Read Online Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares - Free Book Online

There’s no way she could go through something that big without us knowing.”
    “Something is wrong,” Bridget said. They’d waited implicitly until midnight to say so. They’d waited for Bee to be the one to say it.
    Lena’s hands were on her neck. “What should we do? Call the police? The consulate?” She’d been thinking of it since the sky turned dark. Her mind flashed back to the hundreds of signs they’d made when they were looking for their lost pants ten years before, and she felt like she was choking.
    This island was a fucking sinkhole. It had lost most of itself under the ocean, for God’s sake. It was a terrible place for losing things.
    Bridget got up and started to pace. “I feel like going out and looking for her,” she said.
    “I think call the consulate first,” Carmen said to Lena.
    Lena found the number in one of her grandparents’ ancient directories but couldn’t get a live voice on the phone.
    Carmen’s face was serious. “The police?”
    Lena found the number of the local precinct number and called it. Her heart was mashing around and her head was grasping for the way to say anything in Greek. The phone rang many times before a man picked it up.
    “English?” was the first thing she asked him, disappointingly.
    “A little. No. You want to call back?” he asked her in Greek.
    “No. I need to talk to someone now,” she said, also in Greek. She didn’t realize she wasn’t speaking English until she’d spoken. She explained, in Greek apparently, about Tibby. She talked and listened for several minutes, noticing Bee’s and Carmen’s surprised eyes on her face. They hovered as she hung up the phone.
    “How did you do that?” Carmen asked her breathlessly.
    “I’ve been practicing.”
    “What did they say?” Bridget asked.
    “He said to call back if she’s missing for twenty-four hours. She’s not technically missing until then. But he took down all the information. He has her name and age and description and our number and address and everything.” She pressed her lips together. She felt suddenly tired, though nowhere near sleep. “I don’t know what else to do.”
    “We’ll wait,” Bee said.
    Nobody tried to suggest eating or sleeping. Talking was the only comfort they had.

    By the time dawn made its way through the slats of the shutters, they couldn’t think of any more stories to tell themselves about what could have happened. It had been two nights now without sleep, and the whole world had taken on an alien aspect. Carmen had long since searched the back bedroom for any note or clue as to where Tibby might have gone, though it felt wrong to open Tibby’s duffel bag.
    “There is some logical explanation,” Carmen told them. “There always is.”
    The knock at the door came around two hours past dawn.
    Though they had sat seemingly inert, two on the couch, Lena in the chair, for the last hour, they were all three on their feet and at the door almost instantly.
    It wasn’t Tibby. It was the opposite of her. It was two men in uniform, one young and one middle-aged. The older one took a step forward. “Lena Kaligaris?” he said.
    Lena raised her hand like an elementary school student. “Me,” she said.
    “You called the precinct last night,” he said to her in Greek.
    “Do you speak English?” Whatever he had to say she didn’t want to hear alone.
    “Yes. Okay.” He looked at his partner. Lena was searching for some reassuring casualness in their manner, but she didn’t see it. “You called about your friend. Tibby.” The way he said it sounded like “Teeeby.” “She did not come home?” Lena felt Bee’s hand wrap around hers.
    “No. Not yet. Is everything okay?” Her words made a faint whisper in a howl of a windstorm in her head. People like this didn’t come to your house if everything was okay.
    He glanced again at his partner. “Early this morning a fishing boat passing Finikia … they called the guard. Well. They found a body.