Janie Face to Face

CHAPTER TEN




Nicole gave Jodie a welcome-home party.

Nicole’s house was a split-level, with the rec room on the lower floor opening to a big screened porch and a big untended yard. Kids poured in and out of the house, music reverberated, and neighbors looked tense.

“Your welcome-home party is like a preview of Janie’s wedding,” Nicole told Jodie. “You weren’t due home till the end of the summer and that’s when I expected to give a party. My mother said just have the party in August anyway, but I said you can’t welcome somebody home three months after she gets here. So I slapped this together. You get what you get.”

Nicole was serving giant subs, plus those round plastic trays from the supermarket filled with vegetables or fruit and dip. Nobody had touched them yet, even the vegetarians. A stack of paper napkins, a thousand cans of soda, and a cooler of ice wrapped up party preparations.

How awed and excited the little kids in Haiti would be by such a party. But Jodie skipped the Haiti comparison. “Nicole, this is perfect. I’m thrilled to see everybody. Especially you. Thank you so much. And we have so much to talk about.”

Nicole nodded. “Real quick, while everybody is popping open a soda can, I’ll start on my cousin Vic. You’ll be so disappointed. That post office box where Frank sent the checks? It was closed two years ago. Nobody remembers a single thing about the woman who rented it. Her name was Tiffany Spratt. The police found a Tiffany Spratt who went to college there ages ago, but she never had a post office box and she is who she is, and she’s not Hannah. Her backpack was stolen once, when she was a freshman, and it had her wallet in it, and it was a real pain getting another driver’s license and canceling her credit card and her debit card. They’re guessing Hannah used Tiffany Spratt’s ID to rent the post office box, but the real Tiffany Spratt never got billed for a charge that wasn’t hers, and so she had no idea that anybody had used her driver’s license. It’s a dead end.”

It wouldn’t have been a dead end if Janie had told the authorities about the box. Don’t go that way, Jodie told herself. Remember the plan: to love Janie.

Okay, in a little dark corner of her heart, Jodie could still be furious that Janie had put comatose Frank and pathetic Miranda first. Jodie spent a few minutes in the little dark corner and then she joined the party.


Stephen Spring not only wanted to be in the wedding party, he wanted it to be a party, with noise and dancing and toasts and tears. He was going to need a party after chasing three Hannahs. He wanted to locate the woman, or rule her out, and be done with it.

He and Kathleen found the second possible Hannah slumped on a chair in a tiny side yard by a tiny garage apartment. She was very thin. Her old sweat suit had once been peach or pink. Now it had bleach stains. A cigarette hung from her lips. Her lips were thin, as was her hair. If “down and out” was your criterion, she fit. If thin and formerly blond were the criteria, she fit.

Stephen thought, She really is possible.

He had not expected Hannah to pull herself together in middle age. Hannah would not have become a good woman with a decent life. He had pictured her melting into her own evil, like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz.

Now, at the realization that the possible Hannah was possible, Stephen had trouble filling his lungs. He did not want to be near the woman. He wanted to have bullet- and fist-proof glass between him and her, because if she was Hannah, he did not want to damage her. He wanted a trial. He wanted the whole thing—exposure of every ugly vicious act of her ugly vicious life.

No, he reminded himself. What I want is for my sister to have a life without that book title around. “Ma’am?” he said.

The woman took the cigarette out of her mouth. She stabbed it into a metal coffee can at her door filled with sand and butts. “I’m not buying anything. Don’t think you can rip me off either.”

She had a heavy Brooklyn accent.

Hannah had grown up in Connecticut. Frank and Miranda had excellent diction, to the point of sounding pseudo-British.

The aura of Hannah fell away and Stephen saw only a weary old woman, much too old to be Hannah Javensen. Although life could have aged her an extra decade or two.

“We’re not selling anything,” he said. “We’re sorry to bother you. We’re trying to find a cheap place to rent.”

“Ain’t nothin’ cheap in this town.”

“We’re finding that out. Sounds as if you moved here from New York. Me too,” he fibbed. “What part of New York?”

She softened. “Fort Greene, honey.”

“You miss it?”

“Sure. This dump? Compared to home? But I like the mountains.”

There were beautiful mountains outside Boulder. But the view this woman had was peeling paint and a row of garbage cans.

Stephen was suddenly deeply sorry for her. “Have you ever run into a woman named Tiffany Spratt? She was looking for apartments around here.”

The woman shook her head and lit another cigarette.

We’re not going to find Hannah, thought Stephen. These three names really are just bait, designed by Calvin Vinesett. No point rearranging my workweek to find the third name.


Janie did not think of Facebook when she thought of spreading the news, because she never posted. But Sarah-Charlotte, Reeve, Adair, Eve, Reeve’s sister Lizzie, and everybody else posted the new wedding date: June 3.

Sarah-Charlotte telephoned everybody who had planned to fly in so they could change their tickets. She reported back to Janie. “Some people can’t come after all, and they’re sad—but other people can come after all, and they’re tickled. So it’s going to work out fine. We had eleven people for our van and we still do, it’s just a different eleven. Plus several people are driving separately and a few are flying straight into Newark. I’m still working on a bridal shower. What day can you be up here?”

“I don’t think there’s any day,” said Janie regretfully.

“How about a shower down there? Maybe Jodie and I can cohost.”

“But already there isn’t time. You’re arriving here that Friday for the rehearsal, Sarah-Charlotte. You don’t want to haul back and forth for a shower too.”

“Of course I do. But tell me about the reception. How many people are coming?”

“We’re not going to know till they get here. Dad says he’s buying enough hamburger patties and hot dogs for a couple hundred and he can just freeze them if we only have twenty-five. And Mom and two of her neighbors are going to make vats of potato salad and macaroni salad and my aunt and uncle are going to buy a ton of shrimp and then we’ll pack the freezer with ice cream to go with the cake. It’ll be your basic picnic, only with a bride.”

Sarah-Charlotte did not approve. A wedding should be your basic formal sit-down dinner at a country club, with linens, silver, flowers, favors, and dinner-jacket-clad waiters. But she wouldn’t let her best friend down. “I like the theme,” she said. “A wedding that starts by leaping over security-line ropes should be frantic, with people bringing their own bags of chips and lugging their own folding chairs.”

Janie giggled. “It won’t be that crazy. But just picking people up at the airport on that Friday is going to take the whole family and half the neighbors.”


Back home in New Jersey, Brendan was in a terrible mood. His mother had just told him about that guy Michael Hastings, and how he stalked Janie and tried to use her. Brendan wanted to chain the guy to the bumper of a truck and drive down the thruway for a hundred miles. He couldn’t believe his family wasn’t going after this Michael creep. “No,” said his mother, “I want to leave it alone.”

That’s the trouble with this world, thought Brendan. We leave things alone.

He called Stephen, who was excellent at getting mad and would share his mood to perfection. “When are you getting here anyway?” Brendan demanded. “It’s very tiring being surrounded by wedding planners.”

“I’m flying in Friday night. I actually won’t get there till after the rehearsal. My flight doesn’t even land until eleven p.m. Mom wanted me earlier but I couldn’t pull it off.”

“You don’t have to try on a tux?”

“Nope. I emailed the rental store. They have my size on file from my senior prom. Remember I went without a date and it was the worst evening of my life?”

Brendan did not remember. He had spent his life thinking solely of himself.

“Bren,” said Stephen, “I talked to the researcher. Not the same one you talked to. Calvin Vinesett has at least three researchers. The one who lied to Janie, the one you met, and the one out here. I agreed to meet the guy because he had a list of three possible Hannahs in Boulder.”

What was a possible Hannah? wondered Brendan.

“Kathleen stole the list,” said Stephen.

“She stole it? I like that in a person,” said Brendan. “Is she coming to the wedding too?”

“Don’t change the subject. The researcher insisted that the three names were just bait to get me to talk. ‘Bait’ is a strange word, Bren. I keep asking myself, what fish does Calvin Vinesett expect to catch?”

“A bestseller,” said Brendan.

“Yeah, but I’m wondering if somebody else is behind the whole project. One of us.”

“I’m wondering the same thing. Can’t be Janie. All she wants is to marry Reeve and live happily ever after. Can’t be Jodie. All she wants is to save the world. Can’t be you. All you want is to drill down inside the earth.”

“And it can’t be the Johnsons. Mr. Johnson can’t even steer a pencil and Mrs. Johnson would be the worst hurt in a story about the criminal her daughter became. But Brendan, could it be Brian? Brian’s a wonderful writer. He can’t even choose a major at college, he’s so eager to study everything and write about everything and learn everything. He’s your twin. You know him. You think Brian could have something to do with this?”

Now Brendan wanted to chain Stephen to the truck as well. The methods behind this book were slimy and underhanded. “Brian is a good person,” said Brendan stiffly. “Listen, I have to go.”

“Okay, but one last thought,” said Stephen. “Could it be Mom or Dad behind this? They want Hannah to get hers.”

Brendan remembered something Stephen had probably never known, because Stephen had not been back East in a few years. Brendan wouldn’t have known either, except her schedule had forced him to hang around waiting to be picked up after practice. Their mother had taken a creative writing class last year.

Brendan couldn’t say it out loud. “See you Friday at the airport,” he said to his brother. Then he checked Calvin Vinesett’s website.

Contact the author! read a little smile button. Brendan clicked. It gave an email address and a publisher’s street address. Brendan was not a great communicator. It made him tired to think of composing a message for email or paper. He clicked on Books and read some jacket copy. Under the author photo on one of the book jackets was a single line informing him that Calvin Vinesett lived in New York City and Deer Isle, Maine.

Brendan loved to time himself using the Web. Sixteen seconds to find Calvin Vinesett listed in the Manhattan white pages.

In the morning, all the girls were going wedding gown shopping.

Brendan had not known there was such a thing, but now that he did, he planned to be far away and safe. He told his mother he was going into the city for the day to meet friends.

But Brendan was not meeting anybody he expected to like.

He had phoned his own researcher, thinking maybe he could learn something about Michael/Mick, but the guy hadn’t even known there were other researchers. “I bought you three expensive dinners!” he yelled at Brendan. “And Calvin Vinesett won’t even pay me. He won’t even answer my emails!”

Nothing about this book made sense. Not the frightening chapter about Frank and Miranda. Not the stalking of Janie. Not the title. And certainly not refusing to answer emails from your own researcher.

Brendan yelled, “Jodie! You know how to reach Janie’s roommate?”

“Eve?”

This research stuff was a snap. He hadn’t known the girl’s name and Jodie gave it to him right off. “Yup. Eve. You got her phone number?”

“What do you want to call Eve for?” Jodie yelled back.

“Ideas for wedding gifts,” yelled Brendan, who had not previously considered the possibility of getting his sister a present.

“My cell phone’s on the kitchen table!” yelled Jodie. “She’s on my contact list.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Janie says she doesn’t use it. She’s just Eve.”

Okay, just Eve, thought Brendan. Let’s talk.

He used his own cell. “Is this Eve? This is Janie’s brother Brendan.”

“Oh, hi, Brendan! I can’t wait to meet you and everybody else and see Reeve. I’ve never even met Reeve! It’s such a kick! Janie says at the bridal mall she’s just going to pick up dresses for all the bridesmaids at one time, right off the rack, and the day of the wedding we just hope for the best! I know it will be the best. We’re all so excited!”

“Yeah, me too. Listen. I wanna corner that creep. The Michael guy.”

“Good idea. Just remember you can’t get in any trouble yourself because the wedding is too soon and you can’t be in jail or anything.”

“You mean I can’t chain him to the bumper of my truck and drag him through the city?”

“What he deserves,” agreed Eve. “No. You can only scold him from a distance.”

“Where’s he live?”

“East Village. Hang on. I’ll get the address. I always thought he was shifty. Want me to come along? I have a few things to say to him too.”

“No, but if you have a photo, send it to my cell so I can identify him.”

“Done,” said Eve.


New York City was an easy trip from New Jersey. Before it was light the next morning, Brendan took the earliest available commuter bus. Manhattan never failed to excite him. There just was no place on earth like it. Even at dawn, it was hopping. His heart leapt and he was grinning.

It was seven-thirty when he found Michael Hastings’s building on a slightly iffy block. Rents were high, according to the ads in real estate agents’ windows, but not killer high.

Eve didn’t think Michael was a college student. She thought he had a job somewhere and had lied about that, too. Jobs usually involved leaving your apartment in the morning. Brendan hoped that a man who lived in Manhattan also worked in Manhattan, and did not need to leave home before seven-thirty. A guess based on nothing, since Michael could work nights, or not at all, or be back home in Iowa or wherever he came from. Eve had forwarded the photograph Janie had sent to Sarah-Charlotte, and which Sarah-Charlotte sent on to Eve. It turned out that Sarah-Charlotte and Eve had had several Janie conferences over the last two years, which Brendan thought was a little iffy, girlfriend-wise, but then who understood girls?

Michael/Mick looked like the kind of guy they cast in movies as the thin thoughtful type. No muscle, no brawn, no guts. But sensitive.

Brendan despised that in a person.

One hour and eighteen minutes later, Michael/Mick walked out of his building.

Brendan fell into step. Brendan was gratifyingly taller and stronger. The guy moved away from him. Brendan sidestepped right along. The guy glared. Brendan glared back. “So I’m Janie Johnson’s brother,” he said. “You and I need to have a talk.”

Michael brushed his pretty dark hair off his pretty forehead. “I’m busy. I have to go to work.”

Brendan shouldered him against a building. “You’re going to be late.”

“You can’t stop me from going to work!”

“I’d love to stop you. Or we could get a cup of coffee and you can talk.” The roughness in Brendan’s voice was no act. His smile began to shiver and he could feel himself losing control. He reminded himself of Eve’s warning.

“Fine,” said Michael nervously. “Whatever.” New York was packed with diners and coffee shops. Michael darted into one. He perched on the outer edge of a booth and Brendan sat opposite him.

Brendan ordered bacon, three eggs over easy, rye toast, and potatoes.

Michael ordered coffee. He added sweetener. His hand shook.

“You stalked my sister,” said Brendan. He had not expected to feel such anger that somebody had hurt his sister. Especially this sister. “Start with your reasons. How did you hook up with Calvin Vinesett? Did Calvin Vinesett tell you to stalk my sister?”

“Look,” said Michael. “Calvin Vinesett just told me that Jane never gave interviews and I had to think of some other way to get information.”

Never, not once, had Brendan heard anybody call his sister Jane. It was creepy, as if they were talking about somebody else. “He told you this by phone?” asked Brendan.

New York diners had the fastest service in the world. The waitress put his plate in front of him. Brendan dug in.

“We’ve never talked,” said Michael. “Just emailed. He’s reclusive.”

“The guy lives right here. How come you didn’t just get together?”

“He’s got a lot of health problems and doesn’t get out much and that’s why he hires researchers. He doesn’t want that known because his readers expect him to be on site.”

Brendan had leafed through, but not read, one of Calvin Vinesett’s bestsellers. The guy used the first person a lot (“I met her a total of seventeen times at the jail”). That was all lies too? “I need to know about every email Calvin Vinesett sent you and every email you sent him.”

“That’s private.”

Brendan saved the part about the truck and the chains for later. He leaned across the table, pointing with the tines of his fork. “My family plans to charge you with criminal actions. Stalking, to be precise. If you can prove you were an employee doing a paid job, that might help you.” This was nonsense and he hoped Michael was too nervous to notice.

“Nothing I did was criminal!” protested Michael. “It was just fun. We had a good time. Jane can’t pretend she didn’t have a good time. I’m the one who’s hurt. She was two-timing me! She decided to marry somebody else one weekend after we broke up!”

“How do you know that?”

“Facebook, how do you think?”

“Who on Facebook?” demanded Brendan.

Michael grinned in a snarky way. “Eve posts everything and I still have access to her.”

Brendan texted Eve to unfriend Michael Hastings. “What did Calvin Vinesett think of the information you sent?”

“I didn’t have much to give. Jane wouldn’t talk about her past. But he was very interested that the money Jane inherited from her grandmother was paying for college. He wanted to know the details.”

“You and I are going back to your apartment,” said Brendan. “You’re going to print it all out for me.” He took money out of his wallet. He ate three huge mouthfuls and then wrapped the last piece of toast around the last strips of bacon to take along.

“I don’t have time for that,” said Michael.

“Michael, you’re obviously very proud of your nice little suit and your smooth skin and your cute hair. You won’t be when I’m done.”

“I’ll call the police!”

“Go for it. How do you think they’ll react to your stalking?”

“You can’t prove anything.”

“I’m also going to call your employer and explain why you’re late. Because you’ve been arrested for stalking.”

“You can’t do that! Anyway, you don’t know where I work.”

Brendan was on a roll. “You think you’re the only person who can follow somebody, Michael?”

“All right, all right. There isn’t anything worth looking at. I didn’t find out anything. He only paid me once. He said nothing else was worth payment. I spent six weeks on your sister for nothing!”


“I’m just flying down for the day, Reeve,” his father had said. “The flight from here to Charlotte is only an hour and a half. I’ll rent a car at the airport and drive to your office. You and I will have lunch, that’s all. I won’t interfere with your workday. No tours of Charlotte. Just lunch.”

“But Dad—”

“My flight lands at ten-thirty-one. I’ll get a taxi and I’m guessing I’ll be at ESPNU around eleven-thirty.”

Reeve was crazy about his father. He wanted to be just like his father, except different. But he knew why his father was coming down with such urgency. Dad wanted Reeve to be strong and loyal and steady and kind and generous, just like Dad himself—and a bachelor.

Dad was coming to talk Reeve out of it. He might even be coming with a bribe.

Reeve dreaded this.

On the phone, it was easy to be flippant with Lizzie or sweet but stern with his mother. In person, facing his father, he was going to have trouble.

He did not want a confrontation, especially over Janie, whose company he wanted so much. The wedding was for her. Living together was for him. He pictured driving home after work, running up the stairs to his second-floor apartment. Opening the door. And Janie would be standing there, smiling at him.

What could be more wonderful than somebody glad to see you?

He told everybody in the office that his dad was coming for lunch, and everybody wanted to meet him and had restaurant suggestions. His dad was a handsome, fit former athlete, and when he arrived, it went perfectly, because he was a people person and knew his sports and said all the right things. Reeve was proud of his father, and of his colleagues, and then they got in Reeve’s car and Reeve looked straight ahead, careful to have no eye contact.

He drove to the restaurant he’d chosen and parked in the shade, so the car wouldn’t be so stifling when they came out. He didn’t think he could eat, which would be a new experience. His dad touched his shoulder. “Let’s just sit here and talk before we go in, son.”

Reeve nodded. He didn’t want to let his father down. But Janie came first.

“I’m here on assignment,” said his father quietly.

Reeve stared through the windshield at fat green mounds of tropical grasses.

“I didn’t accept the assignment,” said his dad.

Reeve risked a glance. His father looked very emotional. Reeve couldn’t tell what the emotion was.

Dad handed him a check. “This is what we spent on Lizzie’s wedding, and it’s what we gave Todd when he got married, and it’s what we will give Megan when she gets married.”

Reeve stared at the check. “You spent that much money on Lizzie’s wedding?”

“Yup. Tough old attorney Liz wanted the splashiest, most expensive wedding on earth.”

“I guess so! Dad, I know Mom wants you to bribe me out of marrying Janie, and this is more money than I could ever save up. But—”

“It’s not a bribe to stop you, Reeve. It’s a boost to start you. I’ve always been impressed by Janie, but now I’m really impressed. She’s not getting married to have a wedding gown and a reception. She’s getting married to have you. My son. No, this is a precelebration check. For you to spend as you choose.”

Reeve mentally divided it up. I can buy Janie a ring! She can pick out furniture. I can pay off my car! And even take a honeymoon. Well, if we ever find a weekend I’m not working. “Dad,” he said.

“Yeah, don’t get mushy on me. I hope this is the kind of place that serves bacon burgers and onion rings. Your mother doesn’t let me have grease or salt. I’m counting on you to give me a one-meal vacation from the rules.”


Janie had taken the train up to Connecticut and spent the night, sleeping on the foldout sofa at the Harbor. Miranda did not want to come wedding gown shopping. Her excuse was, she couldn’t leave Frank for so much time. “Mom, the whole point of assisted living is that they assist. The Harbor is packed with aides who will make sure Frank is fine.”

“I don’t feel up to it, honey.”

“Oh, Mom, I know it’s hard to share being mother of the bride, but you are the mother of the bride, and the bride wants you to have some of the fun! This will be fun. You need fun! How much fun are you having here at the Harbor?”

Miranda ended up laughing.

But the next day, Janie had to deal with Reeve’s mother. Mrs. Shields picked up Janie and Miranda early in the morning and the three of them set out for New Jersey. Mrs. Shields had had two weddings in her family—Lizzie’s earthshaking production and Todd’s wedding out West, in which Mrs. Shields’s only participation had been to show up. Happily, her fourth child, Megan, was also making wedding noises. And none too soon, Mrs. Shields felt, since Megan was well into her thirties. Megan, of course, had allotted a year for planning.

Mrs. Shields listed ways in which Janie and Reeve might rethink their own plans.

“What about your college degree?” cried Mrs. Shields. “What about money?”

“I think we can be proud of how mature and sensible our children are,” said Miranda. “Reeve and Janie will make a fine couple and if they struggle financially, didn’t we all, when we were young? As for college, Janie has promised that she will transfer to a college in Charlotte. There seem to be several in the area.”

“But if Janie doesn’t work,” cried Mrs. Shields, “how will they live? Reeve hardly earns a thing!”

“That’s their problem, though,” said Miranda. “Our problem is to decide what we wear to the wedding.”

“And Charlotte!” said Mrs. Shields in tones of disgust. “Who even knew there was a town called Charlotte? When Reeve settles down, I’m sure it will be near home.”

Janie began to see why Reeve liked Charlotte as much as he did. It was definitely a test of her own maturity to drive with her future mother-in-law.

They crossed the George Washington Bridge. Janie texted her sister. Long drive.

Traffic? Jodie wrote back.

No, texted Janie. The company.

Kathleen had called her a “kidnapette,” which sounded like a variety of cheerleader.

The kidnapette grows up, thought Janie, and she giggled to herself.


Jodie could not comprehend the choices Janie made.

Janie actually wanted two mothers, one future mother-in-law, and a sister to go with her to the bridal mall to choose her wedding gown

When it was time for Jodie to choose a gown, she’d go alone. Nobody was horning in on her decisions.

The Shields and Johnson families had lived next door to each other for years, and whenever Jodie visited the Johnsons, Reeve came over. But Jodie had never met Mrs. Shields.

Three more exits, Janie texted. I’m going crazy.

Just wait till you’re in some shiny little dressing room where four women want you to pick a different gown. See how sane you’ll be at the end of that, thought Jodie.

Miranda Johnson had been a wonderful hostess whenever the Spring kids visited. It was the most awkward possible situation, and yet it hadn’t been awkward. Mr. Johnson had been a doll. Whenever Jodie caught herself having a great time up there, she used to pout a little and stomp off.

Her brother Brian never exhibited the ambivalence that swept Jodie whenever she was at the Johnsons’. He just enjoyed himself. Brendan had only gone once or twice, having zero interest in missing sisters. Stephen went, but always remained careful and contained.

Inside a family of seven, thought Jodie, are seven completely different lives. You would expect more overlap.

“Are you ready?” yelled her mother, who had been pacing all morning.

“I’m ready!” Jodie yelled back.

They drove to the bridal mall.

Jodie had never been in such a place. An amazing number of wedding gowns were packed in, row after row, aisle after aisle. One side of the immense display room had bridesmaids’ gowns in a remarkable variety of colors, styles, and necklines.

Jodie had just come from a place where there were no choices. If there were stores in Haiti packed full, Jodie had not found them. If there were closets jammed with stuff, Jodie had not seen them. She had been embarrassed by the excess in her two suitcases.

She walked slowly along the rainbow of bridesmaid dresses. Salmon pink, lime green, turquoise, neon yellow. Good colors for beach towels. But a wedding?

Janie sent her a final text. They were in the parking lot.

Three women came through big glass doors and onto the soft pale carpeting. The stout, heavily made-up woman wearing a flower-splashed sweater had to be Reeve’s mother. But who was the small, bent, frail creature on Janie’s arm? Was there some great-great-grandmother Jodie hadn’t even heard of?

No.

That old person was elegant Miranda Johnson.

Life could do this to a person’s body?

What, then, could life do to a soul?

• • •

The onion rings were perfect. The Shields men were into their second pile of napkins and feeling good. Since none of their women were around, they exchanged pleasing belches.

“Dad?” said Reeve. “Instead of showing you around before you catch your plane home, can you go shopping with me?”

“You know how to shop?”

“No, and I plan on Janie doing all shopping necessary for our entire lives. But one thing I have to buy on my own. Rings. Which I can afford now, thanks to you. But how do I know what to get? I drive past a jewelry store on the way to work. I would never go in without an escort. Help me pick out an engagement ring and a wedding ring.”

“What do I know? Wait till you get to New Jersey, take Janie to a jewelry store there, and she’ll pick them out.”

“No, she’s into romance. She’ll want me to kneel down and surprise her and all.”

“Okay, I’ll come. Might as well spread the blame for the wrong choice in rings.”


Kathleen could not believe it. “You don’t want to bother with the third Hannah? You’re giving up? That’s like climbing a mountain and stopping below the peak.”

“Okay, okay,” said Stephen.

They got on their bikes.

The third possible was tougher to locate. They couldn’t find the house number. They finally discovered a tiny alley where one house opened sideways, so its address was for a road it didn’t face.

It was a funny little place, shadowed and ugly. A porch without a rail tilted ominously. You couldn’t put a chair there; you’d slide off. But trash—you could put that on the porch just fine.

Stephen wove through the trash bags and then had to talk through the door because the woman wouldn’t open it.

Kathleen didn’t think anybody around here ought to open a door to strangers. Didn’t mean the occupant was Hannah and worried about the police.

“We’re looking for somebody,” Stephen called. “She might be you. Can I show you a photograph?”

“No,” said the woman.

The crack under the front door was large enough to admit major insects. Stephen slid his little wallet picture of Hannah under the door.

Well, that was stupid, thought Kathleen. If she is Hannah, Stephen just screwed up. She’ll never answer the door, and furthermore, she’ll leave town the split second we walk away.

But they heard the sound of locks being undone and a chain being loosened, and there stood a woman, grinning. She was not Caucasian.

If Stephen and Kathleen needed proof that all the research had been done via computer, here it was.

“Siddown,” said the woman. “I’m bored. Sicka TV. Tell me what’s up.”

They sat on the sagging top step, their backs to the row of bulging plastic bags. Kathleen, who always wore her backpack, took out energy bars to share while Stephen gave the woman the short version of his little sister’s kidnapping.

“Funny thing,” said the woman. “I remember that milk carton story. It was—what? Five, six years ago? The girl recognized her own picture? They don’t do that anymore—put pictures of missing kids on milk cartons. I’m not sure kids still drink milk. They’re all about juice boxes these days.”

They nibbled their energy bars.

“Now what you gonna do?” asked the woman.

Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know. But thanks for your time.” He stood up, ready to leave. Kathleen tucked the energy bar wrappers in her pack. Stephen, assuming she was at his heels, rode off.

Kathleen was confused and defeated. What was going on, anyway? No researcher would make up three possible Hannahs on the off chance that it would get a fourth person to talk. Especially when the fourth person—Stephen—didn’t know anything. None of the Springs knew anything.

Kathleen sat there, too tired out by useless thinking to move.

“Tell me,” said the woman to Kathleen. “After all these years, why do you care?”

“I guess we feel as if the kidnapper is still out there,” said Kathleen finally. “As if she’d love to do even more.”

“I got a clue for you, honey. A kidnapper wouldn’t do nothing for love. She’d only do something for hate.”





THE ELEVENTH PIECE OF THE KIDNAPPER’S PUZZLE




For the first time in years, the woman formerly known as Hannah had energy.

She lost weight from all the excitement. At the drugstore, she bought hair dye and a pair of glasses. The sparkling blue frames matched her eyes and now her hair had a beautiful sheen.

She even took a class, using her Jill Williams persona.

It was one of those free evening classes and she didn’t expect much; this was just to get her started. But the teacher loved handouts. Each week there was a new list of links and blogs and websites. In class, she kept a low profile, although it was difficult, because a person named Jill Williams felt loud and assertive.

Excitement kept her going during the long hours of scrubbing dishes or toilets. The plan was complex, but brilliant. This year was not going to be so awful after all. This was the year she would whip these people.

There was a difficulty. Much could be done without money, but in the end, Hannah needed plenty of it. Ideas for getting big money came to her, because she was very bright, and could always think of things. But every plan had to be adjusted to the threat of police. It was maddening. But she would solve it. Then she would fix that Jennie/Janie for good. And Frank, too. He’d be sorry he stopped giving her money.

At the coffee shop, she wore all her layers of clothing so they would not notice how slim and shapely she had become. She worked weekends, which were brutal. At top speed, she had to load and unload the dishwasher, scrub the pots, and hang the stupid mugs back up in the right direction.

By chance, she heard that a really nice hotel was short on help. The jobs she usually held, showing up was good enough. But at this hotel, she had to schedule an interview! She made a good impression with her beautiful hair and sparkly glasses. They hired her.

She learned how to fold a hand towel into a rose and tuck little bottles of shampoo into it. But it was no easier to work in a ritzy hotel than a slummy one. Monday through Friday she worked at the hotel. She had sixteen rooms to do and it took about thirty minutes to clean a room. And people checked! The housekeeper actually went into each room after Hannah was done and checked! Every single day, Hannah had to go back and redo something. She added that woman’s name to her list of people she was going to get someday.

It was more than sixteen years after the day in New Jersey when Hannah Javensen knocked, waited, knocked again, and entered a hotel room.

The guy was a pig.

He’d used most of the towels. His junk was all over the bathroom counter. The bed covers were on the floor, along with the decorative pillows. He’d been eating crackers, and the empty box lay on the carpet, while cracker crumbs littered the sheets, the carpet, and a chair.

Guys were more likely to tip than women, but messy guys didn’t tip. Only neat ones. She wouldn’t even get a dollar here.

A box of disposable plastic gloves was fastened to her cart, supplied because the maids had to clean the toilet. But Hannah wore them for another reason. Fingerprints.

As always, before she started cleaning, she checked the room safe to see if they’d put anything in it and forgotten to close the little door, but they hadn’t. She felt inside the open suitcases and under the clothing tossed into the top dresser drawer. Nothing. As she stripped the bed, she lifted the mattress. Nothing.

She fingered the pockets of hanging clothes. The guy might be a slob but he wore a nice suit.

Hundreds of times, Hannah had searched and found nothing. Today made it all worthwhile. The inside pockets of the man’s suit had little sheaves of hundred-dollar bills.

Nobody used cash anymore. They used their debit cards and their credit cards.

When she took this, he couldn’t report it, because only criminals carried this kind of cash.

It was meant.

She was destined to be here, on this day, in this room.

Hannah had never chatted with the rest of housekeeping, because they were Hispanic. They couldn’t talk to her and she couldn’t talk to them. She bet they wouldn’t recognize her out of uniform either, but it didn’t matter. This hotel guest couldn’t report the theft and when she never came back, nobody would look for Jill Williams. The hotel was used to unreliable help. In fact, the head housekeeper, who didn’t trust her, would be happy that Jill Williams was gone. And since she wasn’t Jill Williams, they couldn’t find her if they did look.

Under her uniform, Hannah was wearing her street clothes. In the stairwell, she slid out of the uniform, folded it into a neat bundle, went out a side door, and walked away.

She loved walking away from things.

It was such a good feeling to evaporate. And this time, the woman who evaporated had money. And they could never catch her, because she was smart and they were stupid.

At home, she concentrated on the plan.

The Internet was wonderful. Every day she had another brilliant idea. She felt like the leader of that group, so many years ago. She was in charge, and people looked up to her and aligned their hopes with hers.

The project was so absorbing that she did not keep up with Facebook the way she used to. Adair’s little posts were juvenile and silly. All those high school children, now college children, could waste their lives with pointless chitter-chatter, but Hannah had work to do.

She frequently skipped sleep. She worked around the clock.

It was May when she checked back in to Facebook to see what the Jennie/Janie and all her fake friends were doing. Whatever it was, they’d be bragging. That’s what Facebook was for them: brag space.

But they weren’t bragging.

They were watching a video.

Hannah was as stunned as Adair and all 476 of her friends.

The Jennie/Janie and the boy next door, cute Reeve from ESPN, were kissing, laughing, hugging, and saying yes in an airport.

Where Hannah could never even go because of security checks. Which was all that Jennie/Janie’s fault to begin with!

The crowd was sighing and whistling and smiling. Even the security guard smiled.

What was the matter with the universe?

Janie did not deserve all that love. She was already getting Hannah’s share!

And then Hannah remembered her project.

Her laughter began low and quiet then rose in pitch and flickered all over the room, like blood splatter.