Many of you have written with suspicions in regard to the man you know as “Mr. Silaggi.” In the days after Amy’s disappearance, I called the last phone number I had for the “Silaggis” and there was no answer. Yesterday our investigator tracked them down to a retirement community in Green Valley, Arizona. I just hung up with their daughter and would like to share with you what I have learned.
Amy’s letter was forwarded to them in Arizona. Since “Mr. Silaggi” is legally blind and no longer reads his own mail, his wife (I will call her “Elsa”) read it aloud to him. Needless to say, she was appalled. “Mr. Silaggi” denied Amy’s allegations, insisting that she was either crazy or a liar or both. This might very well have been the end of it, except that Elsa had the good sense to call their daughter and tell her of Amy’s accusations. Elsa’s daughter (whom I have met just once or twice) called me tonight to say that she believes Amy’s accusations. In fact, she is certain they are true. She only wishes that she herself had shown such courage.
I doubt that “Mr. Silaggi” had anything to do with the disappearance of my daughter, but I am proud that Amy had the strength of character to confront him. I am sorry that she had to go through this trauma alone. I wish she had come to me. Yours truly, Carol Grantham
Monday, May 11, 2008
This morning the decomposed remains of a young female were discovered a hundred miles away, in a stream at a local forest preserve. Amy’s dental records are on their way to the coroner’s office.
Pray there is no match.
Since Amy’s disappearance, on nights when I cannot sleep, I read and reread this blog. I read your letters, even the cruelest ones. I ask myself who would want to hurt my daughter. I hear the answer: almost anyone.
Amy is my heart, my whole life. I cannot imagine that I will never see her again.
A VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES ORIGINAL, AUGUST 2009
Copyright © 2009 by Allison Burnett
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House
of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks and Vintage Contemporaries
is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burnett, Allison.
Undiscovered gyrl: a novel / by Allison Burnett.
p. cm.—(Vintage contemporaries)
eISBN: 978-0-307-47558-9
1. Teenage girls—Fiction. 2. Blogs—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.U763U63 2009
813’.6—dc22 2009006812
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.0
Undiscovered Gyrl Page 21
