“I think it’s an awesome idea: Lizzy Shelley, Monster Hunter!”
“God, I hope they’ve come up with a better name than that!”
“You’d be an idiot not to do it, you know?” Skink said. “If your mission truly is to educate people about monsters, you’ve gotta do what gets the most sets of eyeballs on you. Plus, you’re good at it. People loved you in Monsters Among Us.”
I sighed.
I was in my van camped at the edge of the Point Beach State Forest in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. It was dark now, and when I glanced out of the windows, I saw only myself reflected. The van was full of the cozy glow of LED lights and my laptop screen.
Skink was quiet.
“So how are you doing, really?” I asked.
“Okay,” he said, blowing out a long, slow breath. “It’s weird. Not being able to tell anyone that Lauren’s okay—not even my dad. And I just worry about her, you know?”
“She’s fine, Skink. She’s in good hands.”
“I know. I just wish…”
“That things were different?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “Me too.”
I wished I knew where Vi and Lauren had gone. I wished we’d made a plan to meet up again, like normal sisters might.
Instead, Vi had warned me off, asked me not to follow them, not to try to find her.
“But what if I need you?” I had asked.
“If it’s an emergency, you can email me.” She’d written down an email address that began with MNSTRGRL.
“There’s something else,” Skink said.
“What is it?”
“I heard my dad and that state police detective talking today.”
“About Lauren?”
“Yeah. Apparently the cops in Worcester found… evidence.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Lauren’s diary. Her father had been abusing her for a while. The cops said it was pretty awful. According to this diary, she was going to tell. About to go to her mom and the police, tell her therapist—everyone. She’d already told a couple of friends.”
I felt a knot in my throat. “We knew all that, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Skink said. “But the police think maybe her dad found out she was about to tell and did something to her, something to keep her quiet.”
“Okay. Have they arrested her father? Brought him in for questioning?”
“No,” Skink said. “They can’t find him.”
“Huh?”
“Looks like the guy ran. Disappeared.”
“Guilty much?” I said.
“Yeah, I know. I get why he’d take off, but it’s still weird.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he disappeared the night before they found the diary, for one. His wife, Lauren’s mom, said he went to take the trash out and just never came back. He left his car, his phone, his wallet. His bank account and credit cards haven’t been touched. The dude disappeared without a trace. And get this—he was in his pajamas and barefoot when he went out with the trash.”
“Okay, that is a little weird,” I agreed.
“Can you, you know, like, email Vi?”