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What does itjoke?

I think of Dara the way I saw her earlier: boarding a bus, ar at the sound of her name

U better keep ur otten herself into now?

JULY 28

Dara’s Diary Entry

DEAR NICK,

I MADE UP A GAME

IT’S CALLED: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

--D

Nick

10:35 pallon of coffee I feel ultra-wired, ju the rearviewin the backseat, leering at me

As soon as I enter the house, I see that Aunt Jackie’s bag is gone--she o hos entangled in the blankets: a sure sign of sleeping pills The light fro patterns over the walls and ceilings, and e-hued news anchor gazes seriously into the caraphic that reads SNOW CONSPIRACY? A TWIST IN THE MADELINE SNOW CASE

Onscreen, the news anchor is saying, "We’ll have hbor, Susan Hardwell, after the break" I turn off the TV, grateful for the sudden silence

How many times have I heard it in the past week? When a person disappears, the first seventy-two hours are the most io, boarding the bus But she didn’t have a bag with her, and she didn’t have her phone So where the hell could she have been going?

In Dara’s roo a little bit better, less anxious, once the room is revealed in all itsfor Despite all of Dara’s whining about privacy, she’s too lazy to ever hide things successfully, and I find her journal where it always is, at the very back of the sled uroans awfully underneath , and open her journal on my lap My palms are itchy, like they always are when I’m nervous But I’m compelled by that sao during that stupid geography test Dara’s in trouble Dara’s been in trouble for a long time And I’ looks like it’s trying to leap off the paper: the pages of the journal are packed, covered with scrawled notes, doodles, and rando from early January Parker and I hooked up for real

I flip forward a week