Bad man : a novel
(Book)

Eric disappeared when he was three years old. Ben looked away for a second at the grocery store, but that was all it took. His brother was gone. Vanished right into the sticky air of the Florida panhandle. They say that you've got only a couple of days to find a missing person. Forty-eight hours to conduct searches, knock on doors, and talk to witnesses. Two days to tear the world apart if there's any chance of putting yours back together. That's your window. For Ben, that window closed five years ago, leaving his life in ruins. He still looks for his brother. Still searches, while his stepmother sits and waits and whispers for Eric, refusing to leave the house that Ben's father can no longer afford. Now twenty and desperate for work, Ben takes a job on the night stock crew at the only place that will have him: the store that blinked Eric out of existence. Ben can feel that there is something wrong there. With the people. With his boss. With the graffitied baler that shudders and moans and beckons. But he's in the right place. He knows the store has much to show him, so he keeps searching. Except Ben misses the most important thing of all. That he should have stopped looking.