Janie Face to Face (27 page)

Yes! She would! She would show them!

She took a second mug and threw it harder, and then a glass. Shards flew around the floor and sparkled on the tiles. She emptied the dishwasher, throwing, throwing, throwing. It was wonderful. Sound and glitter and smash!

The owner and the prep cook walked her out the back door, their shoes crunching on the glass and china. They deposited her in the alley among the trash cans. “Don’t come back, Jill,” said the owner. From her voluminous apron pocket, the owner pulled out cash, paying Hannah what she was owed and not one dime more. That woman didn’t even care that Hannah had to face next week and the week after that!

The cook usually left the back door open to get fresh air into the tiny kitchen. But they closed it this time, and she heard it lock, and she was alone with the garbage.

She opened her hand.

The longest, thinnest, sharpest piece of Stephen Spring’s mug lay in her palm.

Kathleen hadn’t finished her explanation for wanting to talk to her father about the three possibles, and Stephen was on his bike. He left Kathleen without a glance and without a word.

Her parents were right. The distance between Stephen and her hopes was too great. She was always putting a foot wrong, and it was always over Janie, whose history was an octopus—sticky horrid tentacles. “I was trying to help,” she said to the person who was no longer there.

“Some wounds don’t heal,” her father had said once, and Stephen Spring might never heal from the blows dealt his family.

Kathleen clung to her cell phone. Surely Stephen would call her back and tell her he was sorry and had acted thoughtlessly and would she please forgive him?

But he didn’t.

This was going to be his way out. He could extricate himself from his tiresome girlfriend and feel good about it—she would have been a traitor anyway. Nosing around in private
family problems—bringing in the FBI—ruining Janie’s wedding!

Even if I do call my father, she thought, I don’t have anything to tell him. And what would Dad do next? There aren’t any next steps.

In her smartphone she had the Evernote photos of the preface and the Hannah list.

The other night, killing time, she had gone online, trying to find the same public records the researcher had used. But phone bills, water bills, electricity bills, cable TV bills—any bills she could think of—were not public.

Only property tax was public.

Kathleen easily figured out how to research the owners of buildings. Combining that with people searches, she had quickly established that the first possible Hannah did not own the building in which she lived, but she had been at that same address for twenty-two years. Before Janie had been born! Back then, Hannah would have been with the group. Even if she had resembled Hannah in any way, that woman couldn’t have been a possible.

How could the researcher have put her on a list, then?

The other two names didn’t show up on anything. Kathleen figured that if you were a renter and you moved a lot and you had a cell phone, not a landline, and you’ve never had a car loan, say, you wouldn’t show up. That fit with the marginal existence they figured Hannah would have, but it did not fit with Calvin Vinesett’s list. How did he get the names if the names weren’t anywhere?

She could think of one thing she’d like to do. But if she and
Stephen were no longer a couple, who cared whether those women were Hannah? Who cared about anything?

The good person, she remembered from Mass, is a person who does not walk by. The good person gets involved and helps strangers.

But it didn’t help
me
! she shouted silently at God. When I tried to get involved, it wrecked everything.

Donna and Jonathan Spring’s house was only ten minutes from the bridal mall.

They all drove back to inspect the yard and discuss the reception. It was a big yard—the kind the kids would have enjoyed so much when they were little. But by the time the Springs had moved there, only Brian and Brendan were young enough to play in a yard. Brian never went outdoors if he could help it, and Brendan was so busy with organized sports at school that he rarely noticed the space behind his own house.

Huge maples and oaks towered in the neighbors’ property, giving wonderful shade and greenery to the Springs’ yard. The back-to-back neighbors had edged their property in yellow and gold daylilies. The neighbors on the left had a rose garden and the neighbors on the right had planted a row of weeping cherry trees. The Springs had grass.

“This will be lovely,” said Reeve’s mother, obviously surprised that anything in this wedding was working out to her satisfaction. “Don’t you think so, Miranda?”

“I do,” said Miranda obediently.

Jodie fixed a tray of lemonade and iced tea, cookies,
chocolates, and fruit and brought it out to the deck. Miranda and Mrs. Shields sat on big comfy chairs. Mrs. Shields filled her chair. Miranda hardly made a dent in her cushion.

“Be right back!” trilled Jodie, making her getaway.

Janie was whipped. She had not expected the dress event to be so emotional. She had not expected to worry so much about Miranda. When she saw her dad, she summoned the energy to beam at him and he gave her the usual bear hug. “How’s my little girl?”

He always said that, as if he still thought of her as her missing three-year-old self.

“I’m good, Daddy. Mom is getting her bridal gown out to show me.”

He laughed. “You haven’t had enough gowns? You tried on so many! My personal fave was eight.”

“Jodie sent you photographs of each one?”

“Yup. Brian liked eight too. Stephen said he would settle for whatever you settled for, but that Kathleen liked nine.”

“Nine was gorgeous,” called Jodie, as if she and gown number nine had a long acquaintance. “Kathleen has good taste.”

“Is Stephen bringing Kathleen?” asked their father. “If he loves this girl, and she’s our next bride, we want her. Maybe Stephen can’t afford the airfare.”

“I think it’s more likely he can’t afford the implication,” said Jodie. “Bringing your girlfriend to your sister’s wedding is a statement.”

“Talk to him,” their father ordered her. “Tell him Mom and I will get Kathleen a ticket if he wants her to come.”

“You talk to him,” protested Jodie.

“He’d argue with me. He’d say he wants to be independent. Oh, and Janie, by the way, you have mail.”

Except for letters from Calvin Vinesett, Janie didn’t get mail. It was probably more of the book stuff.

Or maybe not! Maybe she was about to get her first wedding present!

But it was not either of these. It was a business envelope with the ESPN logo and a Charlotte return address.

It was not like Reeve to use the U.S. mail. He had gone through a greeting-card stage a few years ago, trying to convince Janie that he wasn’t so bad after all. He didn’t know what to say, so he let greeting-card poets try. Janie had not been impressed and told him so. Since then, all communication had been electronic.

Jodie and Dad were waiting for her to open the letter.

She felt a shiver of worry. No greeting cards existed for guys who wanted to back out. This very day, Mr. Shields had flown down to Charlotte. Janie knew what Reeve’s dad would be saying: that Reeve was too young. She knew what Lizzie had been saying: Janie was not stable. She had read all the posts on his wall.
Marriage is for old guys. Your life is over, Reeve
. She knew what his boss was saying: he still had to work sixty-hour weeks.

And his heart?

What would Reeve’s heart be telling him, now that reality was sinking in?

Was he saying, “Uh-oh. I actually asked a girl to enter my life for good. To live in my tiny apartment and share my
toothpaste and credit card. Maybe I’ll just scribble a note, so I don’t have to say it out loud.”

He wouldn’t write
Let’s not get married
.

But he might write
Let’s wait
.

Please, no. I’m the one who can’t wait now.

She tore the flap on the long white envelope.

Brendan and Calvin Vinesett were in a narrow hall, behind the greenery at the back of the elegant foyer. Brendan could see the package room and the mailroom. He and the author sat on a narrow bench. In spite of its thick leather cushion, it was not soft.

Brendan’s brain was soft. For the third time Brendan said, “You’re telling me that you are not writing any such book?”

“Correct. And you’re telling me that at least three men have been interviewing your family and using my name,” said Calvin Vinesett. “I write about murders. They have to be complex and the killer has to be in prison. I deal with the drama that brought the victims and the killer together. I write about the lives of the survivors and how that played out during and after the trial. Of course I followed the Janie Johnson case. Who didn’t? But even if that kidnapper were caught, her story isn’t what my readers expect from me. I’m furious that some writer is hiding under my name. I’m even more upset that it worked. May I read the emails that this Michael/Mick gave you? Supposedly from me?”

Brendan handed them over. “I have a chapter too.”

Calvin Vinesett read the pages carefully, slipping each page under the other until he was back at the beginning. “Whoever
wrote these, Brendan, is not much of a writer. Poor phrasing. Odd choice of words. A lot of repetition. This person gets a thought and sticks with it. I’m going to guess this person is a beginner who hasn’t published a thing.”

It’s Mom, thought Brendan, absolutely sick. I so don’t want Mom to be the one doing this. But why would Mom call her book
The Happy Kidnap
? Is it Janie she’s been mad at all these years? We’ve all been mad at Janie some of the time. But I thought we loved her too.

“And why,” Calvin Vinesett continued, “would any author tell a researcher to use a fake name and lie to the person he’s interviewing? You can’t use information obtained like that. It’s just gossip.”

If only his twin were here. Brian was so quick. Brian would figure this out; find the clues in the writing and the title.

“And finally,” said Calvin Vinesett, “this chapter? It’s practically hate mail. There’s something radically wrong here. I’m going to follow up. It is unacceptable that some third-rate writer is using my name.”

“How will you follow up?” asked Brendan.

“First, we want to find the computer where these emails originated. We need a subpoena to do that. But I’m not sure that a few pages of lousy writing will impress a judge. I have contacts with the FBI. This situation is distantly related to an unsolved kidnapping, so they might look into it. But it wouldn’t be high on their list.”

Brendan remembered suddenly that he had his own contact with the FBI.

When each of their children first got a cell phone, Mom and Dad had already filled the contact list: relatives, neighbors, and the three officials who had dealt with the kidnapping—the local police, the state trooper, and the FBI agent.

The Spring kids detested those entries, living inside their precious phones as if they might need the police again. Brendan knew that Stephen had deleted them all the minute he moved to Colorado.

But even though Brendan was on his fourth cell phone, having updated whenever he had the money, he always kept the numbers. Not because he cared, but because he and Brian were the youngest, and Mom, who paid their bills, kept tabs on their cell phone use, and that included knowing the contact list.

Brendan was reeling. If it really is my mother writing it, or Brian, I don’t want a judge or the FBI talking to her about her bad writing, or anything else. “Mr. Vinesett, wait a week, okay? Janie’s wedding is Saturday. In fact, I have to get home for all this stuff that my mother wants me to get done. I don’t want anything to hurt Janie’s wedding.”

“I couldn’t get anything done that fast anyway,” said Calvin Vinesett. He was grinning. “That is so great. After all that poor child suffered, she’s grown up and getting married? I wouldn’t have said she was old enough. I’ve lost track of the story, I guess.”

“She’s twenty. My parents don’t think she’s old enough either,” confided Brendan.

• • •

From the ESPN envelope, Janie Johnson drew out a single sheet of plain white paper, folded crisply in thirds. She unfolded it.

Out fell a single green maple leaf.

Reeve’s bad handwriting spread messily over the page.
Remember the year we raked that huge pile of leaves? Remember how you fell down into the leaves and I fell down on top of you? Remember our first kiss?

Remember!

That year, the sugar maples lining their street in Connecticut had been a symphony of color. Yellow and red leaves had covered every blade of grass. She and Reeve had tumbled into the pile they had raked and, in the shelter of crispy color, had their first kiss.

She kissed the handwriting.

Jodie said, “Oh, blecch. You are so far gone, Janie!”

Their father was laughing. “Reeve is pretty far gone too,” said Jonathan Spring. “It’s summer, so no leaves are falling. He had to rip that leaf off some innocent tree. In a million years, I would never have thought of doing that.”

“Come in here!” yelled their mother. “I got the box out of the attic!”

“You better come too, Daddy,” said Jodie. “This is your bride we’re talking about.”

His face went all soft. “She was so beautiful,” he said.

“Don’t say it as if her beauty is in the past,” Jodie warned.

“Be right with you,” Janie told them, going into her bedroom.

The bedroom was stuffed with boxes from college and
boxes from the Connecticut house from when Janie finished moving her parents to the Harbor and herself down here. It looked like the room of an organized hoarder. She was glad she’d never unpacked. Now they could just ship the stuff on to Charlotte. She hadn’t even labeled the boxes, thinking she would open them immediately. She had no idea what was in anything or whether she wanted it.

Most of the Johnsons’ books had been sold at the yard sale. There had been a huge old Webster’s dictionary that Frank had loved. For some craft project, Janie had once dried flowers between the pages of that dictionary. She mainly used an e-reader now.