‘I think my real name is Samantha. I think I’m your daughter.’ Read an excerpt from She’s Not There by Joy Fielding
More about the book!

She’s Not There is a gripping novel from a queen of psychological suspense and New York Times bestselling author, Joy Fielding.

When Caroline Shipley’s two-year-old daughter disappeared, her whole world came crashing down.

Now, fifteen years later, Caroline receives a phone-call that could change everything …

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Read an excerpt from She’s Not There:

She checked the clock, noting it was closing in on eight-thirty. She had to be in school in half an hour. She pushed herself to her feet, already exhausted by the thought of twenty-three less-than-eager students slouched behind their desks, glazed eyes staring up at her, their dislike for the subject obvious and unequivocal.

How could they not love math? she wondered. There was something so glorious, so pure, so true, about mathematics. Her father had been a math teacher and had passed his passion for it down to
her. It was about more than just solving puzzles and finding solutions. In an irrational world so full of ambiguity, so fraught with happenstance, she’d basked in the absoluteness of it, taken comfort in the fact there was no room for either interpretation or equivocation, that there was always only one right answer and its rightness could be proved. Another sign, Michelle would undoubtedly argue, and had on more than one occasion, that mathematics bore absolutely no relationship to real life.

Caroline returned to the bathroom and finished drying her hair. Then she put on the navy skirt and white silk blouse she’d laid out the night before. “Don’t you have anything else to wear?” Michelle had once asked.

“Don’t you?” Caroline had countered, indicating her daughter’s standard uniform of skinny jeans and oversized T-shirt. Like many young women of her generation, Michelle was an ardent follower of the latest trends in fashion, fad diets, and exercise regimens. “Everything in moderation” was a concept as foreign to her as algebra.

“Okay,” Caroline said to herself. “Time to get moving.” She was already running late. She said a silent prayer there’d still be a pot of coffee brewing in the staff room. She could tolerate a lot of things, but a day without coffee wasn’t one of them.

The phone started ringing just as she was heading out the door. The first ring was immediately followed by two shorter ones, indicating yet another long-distance call, likely the same person who’d phoned earlier. “Don’t answer it,” Caroline said, this time out loud. But she was already walking toward the kitchen, pulled toward the sound as if by a magnet. She picked the phone up in the middle of its fourth ring. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

The sound of breathing.

Great, Caroline thought. Just what I need—an obscene caller. Long distance, no less. “I’m going to hang up now,” she announced, lowering the phone.

“Wait.”

She brought the phone back to her ear. “Did you say something?”

Silence.

“Okay. I’m hanging up now.”

“No. Please.”

The voice belonged to a young girl, possibly a child. There was an urgency to her voice, something at once strange and familiar that made Caroline stay on the line. “Who is this?”

Another silence.

“Look. I really don’t have time for this …”

“Is this the home of Caroline Shipley?” the girl asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you Caroline Shipley?” she continued.

“Are you a reporter?”

“No.”

“Who are you?”

“Are you Caroline Shipley?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

Yet another silence.

“Who is this?” Caroline repeated. “What do you want? I’m hanging up…”

“My name is Lili.”

Caroline mentally raced through the class lists of all her students, past and present, trying to match a face to the name, but she came up empty. Could this be another one of Michelle’s friends she didn’t remember? “What can I do for you, Lili?”

“I probably shouldn’t be calling…”

“What do you want?” Why was she still on the phone, for heaven’s sake? Why didn’t she just hang up?

“I think …”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been looking at the sketches on the Internet.” Lili paused. “You know … of your daughter.”

Caroline lowered her head. Here it comes, she thought. It happened every year at this time. Five years ago, a man had called from Florida, claiming his new neighbor’s daughter bore a suspicious resemblance to recent sketches of Samantha. Caroline immediately took off for Miami, missing all three of Michelle’s performances in her high school’s production of Oliver!, only to have her hopes dashed when the man’s suspicions proved groundless. The following year a woman reported seeing Samantha waiting in line at a Starbucks in Tacoma, Washington. Another wasted trip followed. And now, with the widespread release of the most recent sketches in the papers, on the Internet …“Lili …,” she began.

“That’s just it,” the girl interrupted as once again Caroline felt her knees go weak and her breath turn to ice in her chest. “I don’t think Lili is my name.” Another silence. “I think my real name is Samantha. I think I’m your daughter.”