Her Last Goodbye, page 10
Concern swirled in April’s heart.
How many bruises did Jenn have?
As a retired nurse, April had seen this so many times. She was skilled at identifying the signs of domestic violence; knew it was far more prevalent than most people realized.
Jenn caught her staring.
“What is it? Do I have food on my face?” Jenn asked.
“I like your outfit.”
“Oh thanks. I love your shirt and that necklace.”
April smiled, acknowledging her compliment, then glanced to ensure the others were still out of earshot.
“What happened, Jenn?”
“What happened? What do you mean?”
Ensuring no one was near, April touched her own neck and wrist area.
“Oh.” She blinked fast, chuckling. “It’s funny. I was playing football in the backyard with Greg and Jake, and Greg tackled me and Jake piled on. Too many boys in the house and I bruise so easily. I’m such a marshmallow.”
April glanced to the others, who were breaking from the table.
“Jenn,” April said, keeping her voice low, “if ever you’d like to talk in complete confidence, just call me.”
Jenn shut her eyes and let out a breath.
“I love you, April. Thank you. But don’t be silly.”
The helicopter had passed over them and now sounded like distant thunder.
“We have to find her,” Liz said. “We just have to. I can’t bear to think of the agony Jake must be going through.”
“He’s such a sweet boy,” April said.
“And Greg,” Liz said. “He looked traumatized. He must be going out of his mind, that poor man.”
That poor man?
April said nothing, prompting Liz to look at her until a memory surfaced.
“When Greg talked to us, you seemed a little reserved,” Liz said.
“Did I?”
“Yes, a little cool to him, I thought.”
“Did you see the scrapes on his hands, Liz?”
“Yes. Why?”
“They looked, well, fresh, and I was wondering how he got them.”
“Likely from his work as a carpenter, contractor, you know.”
Liz’s phone rang and she answered it while April returned to her phone and the news stories and social media posts on Jenn. The whole time she scrolled, she couldn’t subdue her unease about Greg’s scrapes and Jenn’s bruises. As far as April knew, no one else in the club had spotted them.
“That was Basha,” Liz said. “She and the others will meet us at one of the new search sites—the Empire Heights School in West Trailside Grove.”
“All right.”
“Basha said the police are arranging to talk to her some more. This time it’ll be the detectives who are now in charge of the case because she was actually the last person to see and talk with Jenn. Basha said the detectives will likely talk with us, as well.”
“Good,” April said.
Twenty-One
Buffalo, New York
Why is that guy familiar?
Kat watched the man moving among the volunteers at the Empire Heights School, greeting people with a consolatory look on his face.
He was a handsome man.
Kat tried to place where she’d seen him before. Yes, he was at the previous search in Ripplewood, but that wasn’t it. Kat had definitely seen him somewhere before that—but where?
“We can’t go through this again, Kat.”
She turned to her father and saw the anguish in his eyes.
“We can’t lose another member of our family.”
Kat put her arms around him.
“It’s going to work out, Dad.”
Kat and Vince had come to the school to take part in the day’s search while Greg stayed home with Jake, awaiting police who—as Kozak put it—“would go through the formality of executing a warrant” to take the phones, tablets, and computers from the house for analysis. It left Greg scrambling to get replacements so he could continue communicating with his family, friends, and work crew.
From the news stories online that Kat had seen, the investigation had escalated. A couple of miles away in Ripplewood, police had sealed a large section of the woods. They’d taken control, using dogs, ATVs, drones, officers, and helicopters to scour the forest where Jenn’s car had been discovered, while forensic experts processed the scene.
In Trailside Grove, Noble Haven, and half a dozen other neighborhoods across the suburbs, police guided an army of volunteers in the growing search, encompassing parks, playground service lanes, alleys, vacant lots, fields, ravines, and creeks.
The Empire Heights School was less than half a mile from Greg and Jenn’s house. It was adjacent to soccer fields, tennis courts, a basketball court, a playground, and a flat, green expanse vast enough for a football field. Close to a hundred volunteers had gathered and more were arriving.
“See?” Vince took in the sight. “Everyone loves Jenn. Look at this outpouring of support.”
As Kat surveyed the activity, she was stabbed with raw emotion.
This would not happen if I was missing.
Her thoughts twisted and scraped, like an old key in a lock, opening to her true feelings for Jenn. On the surface they were friendly to each other, but deep down, Kat disliked Jenn. Sure, the world thought Jenn walked on water, but as far as Kat was concerned, Jenn was far from perfect.
Kat’s feelings went back years, to Greg and Jenn’s wedding.
Jenn never invited Kat to be matron of honor, or even a bridesmaid, at their wedding. All of it was made worse when some offhand comments Jenn had made on the reason got back to Kat; Jenn saying something about how, “Kat’s got a lot on her plate and seems to be struggling right now. Besides, we want the wedding to go smoothly, right?”
It was true. At the time of the wedding, Kat’s marriage to Neil was crumbling. But, dammit, was that a reason to shut her out of her brother’s biggest day—a day that would have made their mother so happy? Being involved would’ve given Kat some happiness at a time she was struggling. It would’ve meant so much. Why didn’t Jenn see that?
Kat was devastated. The hurt was the first of many Jenn had inflicted on her. There were times when Jenn had made Kat feel unwelcome when she visited their home. Jenn always seemed to grow a little colder whenever Kat, trying to be helpful, mentioned little things about Greg’s likes and dislikes about food, about clothes, and so on. And when Kat and Neil were headed for divorce, there were times when Jenn gave her unsolicited marriage advice, to Kat’s chagrin.
“Did you consider Neil might be...” Or “Kat, I read this article and thought of you...” Or “Maybe you and Neil should go to...”
Then, after her divorce, Jenn offered more unsolicited advice, even tried to set her up on a few dates. All of it may have been unintentional, or innocent, but Kat was rankled by it. She hadn’t remarried. Her life, it seemed, had been a string of less-than-stellar men, and relationships that always dead-ended. Kat was constantly examining herself as a divorced courier driver, worrying about her looks as she got older, concerned that she may never find real love and get married.
Yes, other people had it worse.
And Dad was right. Jenn, orphaned by fire as a child, had certainly had a hard life.
But so have I.
Kat was fifteen when her mother died. The cataclysmic loss nearly destroyed her, but she found the strength to carry on, to honor her mom. Her father was broken. Greg was lost. While grieving, Kat did everything she could to keep her family together by assuming her mother’s role, watching out for her little brother and their dad. She went from being a teenage girl to an adult. Part of her life had been taken from her. Maybe that’s why her relationships went nowhere. Maybe that’s why she secretly resented Jenn.
Stop it! Jenn’s the closest thing I have to a sister. Look around. This is real. She’s missing.
“Are you okay?” asked Bert Cobb, a custodian at Jake’s school.
Cobb was part of the school search contingent. Vince had stepped away to talk to some of them. Brushing at her tears, Kat smiled at Cobb. She’d made deliveries to him at the school a few times. He seemed like a nice guy.
“Thanks. I’m just worried, you know.”
“We’ll find her,” he said.
“I’m praying we do.”
“Just look how massive the searches are getting.” Cobb cast around. “Where’s Greg?”
“Home with Jake. Police stuff.”
“How’s Jake doing?”
“Oh, the best he can.”
“I guess they won’t be moving to Arizona. I mean, with this happening.”
“Arizona?” Kat was now looking toward the group of searchers from Jake’s school and that good-looking man again, talking to some officials.
“Jake was talking about it at school a little while ago.”
“Oh yeah, they were thinking about it,” Kat said. “Say—” she nodded to the man in the distance “—who’s that guy, greeting everybody there from Jake’s school?”
Cobb looked.
“Porter Sellwin. He’s on the school board.” Cobb leaned closer to Kat. “I understand he’s quite the Casanova.”
Kat stared at Sellwin for a long moment as it became crystalline.
She’d definitely seen Sellwin before.
He’d been with Jenn before she disappeared.
Twenty-Two
Buffalo, New York
Coffee rolled over the brim of Laila’s cup and dripped on the table.
“Goodness, honey, be careful.” Alicia reached for napkins, laughed then looked at Laila.
She wasn’t smiling.
Laila’s gaze flitted around the restaurant. The cable guy’s surprise arrival at her home had forced her to rearrange her errands. Some took longer than she had expected. It pushed her coffee date with Alicia at The Pink Mist Mountain Café well into the afternoon. Laila had thought that keeping busy would keep her mind off what had happened.
She’d thought wrong—she was still a bit shaky.
Alicia set the damp, balled napkins aside, her smile fading as she studied her friend.
“What’s eating you? Ever since you got here, you’ve seemed rattled.”
Laila looked at her hands, twisted her rings.
“Something happened this morning, something...disgusting and a little scary.” Tears came to her eyes.
“What?” Alicia put her hand on Laila’s. “Tell me.”
Laila looked at Alicia. They had become friends years ago in college. Laila became a copywriter. Alicia Hughes was now an editor with a New York publisher; she was a smart, kindhearted woman who was one of Laila’s closest friends, someone she trusted.
“Go on,” Alicia said. “What happened?”
Laila bit her bottom lip then began describing what had taken place with the cable man in her house. She included everything she saw, everything she felt, and everything she did before he left. Her hands were shaking when she finished.
Alicia’s mouth fell open slightly in disbelief.
“Oh my God. You’ve got to report him.”
“To the cable company?”
“To the police.”
“Police? But he didn’t hurt me.”
“Not physically. Not this time.”
“What do you mean ‘not this time’?”
“What if he comes back? He’s been in your house, knows your address. What if he was just scoping your place and came back some night when Darrell wasn’t home?”
Laila fell silent, twisting her ring.
Alicia recognized she’d unintentionally frightened her friend, so she pulled back. “Okay, I’m sorry if I scared you,” she said.
“Well, he sure scared me.”
“Look, I know he didn’t hurt you physically, but what he did must constitute a crime, some form of assault that needs to be reported.”
“After it happened,” Laila said, “I was thinking he must have some kind of sniffing fetish, that he gets a thrill from smelling underwear.”
“It’s so, so yuck, so perverse, makes my skin crawl. You’ve got to report him. You’re probably not the first person he’s done this to,” Alicia said.
“Probably not.”
“Think of the other women he could’ve done this to, or worse.”
“Worse?” Laila said.
“In one of the true-crime books I was handling, the author, a psychologist, said that some serial killers have the fetish of smelling women’s underwear.”
“Serial killers? Jeez, Alicia.”
“I’m sorry. I’m scaring you again. But honey, you’ve got to report him.”
Laila nodded. They tried shifting to another subject, to catch up and talk about other things, but it was futile. Their conversation kept coming back to what happened to Laila, until it was time to leave.
* * *
Yes, Alicia’s right. I should report it, Laila thought later, while driving home. But I’m not sure I will. I’m not sure I can.
Maybe Alicia had forgotten, because it never came up, why Laila was reluctant to deal with police about the cable guy incident. It was because of what had happened the last time Laila reported a man to police.
Her senior year in college, after meeting friends at a bar one night, she was walking home alone. No one had wanted to leave when she did. A man started following her.
She walked faster. He walked faster.
She ran. He ran.
He caught up to her, grabbed her arm, and tried to pull her into an alley. Terrified, she’d reached into a pile of trash and hit him with a glass bottle, twisted free of him, and ran home.
That night, she reported it to police. They told her to come in the next morning to file a complaint. She went in to recount the incident but couldn’t believe the officer’s reaction as she reported the attack.
“Maybe you just had a bad date? Did you know this guy? Were you flirting? Did you say something to tease him in the bar? What were you wearing? How much did you have to drink?”
His questions made Laila feel like it was her fault.
She left the police station humiliated, belittled, embarrassed, and convinced her report hadn’t been taken seriously. Nothing ever came of it. Not even a follow-up. She vowed never to deal with police again.
And now this.
Stopped at a light, scenarios blazed through her mind.
What if I misread everything? What if I reported the guy and he lost his job? Maybe he has kids? Maybe he’s just a jerk with a sickness? Maybe I don’t know anything. Maybe I’m afraid?
A horn sounded.
The light was green.
Laila brushed at her tears and continued driving, biting back on her frustration of not knowing what she was going to do.
She was oblivious to the fact that a few cars behind, a white van was following her.
Twenty-Three
Buffalo, New York, Trailside Grove
“I’ll start with your right thumb.”
Greg placed his thumb tip on the postage-stamp-sized platen of the fingerprint scanner, a mobile device that looked like a cell phone.
The forensic tech was absorbed in her work while Greg withdrew into his desperate hope that this was not real.
This isn’t happening.
He ached for the hum of the garage door opening; Jenn parking her Corolla, entering the laundry room; her keys jingling as she placed them on the counter; then she’d walk up to him saying: “You are just not going to believe what happened, Gregory! You’re just not going to believe it!”
And their nightmare would end.
Because she would be home.
But Jenn wasn’t home.
The nightmare was deepening because it was late afternoon and here he was, sitting at his kitchen table while state police investigator Twyla Wilton collected his fingerprints—later she’d get Vince’s, Kat’s, and even Jake’s—to use as elimination prints in the case of his wife’s disappearance.
Just like they did with homicides.
Warrants to take his cell phone, obtain phone records for it and their landline, take their laptops, and all devices with internet connections, sat on the table near him while the questions the detectives threw at him earlier that day echoed in his mind.
Ever strike your wife?... How did you get those scratches?... Is there a life insurance policy for Jenn?... Are you involved in any way in your wife’s disappearance?
“Sir?”
Greg looked at Wilton.
“Next finger. Place the tip of your forefinger on the platen.”
“Sorry.”
During the procedure, Greg’s phone, sitting on the table next to the warrants, vibrated with calls and messages. When Wilton finished, the two other investigators, who were there to execute the warrants, allowed Greg a moment to respond to them before starting the process of taking his phone and all the devices in the house.
Greg took a call from Kat.
“Any news there?” she asked.
“Nothing. Anything there?”
“No, sorry,” she said. “I guess they didn’t take your phone yet.”
“They will right after this.”
“I’ll pick up a temporary one for you and a laptop.”
“Get one for Jake, too. I think he should have one, given what’s happened.”
“Okay. Hang in there,” Kat said.
Greg scrolled through texts and emails. Most were from friends offering support, some were reporters requesting interviews; Al Clayton texted from the Pine Castle job.
Everything’s running smoothly on-site. Everyone here’s pulling for you. We’re standing by to help.
Greg texted his thanks, then saw one of the stone-faced investigators glance at the time on the kitchen clock. Greg prepared to shut his phone off and surrender it when it pinged with a new text. He tensed. He knew the number, knew who it was from.
