She wasn’t the kind of girl who disappeared without explanation.
At least, that was what I had believed until that phone call.
I thanked her teacher, promised I would speak to Emily, and ended the call. Then I sat motionless at my desk, staring at the wall while the same question repeated itself in my mind.
If Emily wasn’t going to school, where had she been going every morning?
And why had she lied to me?
I had no idea that the answer would lead me to a gravel parking lot beside a lake, an old pickup truck, and a conversation that would change the way I understood my daughter—and the father I had divorced years earlier.
My name is Zoe Carter, and until that Thursday afternoon, I thought I knew my child better than anyone.
I was about to discover how wrong a mother could be.
