorm won the candy-selling contest till tomorrow night. We could have written about that for our newspaper.”

“I’m sick of the whole fundraiser,” Jeri admitted, turning away from the door. “If I see Heather’s dad’s picture in the paper again, I’ll barf.”

Heather Langley’s dad was one of the wealthy parents matching what the girls raised. His picture was in the Landmark School’s newspaper, the
Lightning Bolt,
every Friday as he handed that week’s matching check to the Head. All the other parents and businesses were giving their matching funds at the end. There’d probably just be one group photo of them.

Jeri sighed. “If only there was something
big
to investigate and report on.”

“Here she goes again.” Nikki scooped a mountainous glob of sour cream onto her baked potato. “Ever since that reporter talked to our class, you’ve been a real snoop.”

Last fall a local reporter, Jake Philips, had described to their current events class how he single-handedly got several criminals arrested. “Investigative reporters
have
to snoop, or they’d never uncover anything,” Jeri said.

Halfway through their peach cobbler, Headmistress Long rose and clinked her fork against her water glass until the dining hall was silent. Her face was pale, but her voice was strong. “Girls, I have an announcement. Remember, there’s no cause for alarm.”

Holding her breath, Jeri studied the headmistress. Her eyes were sharp and unwavering. They took in everything in the room, but gave nothing away.

“Do stay calm, ladies. There will be no hysterics.”

Jeri almost choked on her cobbler. What was going on?

“She’s freaking me out,” Abby whispered.

Jeri nodded.

The headmistress patted her long coiled hair where it was pinned up in back. “Our school van, driven by our art teacher, Mr. Reeves, was carrying six girls home from the Fieldstone Art Museum this afternoon …” She paused to clear her throat. “There’s no easy way to tell you. They’ve all disappeared.”

Thursday, 6:17 p.m. to 10:05 p.m.

A stunned silence followed the headmistress’s announcement. No cause for alarm? Was she crazy? Jeri couldn’t draw a deep breath, as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Thoughts raced through her mind, tumbling over each other.

Rosa wasn’t late. She was
missing.

Abby gripped Jeri’s hand till her knuckles cracked. Jumbled voices, questions, sounds of alarm, and discussion rose in a mighty crescendo throughout the room.

“Girls! Girls!” Head Long clinked her glass so hard Jeri thought it would surely shatter. A fine mist of sweat

glistened on her forehead. “Do not panic! Rescue workers are searching for the van. We know they entered the Two-Mile Stretch at the other end.”

Jeri turned to Abby. “What does that mean? They didn’t come out?”

The Stretch was a curvy, deserted, two-mile section of Highway 6 just outside the town of Landmark Hills. The highway meandered along Landmark Mountain on one side and Sutter Lake on the other side. A gas station-convenience store marked one end of the Stretch, but there were no other buildings for two miles, until you passed Dale’s Diner in Landmark Hills. The Landmark School for Girls was located up a scenic winding road from the town, and many of its stately buildings could be seen from Main Street.

The headmistress buttoned and unbuttoned her gray suit jacket. “Apparently the van did not emerge on the Landmark Hills end of the Stretch,” she added.

Jeri raised her hand. The headmistress peered over her half-glasses and nodded.

“If they entered the Stretch,” Jeri asked, “but didn’t come out, does that mean the van went into the lake?”

Girls all around Jeri gasped. It felt as if the dining hall itself was holding its breath. The headmistress’ eyes shot daggers. “That’s
not
what I’m saying. We haven’t yet located the van, that’s all. A search is underway already, and the girls and Mr. Reeves will no doubt turn up, safe and sound.” She paused. “If your parents happen to call, reassure them that it’s just a mix-up. Do you understand?”

Jeri frowned. How could they reassure their parents when they didn’t know it
was
a mix-up? Across from Jeri, Nikki stared at her hands, palms down on the white tablecloth. Tears welled up in Abby’s frightened eyes.

Jeri raised her hand again. “My roommate was on the trip,” she said. “Can I go help search?”

“I understand your desire, but no,” the Head said. “Police and other adult rescue workers are on the scene. Children are not allowed.”

Voices rose and fell and rose again, waves of frightened questions rippling through the dining hall. Ms. Carter stood up at the teachers’ table. “Ms. Long, could you tell us exactly who is missing?”

The headmistress nodded briefly. “Quiet down, girls. To answer Ms. Carter’s question, there were six girls in the van with Mr. Reeves. Mostly they’re art and drama students: Rosa Sanchez and Heather Langley, both sixth graders. A seventh grader, Lisa Poole. Sarah Callahan, an eighth grader.” Cries arose from several tables, and the headmistress raised her voice. “And two ninth graders, Savanah Stone and Hilary Lyttle.”

“Thank you,” Ms. Carter said, sitting down. Jeri wondered if she was relieved that only one girl was from Hampton House.

Jeri stood again. “If we can’t help search for our friends, could we just go down to the Stretch and wait?” She paused. “Please? We just want to be there when they’re found.”

Without answering, the headmistress walked on rubber-soled shoes over to the dining hall’s floor-to-ceiling windows. The center panes were French windows that opened out onto a balcony. The headmistress, framed by velvet drapes held open with gold cords, gazed over the campus. For one very brief second, her shoulders drooped. When she turned back to the girls, though, her posture was military: shoulders back, chin down, and expression sober.

“The temperature is dropping. If you want to wait at the Stretch, bundle up in extra layers. Stay with your house mothers and gather out front in ten minutes.”

Chairs scraped back and linen napkins fell to the floor as girls raced to their dorm rooms for extra hats, boots, and mittens. Jeri pulled on two pairs of socks and then stuck her feet in plastic bags before jamming them into her soggy snow boots.

A knock sounded on the door, and Abby opened it a few inches. “You ready?”

“Ready.” Jeri glanced at Rosa’s empty bed before following Abby out and pulling the door closed.
Please, God, let Rosa and the others be all right!

The girls and house mothers were transported down the hill to the search site in several of the teachers’ cars. The ride seemed unreal, as if time had stopped. Jeri kept expecting someone to say there’d been a terrible mistake, that Rosa was fine. Judging by the pale faces of the other

girls, they were also in shock–and too frightened to put their fears into words. Were their friends at the bottom of the lake? Or had there been a crash and they were pinned inside the van? Or were they thrown from the vehicle and wandering, dazed and injured, in the woods by the lake? Or maybe a serial killer was loose and they’d all been–

That’s enough!
Jeri shook herself.
Stop it!

She reminded herself that Rosa and the other missing girls were with Mr. Reeves. He might be almost forty, but he was stocky and muscular, as solid-looking as a block of wood. She’d seen him carry a marble statue into class by himself one day. He was strong enough to take care of Rosa and the others. He’d get them home safely. She had to believe that.

By the time they arrived at the Two-Mile Stretch, a crowd had gathered. Stunned townspeople, four doctors and nurses, and half a dozen police officers milled around. An ambulance was parked near two police cars, its lights and siren off.

One officer, his nose and ears bright red, shouted through a bullhorn. “Attention, folks!” His booming voice bounced against the mountainside and echoed back.

Jeri stamped her cold feet and stuck her fists in her pockets. Nikki stood to her left, her hands tucked in her armpits. Abby shrank inside her short coat while the wind whipped blonde strands across her eyes.

“I’m Police Chief Reynolds. Here’s the situation.” With his square face, angular jaw, and heavy neck, the police officer reminded Jeri of a granite sculpture. “Hal at the Gas-U-Up saw the school van enter the Two-Mile Stretch at 4:30, after filling up at his station. The vehicle–a nine-passenger Suburban–was not seen coming out the other end. A man at Dale’s Diner was waiting there for someone and watching the road the whole time. The SUV never showed up. No one else in town saw it pass down Main Street, and many were on the sidewalk at that hour.”

Nikki nudged Jeri, who lost her balance. “You couldn’t miss the van either, not in those ugly school colors.”

Jeri agreed. Their school van was bright purple with Landmark School painted in orange letters on the side.

“The temperature’s dropping,” the police chief shouted, “so listen up. Both ends of the Stretch are roadblocked. A drive through earlier showed that the guardrail along the lake isn’t dented anywhere. We’re sure the vehicle didn’t break through it and go into the lake.”

Abby clapped her mittened hands. “That’s good!”

“However,” he continued, “no roads head up the mountain, and the van had to go somewhere.”

A man behind Jeri yelled out, “Keith might’ve gassed up and then turned around and drove off somewhere else.”

“I was coming to that.” In the frosty air, the policeman’s breath made a white cloud around his head. “We have a witness who saw them halfway through the Stretch.”

“That’s right.” Mrs. Wilson, Landmark’s nutrition teacher, stepped forward. Her stiffly sprayed hair combed out to one side never moved, even in the strong wind. “I was in the middle of the Stretch going the other way, and I passed the van. Keith Reeves waved at me.”

The officer ticked off the places they couldn’t be. “They didn’t come out of the Stretch into town. The van couldn’t drive straight up the mountainside. There aren’t any roads there. It didn’t plunge through the guardrail. One possibility is that they went into the lake using the fishing access road near the end of the Stretch. We’ll check that out first.”

Jeri studied the frozen lake, gray with sinister shadows, visible only as far as headlights and flashlights reached. Dead weeds and thick brush, as well as leafless river birch and willows, hid the shoreline from view. What horrible secret was hidden beneath its surface? Jeri shuddered at the idea of Rosa and the others trapped in that icy, watery grave.

Stop it!
she ordered herself.

“Split into two groups,” the police officer said. “Half of you start at each end of the guardrail. Go down to the lakeshore and walk toward each other till you meet in the middle. Look for tire tracks, breaks in the ice, broken brush. Also look for evidence that might indicate Keith drove off into the woods around the lake.” He paused. “He could have suffered a heart attack or stroke and gone into the lake. We just don’t know. It’s impossible for a van to just disappear along this stretch. The sooner we find it, the better for all involved. Move quickly, but carefully.”

Jeri followed the woman beside her to the end of the guardrail. Sharp rocks jabbed through her snow boots. Icy wind pounded her forehead as she trudged along, and she pulled her stocking cap lower and scarf higher. She plowed through snow and tangled brush down to Sutter Lake.

“Sorry, young lady.” A police officer stepped in front of Jeri. “Weren’t you told to stay back behind the orange tape?”

Jeri saw the headmistress coming. “I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m just so worried. My roommate is in that van.”

“Jeri!” Head Long’s voice was sharp in the freezing night air. “I told you – ”

“I’m coming.”

The officer nodded at the headmistress. “Ma’am, keep your students under control, or they need to leave. We can’t babysit them for you.”

Jeri was stunned. Nobody talked to the Head that way! The headmistress nodded curtly, looked like she wanted to turn the officer over her knee, and clutched Jeri’s arm. “Go back to your friends,” she said through gritted teeth.

Frozen muddy ruts were glazed with ice, and Jeri fell, biting her tongue. She tasted blood, but barely noticed it as she watched the searchers move slowly along the shoreline. In twenty minutes her toes were numb. If
she
were cold, Jeri shuddered to think how Rosa probably felt.

Abby’s teeth chattered, making her chin quiver. Jeri untied her scarf. “Here, take this.”

“N-no, I’m okay.”

“Abby, you’re freezing. Take it.”

“Thanks, Jer.” Although Abby wore jeans, her short jacket wasn’t enough protection against the frigid wind whipping across the lake.

Jeri hunched down inside her collar, grateful now for the full-length, down-filled coat her mom had insisted on buying. The raw wind made her eyes water; and tears dripping down her cheeks froze halfway.

She stomped her freezing feet while her mind replayed Rosa mini-movies: Rosa throwing Cheerios at her at breakfast, Rosa sending her a singing hyena e-card, and Rosa whispering after lights-out while her flashlight beam played across the ceiling.

Toward the west, Jeri spotted one group approaching from around a bend. Within ten minutes, both groups met in the middle. Jeri ran to the guardrail and yelled to a man in green coveralls. “Did you find anything?”