Excerpt from Marilou Is Everywhere by Sarah Elaine Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Once they were loaded up and driving off, a shitty Chevy Corsica pulled out of the brush by the highway entrance and kicked up hard behind them on the turns, swinging out into the oncoming lane and passing them on blind curves, then slowing down to nothing so the girls would have to go around. Amber, who was driving the other vehicle, claimed the Corsica nipped her rear bumper a few times, and though they brought it in to gather evidence, nothing could be discerned from the condition of her car. Jude, who was driving in front, pulled off toward Uniontown. She said she knew a back way. The boys didn't follow

Jude's car was still in front. She didn't know her way so well as she thought-they were about to enter a toll road, and she swerved off at the last exit before the turnpike. Her vehicle was knocking and slugging to accelerate, and as they went through Gans, it slowed up and seemed to shake on the turns. On one hairpin she hit a pothole and limped it into the parking lot across from Burchinal's, where a hand-lettered sign advertised a pepperoni roll sale for the students of Ferd Swaney Elementary and the American flag hung rigid like it does everywhere. An old boy in greased coveralls and no undershirt was smoking in a watchful way on his porch, right up by the road, as they peeped the dark windows. Closed, Sunday morning, for church. He came out from behind a dismembered Honda Rebel to look at Jude's car. From what they described, he said it sounded like someone had put sugar in her gas tank and the fuel filter would have to be dumped. He offered his services, or she could use the phone inside to call AAA. Jude chose to call, even though it would take a few hours. She waved him off and called on her cell. She must have had it with friendly men by that point.

The other girls were getting anxious. They had a mutual friend who was getting married in Nineveh that afternoon, and while they didn't want to abandon Jude, it happened that Kayla, Crystal, Amber, and Tia were all in the wedding party, and Jude was not. Morgan, the bride, expected them at eleven to have their hair duded up with mini rhinestones and all that. More to the point, Morgan was a real grudge keeper and had already dis- and reinvited Amber multiple times, so they were relieved when Jude told them to go on. The old boy said Jude could wait inside the store. It just so happened to belong to his uncle. He fished a key out from the mailbox and let them into the unlit place already decided. He gave them Cokes to calm them down, and said he hoped they would all pass through again someday on happier errands.

It was not even clear whether he or his wife had been the last person to see Jude. His name was Denny Cogar and he advised that the tow truck arrived around two, many hours after it was supposed to come. He also advised that he had watched Jude hitch herself up into the cab and laugh with the driver about something. But Cheryl Cogar recalled that Jude had spent a long time on her cell phone, pacing along the crick behind the store, talking to someone, fighting, kind of, and hours before the tow truck arrived, she had gotten into a low little hat-shaped sedan that had skidded up from nowhere.

"And they was playing loud music about riding for the devil," Cheryl said. "Gangster music, I think it was."

"You saw Jude get into this car?"

"I heard it."

"What kind of car was it?" Detective Torboli asked.

"Red," she said.

"Nothing else?"

"It was red."

The interview pressed on along this line for hours. The detective named all types of cars in a soft, chanting voice.

II

The summer Jude disappeared, my brothers and I had turned basically feral since our mother had gone off for a number of months and we were living free, according to our own ideas and customs. Our mother disappearing was nothing new, but she usually came back within a few weeks. This time, we had not exactly been counting the days, but we had run out of food maybe a month past and been improvising ever since. I was fourteen and ruled by a dark planet. My brothers were grown, or seemed so to me at the time. In winter, they ate Steak-umms in front of the TV and made up theories about the New World Order while Clinton got lazy angry drunk around twilight. But in summer, Virgil lined up mowing jobs all over, and they were suddenly honest workingmen, and you couldn't tell them a single thing.

Excerpted from Marilou Is Everywhere by Sarah Elaine Smith. Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Elaine Smith. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.