Since She Went Away

by David Bell

  Jenna couldn’t argue with Sally’s memory. It made sense. She was a little pissed, had been for almost twenty-five years. “I didn’t know I was so transparent.”

  “Hey, I get it. High school’s a bitch. And it’s full of bitches too. No offense to Celia, of course. But those wounds stay with us. And so do first loves.”

  “He wasn’t—” She stopped. “Not exactly.” But he was the heaviest of her teenage crushes. Even after he and Celia were married, even after she married Marty, she held Ian up as a kind of ideal, the model against which she measured all other men. She knew she was more likely to do that precisely because they never dated. “But nothing happened. We were friends. We flirted. We skated up to the edge, and then that was it.”

  “That’s the worst. What might have been. Heck, if you’d dated back then, you might have found out he was boring or a bad kisser or he farted in bed. And that would have been the end of the romantic dream. Now he’s always out there, a big question mark floating over his head.”

  “It’s still here,” Jenna said. “A little bit.”

  “What?”

  “The question mark.”

  Sally raised her eyebrows. “Oh, boy. I think this is beyond my expertise.”

  Someone dropped coins into the jukebox, and a Glen Campbell song started playing. “Wichita Lineman.” Sally swayed a little in her seat as the intro came out of the speakers.

  “You’re right,” Jenna said. “I need to let it go.”

  “You’re not sixteen anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “And he’s married to your best friend. If you think you’ve seen a media shit storm so far, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Tell me that you hear me on this one.”

  “I do. I get it.” Jenna swallowed more beer. “But he’s been opening up to me. We’ve been connecting. He and I, we’re the ones who knew her best. I think he just feels good being able to talk to someone about her in the way we can. Her new friends probably can’t do that.”

  “Of course that comforts him. You feel old because Jared is growing up. How old do you think he feels with a missing wife?”

  “When I look at him, even though he’s aged some, I see that same guy from high school. I think he sees the same thing with me.”

  Sally pushed her bottle and the two empty shot glasses aside. She leaned forward, her elbows resting on the tabletop. “Are you listening to yourself?” she asked.

  Sally’s tone had shifted. She’d shed the joking edge and sounded like someone on a mission. The sharpness of her words made Jenna sit up a little straighter. “Of course I’m listening to myself. I thought we came here to talk.”

  “Then listen closely.” Sally looked around the room, her eyes wandering as though she was looking for someone else.

  “Sally, he and I were friends in high school. We’ve both suffered a loss. Maybe a permanent loss. Are you saying we shouldn’t talk to each other?”

  Sally turned back. “I get that. I do.” She picked up her empty beer bottle and shook it. There was nothing left. She frowned and pushed it aside again. “And if that’s all it was, if that’s all you wanted . . .”

  Another song started playing. Something darker and heavier Jenna didn’t recognize. The fat guy at the bar drummed his hands against his thighs. Something felt tight and raw in her chest. It was the realization of how transparent she’d been to her friend. “I’ve been single a long time. My mom thinks I’ll never get another man to look at me as long as I live.”

  “Forget her. My cousin would still like to meet you.”

  Jenna had seen the pictures of Sally’s cousin. A harmless enough looking guy, but she hated to think Sally thought he was her match. He was balding, slightly overweight, and wore a goatee that hadn’t been in style in fifteen years. The pictures always depressed Jenna.

  Jenna said, “I know what I’m doing, Sally.”

  “I hope so.”

  Jenna started to protest. She started to say, He’s not interested in me that way, but she couldn’t. He was, a little bit. He probably just needed someone: a friend, an emotional crutch. It wouldn’t be right for anything more to happen, but she kind of enjoyed his attention.

  “I need to get home,” Jenna said. “Jared is there.”

  “Don’t go away huffy,” Sally said. “I’m looking out for you.”

  “Yeah, I know. Everybody seems to be doing that these days.”

  The two women walked out in the cold night. The sky was purple, the stars scattered. They hugged good-bye at their cars, and Sally held Jenna a moment longer than normal.

  “Remember what I said about that shit storm. Watch out for it.”

  Jenna wanted to but didn’t say she’d already been living in one for the past three months.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  When Jenna came home she found Detective Poole sitting in her living room, talking to Jared. Jared seemed to be in the middle of a long, complicated explanation of something.

  “Hi there,” Naomi said. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t interrogating him. He’s explaining Minecraft to me. I have a nephew who plays it all the time, and I wanted to know what it was about.”

  “That’s fine,” Jenna said. “Are you here to talk to me?”

  “I am. If you don’t mind.”

  “No.” Jenna slipped out of her coat and set her purse down. “I’m going to run to the bathroom first, okay?”

  “Sure. Jared can finish what he’s telling me.”

  Jared gestured toward Jenna. “She never wants to play these games.”

  Jenna went into the bathroom and scrubbed her face and hands. She felt as if the smell of the bar—the collection of spilled drinks and fried food—clung to her body like a second skin. She gargled with mouthwash twice, making sure to mask the odor of alcohol from the detective. Why? She wasn’t sure. She just didn’t want Detective Poole to see her coming in the door to greet her son with beer on her breath.

  But she’d smell the mouthwash and know.

  Jenna caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. A little tired, a little angry from the conversation with Sally. Couldn’t she do anything in this town without someone knowing about it? And once again a cop waited in her living room.

  She came back out and took a seat on the opposite end of the couch from Jared. He smiled at her when she sat, apparently pleased that he knew something the detective wanted to know.

  “Syd left?” Jenna asked.

  “He did. Right before the detective got here.”

  “I haven’t been here long,” Naomi said. “I’ve been running all day.”

  “Do you want a drink or something?” Jenna asked.

  “Jared already offered. You’ve trained him well.”

  “I did, Mom. I remembered to offer. But she turned me down.”

  “My work here is done,” Jenna said, but she felt uneasy. The conversation with Sally lingered, the complicated feelings for Ian plaguing her like a committed sin. “What’s on your mind, Detective? I hope it’s not bad news.”

  “That depends on how you look at it.”

  “How am I going to look at it?” Jenna asked.

  Detective Poole cut her eyes over to Jared. Jenna read the look, and so did Jared. The detective wanted to know whether it was okay to talk in front of him. Jenna had long ago stopped covering his eyes or sending him out of the room when scary things came on the TV. She’d seen the movies he watched and the games he played. Blood sprayed and splattered everywhere. People screamed. Monsters roared.

  But they were living in real life. With real monsters.

  Jared had handled the stuff with Natalie well so far, as she’d told Sally. He’d fallen for the girl hard. He’d been burned like an adult. Welcome to the world, she wanted to say.

  “It’s up to him,” Jenna said. “Do you want to hear this?”

 
“Is it about Natalie?” he asked, hope rising in his voice. Like Jenna, he couldn’t hide his feelings either. He put it all out there. He sounded desperate for any information about the girl, and Jenna felt a mixture of pride and fear for him. Pride that he didn’t hide what he felt. Fear that the transparency and vulnerability would be used against him. And hurt him.

  But she couldn’t protect him from all that.

  “Indirectly,” Naomi said. “We haven’t found her. In fact, we really don’t have many leads about her whereabouts, although we’re continuing to look.”

  “Is this about her dad?” Jenna asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead,” Jenna said. “We can handle it.”

  Naomi accepted her verdict and started talking. “We got some results back concerning the death of Holly Crenshaw. Ordinarily it can take a while to get these types of DNA results back. The state lab is backed up, and they don’t just wave a magic wand like they do on TV. But the case has been getting a lot of attention, and apparently Ian’s family has some pull in Frankfort.”

  “His grandfather was a state senator for years and years,” Jenna said.

  “That might do it. They’ve tested DNA on Holly Crenshaw’s body and entered it in the national database. They got a hit. William Rose.”

  “What does that mean?” Jenna asked, the words coming out slowly.

  “It means he’s a sex offender, right?” Jared said. “You had his DNA in the system from another crime he committed. And it means he killed Holly Crenshaw.”

  “That’s it,” Naomi said. “He’s now wanted for the murders of both Holly Crenshaw and Henry Allen. And he’s wanted for the kidnapping of his daughter. And he’s suspected of killing his former wife.”

  The news hollowed Jenna out. It felt like too much to bear, too much to absorb in one moment.

  “And Celia?” Jenna asked. “Does this have anything to do with her?”

  “We can’t say anything conclusively. There’s no evidence tying William Rose to Celia, but we’d be fools to think it isn’t a real possibility. We certainly want to talk to him about it.”

  The detective seemed to have left something unspoken. Her words hovered in the space between them like dark clouds.

  “So you do suspect something?” Jenna said.

  “I can’t go beyond what I’ve already said. And needless to say, this is top secret and off the record. I just wanted the two of you to be in the loop before the public hears about all of it. I know how invested you both are in this.”

  The dark clouds conjured by the detective’s words stayed. Jenna didn’t know what to say, whether to feel relief over knowing something or fear that her life as well as the life of her son had veered so close to such a monster.

  She looked to Jared. She wasn’t sure if she needed to go to him, to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  His eyes were wide and unfocused. He didn’t glance at either one of them.

  Detective Poole seemed uncertain about what to do next. Jenna looked at her and asked, “Was there anything else we could do for you, Detective?”

  Naomi took a deep breath. She looked at her watch and pushed herself out of the chair. “No, I don’t think there is. Like I said, I just wanted to give you the heads-up.” She took a couple of steps toward Jared and placed her hand on his shoulder. The gesture managed to appear heartfelt and forced at the same time.

  “You hang in there, okay?” she said. “Sorry to keep bringing you heavy news.”

  Jared didn’t look up. He nodded. “I get it,” he said. “I’m glad to know. It looks like her dad’s a murderer. And she’s either with him or dead.”

  “Remember what I said. Don’t jump to conclusions about anything yet.”

  Jenna followed the detective to the door and asked her in a low voice, “I assume you’ve told Ian about this?”

  “Just a little while ago.”

  “And he’s doing okay?” Jenna asked.

  “He understands that William Rose could be connected to Celia’s disappearance. He also understands there could be no connection.”

  Jenna thanked her and closed the door.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  The ringing phone, the landline, brought Jenna out of a deep sleep. Ian walked through her dreams, talking to her, smiling at her. Reaching out to her, touching her hair. Her eyes opened with a tinge of regret and a stab of guilt. Ian. She dreamed about him instead of Celia.

  “Hello?”

  “Jenna? Becky McGee.” The reporter’s voice was so chipper it could break glass. Jenna moved the phone an inch away from her ear, hoping to create a buffer. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  Jenna looked at the clock. Six ten. Becky McGee and her chirping voice had just robbed her of twenty minutes of sleep. And maybe the conclusion of her dream.

  “Is something going on?” Jenna asked.

  “It is. You know, I didn’t really want to call you after the way you talked to me the last time. That time out at the barn? You remember that, right?”

  “You mean the clip that played endlessly on CNN? I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Do you know no one’s ever talked to me that way? In my life.”

  “I doubt that,” Jenna said.

  Becky’s end of the line went silent for a moment. Then she said, “Well, be that as it may . . . I’m calling with an opportunity for you. I figured you wouldn’t want to miss it.” The more she talked, the more the pep returned to her voice. “Guess what?”

  Rather than telling Jenna, she waited, forcing Jenna to provide the prompt.

  “What?” Jenna asked.

  “Reena’s coming.”

  Jenna sat up straighter, the covers pooling around her body. It was cold in the house. They turned the heat down at night to save money, and Jenna felt the chill in the air, the draft from the imperfect windows. The skin on her arms prickled with gooseflesh. “Coming where?” she asked.

  “To Hawks Mill. She hasn’t been here since early December, but with everything going on in the town—Celia, Holly Crenshaw, the earring being found, this William Rose and that poor girl, Natalie—she just feels the time is right for her to come back and try to help people sort through it.”

  “Help people?”

  “I told her I could handle it on this end,” Becky said. Jenna imagined the reporter reaching around and patting herself on the back while she talked. “I’ve been handling things for her for the last couple of months. But you know Reena. She wants to be where the action is. We’re like that in the news game.”

  “Becky, what does this have to do with me?” Jenna asked.

  “A lot.” Becky seemed surprised Jenna didn’t get it. “Reena wants to talk to you. She wants to interview you. She’s going to put you on her show live tomorrow night.”

  Jenna felt deflated. She fell back against her pillows. “I’m not doing that, Becky. I was on TV so much when Celia disappeared. I never liked it. It made me so uncomfortable.”

  “But you’re doing it for Celia. And Natalie.”

  “Not after the way I was treated the last time,” Jenna said. “I’m not going to be Reena’s puppet. Forget it. Find another stooge.”

  “Reena wanted to call and apologize.”

  “She did?”

  “She did.”

  “So why didn’t she?” Jenna asked.

  “She’s busy. Look, between you and me, I think she’s feeling the heat at the network. She’s an older woman. Her ratings are a little down.”

  “Good-bye, Becky. Don’t snow me.”

  “Jenna, wait. They’re both still out there, and we want to bring them home. Both of them. Don’t you want to make this happen? If you want the cops to keep searching, if you want the story to stay alive, you have to go on the air and talk about it from time to time.”

  “I can tal
k to any reporter.”

  “Not one with this much reach. And that girl, Natalie, she could be anywhere in the country now. So could Celia, for that matter.”

  Jenna had to admit—Becky was no dummy. She knew the right buttons to push at the right time. She had managed to get Jenna out to that barn for the discovery of a set of deer bones. And she’d made it nearly impossible for Jenna to say no to Reena’s request. What had Jenna been told ever since Celia disappeared? “You never know which piece of information would solve the case. You never know what might help.”

  “How long is it? I mean, this is going to be a short segment, right? Just a few minutes?”

  “Well, probably a little longer than that.” Becky sounded cagey. She was going to turn over another card. “We wanted to have another guest on with you.”

  “Who?” Jenna asked. “Ian?”

  “Ian? Lord no. He won’t go on TV. He barely talks to us. No, we were really hoping to make this as personal as possible, to get someone on who really knew the victims. The missing victims. You know Celia, of course. Very well. And then we were hoping to have someone on who knows Natalie Rose well. We wanted Jared to come on with you.”

  “No,” Jenna said. “No. No way. He’s not going on TV.”

  “But—”

  “No. You need to drop this about him. If you want me on, you need to leave him out of it.”

  “Can you at least think about it?” Becky asked, her voice rising higher as she pled her case. “It would be fantastic.”

  “No,” Jenna said. “Nonnegotiable. In fact, you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Forget the whole thing. You don’t get me, and you certainly don’t get my son.”

  She hung up before Becky could say anything else.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The din of the cafeteria went on and on around them. Every once in a while, Jared stopped and listened to it. Really listened to it. The voices and shouts, the clattering of trays and silverware and scooting chairs, made a racket that assaulted the ears. Jared wondered how they all could handle being surrounded by it day after day.