Responses raced across her mind and remained unuttered. She thought a lot of things, actually. Like how Heather was a bitch and the only person Janie knew whom she actively disliked. That she realized when she was being baited and would never give the girl the satisfaction of a reaction.
Because even the mention of the Ten Mile Killer made Janie want to scream in ineffectual rage.
But, of course, she said none of these. “I think they’re wrong,” she responded flatly. Doris, the manager, hurried over from the other register, protective as always.
“That’s enough nonsense,” she said loudly. Pitching her voice lower, she murmured, “I’ve got the rest of this. You can go on back.”
Janie turned blindly, Heather’s voice following her as she headed toward the kitchen. “What? She’s bound to hear about it. It’s on the local channel. Some people are saying it’s just like Janie’s . . .”
She walked straight through the kitchen to the hook by the back door where she’d left her things. She grabbed her purse before heading out the door, already digging into it for something to calm the nerves that were suddenly raw and quivering.
With not-quite-steady hands, she found the package of cigarettes and shook one out. It took three attempts to light it. She drew deeply on the cigarette and let the smoke fill her lungs.
But it did nothing to calm the riot in her blood. A girl was missing. And this time from nearby. It would start again. The instant hysteria. The inevitable comparisons. Janie’s family history would be rehashed over coffee cups and dinner tables. Because her sister’s kidnapping seven years ago had been the most sensational thing that had happened in West Bend, Ohio, since its last lynching, more than a century ago.
She’d been ten when Kelsey had disappeared. Vanished into thin air. The news stories had been titled with clickbait clichés. Without a trace. There’d been a media firestorm. It’d seemed as though each time the TV had been switched on, there was a story about the Kelsey Willard kidnapping.
Janie leaned her head against the siding of the building and blew out a thin stream of smoke. It was unseasonably cool, but she felt like a furnace had torched beneath her skin. A vise of dread tightened in her chest as the memories rushed in. Her house had been full of people for weeks after it happened. The local cops and then more from the state. Pastors, neighbors, relatives, friends . . . it seemed like everyone they’d ever known was in and out of their home at some point. As a kid, her social anxiety had manifested as selective mutism, and the crowds filling their home were almost as terrifying as the disappearance of her sister. When she hadn’t been able to escape to her room, she’d learned how to fade into the woodwork. But that didn’t mean she didn’t see—and hear—what was going on.
She inhaled again, then considered the cigarette in her hand. At the time, her mom had said tragedy brought out the best in people, but Janie wasn’t so sure. People had said the right things, but she’d sensed a furtive look of excitement in their eyes layered under the sympathy. As if they were thrilled and even a little bit scared to be on the fringe of the most horrible thing that could happen to a family. Like adrenaline-seeking kids sneaking up to the town’s haunted house on a dare, slapping a hand on its siding, and then racing back to safety just for the bragging rights. We were this close!
A car door slammed, and her spine shot with tension. But Matt Thorson—another employee several years older than Janie—just hurried through the parking lot toward the back door. He passed within a foot of her but never even glanced at her as he entered the building.
She relaxed again as the screen door slammed behind him. It was inevitable, she supposed, taking another puff, for any missing female in the state under nineteen to elicit the media hysteria that always led back to the Willards’ door. And probably to the killer’s previous victims’ families, too, now that she thought about it. Worse still were the times when unidentified female human remains were discovered. The inevitable calls about testing the remains and comparing the results to Kelsey’s DNA always had her mother in bed for days. The aftermath of Kelsey’s kidnapping was a carousel of horrors they could never escape.
She sank along the chilly siding to sit on the frigid cement sidewalk. A better person would be concerned about the unknown girl from Saxon Falls. And maybe Janie would have been if she hadn’t experienced this so many times. The idiot would show up eventually, after running away, joyriding with a friend, or shacking up with a boyfriend. They always did. But not before reporters started dredging up the past, leaving her mom an emotional basket case and her dad just a little more detached than before.
It’d be easy to hate journalists for that alone. She brought the cigarette to her lips again. They’d been all too quick to forget the Willards when leads on Kelsey’s case started drying up. When the police came by less and less frequently. That was about the time her mom and dad’s friends—the ones who hadn’t started avoiding them altogether—started wearing this totally fake cheerful expression when they talked about anything and everything other than Janie’s sister. Finally, the cops just stopped returning phone calls. More than a year went by, and still no Kelsey. Even at eleven, Janie had realized what that meant. Kelsey wasn’t coming back, no matter what her parents said. Her life was divided into a Before and After, two chapters in the same book. First, she had a sister. Then she didn’t.
She ground her cigarette out on the cement next to her. Then lit another. You can’t consider the meds a crutch and not realize cigarettes are serving the same purpose. Dr. Drake’s words echoed in her brain. Sometimes what he said made sense, whether she wanted to hear it or not. But some things he just didn’t have a clue about. Like how she was always going to be defined by Kelsey’s disappearance.
And how that could ruin her memories of her sister if she let it.
A mental image floated across her mind. She and Kelsey when they were kids, arms out to their sides, twirling in endless circles across the yard, pretending to be butterflies. Fly high, Janie! Fly high. Their mom had even bought them matching butterfly necklaces for Christmas that year. She smiled a little at the memory. Abruptly sobered when she recalled that Kelsey had been wearing hers when she vanished.