He heaved a heavy sigh, then pushed his door open.
They walked toward the band shell, the lights along the path casting their shadows ahead of them. The place did look deserted, locked up and shut down for winter. In just a couple of months, the flowers would be starting to bloom, the world returning to life again. Would everyone have forgotten about Celia by then? Would they possibly know some kind of answers by that point?
Jenna was glad Jared had stepped out of the car with her and walked along the path by her side. It seemed crazy to be in the same park where her friend was kidnapped, but the kidnapper was likely hundreds of miles away. It was a big world, one so big she wondered how anyone—living or dead—ever got found when they disappeared. So many places to run to or hide in. So many places to be discarded or buried. Hidden away forever . . .
Jenna stopped. A pang of nostalgia jabbed her in the heart. As a teenager, she’d come here, sometimes with a group of friends that included Celia and sometimes not. On more than one occasion, she’d spent a hot summer night making out with a guy from school in a deep recess of the band shell, their bodies wedged against a stack of chairs or sprawled over a collection of discarded cushions. In the darkness, she could have gone back in time, back to a place she once knew. Only Jared’s presence and the heavy weight of Celia’s loss reminded her she was well and truly an adult.
You can’t go back again. You can’t undo what’s been done.
“We can leave now, right?” Jared asked.
Jenna looked around some more. “Is this the only place?”
“I guess so. I don’t get invited—”
“This is the place,” a voice said.
Jenna spun to her right, toward the sound of the voice. A figure emerged from the side of the band shell, one that looked so familiar to Jenna that her heart stopped for a moment. She really felt as if she’d gone back in time because Ursula looked more like Celia than ever. Same posture, same height. Younger than Celia was on the day she disappeared, but compared to Celia at age fifteen, almost identical.
“What are you two doing here?” Ursula asked.
She didn’t approach them, but stood with her arms folded across her chest. She looked cold or uncertain. Or both.
Jenna walked toward her. “We were looking for you.”
“Why?”
As Jenna came closer she saw a hard cast to Ursula’s features, something that had developed during her teenage years. She’d always been strong-willed, always tough, but becoming a teenager seemed to have added an extra shell to her that repelled any and all attempts to break through.
Maybe Jared had been right. Maybe Ursula was just a bitch.
Or . . . Jenna thought of what she’d learned from Ian. Celia’s first affair had happened three years earlier, just as Ursula was entering adolescence. It was hard enough being a kid without having the added stress of your parents’ marital problems. Ian hadn’t said if Ursula knew, but even if she didn’t, she might have picked up on the negative vibes in the house. That would be enough to make anybody mad at the world.
“Do you just hang out here alone?” Jenna asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Is it safe?”
“I’m not spooked by what happened to Mom, if that’s what you mean.”
“Not just that,” Jenna said. “I wouldn’t think a young girl would hang out in any park alone when it’s dark out.”
“I usually have Bobby or other friends with me.” She looked around, flipping her hair off her shoulders. Her voice lost some of its edge when she said, “It is good to see you, Jenna. I always think of calling you, but I never do.”
“I should call you more. I’ve been derelict.”
“It’s okay,” Ursula said. “We’re all kind of living in a swirl. It’s like one of those snow globes you have at Christmas. Except this is real, and it’s been shaken up and a bunch of bad stuff keeps blowing past our faces.”
“Yeah,” Jenna said, struck by the appropriateness of the metaphor. “I still should have reached out to you. Just to talk if nothing else.”
“I know you’ve been talking to Dad more. That’s nice.”
Jenna couldn’t read the girl’s tone. She thought she detected a slight, judgmental edge, but she decided to give Ursula the benefit of the doubt.
“How’s Bobby doing?” Jenna asked. “He lost his father.”
Ursula moved her upper body. It might have been a shrug, but Jenna again wasn’t sure how to read it. “The viewing is tonight. They’re laying him out over at Marcum and Sons.”
“Oh. Tonight? Are you going later?”
“Bobby and I had a huge fight over something, something that belongs to me. I don’t think I’m going.”
“Maybe we should go home, Mom,” Jared said.
“Wait a minute,” Jenna said. “Jared told me that Bobby’s dad worked with this William Rose guy. That’s the connection between the two of them. But what kind of work did he do for Bobby’s dad? How did that lead to his dad being dead in that house?”