Cryer’s Cross

Dedication

For Kennedy

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Acknowledgments

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Everything changes when Tiffany Quinn disappears.

Of the 212 residents of Cryer’s Cross, Montana, 178 join Sheriff Greenwood in a search that lasts several days from sunup to after dark. School is closed, all the students taking part, searching roads and farms, trudging through pastures of cattle and horses, through sections of newly planted potatoes, barley, wheat. Up to the foothills and back along the woods. They travel in groups of two or three, some nervous, some crying, some resolute. Shouting to the other groups now and then so nobody else goes missing—cell phones aren’t much good out here. Cryer’s Cross is a dead spot.

After five days there is still no trace of Tiffany Quinn. She is gone, impossibly. Impossibly, because to imagine that there has been foul play here in the humble town of Cryer’s Cross is laughable, and to imagine that sweet ninth-grade bookworm running away, going off on her own . . . It’s all so impossible.

But gone she is.

Still, they search.

Kendall Fletcher flinches and casts regular glances behind her out of habit. Scared about the younger girl’s disappearance, true, but also unsettled by this shake-up in her schedule. The final week of her junior year canceled—everything left unfinished, open ended. Her whole routine is off.

She walks the hundreds of acres of her parents’ farm and beyond into the woods, wearily counting her steps through the potatoes and grain fields and trees. Counting, always counting something.

Her best friend, Nico Cruz, walks next to her.

Boyfriend, he’d say.

But boyfriend means commitment, and commitments that she can’t keep tend to make Kendall feel prickly. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s run.”

She takes off through the field, and Nico follows. They pass an imaginary soccer ball between the rows, occasionally yelling out “Tiffany!” Once, after they cross over to Nico’s family’s land, they see a big brown lump where the barley field meets the gravel road, but it’s not Tiffany. Just a road-killed deer.

She’s not here. She’s not anywhere.

They take a break under a tree at the edge of the farm as rain starts to fall. Kendall stares and counts the drops as they hit the gray dirt, faster and faster.

Nico talks, but Kendall isn’t listening. She needs to get to a hundred drops before she can allow herself to stop.

Eventually the search ends. Nothing more can be done locally except by professionals now. It’s prime planting season. Farmers have chores, and students do too. Plus jobs, if they work in town or for one of the farmers or ranchers. Life has to go on.

It’s a long, hot summer full of hard work for Kendall. For everyone. After a month or two, people stop talking about Tiffany Quinn.

In September when school starts again, Kendall arrives as she always does, the first one to the one-room high school, except for old Mr. Greenwood, the part-time janitor, who retreats to his basement hideout whenever students are around.

Kendall is tan and not quite freakishly tall. Athletic. Her long brown hair has natural highlights from her driving a tractor and working on the farm all summer.

There was too much time to think up there on that tractor, since all it takes is a GPS to run it up and down the rows. And when your brain has a glitch and its lap counter is broken, the same thoughts whir around on an endless loop. Tiffany Quinn. Tiffany Quinn. Tiffany Quinn.

Kendall imagines every possible scenario for Tiffany. Running away. Getting lost. Being abducted. Maybe even raped, murdered. Wondering which one really happened, and if they’ll ever know the truth. She pictures all of it happening to herself, and it almost makes her cry. Pictures Tiffany screaming for help, begging to live . . . Kendall’s eyes blur as she remembers her summer, turning the tractor through the fields and obsessing about such horrible things. It seemed so real, so scary, as if someone were about to jump out of the woods and attack her.

She knows some of her thoughts are irrational. She knows it and always has known it, even in fifth grade, when she used to layer on clothes—four shirts, three pairs of underwear, shorts under her jeans—anxiously, frantically, crying her eyes out for fear people could see her naked through her clothes. What an awful time that was. Fear like that is constant, tiring. But the psychologist over in Bozeman helped. Explained OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder—and eventually that particular phase of worry went away, only to be replaced by other obsessions, other compulsions.

She’s not crazy. She just can’t stop thinking things when weird ideas get lodged in her head. She also can’t stop glancing behind her—it has become her latest compulsion. This whole thing with Tiffany has set her back some.

So she’s glad to be back at school, though feeling a little desperate because of how last year ended. And anxious to start this year fresh. Anxious to have new thoughts, new assignments bombard her brain, keep her mind occupied with non-scary things. Soccer practice starting up again. New DVD dance routines to learn. New things to keep her busy, body and mind. It’s a relief.

On this first day she tidies up the classroom in a way that old Mr. Greenwood doesn’t, turning the wastebasket so the dent is in the right place, straightening the markers on the dry-erase board and putting them in color order to match Roy G Biv as closely as possible, opening the curtains just so. Lining up the desks into their proper places in neat quadrants, one quadrant of six desks for each high school grade. Kendall creates aisles separating the quadrants to give the teacher room to walk between them, so she can address each grade individually rather than having all twenty-four desks together. It’s the way Kendall likes things.

Nobody’s ever complained.

Nobody even knows.

The desks are ancient and sturdy beasts from the 1950s, recycled by the state from who knows where. It’s a workout moving them all, but Kendall feels better when everything is back to normal. She sees where her old desk ended up, over in the freshman quadrant this year. Now the tenth graders will have an empty seat, unless the rumors are true. There’s a new family in town, according to Nico, though Kendall hasn’t seen anyone new around town yet. Kendall hopes they have a sophomore to fill the spot left by Tiffany, to make things in that section neat again. Though Tiffany coming back would be the best thing, of course. But Sheriff Greenwood and the local news anchors say that’s just not likely. Not after all this time has passed.

Kendall opens the curtains wide enough so that the edges of them hang in line with the sides of the windows. Her irrational fear gets the better of her and she checks the window locks, first struggling to open the windows to make sure the locks are sturdy, then running her forefinger over each lock in the same manner. “All checked and good,” she says. No one is there to hear her, but she has to say it out loud or it doesn’t count.

When she sees students walking up the yard to the little school, Kendall looks over her handiwork. The door creaks open. Kendall moves to her new desk in the senior quadrant, takes out an antiseptic wipe from her book bag, and cleans her desk quickly before anybody can see and make fun. She’s not a compulsive hand-washer, like some. But she likes to know the germ status of her own personal work space at the beginning of a school year. Doesn’t everybody?

Nico spies her and comes over. His straight white-blond hair hangs in his eyes. He’s got his father’s Spanish name but his mother’s Dutch looks. Nico swishes his hair aside and gives Kendall a half grin. Throws his book bag onto the floor and shoves his body into the desk just to the right of Kendall. “These desks aren’t getting any bigger,” he mutters, trying to fit his knees under the metal basin. He leans over and pecks Kendall on the cheek. “Hey. Sorry I was late. You want to go up to Bozeman this Saturday?”

“What for?”

“I gotta look at Montana State. Check out the nursing school.”

The guy behind them snickers. “Nurse Nico.”

“Shut it, Brandon,” Nico says in a calm voice. He whips his arm back without looking, and it connects with the side of Brandon’s head.

“Sure,” Kendall says. “I want to check out their theatre and dance program, just in case.”

Nico flashes a sympathetic smile. “Still no word?”

“No.” The chances of a rural girl with very little formal training in theatre or dance getting into Juilliard are probably less than zero, but Kendall sees no reason not to start at the top.

Kendall idly counts bodies as everyone else files in. She subtracts last year’s seniors and Tiffany Quinn, and adds the incoming freshmen. Ms. Hinkler explains the seating arrangement to the freshmen, new to this building. She also announces to the noisy room that there will be two new students this year, which is practically unheard of. The rumor of the new family must be true. Cryer’s Cross is, apparently, a boom town.

“Looks like it’ll be a full house this year,” Kendall murmurs. Twenty-four students. Perfection.

The two new students enter the room and everyone watches curiously. Ms. Hinkler checks them in and assigns them seats. She directs one of the new students to the senior section. He looks beyond Kendall and frowns.

“Hey,” Kendall says when he stops at the only empty desk, to the left of hers.

The guy mutters something, but he doesn’t look at her. He sits down and puts his backpack on the floor under his desk.

Nico leans over Kendall’s desk. “Hey. I’m Nico. How’s it going?”

The guy nods, almost imperceptibly, but remains silent.

Nico raises his eyebrow.

Kendall laughs. “Okay, then,” she says. “This should be fun.” She studies the new guy. He’s tough-looking and muscular. Medium-brown skin, his hair black and wavy. His clothes aren’t anything special, but they’re clean and neat. His shoes are dusty like everyone else’s. Cryer’s Cross could use some rain.

The other new student, a sophomore girl, has brown skin too, with a spattering of darker freckles across her nose and cheeks. Black wavy hair. They’re both striking. “Is that your sister?” Kendall asks.

The new guy closes his eyes, feigning sleep, arms crossed over his chest. Kendall sighs. She turns her attention to her new desk, reading the graffiti. But it’s already familiar—she’s been reading and memorizing desk graffiti for years now. She knows every desk by heart. She can’t help it. It’s one of those OCD things.

Being Kendall is exhausting.

Once Ms. Hinkler has all the freshmen students checked in, she introduces them to the rest of the class. Like everyone else, Kendall pretty much knows them all. Some of their parents work on the Fletchers’ potato farm. But all eyes are on the transfer students. They are introduced, brother and sister indeed. The girl is Marlena and the guy is Jacián Obregon. Ms. Hinkler stumbles over his name.

“Not JAY-se-un,” he says, suddenly awake again. “Hah-see-AHN.”

Ms. Hinkler blushes. “My apologies.” She repeats it the right way. Jacián Obregon. It sounds like a melody. Or a tragedy.

It’s a boisterous, testosterone-filled day for Kendall, wedged between Nico and Jacián, with stupid Brandon directly behind her and two more guys on either side of him—Travis Shank, and Eli Greenwood, who is the son of the sheriff and grandson of the janitor. It’s always been like this. Kendall’s the only girl her age in the entire town. It figures that when they finally get a new kid in her grade, it’s another guy.

But Nico’s there like always. He’s been her best friend ever since they were babies. He knows about Kendall’s OCD, understands it, and it doesn’t bother him at all. Best guy in the world? Kendall thinks so. She gives him a wide smile when she passes the syllabus to him.

At lunch Kendall and Nico trade sandwiches like they’ve done every day since kindergarten, except when Nico brings tuna salad, which Kendall can’t stand. They eat together in the grass, talking about college options and how it’s going to suck to be apart.

After school Kendall and Nico head to soccer practice out in the field behind the building. Soccer here is coed and all varsity since there aren’t enough high school girls in Cryer’s Cross to make up a girls’ team, and there aren’t enough students who want to play soccer to have a JV team as well. Kendall’s the only girl to stick it out. And she’s better than most of the guys.

As Kendall finishes stretching, Jacián shows up to the field, dressed in Nike soccer apparel like they’re sponsoring him or something. Kendall jogs in place, rubber band between her teeth, and whips her hair into a ponytail as she watches him walk. She can tell he’s an athlete. She says his name to herself so she doesn’t forget how to pronounce it— not a lot of Jaciáns around here.

A moment later Marlena appears, dressed for practice in less obvious designer sportswear. She sees Jacián and runs toward him.

Kendall stares. “They’re both playing?” she says under her breath to Nico.

“Looks that way.” Nico grabs a ball from the ball bag and tosses it at the ground in front of Kendall, who captures it with her foot and dribbles automatically away from the others.

“Well, we definitely have room on the team.” They pass the ball back and forth. Kendall thinks of the four team members they lost to graduation last year.

“Yeah, there’s too much room, and only one freshman that I know of wants to join us. And this new girl. I suppose Coach will take anybody with a pulse. But we’re still short. How many is that, number girl?”

“Eight,” Kendall says automatically.

“Yowch.” He scratches his head. “I hope Coach can recruit a few more, or we’re going to be killing ourselves playing against full teams.”

Kendall squints and shrugs. “We’re not the only team with low numbers. We can do it with eight. Though it’ll be hell playing Bozeman teams with the full eleven.” She watches the Obregons stretch, waiting to see what they can do. “You know, it might be nice having another girl around,” she says finally. “Jacián, on the other hand . . . Well, I guess it won’t make a difference.”

When Jacián plows into Kendall during a four-on-four practice scrimmage and leaves her with the wind knocked out of her, though, she realizes he actually might make a difference. “Asshole,” she mutters when she gets her wind back. “Coach, hello! That was a foul.” She gets back up and runs to help protect her goal, but it’s too late. Jacián scores against her team.

After practice Kendall follows Marlena to the tiny girls’ locker room, which is more of a lean-to against the school building than anything else. “You guys are good,” Kendall says.

Marlena smiles. “Thanks. Jacián is great. I’m just okay.” Her voice is warm and rich.

“You’re way better than Brandon,” Kendall says, feeling generous.

“Which one is he?”

“The immature senior loser with the light brown hair. Kinda big and dopey, about this tall.” She holds up her hand to about six feet four. “He sits behind me in school. I’m sure you know who I mean. The guy who didn’t actually manage to touch the ball the entire scrimmage but fell down multiple times.”

“Yeah. I think so.” She grins.

They strip down, clean up, and change back into street clothes, layering on deodorant. Couldn’t shower even if they wanted to, but there’s a sink at least. “So,” Kendall says, “what’s your brother’s problem?”

Marlena raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not very friendly. Hasn’t said a word.”

“Oh, that. He’s just upset,” Marlena says. She lowers her voice, even though it’s just the two of them. “He doesn’t really want to be here.”

“Why not?”

Marlena shrugs. “Moving away from all his friends for his senior year. Leaving his girlfriend, trying to do a long-distance-relationship thing. And then when we got here . . . Well, you probably know.”

“Know what?”

“About the sheriff coming over. Right when we moved in. Everybody seems to know everybody else’s business here.”

Kendall shakes her head. “I don’t know. I was isolated on a tractor twelve hours a day all summer. What happened?”

Marlena pulls a makeup bag from her backpack and starts applying eyeliner. “Well, we moved here in May, right after our school year was done down in Arizona. Right before that girl Tiffany disappeared, I guess. Sheriff Greenwood and the state police thought maybe Jacián had something to do with it.”

Kendall’s eyes widen. Her heart skips, and the irrational fear wells up. “Oh. . . .” The word gets caught in her throat, and bad thoughts start looping.

“He didn’t, though, obviously. After a while the sheriff stopped bugging him.” Marlena scowls as she swipes her lips with gloss. “Jacián was really pissed off, though. Called the sheriff a racist.”

Kendall swallows hard. “So . . . why did you guys move here?”

“My grandfather.” She replaces the cap and fishes around in her makeup bag. “He’s getting older, and his business wasn’t doing very well. He’s not keeping up with technology. Still uses horses to round up cattle. Can you believe that? My mother and father decided to come here and take care of things. Family is a big deal to them. To all of us.” Marlena turns to look at Kendall. “Are you all right?”

Kendall stops staring at Marlena and turns on the faucet, washes her hands, stares at the water instead. “Wait . . . so, who’s your grandfather? I don’t know any Obregons around here.”

“It’s my mother’s father. Hector Morales. A mile down RR-4.”

Kendall grins. “Oh, Hector’s Farm! Everybody loves him. We buy lots of stuff from him—milk, beef. I didn’t know he was having trouble.” Somehow, Marlena and Jacián being related to Hector makes them a little less scary.

“It’s not too bad, my mother says. He’s just not able to keep up with beef orders as well as he used to, and he lost some cattle over the winter. Plus, he’s too stubborn to hire help, so I guess he lost some commercial business. We’re trying to get it back.”

“Well, we’ll keep buying all our stuff from you guys, I’m sure. And the cool thing is you can ride. He’s got beautiful stables. You can even ride to school if you want. There’s a hitching post over on the side of the building.”

“No way, really?” Marlena grins and picks up her backpack. “This place is so old-fashioned. We rode back home too, but just for fun. It’s in the blood, I think. We’ll be switching Grandpa over to four-wheelers soon.” Somebody outside the building pounds on the wall, and Marlena startles.

“That’ll be Nico,” Kendall says. She grabs her bag. “Nice getting to know you.”

Marlena smiles. “Don’t let my brother get to you. He’s just pretty mad about everything right now.”

“No kidding,” Kendall says. She pushes the door open and comes face-to-face with Jacián Obregon.

He glares.

She glares back, but her stomach twists. “You fouled me,” she says.

He doesn’t speak for a moment. When he does, his voice is lower than she expects. “Stay out of my way, then, if you don’t want to get hurt.” He dismisses Kendall by the mere act of looking beyond her, to Marlena. “Come on, Lena,” he says sharply. He turns in the dirt and starts walking toward the parking area.

Marlena smiles an apology to Kendall and takes off after Jacián. “See you tomorrow,” she calls out.

Kendall waves halfheartedly at Marlena as Nico walks up. “He’s a jerk.”

Nico nods. “Yep. Pretty much.”

Kendall smiles and starts walking. “Let’s go. I’ve got chores and homework. Felt good to play again, though, didn’t it?”

“It was awesome. You get hurt at all?”

“No. I can take it. . . .” She trails off.

“What?”

Kendall looks over her shoulder as they cross the dirt road and cut the corner of a barley field. “Marlena said they moved here right before Tiffany disappeared, and that Eli’s dad suspected Jacián might have had something to do with it.”

“What? That’s crazy.”

“Is it? I mean, how would we know? He’s mean. Maybe he’s unstable.”

“Kendall.”

“Seriously, what if he has her all tied up in the woods. Or maybe he chopped her up into little pieces. . . .”

“Kendall, stop it. That’s ridiculous.”

She’s not convinced.

They walk until they reach the halfway point between their respective family farms—directly across the road from each other. For a moment they stand in the middle of the road facing each other and holding hands. Nico leans in and kisses her sweetly.

“Don’t work too hard,” Nico says.

“You either. Call me at eleven?”

“Always.”

Kendall smiles, and they part company, each down their long driveways.

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