All the Missing Girls

As Nic works on the house, a faintly recognizable voice calls to her. As she approaches it, she realizes it’s Jackson. He wants to know if Nic has seen Tyler, who has been missing since Friday. It’s now Monday, and the two of them set off to visit Tyler’s apartment. Upon arrival, they can hear his cell phone ringing inside as they call it, but there’s no answer. Jackson grabs a ladder, saying to Nic, “You’re my alibi and I’m yours. We weren’t breaking in. We were checking on him. Got it?” (198).

Nic waits outside as Jackson climbs in. He returns empty-handed. He assumes Tyler has gone camping, but Nic isn’t satisfied. She would have gone through his laptop; she would have checked to see if he’d brought his camping gear with him. They head downstairs and Jackson makes them breakfast at the bar before opening.

In a moment of unusual intimacy, he turns to her and tells her, “I didn’t hurt Corinne. I loved her” (199). It’s true that Corinne was pregnant, but it wasn’t his child, because the two of them had never had sex. She’d tried to get back together with him at the fair.