It seemed that Chesterfield launched a new product in their line in late 1967 called,
Chesterfield 101s
. The product was in response to other brands putting out cigarettes that were longer in length and they wanted to go that extra mile—that extra millimeter—to set themselves apart. Jane found an old advertisement from early 1968 promoting the 101s with the slogan,
A silly millimeter longer than the 100s. It isn’t much. But wait ’til you taste it. It’s one better
. She found herself grimacing at the idiotic ad, silently wondering how many fools took up the habit just to get an extra millimeter on their smoke. Then she realized she was already sounding like one of those bitchy ex-smokers who rail against cigarette companies.
Doing more research on the Web, Jane tried to find a pack of Chesterfield 101s that matched the same crumpled burgundy pack she found at the staged scene in the forest. Many websites, mostly in Europe, sold the brand but not with the same burgundy packaging found in the ad from early 1968. It seemed that that particular packet had long been replaced by a more modern version. After more than half an hour, she finally found the burgundy packet on a British auction website which was dedicated to selling
vintage shtick
from the 50s and 60s. However, upon reading closer, she discovered that the hard-to-find pack had already been sold several months before and that there were no more available from that seller. She could contact the British seller and ask for records of that sale, once she had a warrant. But that would mean she’d have to confess to Weyler and Bo that she recovered a massive clue and didn’t tell them.
God
, the trail of lies was long in pursuit of the truth.
She closed out the web page and realized that 1968 was
a popular year in relationship to this case. Jordan was arrested in July of 1968, David Sackett, the old man who owned the phone number spoofed on the kidnapper’s cell phone, told her he moved into that house on Warwick road in Short Hills, New Jersey, in February of 1968. And now, this particularly vintage pack of Chesterfield 101s,
just happened
to be launched in late 1967 and ramped up their advertising in early 1968. Jane examined the black marker line on each cigarette. Just like the advertisement made a
silly
point of drawing attention to the extra millimeter, it seemed that the kidnapper was doing the same thing. Was it some kind of
date stamp
to create context within the complex story? If so, the year 1968 wasn’t boding well for Jordan Copeland.
Jane turned her attention to the note on the far right of the clothesline—the one with the mysterious website she found with a bold red check mark in Jake’s notebook when she was snooping in his bedroom. Typing
www.mysecretrevelations.com
into the browser, Jane entered a strange, bold world. Against a black and red backdrop, people from all over the world and from all walks of life posted their deepest secret revelations, completely anonymously. Pages and pages were filled with secrets from children, wives, husbands, grandmothers, lovers and more. Some were poignant such as the 42-year-old woman who wrote,
I keep my dad’s driver’s license in my wallet even though he died ten years ago just so I can see his face.
And the one from a lovelorn eighteen-year-old boy,
I sit behind you in math class and wonder what it would be like to press my head against your chest and hear your heartbeat.
A handful were frivolous such as,
I broke up with my last boyfriend because he liked classical music but I told him it was because I met someone new. Now I really miss him.
A lot were downright disturbing on different levels. There was the one from the sixteen-year-old boy who wrote,
Dear Mom and Dad, the brownies tasted funny because I put pot in them!
Or this one:
I have five children but I only love the first two.
The one-sentence secret from a supposed twelve-year-old
girl really alarmed Jane.
My cousin raped me and I liked it.
On and on it went, pages of revelations—thousands of confessions from people who found comfort in writing down their secrets anonymously with only a date, an alleged age and notation of whether they were male or female next to their revelation. Jane wondered if this cathartic regurgitation in cyberspace helped them by releasing the burden of the secret from their shoulders. On the other hand, did those who bookmarked the website and read the newest offerings each day do so with a sense of compassion or a sense of sleazy voyeurism?
Jane scrolled through the pages, looking for the secret revelations posted before March 22
nd
, the day of Jake’s disappearance. Primarily, she was searching for anything written by a fifteen-year-old boy. She had to assume—and it was a big assumption—that Jake Van Gorden, seeker of “Truth,” would use his real age and sex when and
if
he added a secret to the website. All the entries for seventeen days prior to March 22
nd
were identified as adults, but there were two in February and two in March—one of those just sixteen days prior to March 22
nd
, all from a fifteen-year-old boy—that Jane thought might be connected to Jake. They were startling, to say the least.
The first one from February 10
th
read: “
I fear that my blood is infected with the sins of my family”.
Infected
.
That was the identical word Hank said Jake used during their conversation when Jake asked Hank if he felt a family could be
infected with a curse
. If memory served her, she was pretty sure Hank mentioned that he had that conversation with Jake about six weeks prior to his disappearance, which would almost coincide with the February 10
th
entry.
The second entry from the fifteen-year-old poster was from February 22
nd
. “
How many secrets does it take to curse a family? How many revelations does it take to set them free?”
There was that mention of
a curse
again. But in this post, it appeared that the boy was searching for the possible solution, citing the freedom in uncovering the revelations.
When Jane read the March 1
st
entry, a shiver bolted down her spine. It echoed too closely to words she’d already heard from someone else. “
The dead are following me. I’m terrified that the secret has become flesh and blood and is chasing my family from generation to generation, contaminating my bloodline
.” The second line was almost exactly the same verbiage used by Jordan when he and Jane were discussing his theory of family secrets.
Finally, there was the last chilling entry from the anonymous fifteen-year-old on March 6
th
. “
I saw you but you didn’t see me, YOU FUCKING PERVERT! Which one of us will hang in hell???”
Jane sat back in her chair.
Pervert
was a word used more than once to describe Jordan, specifically by Bailey and Bo.
Hang in hell? Again, with the visual of hanging
. This was getting to be a sickening, familiar pattern. Sixteen days after those words were written, Jake attempted suicide by hanging. To give it even more impact, the March 6
th
entry was around the same time when Bailey Van Gorden talked to Aaron privately and Mollie was told to break off her friendship with Jake. Yes, Jane surmised, these posts had to be written by Jake Van Gorden. For Jane, they were akin to another four valuable clues that further confounded and complicated an already mystifying case.
Jane pasted and copied the four comments on a separate page, printed them out and then bookmarked the secret revelations website. She was about to close up her computer when she remembered the remarks that Mollie made about Bailey’s YouTube video. As she recalled, Bailey had at least three thousand hits on his download of their over-the-top, Colorado log monstrosity of a house. Jane also remembered that Bailey said it could be found by simply putting his name into the search engine on the website.
Yep. There it was in all its glory. He’d amassed an additional 333 hits on the video, giving him a whopping 3,333, and received a five-star rating as well. Jane clicked on the
play
button,
waiting for Bailey’s
splendor of the crass
to grab hold of her. As the video cued up, she figured Bailey would have a sweeping shot of the house exterior with pounding music in the backdrop to ratchet up the sales pitch for his architectural services. After all, he
was
a screaming narcissist who needed to make everything big, bold and annoying. But when the video started, Jane’s prediction was way off. There was Bailey standing in the kitchen, behind the granite countertop, dressed in a tight-fitting black T-shirt that showed off his muscular physique and speaking directly to the camera. Since the camera didn’t move an inch, Jane assumed he had it set on a tripod and was most likely, alone in the room. His voice was surprisingly low-key. He introduced himself, talked about where he lived and how he designed and oversaw the building of his home, which he said was “nestled in the Colorado Rockies.” Jane’s bogus-meter went off on that one since Midas was more realistically sitting in the proverbial
thumb
of the Rockies
if
the mountain range was lying on its back
and
spread-eagled. But he wasn’t the first architect to use hyperbole to make a sales pitch.
Bailey then went on for about two minutes, blabbering about how he loved to create “magic and passion” in whatever he did, how it was important that clients “came to the table with that same passion” and that while they may only “collaborate on one project together” he knew that it would be memorable. The scene cut to Bailey doing a handheld shot of the front and rear exterior of the house, showing the expansiveness of the property. He then walked to various areas of the house, bragging about his “vision” or “intention” when he created this or that gaudy touch. There was the imported, five-tiered, Italian fountain on the back terrace. And then viewers got to hear about the mahogany chair Bailey scored from an estate sale in Africa. The most ludicrous and somewhat embarrassing part for Jane came when Bailey showed off his deluxe Weber outdoor grill with “all the bells and whistles.” Only problem was, Bailey didn’t have a clue how to operate the grill and even admitted he’d never
“fired it up.” The whole video was one badly conceived, bombastic bore. The more Jane listened to the eight-minute pitch, the more she felt Bailey should have hired a professional to produce the video. Instead of maximizing the house to show it off, Bailey seemed to spend more time droning on about himself and all the facile appurtenances of his success, using convoluted phrases such as “I have such enthusiasm for the lifestyle and making a creative connection with clients.” “Who gives a shit about you, asshole?” Jane exclaimed. “Show me the damn house!”
The video ended with Bailey seated on a large rock outside his house, his left leg bent with his hands encircling his knee, which made his bulging muscles even more apparent. “Thank you for taking the time to watch my presentation,” Bailey said to the camera with a stiff smile. “I hope you liked what you saw and that I can be part of bringing the good life to you. Together, we can create something wonderful.”
Jane shook her head in disgust. She wouldn’t hire Bailey to redecorate her broom closet, let alone her house. What a pompous asshole. It was absolutely shocking to Jane that he had a five-star video rating as well as fabulous comments posted below the video. People wrote everything from
, I love your style!
to
I’ll be setting up an appointment soon!
What was wrong with people? Couldn’t they see that Bailey was all flash and no substance? Who in their right mind would want to linger longer than five minutes in this egotist’s presence? It would certainly drive Jane back to the bottle. What’s more, Bailey must have been so selfabsorbed when he listed the search engine tags for the video, that he spelled
Italian fountain
as “
Italain
” and misspelled the Weber Grill as
Webber
Grill. Obviously, Jane deduced, all that money didn’t buy the pretentious prick an education.
Still, she couldn’t allow her distaste for Bailey to compromise his son’s case. Jane needed to smooth things over with him if only to make access to their home easier in the future for her. But she needed a valid reason to warrant another visit, especially after causing such an uproar earlier in the day. The
idea hit her. She called Weyler and after Jane explained that she needed to check Jake’s computer history for possible entries on a suspicious blog—a blog she described as vaguely as possible. He smoothed the way with Bo for her second visit of the day, provided she made the visit “as short as possible.”
Before Jane left, she glanced once more at the four obtuse posts she copied from
mysecretrevelations.com
. Her eyes caught the words:
The dead are following me…
Jane furtively looked at the rocking chair in the corner of her room by the window. She did everything possible to keep the insane possibilities at bay.
The blue Colorado sky finally appeared, allowing the sun to steal a few minutes of freedom from the clutch of clouds and to warm Jane’s tired body. Had it only been two days in Midas? It felt like years. And now, as she parked her Mustang in the cul-de-sac and started the long walk up the Van Gordens’ driveway, she found herself conflicted by what the evidence was showing her and what she didn’t want to believe. The last thing any cop wanted to consider was that a child’s family was linked somehow to his or her disappearance. And yet, the sad reality was that too often there was a close family member or friend that had a nefarious connection to the crime. The excuses from the perps ranged from “accidental” to “insanity.” As Jane crested the Van Gordens’ driveway and walked up the path to the front door, she felt that
if
this family was involved, it was full of twists and turns that even she wasn’t sure she could traverse.
Jane walked between the two pillars carved in the shape of owls and rang the doorbell. She looked down at her filthy shirt and quickly buttoned her leather jacket all the way up to hide the dirt. After what seemed like a long wait, Carol answered. She was still dressed in her same black-and-white outfit and still looked ever so smart and pulled together. However, the look on her face when she answered the door was one of great stress. Jane immediately assumed she was the reason for the woman’s strain and launched quickly into her apologies, using the excuse
that her impatience to solve her son’s case clouded her better judgment. As Jane spoke the words, she really meant them, but she also made sure to throw in a few well-positioned facial gestures that implied regret and guilt. She hung her head, sighed at appropriate moments and even went so far as to put her hand over her heart in a show of contrition. Instead of getting the response the wanted, Carol stood at the doorway and seemed more preoccupied with matters taking place in Bailey’s office. She ushered Jane inside and directed her toward the living room. As they crossed to the right, Jane glanced over her shoulder at the closed arched doors that protected the players behind them—players whose vocal tones reverberated ever so slightly off the walls but failed to reveal the words they were speaking.