Free The Disappearing by Jennifer Torres

Chapter 1
A Midnight Visit
    Every night Tim runs for his life.
    Through a sticker bush, onto a dirt path, his lungs straining for air as he pushes ahead down a small hill.
    Faster now.
    The man pursuing him is close; he can hear twigs snap under heavy feet, pounding into the grass just behind him. Ahead, a patch of flowers and a yellow house, if he can just get there, but then he remembers he won’t make it.
    He never does.
    The rock, hidden in the grass, is steps away. Tim trips, landing on his knees, a strong hand grips his shoulder, pulling him away again.
    It was a nightmare he could do without.
    Yet here he was again, sitting straight up in bed, sweaty, gasping for air, forced out of a sound sleep at the same moment in the dream every time.
    â€œWhew,” he exhaled. Lying back down with hands clasped behind his head, Tim silently considered telling his mom he might need to talk to someone about this. The whole thing was getting ridiculous already.
    Soon enough his eyes grew heavy, his breathing deep, then . . .
    BANG—BANG—BANG!
    Tim jumped to his feet. Someone was here, and they wanted in.
    Within moments, he could hear his parents’ bedroom door swing open, their feet moving quickly down the steps. In his head, one thought screamed out:
    Don’t open it!
    Tim slipped out his door, into the hallway, and peered down the staircase just in time to see his father open the front door.
    It was the police.
    â€œSorry to bother you at this hour, but there’s been an incident,” said a giant, burly man with dark eyes. “Can we talk for a moment?”
    â€œTim?” his mom called out as she made her way up the stairs.
    â€œI’m right here,” he quickly stammered and ran to meet her half way. “What’s wrong, Mom? What happened?”
    She threw her arms around her son and exhaled in relief, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
    As his father led the man inside, Tim’s mother walked him to his room, making sure he was safely back in bed. Then she slipped back down the stairs to join the others.
    He could hear the door to his father’s study click shut, and then nothing.
    Soon he drifted off into a mercifully uneventful sleep.
    â€¢â€¢â€¢â€¢â€¢
    â€œDid you hear what happened last night?” asked Max as he rode up on his skateboard the next morning. “Everyone is talking about it.”
    â€œYeah, they came to my house in the middle of the night to tell my parents,” said Tim, who had been sitting on the steps of his front porch waiting for his friend Max. “They told me this morning.”
    He stood up, jumped on his own board, and the two headed down the road to the beach sharing what details they had.
    All they really knew was that a young girl in town had disappeared. Her name was Eva. Everyone knew her and liked her. Her parents were inconsolable and certain she had been taken by a stranger—a man Eva told her mother she had seen just days earlier.
    â€œA stranger in Briny Deep?” said Max. “Now
that’s
strange.”
    Nothing bad ever happened in Briny Deep.
    Tim had lived here all his life and couldn’t imagine a better place to grow up. Nestled in the hills, crested by the sea, he spent his days at the beach, playing ball, and hanging out with his four best friends.
    They had known each other forever. It helped that all their parents were friends, too. They were always at each other’s houses for barbecues, pool parties, and movie nights. It might have been difficult if their kids hadn’t got along. But luckily the friendships came easily and instantly and were fiercely strong, even though two of his best friends were girls.
    Nina and Emily were always together and thought of each other like sisters. And Tim and the guys, Luke and Max, were brothers in every sense of the word but blood. They even wore these silly matching fabric bands around their wrists. They had made them one