by Stacy Green
From what I could see, Jenna Richardson wasn’t taking part in the search. I supposed she was home, manning the phones. Not all that unusual, but with no ransom by now and Jenna being on the high side of lower class, this wasn’t about money. And Kailey wasn’t going to suddenly call with directions to her location.
My eyes strayed to Justin Beckett’s house, and I realized why Todd wasn’t taking my calls.
Some ballsy artist had spray painted the words “BABY KILLER” across the peeling paint in an ugly, neon green shade that stuck out like a clown at a funeral. A window had been broken, presumably by a rock, and hastily covered with what looked like a black trash bag. Justin’s car wasn’t in the driveway. I hoped Todd really did know where he was.
A tiny prick of guilt needled at me. If Justin hadn’t taken the girl…but it didn’t matter. These people deserved to know who lived among them.
I’d been right about the lack of uniforms. Jenna’s building was unguarded, but I still needed her to buzz me in. It took her a moment to remember who I was.
“I can’t pay you,” she said.
“It’s pro bono, I promise.”
“Do you think Justin Beckett took my daughter?” The desperation in her voice was heartbreaking.
I debated, wondering how much information Todd had shared with her. “I think he’s a valid suspect, and I and the police are looking at every possible scenario.”
“He emailed her.” Her shrill voice coming through the intercom reminded me of a dying rabbit I’d heard as a child after a neighbor’s dog attacked it.
“I know he did,” I said. “Search warrants were issued, and to my understanding, no more evidence has been found.”
“Detective Beckett said his brother stepped in when Kailey was being bullied and became a friend. I looked at the emails.” She stopped for a sharp breath, “He sounded nice. And she sounded so lonely. Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Kids are perceptive,” I said. “Maybe Kailey knew you had enough on your plate as a single mom and didn’t want to stress you out.”
This time, instead of the screech, her voice came out as a baby’s whimper. “I would have helped her.”
I choked back the urge to cry. “I know you would have. Could I come up for a few minutes?”
The buzzer signaled permission for me to enter.
Jenna didn’t bother with a greeting or the standard, superfluous beverage offer. She looked at me through tired eyes. “What do you want to know? And what could you possibly do that the police can’t?”
Break the law to find out if Justin Beckett’s taken your daughter. “As I said, I have a lot of contacts in the city. I still keep in touch with some of the children I’ve worked with and their families. It gives me a network to reach out to. I don’t know if it will do any good, but it can’t possibly hurt, can it?”
She ran her hands through her hair, hanging limp around her heart-shaped face. Her tanned skin had turned the color of the almond milk my mother loved to drink. The neatly trimmed nails had been ferociously chewed to jagged edges and pink fingertips that looked as fragile as a newborn’s. She sat cross-legged on the couch clutching a soft and well-loved-looking teddy bear. I assumed it was Kailey’s.
“Tell me about her,” I said.
Jenna’s lips pursed with the effort of holding back tears, making her look as though she’d had a sudden Botox injection. “She’s a good little girl. Smart. Easy. We’re close.” The lips wobbled, and she sucked in air hard enough it whistled. For some reason, that noise cut through me deeper than a tear could have. I clenched my own jaw. “She always said I was her best friend.”
“Josie and Bridget,” I started.
“I trusted those girls.” Jenna’s grief switched to powerful anger faster than I could register. “If they hadn’t left Kailey to walk home alone, this wouldn’t have happened. How could they be so stupid and selfish?”
“They’re children,” I said. “And they don’t think about the consequences. No matter how much we drill into their brains that there are bad people out there, kids have this weird sort of shield that convinces them we’re overprotective and that nothing like this could happen to them.”
“They let her walk by herself.” She spit the words as though they were laced with burned coffee.
“They did. And I’m sure both of them feel terrible, but do you realize that statistically, Kailey was probably taken by someone she knew? If not, then someone in a position of authority?”
Jenna’s jaw set hard, and she looked past me, eyes half-glazed over, like she was caught in a memory. “Sometimes statistics are wrong.”
“Still,” I continued, “I’m not sure you can put the blame on Josie and Bridget. If Kailey’s abductor falls into either of those categories, they would have found a way, sooner or later.”
“Detective Beckett said it could have been random.” She seemed desperate to believe that.
“And it could have been,” I said. “There’s no way to know right now, and blaming the girls is only going to make you feel worse.”
“I can’t possibly feel worse.” Her washed-out face twisted to ugly, tear-stained rage. “My child is gone. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead. I’d rather hear she was dead than sit in this limbo every day, waiting. And if she’s alive, being tortured…I can’t bear to know she went through that.” She buried her head in her hands and sobbed.
I probably should have gone to her, but she struck me as defensive. Not in the sense that she was guilty, but that she had a personal space issue. Reaching out would probably make her feel worse. “Jenna, is there anyone I can call?”
“No. My parents are gone. No close family.”
“Is Richardson your maiden name?”
She jerked as if I’d stung her. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry, I just meant, what about Kailey’s father? Were you married at one time? Is he in the picture at all?”
“No, he’s not. My name is Richardson.” Clearly, that subject was taboo and closed to me. I’m sure Todd was looking into the father, but the father’s swooping in and taking the kid didn’t feel right, either.
“You haven’t seen anyone odd in the neighborhood? No one doing anything that made you feel uneasy?”
She started gnawing on what was left of her thumbnail. “A few of us have noticed a black car driving down this street. Its windows are tinted, so we can’t make out the driver. But it usually happens at night. When the kids are in bed. So no one knew what to think. It does slow down in front of this building, though. At least according to my babysitter. Of course, now that she knows about the child killer across the street, she’s sure someone was checking on him.”
I thought back to Todd’s accusation that I was following Justin. I’d figured the kid’s guilt made him paranoid, but now I wondered who else knew about his past. Why else would they be checking on him? Or perhaps they were looking for Kailey all along, scoping out Jenna’s schedule, but the late drive-bys didn’t add much credence to that idea.
“When did this happen?”
“In the last few weeks, I think.”
“Was Kailey a leader or a follower?”
Jenna attempted something that resembled a smile. “She liked for everyone to get along. She used to come home with stories about how she mediated arguments between classmates. They’re already forming little cliques at this age.”
“I know, believe me.” My best friend in kindergarten had been as shy and awkward as I. I thought we’d be buddies forever, but the next year, we were put into a different class, and one of her new friends didn’t like me. That was the end of that.
My eyes drifted to the pictures on the side table. Several showed Kailey at an indoor pool, hair dripping wet and smiling wide. “Is Kailey a swimmer?”
“She loves it. Took lessons over the summer and did really well. I was thinking about putting her on a local team, but it’s really expensive. Still, she wanted to. And it would be good for her. Less expensive than dance.
” Jenna reverted back to fighting tears. “She wanted pink ballet shoes.”
I thought of the bright, pink shoes Kailey wore when she disappeared, and a vision of my sister Lily attacked, razor-sharp in its clarity. Lily had a pair of pink jelly shoes, and I always hated them. But Lily was just the opposite, and she wore those shoes that whole summer. The strap broke the day before school started, and she cried for an hour. My mother teased her.
“My sister was the same way about pink.”
“Was?” Jenna asked.
“She died when I was eleven.”
“Was she…taken?”
“No. But she was molested, and that led her to a very bad choice.” I assumed from Jenna’s sad nod she got the message.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Taking condolences from a woman whose child was missing made me feel like I’d bathed in garbage. “So there’s no boyfriend for you? No circle of adults Kailey might trust?”
“No. Her babysitter and parents of friends. I work a lot of hours, and my work friends stay at work. I don’t really socialize. Kailey’s my social life.”
All of which Todd would check out, just like he’d turn Kailey’s routine inside out. I was starting to wonder what I was really doing here. Any names Jenna gave me would go through the system with Todd. He probably had more access to records than I did, especially if he got the FBI involved. Had I just been nosing around, trying to test Jenna Richardson? I didn’t believe for a moment she had anything to do with her daughter’s disappearance. Nothing about her pain seemed manufactured. And yet, as I watched her, I was hit with the distinct feeling there was more to her story. Not the lack of socializing–she was a single mom who worked a lot.
Did she really have no family? Literally no relative or close friend to come sit with her? That in itself seemed odd. Not suspect-odd, but just … odd.
Jenna’s eyes had gone glassy again, as if she were caught in some haze of memory that wouldn’t release her. She drew her knees to her chin, the friction of the couch pulling her right sock down. I saw a distinct scar made by something tight and likely metal, perhaps a handcuff or wire. Judging from its color, it wasn’t recent. She rubbed it absentmindedly. All at once, I knew there was something very dark in Jenna’s past, and I felt like an intruder trying to break through her protective walls.
She didn’t seem bothered that I didn’t ask for names to check or details about Kailey’s routine life. She’d almost gone catatonic, still rubbing the scar. Her goodbye was barely audible.
Outside, my shivers had little to do with the temperature.
I called Todd without pausing to think of his reaction.
“What?” His caller I.D. apparently worked.
“Are you checking into Jenna Richardson’s past?”
A beat of silence. Then the outburst. “Are you kidding me?”
“I stopped by and saw something on her ankle. I’m not questioning your investigation. I just want you to know. It looks like a scar, almost as though it were from some sort of bondage. It’s not a recent scar, and maybe it’s from when she was younger, but it bugged me. She sat there, half out of it and rubbing that scar, and I’m telling you Todd, something happened to that woman. I don’t know if Kailey’s disappearance is related, but I had to tell you.”
I braced myself for the lecture about going behind his back and being in the neighborhood. He sighed. “Thanks for the information. I’ll check into it. Have you seen my brother’s place?”
“I have.”
“Good. Now leave.” He ended the call.
I texted Kelly and asked her to dig into Jenna Richardson’s background to see if she could find anything useful. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but instinct demanded that Jenna’s past was important.
An idea ghosting around the recesses of my mind finally took shape. What if Todd had it partially right, and someone else with a grudge against Justin re-conned the area and then took Kailey to set Justin up? I wasn’t the only one with a grudge against him. And the family I was thinking of drove a black car.
14
Jonelle and Frank Smith lived in Havertown, a nice residential area about twenty-minutes west of Greater Philadelphia. They’d moved to Havertown after Justin murdered their daughter, determined to protect their younger children–fraternal twins–from the perils of the city. The twins didn’t remember their older sister Layla very well.
I hadn’t seen the Smiths since Justin’s release a year and a half ago, although we’d spoke on the phone a few times. Both had been crushed, but resolute. Frank was more prone to forgiveness, while Jonelle would have locked Justin in solitary for the rest of his life.
On this sunny and cold fall afternoon, the Smith’s son–Braydon, I think his name was–played basketball in the driveway with friends. He was sixteen and all gangly limbs, with spotty acne on his cheeks and features that seemed too out of place: sharp jaw; a long, equine nose; and wide, Grecian eyes. Another ten years, and he’d probably be gorgeous. An equally long-limbed girl sat on the edge of a black, four-door sedan, watching the boys play. Brandie fared only slightly better in the looks department than her twin brother, and she’d probably never be a beauty.
She watched me park in front of the house, sliding off the black car I thought might be following Justin. With the gait of a lazy horse, she strode into the house. The four boys in the driveway eyed my approach, their shuffling stance and shifting eyes and chin rubbing and chest jutting reeking of teenage hormones. I smiled, and the boy next to Braydon grinned back. Another one waved shyly, the third looked at his shoes. Braydon’s dark scowl reminded me the twins lived in the shadow of their dead sister, and I’d just doubled its size.
Jonelle greeted me at the door as Brandie brushed past in a cloud of heavy perfume. I wondered which boy she had her eye on.
Part Italian and self-professed foodie, Jonelle was round in her middle age, doughy in the center and plump in the face. Her children had inherited her angular features, but they looked better on her, most likely because of the extra flesh to soften them. I’d always wondered what Jonelle was like before her oldest daughter’s murder. Ever since I’d known her, she was edgy, controlled, but always on the verge of some sort of emotional outburst. She’d probably been boisterous and funny before her daughter’s murder.
“Lucy, it’s good to see you, although your call did surprise me.”
“Sorry about that, but it’s important.”
She sat down at the dining room table. As always, Jonelle’s house was as clean as a doctor’s office. My gaze crept to the fireplace. Layla’s last school picture was placed prominently with current ones of the twins. A chill slivered down my spine.
“You said it had something to do with that boy.” She never said Justin’s name.
“Yes. Is Frank here?”
“Out of town on business.”
“Is the black car outside his?”
Jonelle’s thin, black eyebrows knitted together. “What? No. It’s my old vehicle, but the twins share it now.”
“Sorry.” I’d practiced my questions on the drive, but every one of them seemed to have evaporated. I took a deep breath. “An eight-year-old girl living across from Justin Beckett disappeared yesterday morning.”
Jonelle went still.
“Now, police have nothing solid on him. But he’s a person of interest as far as I’m concerned.”
Jonelle looked like she’d eaten something rotten. “Do the girl’s parents know who he is? What about the rest of the neighborhood?”
“They do now, yes.”
“I’m going to the newspapers. This is outrageous.”
“You can’t, please. Not yet.” Was I telling her this to protect my own ass from Todd or because I really wasn’t sure of Justin’s involvement?
“Why?”
“Because the police are trying to keep it out of the newspapers, and right now, that’s best for Kailey,” I said. “If the word gets out where he lives, people will be all over
, and that could destroy potential evidence.”
“We knew this would happen.” Jonelle’s anger boomed through the house. She began to pace, shoving a dining room chair out of the way. “Didn’t I say it? Didn’t you? Maybe now this liberal city will listen, letting a baby killer out on the streets to do it again.”
I snatched back control of the conversation. “A black car has been seen on Justin’s street for the past three weeks. It slows down, as if the driver is watching or looking for someone. This happens well after the kids go to bed, so the assumption is an adult is the target. Some think that target is Justin.”
Jonelle narrowed her eye–yes, just one. I never quite knew how she did that, but the effect was startling. Her entire face was thrown off balance. “Is that why you asked about my car?”
“Look, Jonelle. You know how I feel about Justin. I was sick when he was released. I understand the need for revenge, for wanting to make an example.”
“An example?”
“Of Justin. And the system. To show them exactly how bad their decision was.”
“What are you accusing me of?” Her lowered voice somehow managed to carry more force than her shouts.
“I don’t know. The lead investigator thinks I might have been following Justin, going so far as to suggest I’d snatch the little girl–Kailey–to get revenge, and to get Justin off the streets.”
“Did you?”
“No.” I paused a beat. “Did you?”
I’d taken a risk, but Jonelle once scolded me for beating around the bush like a manic rabbit. Her words, not mine. She glared at me, both eyes now narrowed, her thin lips drawn tightly over her teeth and jaw sticking out. She looked briefly like she wanted to leap across the table at me, and then she exhaled.
