Harper pulled out a photo that was bent and faded with age. It had been glued onto a piece of pink construction paper cut into the shape of a lopsided heart. In sloppy cursive across the top, it said My Family in Gemma’s handwriting.

The photo showed the four of them, Brian, Nathalie, Harper, and Gemma, at the beach. Gemma and Harper were wearing matching bathing suits—purple, with white flowers and a ruffle around the bottom. Harper had nearly forgotten about that day, but it was eleven years ago.

They all looked so happy—even Gemma, who hadn’t wanted to come out of the water for the picture. Nathalie had had to bribe her with an ice-cream cone.

“Harper?” Alex said uncertainly from the top of the basement steps, pulling her from her thoughts.

“Yeah.” Harper put the picture back in the box, then set the box aside.

“Sorry, I just let myself in,” Alex said as he came down the steps. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”

“No, it’s okay.” Harper stood up and brushed the dust from her knees. The boxes had been sitting down here so long, they’d collected a lot of dirt and cobwebs. “I must not have heard you knocking.”

When Alex came downstairs, he glanced around the basement, which was dimly lit by a few bulbs hanging from the ceiling. He had a brown leather laptop bag slung over his shoulder, and he readjusted the strap before turning his attention back to Harper.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“Just cleaning up.” She absently wiped at her eyes, which had welled up a bit while she was looking through the box. “I’ve been meaning to reorganize this junk for a long time.”

“I see,” Alex said, but he didn’t sound like he really did. “Anyway, I came over because I wanted to show you what I’ve been working on all morning.”

“You’ve been working on something?” Harper asked.

When they’d spoken yesterday, neither of them had been able to come up with a concrete plan for what to do about Gemma. The best they’d come up with was Harper making a few phone calls. Alex had offered to help, but they both agreed it would sound better if the calls came from a family member instead of Gemma’s boyfriend.

“Yeah, it’s on my laptop.” He tapped the bag hanging on his hip. “If you wanna take a look.”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

Alex glanced around for a place to sit. Looking past the old lawn chairs, which still looked rather cobwebby even after Harper had wiped them off, he sat down on the basement steps. Then he pulled out his laptop, setting it across his knees.

“I know you were making calls, but I wanted to do something, too,” Alex said as Harper walked over to him. She tentatively sat on the step next to him, peering over at his computer screen as he clicked away. “So I went to the Internet.”

Within a few seconds a big picture of Gemma popped up, nearly filling the screen. She was smiling, with her long waves of hair shimmering in the sunlight. Harper had taken the picture a few weeks ago on the last day of school.

“I took the picture from her Facebook,” Alex explained.

In large bold letters above Gemma’s picture, it read Have you seen me? Alex scrolled down below the picture, where all the pertinent information was listed, like Gemma’s age, height, when she was last seen, and a contact e-mail address given as [email protected].

“What do you think?” Alex asked, watching Harper expectantly.

“This is her own Web site?” Harper asked, avoiding answering him right away.

He nodded. “Yeah, I got a couple missing kids sites to link to it, too. And I also set up a Facebook page for it.”

He made a few more keystrokes, and the Facebook page popped up, displaying the same picture he’d used on her Web site. This one had the tagline Have you seen Gemma Fisher?

“A few people have already written on the wall,” Harper remarked, and leaned in closer to read the messages.

The only people who had written on the wall so far were a couple girls Gemma had gone to school with and her swim coach, all of them sharing the same sentiment—that they hadn’t seen Gemma, but they hoped she came home soon.

“Yeah, there’s no great tips yet, but I just launched it,” Alex said. “It’ll take a little bit of time to take off.”

“You think people will post if they see her?” Harper asked.

“I don’t know,” Alex admitted. “But I hope they do. They might.” He sighed. “I mean, I don’t know where else to look or what else to do. This way we can get other people helping us.”

“That’s true.” Harper leaned back on the steps. “It’s really good, Alex. I’m glad you thought of it.”

“Maybe she’ll see it,” Alex said, his words softer, as if he were speaking to himself. “Maybe if she realizes how much we miss her, she’ll come back.”

Harper turned away from the computer to look directly at Alex. He wore a worried, heartbroken expression.

“Alex, she didn’t leave because she doesn’t care about us,” Harper said gently. “Or because she doesn’t think we care about her.”

He lowered his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice sounded tight. “I know. I just thought … maybe if she realized how much I care…”

“Alex.” Harper put her hand on his back to comfort him. “Those sirens have done something to Gemma. You didn’t see her leave because you were knocked out, but Gemma didn’t want to go with them. They had something over her, and she left to protect us, to protect you and me, because she cares about us.”