Elise had stepped outside the school during prom.
She never came back.
By the time Wesley and I reached the school, music was still playing faintly inside the gym. Decorations hung over the doors. Teenagers in formal clothes stood in frightened little groups while teachers checked classrooms and parking lots.
Jonah was sitting outside the office.
His collar was open, and his face looked completely different from the boy I’d photographed a few hours earlier.
I ran to him.
He told us Elise had said she needed air. He thought she was going to the courtyard and would return in a few minutes.
She hadn’t.
Her purse was gone.
Her phone had been turned off.
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