Janie Face to Face (32 page)

Janie lifted her cell phone.

Everybody gave Janie a threatening look. “You can’t talk to him!” yelled Jodie. “The bride doesn’t talk to the groom or see him on her wedding day until she starts down the aisle!”

“Oh,” she said. “Then I’ll take my shower and get in line for hair.” She ran back upstairs and texted Reeve instead.

At one o’clock, Brendan and Brian went to get Mr. and Mrs. Johnson at the hotel where they were staying.

Brendan was surprised to see Nicole’s cousin Vic hanging out with the Johnsons, laughing and telling stories. He had known Vic slightly when Vic was a tough teenager who wore grunge clothes. He’d seen Vic a few times in his army uniform and later his police uniform. He had certainly never seen Vic in a suit and tie. “Hey, Vic. What are you doing here?”

“Just pitching in. Your mom called for reinforcements
from every corner of New Jersey to achieve wedding perfection in ten days.”

Brendan and Brian had just been killing time, trying to avoid or admire a bevy of half-dressed girls who had taken over the house. How come Mom hadn’t asked them to pitch in? Especially Brian, who loved Frank and Miranda? “You coming to the wedding, Vic?” asked Brendan.

“Yup. You got room for me in the car?”

“It’ll be tight,” said Brendan. Why was Vic, as remote an acquaintance as the family had, invited to the wedding? He and Brian tucked Mrs. Johnson in front, got Mr. Johnson into the van, and then the wheelchair, and Brian and Vic wedged themselves in back while Brendan drove.

At the church, Brian took charge of Frank, handling him as well as any medic, keeping the extra parents of the bride happy.

Brendan said to Vic, “And? You’re here because?”

“Everything kind of moved up a level last night,” said Vic. “A few days ago, a woman in Boulder, Colorado, gets knifed several times. At the hospital, she keeps losing consciousness. She finally tells a cop that a woman she knew as Jill Williams stabbed her, but that Jill Williams’s real name is Hannah Javensen. The cop has never heard of Hannah Javensen and doesn’t react. The police go to the address of the Jill Williams person. Place isn’t rented in that name and nobody’s home. They get fingerprints, though, and catch on to the big picture. But Hannah Javensen doesn’t come back to her apartment. They get into the apartment. Last thing the Javensen woman
does on her computer is print out a map to this church. They figure Hannah Javensen, now wanted for attempted murder as well as kidnapping, is on her way here.”

At one-twenty, at the Springs’ house, everybody piled into cars, vans, and limousines. Everybody was on the phone. Everybody who wasn’t coming—and everybody who was—wanted constant updates and videos and photographs. Friends all over the country were texting.

The second limousine held Janie, Jodie, Sarah-Charlotte, and Lizzie. It was just leaving the driveway when a little red car came skidding in, and Eve leapt out. “Bad traffic!” she yelled.

“I’ve got your dress!” yelled Jodie. “Just get in the limo with us!”

“I’m wearing shorts!” yelled Eve. “I need to clean up. I need makeup. I need a hairdresser. I want my nails done.”

“This is what happens when you have a wedding without a plan,” said Lizzie severely.

“No,” said Eve, scrunching in. “This is what happens when you have the wedding in New Jersey and there’s an accident on the turnpike. Hi, Jane. Happy wedding day, you beautiful bride you. Whoa, this is a big vehicle. There’s enough room in this thing for me to use it as a dressing room. Hi, Jodie.”

“Peel off the shirt, Eve. I’ve got wipeys, you can scrub yourself one square at a time.”

“Makeup?” asked Eve.

“Makeup,” agreed Sarah-Charlotte, waving an Estée Lauder bag.

“Shoes?” asked Eve.

“You were supposed to bring your own!”

“I was teasing. I have my shoes. We’re all wearing white satin slippers, right?”

One bride, one maid of honor, and two bridesmaids stuck out their feet.

White satin slippers.

Jennie, Janie said to herself. My name is Jennie. I, Jennie, take thee, Reeve.

Brendan and Vic stood on the grass between the church and the parking lot.

A stream of wedding guests stopped to tell Brendan how terrific he looked in his tuxedo.

“Thanks,” he repeated over and over. “Great to see you. Welcome.” To Vic he said, “Who else knows?”

“Your father and Father John. Plenty of police here. They are extra guests, parking lot attendants, and even a priest.”

Brendan had never thought of his sister’s kidnapping as a violent crime. No blood had been spilled. There had not even been a bruise. But of course kidnapping was violent. A kidnapper was a raptor, a predator.

“Is it in the news yet?”

“No, but reporters in Boulder will figure it out soon.”

“My sister, my mother, and Miranda Johnson need to have this wedding. It has to be safe and happy. It can’t have Hannah in it. It can’t have arrests and chases and guns and media.”

Vic nodded. “We’ll prevent that part. As for people finding out and spreading the news, see Father John greeting
everybody at the door? He’s requiring everybody to turn their cells off the minute they step inside the church. People are a little irked, especially the ones who wanted to take photos and videos, but he’s a priest and they’re doing it. So far, anyway. If people turn on their cells later, it’ll probably be for photos. The wedding should be okay. Reception, maybe not.”

Todd opened the limousine door and helped Janie out. Sarah-Charlotte fluffed Janie’s skirt and Jodie adjusted Janie’s tulle and Eve said, “Don’t get grass stains on your slippers!”

“Is Reeve here yet?” Janie asked Todd.

“You kidding me? We got here before the priest. You have the most eager groom in history. Me—I was scared to come to my wedding. I cut it pretty fine.” He grinned at Lindsay and tenderly helped his wife out of the limo, and Janie suddenly realized that although Lindsay had gained weight, it wasn’t fat. Lindsay and Todd were going to have a baby.

Life was so wonderful.

Janie was beyond happy.

Next, Lizzie’s husband, whom Janie barely knew, helped her out. Marriage to Lizzie would be demanding. Janie wondered if marriage to
her
would be demanding. She thought of herself as so reasonable and pleasant. But she hadn’t been easy for the Springs. And she had abandoned her mother, her other mother, for the whole weekend.

A wide portico with slender columns marked the front entrance to the church. On either side were fat holly bushes, green and prickly, rimmed with hundreds of daylilies in buttery yellow. Sarah-Charlotte gathered the bridal party and photographed them against the green and gold.

The vans from Connecticut had been here for hours. The guys were mostly hanging out with Reeve in some back room in the church. The girls stood on the portico with Janie and Sarah-Charlotte, introducing themselves to the other bridesmaids. Everybody talked as if they’d known each other for years.

The ushers were seating the ladies while the husbands walked slowly in their wake. The ushers weren’t bothering with groom’s side or bride’s side. They were just packing them in. There was going to be a serious crowd.

There were ushers Janie didn’t even know! It struck her as wildly funny.

And then she did know one of them.

Agent Mollison.

Whom she had seen once, when she was fifteen; when she was first reunited with her family. From whom Janie had hidden her face. And then her dad had thrown him out.

She had known from the moment Reeve put everything on Facebook that there was risk. She had never displayed herself anywhere; never gave the girl named Janie Johnson a stage or a page. The sense of her kidnapper hovering in the wings, waiting for another chance to enter Janie’s life, had never entirely left Janie. Reeve and Adair and Sarah-Charlotte and all the others exhibited their hundreds of friends and photographs and posts, but not Janie. She saw that as a threat, a door to her past creaking open, beckoning to Hannah.

Apparently, the FBI agreed.

Father John had not managed to confiscate every cue card. Todd was waving his sign around. It was white poster board,
with scalloped edges. It must have been Lindsay’s creation, because Todd wouldn’t know a decorative edge if it cut him. In fat bright blue marker, it said
JENNIE
.

Sarah-Charlotte poked the bride. “Janie Johnson, aka Jennie Spring, will exist for eleven more minutes.”

She meant eleven more minutes until she had another name.

But it sounded as if Janie had eleven more minutes to live.

Kathleen had expected to be the outsider among the bridesmaids. But they drew her in, and made sure she was part of everything. She didn’t want to break away, it was such fun, but she said softly to Stephen, “I should be seated before the mothers, because they’re always last. Do you want to take me to my pew?”

He held out his elbow.

She took it.

The formal gesture and the stately pace brought her close to weeping.

She genuflected before she slid into her pew, lowered the kneeler, and sank down.

Take care of Janie and Reeve, she prayed. Take care of all this family. Bring them joy instead of sorrow. And if You have extra time, make Stephen realize that I would be a fine member of the same family.

She tilted the kneeler under the pew and sat back.

I’m not going to end up going to church again, she told
herself. I’m done with all that. It’s just that weddings are sentimental. I got carried away.

The bridesmaids lined up.

Jodie had chosen their gowns well. They all looked lovely in the short crisp blue dresses, everyone pencil-thin except Lindsay. The cut of that dress would make its own announcement. Janie hoped Mrs. Shields would be thrilled when she saw Lindsay, so thrilled that she would transfer her energy from Reeve and Janie to being a grandmother.

The florist passed out bouquets. Hers was beautiful. Just what Janie would have chosen if she had chosen.

“Zhany,” said her father.

She knelt beside Frank. “Daddy, you look so handsome in your tuxedo and your sky-blue tie. You’re a perfect father of the bride.”

“I uv you,” he said.

She dried her eyes on his tie, leaving little mascara tracks in the blue silk.

Her cell phone rang.

“Turn that off!” said Jodie, laughing. “I’m the maid of honor, and I say no more phones!”

“It isn’t bride and groom anymore,” observed her New Jersey dad. “It’s bride and phone.” He looked fabulous in black and white. Janie thought of the wonderful photos they would have.

The phone call was from the Harbor. Why would they call? Her parents were here.

“We should have put a teeny little cell phone in the hands of the little sugar couple on top of the cake,” said Lizzie.

“Hello?” said Janie into the phone.

“Janie?” It was Grace. The front-desk lady. Janie was touched that Grace would call to give best wishes on her wedding day.

The wedding march began.

Lindsay was shortest and first. “I’m off!” she whispered, giggling. “See you down there!”

“Janie,” said Grace urgently, “a woman just arrived who says she is Frank’s daughter.”

Frank’s daughter
, thought Janie Johnson. Her body seemed to lose shape. She became remarkably solid.

“She knew where their room was and everything, so I let her go up, but I’m sort of frightened. I didn’t know Frank and Miranda had a child from a previous marriage or whatever. She’s certainly never visited before. And since your wedding’s been all over Facebook and since thieves can be so clever, I thought I’d check.”

Eve followed Lindsay down the aisle.

“Janie!” whispered Jodie. “Get off the phone!”

Janie pasted a smile on her face and waved Jodie away.

“A minute ago she wanted to fly down the aisle,” said Sarah-Charlotte to Jodie. “Now she wants to stay on the phone.”

“Can’t be Reeve,” said Lizzie. “Todd confiscated his cell.”

“Janie, I took her picture on my cell,” said Grace. “I’ll send it to you.”

Jodie tried to exchange Janie’s phone for the bridal bouquet. Janie held up one finger to mean “Hang on a minute.”

“Give me a break,” said Jodie. “And give me the phone. You can have your bouquet in exchange.”

Her New Jersey dad was laughing silently. All his kids were
deeply attached to their cell phones, but he hadn’t known it went this far. He maneuvered the wheelchair closer to the door and now his back was to Janie.

“Jodie,” breathed the bride, “make them walk very slowly down the aisle. I need time.” She backed up as far as she could without falling into the shrubbery.

The photograph from Grace showed a fat seedy-looking woman with lanky hair, which was dyed as yellow as a daffodil. The woman’s posture was tilted forward, as if she were catapulting away from the reception desk. Away from anything normal.

Away from us, thought Janie, which is good. Everybody I love is safe, here, in another place. Whatever Hannah is doing, she is doing it alone in an empty space.

Her soul flooded with grief for Miranda. What she was going to have to face! The person she would have to see! The past hurtling into the present, about to slap her down!

Mom, I love you, thought Janie. I’m going to do it right this time, but it won’t make anything right for you.

Lizzie held up two hands in a sharp, irritated “What in the world?” gesture.

“Walk slow, Lizzie,” Janie stage-whispered. She cupped her hand over her mouth. “Call nine-one-one, Grace. The woman is known to me. She is a criminal. Her name is Hannah Javensen. If there is a way for maintenance to lock her in the room until the police get there, do it. Whatever you do, don’t get near her. She is dangerous.”

Jodie was about to take preemptive action and snatch the phone.

“Ten more seconds,” Janie told her. “Sarah-Charlotte, go!”

Her New Jersey father said over his shoulder, “Come on, Janie. It won’t be any fun without you!”

Janie walked over to the usher she was not supposed to know. “Grace,” she said into her phone, “this is a policeman. Tell him what’s going on.” She handed her cell with its photograph of Hannah Javensen to Agent Mollison.