Parents Weekend

Five families travel to a small private college in Northern California for the opening dinner of Parents Weekend. Their children are all first-year students, and the parents linger over cocktails well past their usual bedtimes. The students never arrive.

The five live in Campisi Hall: Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix and Stella. At first the adults assume they have simply forgotten the dinner or slipped off to a party. Then a second night falls with no word from any of them, not even a text, and the mood turns to panic.

Campus police bring in outside help, search parties form, and reporters crowd into the quiet college community. Rumors spread and questions pile up. Podcasters, bloggers and TikTok sleuths give the missing students a name of their own: The Five.

The families have little in common, and the mystery turns on why the students left that night. One possibility is that the past actions of their parents have put the children in danger. The other is that the threat comes from inside the friend group. This is a missing-persons mystery that plays out in public, with the online crowd and the press watching every development.