Chapter 19: The Shoulder

Drew's POV

Keira's text came in while I was still in my parents' driveway.

It said: Job. Find Keeley. Call the deputy first, then go. Do not go in alone.

I read it twice, and I called the deputy from the highway before I put the truck in gear.

"Colburn," he said. "What have you got?"

"Keeley Satterlee is gone from home. I think she went to the shoulder where our bus stopped."

"Why would she go there?"

"I don't know yet. I'm driving out to check."

"Don't approach her. I'm twenty minutes behind you."

I drove with both hands on the wheel.

The sky to the south had gone the color of a bruise.

Over the exit, the highway sign had changed from its usual message.

DUST WARNING. REDUCE SPEED. NEXT 20 MILES.

I had seen the same sign once before, from a bus window, and I had hoped never to see it again.

Her white sedan was on the shoulder at the marker, with the driver's door open and the dome light on.

The wind was already lifting grit off the pavement.

She stood a hundred feet down the shoulder, facing west, in the same blue dress she had worn to the dean's office.

I parked behind her car and turned on my hazards.

"Keeley," I said, from beside the truck.

She did not turn around.

"I'm not here to bring you back," I said. "I called the deputy. He's coming."

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