One Missing Girl

THREE COUPLES. THREE DAUGHTERS. ONE MISSING GIRL.

My husband and I are hosting a party this evening — just for the adults. Our daughters are all leaving for college. We’ve raised them together, watched them grow up together, and now we’re drinking champagne beneath the fairy lights, pretending we’re ready to let them go.

Kate is mine. Brilliant. Funny. The kind of girl who lights up every room she walks into.

Lily has been her best friend since kindergarten. Shy, anxious, always half a step behind her.

And finally there’s Julia. Beautiful, loyal — and fearless.

I never thought I’d get a life like this. Not with a past like mine. But here I am, with a husband who adores me and friends who’ve become family. We drink, we dance. I go to bed happy.

By morning one of the girls is missing.

Mine.

I thought I knew these people. My husband. My oldest friends. Their daughters.

Someone among us is lying about that night. But they’ve made a terrible mistake. They don’t know what I’m capable of. Not yet.