“The site is probably blocked on the school computer.” Janie got up and typed the URL that Cole had sent her into a search engine on her personal laptop. It was old, since the school had issued each student a laptop when she was in ninth grade and her dad had said they wouldn’t be updating her computer until she was heading off to college. Which couldn’t be soon enough. As she carried the computer back toward her friend, she made a mental note to check the mail to see if she’d heard from Stanford yet. She’d taken the SATs for the final time in August, and the colleges she’d targeted would have her test scores by now.
“Wow.” The screen successfully diverted her attention from thoughts of college admissions. The address Bogart had given her didn’t direct her to the entrance of a site. Rather, once she clicked on it, she was deep into a page with hundreds—no, make that thousands—of thumbnail photos. All of scantily clad or completely nude teenage girls.
“Holy shit.” Alyvia was momentarily taken aback. “Cole said he got Heather’s picture off this? What is this?”
Without clicking on any of the thumbnails, Janie scrolled slowly to the bottom, where she saw there were more than two hundred pages. “I don’t know.” There was a greasy tangle of nausea in her stomach. Again, she was struck by a nagging sense of familiarity.
Alyvia rose. “That is creepy as fuck. But I gotta go. I’ll text you from Bumfuck, Indiana, or wherever the hell the FPs are dragging me to.” Alyvia zipped up her coat and strode to the door. “Call me later. Especially if you find Heather’s picture on there. Maybe there are more. You think the cops know about that site?”
All too glad to set the computer aside, Janie walked her friend downstairs to the front door. “If they don’t, they should.” Because it was creepy. Perverted and demeaning and . . . a chill worked down her spine at the thought of looking more closely at it and seeing someone she recognized on the site.
Someone much closer to her than Heather Miller.
Claire Willard
November 6
6:30 p.m.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Working late.”
“He worked last weekend.”
Claire set the last dish on the table with deliberate care and pulled out a chair. Sank into it carefully. Was it Friday? Of course it was. She’d forgotten that when David had called earlier. The mind fog was so thick today, like sticky strands of gossamer that she couldn’t seem to quite brush away. It hadn’t been until Janie and her friend had bounced into the house that she’d even considered the time. David’s call minutes later had been met with relief; she wouldn’t have to come up with an excuse for the late dinner preparations. Because even she couldn’t explain where the day had gone.
She sent her daughter an overly bright smile. “Something came up. He’ll be home later, but it’s just the two of us for dinner. What are your plans for the long weekend?” Parent-teacher conferences were Monday. She wondered if David remembered. On the heels of that thought came another, and she searched her daughter’s expression carefully. There had been a time when just an upcoming weekend would have sparked a burst of anxiety from her daughter. The thought of all those hours to fill would have had her making note after copious note, each more heartbreaking than the next.
Watch two hours of TV.
Homework four hours.
Read one hundred pages in library book.
Talk to Alyvia . . . two hours total.
Send two e-mails.
To the unknowing, the lists would look like plans. Things to check off during a busy weekend before the days got away from her. But Claire knew they’d served to stave off her daughter’s anxiety about all that empty time to fill. Claire didn’t recall running across one of those notes for at least a year. Maybe it was better these days.
Or maybe Janie was just getting more adept at hiding it. Like she was with the cigarettes that she must smoke in her car, the faint stench of which clung to her clothes. Whatever her daughter’s plans for the weekend, Claire could be fairly certain that they wouldn’t include leaving the house. Janie didn’t have a social group. She had a longtime friendship with Alyvia that Claire had never pretended to understand. Their relationship had troubled her for years, until she realized that Janie wasn’t interested in making other friends. Now she accepted Alyvia gratefully, one constant in her daughter’s otherwise turbulent life.
Janie picked up the bowl of rice and helped herself to a heaping serving that she then topped off with the sweet-and-sour pork that Claire had prepared. David despised the dish, but with any luck the roast she’d thrown in the oven after he’d called would be ready when he did come home later that evening.
“Nothing special.” It took Claire a moment to realize that Janie was responding to her question. “I have to work Sunday, and Alyvia’s gone until then. I’ve got a test to study for tonight, and sometime tomorrow I need to watch a documentary on civil liberties for my government paper.”
“Maybe we can go to a movie tomorrow night.” The suggestion was impulsive, and from Janie’s expression, Claire had managed to surprise her daughter. “After all, in a few short months, you’ll be off to college.” Not in California, if Claire had anything to say about it, but in nearby Columbus. Even so, the thought brought a flicker of nerves. Today’s fuzziness aside, she was all too aware that Janie’s presence in the house brought a much-needed focus to Claire’s days. Worries about how her daughter would fare in a different city, on a campus of tens of thousands, were outweighed by the prospect of the yawning emptiness that stretched before Claire with her gone.
“Okay. Sure.”
“I’ll look up what’s showing. You can pick. But nothing too scary.”
A rare smile from her daughter. “As long as it doesn’t have subtitles, I’m good.”
Claire took a small serving of everything and took a bite. Swallowed. “You seem to have survived after-school suspension relatively unscathed.”
A shrug. “It was lame. Humphries is worthless. I couldn’t get anything done because the other guys there were screwing around. So it was a waste of time.”
“Well,” Claire injected a note of false cheer into her voice, “at least it’s over. And that Miller girl got the same consequence, which makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing.”
Janie set her fork on the edge of her plate. And something in her level gaze had Claire’s stomach jittering. “I’ve been wondering . . . remember that envelope I found after Kelsey went missing? Whatever happened to it?”
The words reverberated in her ears, echoing like a Chinese gong. Everything inside Claire went to ice. “Envelope?” she managed, and scooped a tiny bit of rice onto her fork. Guided it to her lips. “I really don’t recall.”
“You don’t recall? I gave it to you, remember? I found it under my mattress two days after she was gone. There was a thousand dollars inside. And pictures. Those pictures of Kelsey.”
Not now, not now, after all this time, not now! “Oh, that envelope,” she tried lamely. “There was some cash . . . it certainly wasn’t a thousand dollars. You were a child. I’m sure it seemed like a lot . . .”
“I thought you didn’t remember? And it was a thousand dollars. I was ten. Old enough to count money.”
That tone, the direct stare were so like David’s that they took Claire’s breath away. At least they would have, if her lungs weren’t already gasping.
“I . . .” She cursed her mental fuzziness. “It was so long ago . . .”