Where They Found Her (28 page)

But the more Barbara didn’t listen, the more hysterical Jenna got in Blondie’s parking lot, shouting about how the necklace she was wearing was some kind of proof of something. Something about Steve. She just would not shut up. And so Barbara tried to make her. She hadn’t meant to rip the necklace off. She’d only meant to shake it, and Jenna.

It hadn’t hurt Jenna, no matter what she’d acted like. The necklace had snapped right off like a piece of string. Because it was cheap crap, just like Jenna. But Barbara wasn’t going to tell Steve that part, either. He didn’t deserve to know.

“And then what happened?” Steve asked, looking at Barbara like some kind of gap-mouthed spectator. “After she said she wanted to talk to me first?”

“And then, Steve, I reminded Jenna of what she is: a sparkly piece of trash. Something you pick up from the sidewalk because you think it’s worth something, but once you take a closer look, you realize: Nope, the garbage is actually the only place it will ever belong. Then I got into my car and went home to my children—to
our
children, Steve. Who the hell knows what happened to Jenna after that? That’s the thing about people like her, Steve. It’s the truth that lights the fuse.”

JUNE 17, 2013

Justin took the news pretty well. I’d thought he’d fight me when I said I wasn’t going back to Dr. Zomer. But he agreed that I really did seem better. It probably helped that I lied and told him that Dr. Zomer thought I was ready to “transition out of therapy.”

Besides, he’s been so distracted by all the interviews at Ridgedale. That’s academia for you—they practically want you to move in and start teaching before they’re willing to give you a job offer.

Maybe Dr. Zomer is right. Maybe being angry at Justin is better than blaming myself. But I have to believe there’s a better way. A better way to save myself than hating the man I love.

Steve was at a table near the back of the hospital cafeteria when I got there. It was mostly empty, too late for lunch, a little early for dinner. Steve sat motionless, staring down at a paper coffee cup gripped in his big hands. He was wearing a T-shirt and dark jeans, which should have made him look young, like he did the last time I’d seen him out of uniform. But he looked ancient, and sunken, as though his bones were liquefying.

“Hi,” I said when I made my way over to his table. I was bracing myself. The fact that I was willing to have this uncomfortable conversation did not mean I was looking forward to it.

Steve blinked up at me as though he had no idea who I was. When I’d called him after Sandy and I left the library, I hadn’t known about Hannah. But as soon as I heard the broken cadence in his voice, I guessed. I had wanted to tell him never mind, that our conversation could wait. But Jenna had already been missing three days. There was no telling how much time she had left.

“Molly, sorry,” Steve said, a hand drifting to his forehead. “I was a million miles away—remembering teaching Hannah to ride a bike, of all stupid things.” He motioned for me to sit. “She would stick out this little bit of her tongue when she was concentrating really hard. I spent half the time trying to be sure she didn’t accidentally bite it off.” He smiled sadly. “Simpler times.”

“How is she?” I asked as I sat down on the edge of the chair across from him. I wanted to be able to spring away quickly when things turned south.

“Off the record?”

“Of course,” I said, even though I could hear Erik’s voice in my head.
No. Never. No special favors. Never off the record.

It hardly seemed to matter now. I wasn’t there as a reporter. I was there for Sandy.

“She was awake for a little bit, which the doctors say is encouraging,” Steve began. “She doesn’t have any memory of what happened down at the creek. But she remembers us and herself and the baby. Hannah says the cord was around the baby’s neck. I don’t think the baby ever had a chance.” He shook his head, wiped at his nose, and sniffled. “The ME’s official report will confirm that. I know it will. Hannah won’t say how the baby got down to the woods or why she was, well, in that condition. The father, maybe, I don’t know. I’m hoping we can get her to come around and tell us everything.”

I wanted there to be a way to tell him about Sandy’s fall from the bike, to give him that last piece of the puzzle. But I couldn’t, wouldn’t do that. “I’m sorry to have to bother you now,” I said. “If it could wait—”

He lifted a hand. “Honestly, it’s a relief to think about something else for a minute.”

I felt queasy. “Sandy Mendelson, Jenna’s daughter, came to me for help. She’s really worried about her mom.”

“I know,” he said without flinching. “She came to me, too. Poor kid. I’ve had officers out canvassing. I’ll be able to send out more, now that the baby—”

“Do you know where Jenna is, Steve?”

His face tensed, but only for a split second. He could tell there was something wrong in the way I’d asked the question. That I wasn’t just asking the chief of police for an update.

“Like I said, we’ll have more resources now.” He was still acting as though he didn’t personally know Jenna. As though she were any other missing person. “I’ve looked around some myself, seeing if I could pick up on her trail. No luck.”

I’d been hoping he wasn’t going to do this, make me draw it out of him. I sucked in some more air and pulled Jenna’s bracelet out of my pocket and put it on the table between us.

Steve stared at it for a long time. Then he smiled sadly, reaching forward to smooth his fingers over it. “A lot of gas station shifts to pay for this.”

I pulled the necklace out and put it on the table, too. “And this one?”

“To replace the bracelet when she lost it. Where’d you find that?” This time he looked genuinely confused and concerned.

“In your house.”

“
My
house?” But then I watched it flicker across his face: recognition. He had an idea how it had ended up in his house, no matter what he wanted to pretend. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”

I just wanted him to explain on his own. To make it all less suspicious:
Oh, yes, I knew Jenna in high school and I had a crush on her and she was also seeing Thomas Price, whom I also know even though I’ve pretended not to.
There was nothing good about having some kind of gotcha moment with Steve. But he was leaving me no choice.

I pulled the Ridgedale University yearbook out of my bag and opened it to the page I had flagged, the one with the basketball pictures. I spun it around and slid it in front of Steve. He stared down for a minute at the picture of Thomas Price, Simon Barton, and himself. When he met my eyes, he almost looked relieved. Like he’d been waiting for this moment for a very long time.

“I ran into Jenna about a year ago, in Philadelphia of all places, when I was at the International Chiefs of Police Conference. We only talked for a minute or two on the street, you know, a ‘how you doing’ kind of thing.” He shook his head, smiled sadly. “All those old feelings came right back—I mean, it’s different, of course. I’m a married man now. But I remembered exactly the way I’d felt. And Jenna was the same live wire she’d been all those years ago. God, was that kind of thing amazing to be around when I was seventeen. I never felt so alive.” He glanced up, looked uncomfortable. “If you’re thinking— I was glad to see her, yes, but I haven’t seen or talked to her since that day. I didn’t even know she was back in Ridgedale.” He looked straight at me, like he wanted to be sure I knew that part was the truth. Still he was leaving out something. Maybe not about where Jenna was, but something. “We’ll find Jenna now, I can promise you that. And when we do, her daughter will be the first to know.”

“There is something else,” I began. There was so much that he needed to explain, but there was even more that he needed to know. “I read Jenna’s journal. I know Thomas Price assaulted her in high school. And I think there have been other girls on campus since. Several.”

I watched Steve’s face stiffen. “No one ever reported anything like that to me.” He didn’t sound defensive, exactly, but almost. “We would have investigated, obviously. Was that what was in the files?”

“There wasn’t proof of anything. But it tells a story that fits. All of it does.”

He picked up the bracelet, smoothing his fingers over it again. “I was the one that night who told Jenna to run, as soon as I got Simon off of her. When I grabbed him, the ground was wet. We slipped, both of us. His head hitting that rock was an accident.” He paused. Stared at the table for a long minute. I wondered for a second if he thought I knew all of this already. But it seemed more like he wanted me to know. Like he needed the world to. “At least it was an accident the first time. But the second time his head came down?” Steve shook his head. “When the police showed up with the ambulance, everybody just assumed it was an accident. It was wet, we were all drunk. Stupid kids, you know. Teammates. They came back the next day to interview me, but they’d already spoken to Price, and he’d lied and told them the whole thing was an accident. He knew it wasn’t that simple. He was standing right there. He probably figured if he lied for me, I’d lie for him. By then he’d already threatened Jenna, too. She and I never talked about Simon specifically, but I’m guessing she figured out what happened between him and me after she ran. She never told me what Price said to keep her quiet, but man, was she terrified. And then she was just—gone. Left town. Went to live with her aunt, that was the rumor. She never came back, and I never heard from her. And Barbara was pregnant. She ended up losing that baby a few weeks later, but by then I—if I’d known there had been others, though . . .” He shook his head. “But I could have done
something
about Price, that’s the truth, isn’t it? No one was threatening me.”

Hannah still had not occurred to him.

“You know, I think Hannah might have met the father of her baby on campus,” I pressed on, because we had to finish. He had to know. “Thomas Price was in charge of the high school exchange program she was part of.”

In agonizing slow motion, I watched Steve connect Price and Hannah. When he did, he closed his eyes and hung his head. After that, he didn’t speak for such a long time. When he finally looked up, his eyes were glassy and stunned. A second later, they were filled with rage.

“Go to the state police now,” he said. “Tell them what you just told me. I don’t want any investigation of Price getting derailed because I was involved. And tell them to pick both of us up. Because if they don’t, I swear to Christ, I will find Thomas Price, and I will kill him with my bare hands.”

A young female officer with a petite curvy frame strode purposefully into the cafeteria, then headed straight for us with her hand resting on her radio as if it were a gun. She had a concerned but determined look on her face. For a second, I wondered if someone had already reported Steve. She stopped a few feet short of the table and pointed her chin in his direction.

“Excuse me one second,” he said, composing himself admirably as he stood. He walked over to the officer, and the two of them exchanged a few clipped sentences. “Thank you,” he said to her, then stepped back over to my table.

“They found Jenna’s car,” he said, sounding surprised and relieved. “Or rather, the owner of Blondie’s, Monte, spotted it way down an embankment out near the Palisades Parkway, tucked under some brush.”

“What about Jenna?”

“Don’t know yet. It was too steep for him to make his way down. Hard to say when the accident even happened. Officers and fire department are on their way.”

When I got home, Justin, Sandy, and Ella were playing Candy Land at the kitchen table. They were laughing, even Sandy. She seemed so much lighter and brighter. Like she was aging backward. Seeing her that way, the last thing I wanted was to tell her about her mother’s car accident—an accident that we could only hope hadn’t happened the full three days earlier. Then again, maybe knowing something, even something bad, would be better than knowing nothing at all.

“Hi,” Justin said, with a “this has been an experience” expression as he crossed the room to kiss me. He’d offered to get Ella from school and to keep Sandy company until I got back. He probably hadn’t realized what he was signing up for.

He whispered in my ear, “Everything go okay?”

I nodded and mouthed:
I’ll tell you later
. “How are you guys?”

“We’ve been having a great time, right, girls?” he called to them, his eyes on mine.

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“Mommy, I want Sandy to sleep over,” Ella said, running over and grabbing on to my legs, her puffy mouth wobbling between a pout and a smile. “I want her to sleep in
my
room.”

“Well, she is sleeping over, I think.” I glanced at Sandy, who didn’t object but kept her eyes on the Candy Land cards, sifting and resifting them into a careful pile.

“Yeah!” Ella cheered.

“But in the guest room, Peanut,” I said. “Your bed is too small.”

“Boo!” Ella called, but she looked thrilled as she ran back over and grabbed Sandy’s hand. It was sweet seeing them together, and I had to will myself not to think about the sister Ella never had.

“Ella, Daddy is going to take you upstairs to get you ready for bed. I have to talk to Sandy for a minute.” I tousled her hair and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be up to say good night.”

“Boo!” Ella went again, giggling as Justin scooped her up onto his shoulder and headed for the stairs.

When I turned back, Sandy was stacking the Candy Land cards meticulously back into the box. As if her life depended on it. She was smiling a little bit. No, not smiling. Grimacing. I pulled a chair out and sat down across from her. When I reached over and put a hand on hers, still gripping some of the cards, Sandy’s fingers were ice-cold.

“Is she dead?” she asked. Quiet, matter-of-fact, as though she’d been waiting to hear that all along, maybe her whole life.

“They found her car, that’s all we know,” I said gently. “It looks like maybe she had an accident near the Palisades Parkway.”

“The Palisades?” Sandy looked up at me. “But that’s not on her way home. That’s nowhere near anything. Where was she headed?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess no one does yet.”

“Can we go?” She stood up and looked around. “To where her car is?”

“Oh, they didn’t tell me where exactly.” Even if they had, I never would have taken Sandy out there to possibly watch her mother’s dead body being dragged from some ditch. “They promised to call as soon as they know something. And then we’ll go right away, okay?”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly, lowering herself back down on the chair.

“Let me just run upstairs and say good night to Ella. She’ll never go to sleep otherwise. If you haven’t heard from the police by the time I get back down, I’ll call them again.”

“What about Hannah?” Sandy asked. “How is she?”

“They think she’s going to be okay,” I said, though that was a bit of an overstatement. I put a hand on Sandy’s shoulder as I stood. “Right now you need to focus on taking care of yourself. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten. I’ll send Justin down to make you something.”

“Okay,” Sandy said, though it was obvious she wasn’t about to eat a thing.

Justin was in Ella’s bedroom, snuggling her deep into her sea of stuffed animals—an ice cream sandwich with big goofy eyes, three dogs, and a panda bear in a flowered sundress. Her eyelids were heavy with sleep.

“I’m going to go change,” Justin said, kissing me as he headed out of the room.

I crouched next to Ella’s bed and pressed my forehead against hers. She hugged my head with her hot hands, so hard that she almost pulled out some of my hair.

“I missed you tonight,” I said. A mother wasn’t supposed to say that. I’d heard that once. But I didn’t care anymore. Because it was true. And true had to matter more than right.

“I love you, too, Mommy,” Ella said. “To the dinosaurs and back.”

“Good night, Peanut.” I kissed her face again and again until she giggled, then I pushed myself to my exhausted feet. “Light on or off?”