Chapter One

“E llie! Ellie, are you here? Where are you?”

“Dude, it’s one in the morning! Do you think you could keep it down?”

Sid Cline was used to being out at one in the morning, so the angry shouts from his neighbor’s open window didn’t bother him. So what if they were sleeping? This time, he had a reason to be outside, other than drinking himself into a stupor until the wee hours of the morning. He was looking for the reason behind his daughter’s empty-but-made bed, her things gone, her absence from his house. Ellie never stayed out this late. Or rather, early. The latest she had ever come home was around eleven, and that was during a Friday night New Year’s Eve party. Ellie wasn’t that kind of girl, which is why her absence was so rattling.

He called up and down the neighborhood but realized how silly that was. She wasn’t going to be hiding out in the bushes that lined his driveway or ducking behind a neighbor’s tree; she would be with other teens unless something happened to her. And Sid refused to think of that option. It simply wasn’t an option!

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been sober enough to drive at one in the morning, but he took advantage of this time to jump in his old beater truck and speed down to the shoreline where most of the teens gathered. For a Monday night, there were quite a few of them packed around a bonfire that was probably illegal. He practically threw his truck into park and jumped out, rushing toward the group of teens. “Hello?”

The teens turned to face him, some of their faces wrought with confusion while others sneered as they turned back to the fire. But Sid wasn’t giving up.

“Ellie! Where is she? Is she here?”

“Ellie?” One of the girls with short, curled blonde hair turned to face him. “I haven’t seen her since school let out.”

So she had been at school today. That much he knew. But where was she now? “I haven’t... I can’t... I can’t find her!”

“Well, she’s not here.” The oldest teen there threw a stick into the fire and watched it burst into flame, the glow igniting his nonchalant face before dying down into embers again.

“Has anyone seen her?”

“No.”

“No.”

“I don’t know her.”

The teens showed their uselessness in his search, which drove Sid to run up and down the shore like a madman. “Ellie? Ellie!”

The only sound that answered him was the roar of the breakers as they pounded the surf, rushing up to darken the sand with salt water before being dragged out to sea again. Up and down the shore, he walked until he threw himself down onto the sand just barely out of reach of the waves licking the shore. This was not happening. Simply not happening.

Oh, yes, it was.

Ellie never told him where she was, but she never needed to. He always knew she was hanging out with her friends. Where else would she go? To his knowledge, she didn’t have a boyfriend. Whether she did or not, there was one thing for certain. He had lost her. He buried his face in his hands, weeping loud enough to be slightly heard over the waves .

I’m so incredibly stupid.

He’d told himself a thousand times that he was going to quit drinking. This was the week, this was the month, he’d start after this football weekend, et cetera. But each night had been more enticing, the desire for the drink all the more intense. It pulled him in with a force so strong that if he threw himself into the next riptide, it would pale in comparison to that desire for another whiskey, beer, shot of vodka. The consequences had been stalking him until now, when they became real. He’d finally done it. He had drunk himself into a relationship with the bottle and neglected the most important thing in his life. His daughter. Now, because of this, he had lost the chance to redeem his life. Because now, he had no reason to try and redeem it.

Ellie was gone.