Fragile by Lisa Unger

she’s not, Melody. I just checked Ricky’s room before I came down. He’s alone, asleep.”
    The woman visibly shrank, her shoulders sagging forward, her head dropping. “Oh, God. Where is she?” Maggie heard the anguish; it was a pitch that any mother would recognize, the acknowledgment that athousand imagined horrors had shifted into the realm of possibility. Maggie felt the first finger of real fear poke her in the belly.
    “What’s going on?” Ricky stood bleary-eyed behind her. Jones walked back in the front door. He towered behind their son, hands on his hips. Jones’s thick build and sunshine blond hair contrasted with Ricky’s inky spikes and his lean, loping frame. Physically, they were opposites. But they both wore the same furrow in their brows.
    Melody rose, pushed past Maggie, and ran to Ricky. “Where is she, Rick? Where did she go?”
    Ricky shook his head. “Who?” he said. “Char? What do you mean?”
    “Is she upstairs?” asked Jones.
    Ricky turned to look at his father. When he answered, he sounded petulant and angry. “No.”
    “She’s not,” Maggie confirmed. “I checked his room before I came downstairs. She’s not up there.”
    Jones seemed to debate a moment, ran a hand over his hair. Then he turned and went upstairs anyway.
    “He doesn’t believe me?” Ricky said, looking at Maggie.
    “He’s just checking.”
    Jones obviously didn’t believe her, either, she thought with a rush of annoyance. They heard him pounding around upstairs. Then, a moment later, he returned with the cordless phone from Ricky’s room in his hand.
    “Why did you have the phone off the hook in your room?” he asked. He held it up to his son.
    “I don’t know.” Ricky rubbed his eyes. “I was trying to reach Charlene. I must have fallen asleep without hanging it up. I don’t know.”
    “Did you see her tonight?” Jones asked. He sounded more like a cop than a father, someone ready to believe the worst before anything had even happened.
    “No. She stood me up. I was supposed to meet her at seven at Pop’s.”
    “Oh, God,” said Melody.
    “Does she have access to a vehicle?” asked Jones. He turned to Melody.
    “No,” she said, issuing a sob. She covered her mouth with her hand.
    “Then she left on foot.”
    Melody nodded, and Maggie led her to the couch.
    “Did you follow her out?” Jones asked. He trailed behind them. “When she left, did you see which way she walked?”
    Melody shook her head again, sank down into the suede cushions. She grabbed one of the soft throw pillows and clutched it to her middle.
    “Okay,” said Maggie. “Let’s all try to be calm a minute, think about this. If she was on foot, would she have gone to a neighbor’s house, a friend nearby?”
    “I’ve called everyone. No one’s seen her.”
    “Could she have used her cell phone to call someone, to have someone pick her up?” Maggie glanced up at Ricky. He looked at some point above her, his mouth slack and eyes wide. Who else would Charlene call but her boyfriend? She’d called him before when Graham and Melody were going at it. He’d told Maggie as much.
    “She doesn’t have a cell phone,” said Melody.
    But she did. Maggie had seen it, even had the number programmed into her own phone. She looked over at her son again; now he was staring at the floor. Did he know where Charlene was? She remembered him storming in, locking himself in his room, blasting the music. The phone was off the hook in his room. He looked up to see her watching him, and quickly cast his eyes away.
    “She does have a cell phone, Melody,” Maggie said. She walked to the kitchen and took her phone from its charger. She scrolled through the numbers until she found it.
    “Ricky,” Maggie said. “Call Charlene from the home phone right now.”
    “I’ve been trying all night,” he said.
    “Try again,” said Jones. He handed Ricky the cordless unit that he’d been holding, and the boy dialed.
    “Put it on