Janie Face to Face

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “Wow. Great shoes,” said Stephen. “You have the best ankles in America, you know.”

  Kathleen was thrilled. Compliments from Stephen were rare. She might have to give up thick socks and Birkenstocks. “And the dress?”

  “I like how it swirls.”

  Kathleen had to start wearing dresses now? If only she knew Stephen’s sisters well enough to share this. Guess what! Every day I’m 1 percent closer to the girl Stephen really wants!

  Stephen took her arm at the curb and held it. So romantic!

  And then, to her amazement, a taxi stopped.

  “I called one,” he said. “Because of the shoes. Girly girls never arrive all sweaty with blisters.” He opened the door for her, and she got in, taking care with the yards of fabric in the skirt.

  “Don’t forget that I’m strong and silent, and you’re the talker, Kathleen. What are you going to tell him about yourself?”

  “I’ll start with my own family. I’ll have to leave out what Dad does, since he’s with the FBI. I’ll have to leave out what Mom does, since she’s with the IRS. I think Dad could be a bus driver instead. I can see him taking the exact same route for thirty years, can’t you? And I think Mom might work a shift at McDonald’s. Yes. She adores french fries. It’s her calling. And she crochets a lot.”

  “Sending you to this university is a great sacrifice,” said Stephen.

  “Yes. They’re suffering, but they love me and the other nine children.”

  Stephen stopped laughing. He said quietly, “Kath, this is the enemy. We can’t give this researcher anything. Not one word. And we absolutely have to get what he has on the possible Hannahs.” Stephen swallowed. “Because the title of the book this bestselling author has under contract is The Happy Kidnap.”

  From the limousine depot, Janie’s father drove back to the house, while her mom was on her phone telling everybody she knew about the wedding, and Janie was on her phone telling everybody she knew.

  When they were both in high school, Janie had coaxed Reeve to skip school and take her to New Jersey. She wanted to find the house occupied by the unknown family who had put that face on that milk carton. Not so long ago, but another world. No GPS in that old car of Reeve’s. No cell phones in their hands.

  Janie could hardly believe they had existed without cell phones.

  On that long-ago day, she and Reeve had stopped at a phone booth and used the phone book hanging inside it. Janie probably hadn’t even seen a phone booth since that day.

  As she talked with her parents, Janie bought a wedding app for her iPhone. It took little browsing to see that every other bride in America planned to spend a lot more time getting ready than Janie did.

  For Janie, formal wedding invitations were out. No time to get them designed, printed, addressed, or mailed. Spiffy receptions were out because reception halls were booked a year or two in advance. Caterers ditto. Special-order gowns were out. She had to get hers off a rack.

  She texted Sarah-Charlotte. Looking for eloping app.

  You’re not eloping. You’re racing. You’re a track star bride.

  Reeve’s mother kept calling her son until she got through. It took hours and used up her patience. “Marrying Janie is a lovely idea, Reeve,” she said brusquely. “And that video is so romantic. But she is young, young, young and so are you. You cannot get married in seven weeks. Seven years would be a better choice. You have just gotten started in your career, which requires a major time commitment and will involve travel as you are given responsibility for events at distant campuses. She herself has two more years of college. You must wait until she has her degree and has lived on her own and matured considerably prior to setting a date.”

  “Actually the date is Saturday, the eighth of July. Are you free, Mom? Did you check your calendar? We’ll have the ceremony at the Springs’ church, and then have a big party—a picnic, really—at their house.”

  “Better would be to wait, save money, have a lovely fashionable wedding, go on a wonderful honeymoon, and—”

  “Mrs. Spring is reserving a block of rooms at a motel near the church,” Reeve said.

  “Donna and Jonathan Spring cannot be in favor of a marriage when Janie is so young and facing so many intense situations for which she is emotionally unprepared.”

  “Actually,” said Reeve, “she’s going to call herself Jennie from now on. She’ll be Jennie Spring for the next month and a half and then she’ll be Jennie Shields. It’s a nice name, isn’t it? If I can just remember it. Todd said, since he’s best man, he’ll hold up a cue card so I use the right name when I say ‘I do.’ ”

  “You’ve already talked to Todd?”

  “I’ve already talked to everybody, Mom. Your line’s always busy. So did you check your calendar?”

  “Reeve, you do not have the money to do this.”

  “That’s true. But we’re doing it. And financial decisions will be made by Janie and me. I mean, Jennie. Listen, is Dad around? Can I talk to Dad?”

  Kathleen shoved her place setting over and scooted her chair elbow to elbow with the researcher. “I’m so excited to meet you, even though you’re not the author. Do you have any of the book with you? Tell me about yourself. How did you get this job? Did Calvin Vinesett do hundreds of interviews and you were the best?”

  She was having difficulty thinking of this weedy grad-student-looking person as an enemy.

  Anyway, Calvin Vinesett would have chosen the title. What did Calvin Vinesett care if it hurt anybody? He didn’t even care enough about the Springs to do his own interviews. Probably he was accustomed to hurting the innocent people in his books and it was easier if he never met them.

  “I’m taking writing classes,” the man said, “and some of us applied to be researchers when we found an online request. I was the lucky one.”

  “I’m so thrilled for you! Think of the doors this will open! And you are brilliant to have turned up three possible Hannahs. I mean, how did you do that?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Well, public records in Boulder.”

  “Like ownership of houses? Do these Hannahs own a house?”

  The researcher tried to take control. “Let’s get to that later. Right now, let’s start with you, Stephen. I guess what I find most surprising is that you and your brothers and sister became close to the kidnap parents. Frank and Miranda Javensen. I understand you visited them a number of times.”

  “Aren’t you going to take notes?” said Kathleen. “You don’t even have your laptop on the table. Stephen will want to be absolutely totally sure that he’s quoted properly. I mean, that’s not negotiable. Here, let’s get your laptop open and powered up.” Kathleen handed him his briefcase. “I can’t quite see the screen,” said Kathleen. She tilted his computer. “Oh, look! An interview with Miranda! I thought she never gave interviews. And you got one? I am so so impressed.” Kathleen reached over the researcher’s arm to open the file.

  “Ms. Donnelly,” said the researcher, “please remember that this is an interview with Mr. Spring.”

  “Oh, he’s useless,” said Kathleen. She yanked the laptop in front of herself and began to read the interview with Miranda.

  The researcher looked around. They were in the middle of a huge formal dining room. His chair almost touched the chair of a stranger at the next table. Unwilling to cause a scene, he said in a low voice, “Please give me back the laptop, Ms. Donnelly.”

  Kathleen’s eyes flew down the page.

  There were no quotes.

  The writing did not seem to be the result of interviews. In fact, it sounded as if somebody had been following Mrs. Johnson. Had entered a store after her, and then a restaurant, and a bank.

  Kathleen had a bad feeling about this. Not about snatching the guy’s laptop—she felt great about that. But about the non-interview quality of the Miranda file. She closed the file and scanned the other document titles. She clicked on one called Preface.

  What if there was a kidnapping, and the chi
ld was glad?

  What if there was a kidnapping, and the child cooperated?

  What if there was a kidnapping, and everybody was happier afterward?

  That is the story of Jennie Spring, a child who joyfully became Janie Johnson and never looked back.

  A child whose birth family later advertised on a milk carton, using a baby photo.

  A child who reached her teens, saw that photo, and knew how to capitalize on it.

  A good child—but a bad one.

  This is the story of her kidnapping.

  It begins with the parents of the kidnapper. What kind of people create a daughter like Hannah Javensen? What kind of upbringing did Hannah Javensen have? What kind of people pretend to adopt a stranger’s child?

  Let us examine the sad and twisted story of Frank and Miranda.

  If he reads this, Stephen will kill Calvin Vinesett, thought Kathleen. She closed the document. Next to it was a little icon labeled The Hannahs.

  “Give that back!” said the researcher.

  Kathleen had an app on her phone, Evernote, whose purpose was to capture text. Once she’d opened the Hannah material, she didn’t waste time reading it. She just photographed it.

  The researcher yanked his laptop back. “Those names don’t mean anything,” he said. “You should not have those names!”

  “You told us you discovered three Hannahs,” said Stephen.

  “I was exaggerating. I’ve been working my way through public records, trying to find women in their forties or fifties who match Hannah in some way. There’s no reason to think any of them might really be Hannah. They just fit a little of the profile is all. I just mentioned them as bait so you’d give me an interview.”

  “Bait!” Stephen stood up fast.

  Kathleen was afraid he would hit the researcher. She stood up too, ready to block her boyfriend. A fistfight wouldn’t help.

  But Stephen strode out of the restaurant. At the exit, he did remember to wait for Kathleen, but she had to slip off the yellow leather heels to keep up.

  Outside, the air was wonderfully chilly. It tasted of mountains. The sky was bright and the stars hovered, as if they wanted to drop down and talk.

  “I hate the media,” whispered Stephen. “Bait! Imagine taking three names out of the phone book and using them for bait. And I’m the stupid fish who bit!”

  They had gone two long blocks before he realized she was barefoot. “Sorry,” he said. “Are your feet okay?”

  “Yes. Just slow down, that’s all.”

  They walked gingerly for another block. There was a bench. They sat.

  Kathleen said, “I don’t believe that the list is bait. He did not plan to show you that list, Stephen. He was not going to give you the possible Hannahs. So the names and addresses do matter. And we do have them.”

  “Why would he lie and pretend they don’t have meaning?”

  “Probably Calvin Vinesett wants to find Hannah himself. Think what a coup that would be. Every talk show in America would ask him to be a guest. Another million copies sold.”

  “We have to stop the book.”

  Kathleen was doubtful. “No court is going to prevent publication of a book about a famous crime and a famous victim. Janie is public property. And even if courts got involved, so what? The writer just e-publishes and it goes viral.”

  Stephen groaned. “Kath, the timing couldn’t be worse. There’s a wedding coming up. I just found out. Actually, I got the news while you were borrowing clothes from Mandy. Then Brendan called and told me the book title and I forgot. Janie is marrying Reeve. In July! Janie has a shot at being happy, Kathleen. Happy all the way through for the rest of her life. We cannot have a book appear, using that word like that.”

  Kathleen thought of the vicious preface Calvin Vinesett had written.

  What if there were a wedding, she thought, and the bride was destroyed?

  THE NINTH PIECE OF THE KIDNAPPER’S PUZZLE

  Fifteen years after that day in New Jersey, Hannah decided that she needed to be part of this thing called Facebook. She studied a tutorial before she opened her account. It said not to use her real date of birth because that might lead to identity theft.

  It was the first laugh Hannah had had in a long time. Stealing credit cards was so much more fun when they called it identity theft. She had acquired a new ID from a careless college student named Jill Williams. Hannah loved that name. It sounded strong and aggressive. The real Jill Williams was already on Facebook, so Hannah acquired a new free email account and a new date of birth. She scanned good old Tiffany Spratt’s driver’s license photo and picked a university with a zillion students for her profile information.

  The Jennie/Janie herself did not seem to be on Facebook. But the other Spring kids were. Stephen Spring turned out to be going to college right here in Colorado. That shook her up. Had he picked the University of Colorado so he could find her? But if Stephen Spring had known that Frank used a bank here, he’d have told the FBI.

  The trouble was, you had to be a Facebook “friend” to get at the real information.

  Hannah went to her extensive file. A local Connecticut paper covering the first week of the milk carton excitement had mentioned a boy next door. Reeve Shields. There he was. He had more friends than anybody, but only friends could get past the limited profile. She offered up Jill Williams. “Classmate of Brian,” she notated.

  But Reeve Shields did not accept Jill Williams as a friend.

  The left-hand column of each profile—Stephen, Jodie, Brendan, Brian, and Reeve—showed the person’s Facebook friends, and Hannah began making lists, looking for overlap. The first overlap was a Nicole who was friends with each of the Springs.

  But Nicole did not accept Jill Williams as a friend either.

  The next overlap was a Sarah-Charlotte Sherwood, who was friends with both Reeve and Brian Spring. Like Reeve, she had a huge number of friends.

  But Sarah-Charlotte did not accept Jill Williams either.

  She didn’t even exist and they didn’t want her!

  Hannah’s fists rained down on the computer. She didn’t damage it; she hit the plastic casing, not the screen. And yet the librarian made her leave the building. The librarian told her not to come back. Two other computer patrons escorted Hannah out the door.

  She walked a long way to another library branch. A brilliant decision. At that branch, on that computer, a girl named Adair, who was a friend to Reeve and to Sarah-Charlotte, accepted Jill Williams as a friend.

  Hannah was in.

  Adair liked to post. She and Sarah-Charlotte were in the Jennie/Janie’s high school class. Adair heard from everybody and uploaded everything that was interesting and everything that was not.

  Now that she was a friend of Adair’s, Hannah managed to be accepted by Sarah-Charlotte as well. On their walls, Hannah found plenty about Janie. The parent thief was popular.

  I was supposed to have that life! thought Hannah. That girl grabbed it away from me.

  After a few months, she had all their addresses and most of their home phone numbers. Jennie/Janie. Miranda and Frank. Reeve. Sarah-Charlotte. The red rabbits from New Jersey. She had a little map of the United States and used neon thumbtacks to mark the spot where each person was. She loved shoving the little nails into their hearts.

  Stephen was right here. It wasn’t that surprising that one of that bunch of red-haired children would end up in Colorado. She avoided his street, because he might recognize her. She hadn’t changed much and she was strikingly beautiful.

  Hannah had spent so many hours online at libraries, searching for more on the Springs and the Johnsons, that she knew way more than the stupid librarians. They led such cushy lives, darting around a comfortable heated or air-conditioned library; snacking in some nice cozy staff room; now and then showing somebody how to apply for a job via computer.

  She hated those librarians. Even now they were asking her to go. Her time was up, they said.

  She couldn’t go
yet. She was reading an amazing post from Adair, who reported that Janie, her brother Brian, and her boyfriend, Reeve, were all flying out to Boulder to visit Stephen and see whether Janie would like to attend college in Colorado.

  That girl is flying here? To this very town? My parents must be paying for her ticket! With my money!

  “Please,” said the librarian. “We have another patron waiting.”

  Hannah gave up her computer and stomped out of the building. She could not make up her minds. Each of her minds had a different opinion. Should she stand in the shadows and watch the Jennie/Janie and the red rabbit brothers? Or lie low, because they couldn’t help but recognize her?

  Her minds collided and crashed. The next day it was difficult to work at the motel, and she got yelled at, and even threatened. If she didn’t work harder, they’d let her go.

  “Let” her go. As if she’d been trying and trying to go, and finally they would let her. Why didn’t they just say out loud that they would fire her?

  Fire. Like guns. Like flames.

  In the end, she lay low. She even waited to visit her post office box until the scheduled trip to Colorado was over. It was fifteen and a half years since that day in New Jersey, but Hannah was still as intuitive today as she was back then. She got spooked just approaching the post office. She did not see anything irregular. But it was a trap.

  If felt like a trap. Maybe they had lied on Facebook! Maybe they had not. They had not come here to see about colleges. They had come to catch her. Frank had told.

  Her money was lying right there, right at the far end of that lobby, and she couldn’t get at it.

  She walked on by. It took effort. She was so proud of her amazing self-control.

  The third week she was desperate for the money.

  She went very early, which she never did because she usually had to be at the Mug; people who drank coffee often drank it before the sun even came up. But it was her day off, and she went to the post office before it actually opened; only the lobby with boxes was open.