Finding Hannah Read Free

away. Several of my sister’s friends put their arms around Alyssa. They walked away and joined a large crowd of my sister’s classmates who had come to help. Blake Weldon even came. I didn’t talk to any of them and they didn’t try to talk to me.
    A news crew from Concord had made the trip and extended its van’s antenna high into the air as the camera crew got ready. An officer distributed granola bars and water bottles to the volunteers. Chief Delgado handed out flyers that made me want to cry. They had a description of Hannah’s sweatpants and the yellow swim-team shirt I had last seen her wearing, along with all of my sister’s statistics: age, eye color, skin color, hair color, height, and weight. There was no mention of her tattoo. In the middle of the page was a picture of Hannah smiling, just like she had the last time I saw her. The rough description of the kidnapper, provided by Amy, matched the description of what I figured to be millions of people: white male, in his thirties or forties, average height with broad shoulders and light blond hair. He’d been wearing jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt and was armed with a shiny handgun.
    “We’ll break into four teams,” Chief Delgado said. “Two teams will go south from the highway, one on each side of the trail. The other two teams will go north.”
    “Come on, Son.” Dad guided me to our starting point along the highway near our house.
    We reached our entry point and walked through the forest, keeping the person on each side of us within view. I forded small streams and walked through mud and marsh. My feet were cold and wet, but I didn’t care. Occasionally, we came across a home or an abandoned building. For the most part, it was just a huge empty forest.
    “Hannah!” someone shouted.
    Every time I heard my sister’s name, I listened for the scream I’d heard while standing in the middle of the empty highway. All I got was silence. A state highway patrol helicopter buzzed over the volunteers about once an hour.
    We had sandwiches for lunch, then something warm for supper, but I wasn’t hungry. The helplessness had taken my appetite.
    We searched until sundown, and I was too tired to put up a fight when Dad told me we were leaving. It wasn’t fair that I was going home and Hannah was still out there.
    My mom’s desperation showed when we walked in the door. Dad shook his head and Mom started crying. My aunts had offered to watch Amy so my mom could search, but she refused, saying Amy needed her and she wanted to be home if Hannah returned.
    I retreated downstairs but couldn’t shower because I felt guilty doing anything Hannah couldn’t do. I climbed into bed and felt guilty about that too. I became aware of the cold inside me, which refused to leave. I curled into a ball under my comforter and shivered. My head felt like it had a metal band around it, a band that was slowly being tightened.
    The image of Hannah laughing at the bottom of the stairs was quickly followed by her long scream. My throat swelled and tears landed on my pillow. Falling asleep had been so easy for me before Hannah was taken. I lay awake knowing the man who had taken Hannah had stolen that ability from me as well.
    * * *
    Dad and I joined the volunteers at 7:00 a.m. the next day at the park where, again, we divided up and continued searching. It was the same the next two days, but always in a different search area.
    One evening a detective interviewed my family. He gave me a sheet of paper and told me to draft a list of names. He wanted Hannah’s former boyfriends, anyone who’d started rumors about her, or anyone who’d shown any interest in my sister at all. The detective also wanted anyone she’d mentioned who was creepy, strange, weird, aggressive, or mean. I knew he really wanted me to list anyone I thought could have taken Hannah. My list was blank the next night when he came by to pick it up.
    By the end of the first week of searching, we were down to