“Lily actually transferred schools,” she said. “That was her last day here.”
I drove directly to Lily’s house.
A man answered the door.
“Can I please speak with Lily?” I asked. “She was with my son the day he disappeared. I just need to know if he said anything.”
The man stared at me for a long moment. Something in his expression hardened.
“She’s not here,” he said. “She’s staying with her grandparents for a while.”
He started closing the door, then paused.
“If she knows anything, I’ll tell her to contact you.”
Then the door shut.
I stood there on the porch with a strange feeling in my chest, an instinct telling me something about that conversation was wrong.
But I didn’t know what to do.
The weeks that followed were unbearable.
Friends helped me put up flyers. I posted everywhere online. Police searched nearby towns.
But as the months passed, the investigation slowed.
Eventually people began using the word runaway.
I refused to accept that.
Ethan wasn’t the kind of boy who disappeared without a word.
And I never stopped searching.