Ian closed the door, but before he did, he stuck his head out, looking first one way and then the other. She didn’t know if he was checking for nosy neighbors or media, and she didn’t ask.
He led her out to the kitchen. Jenna expected Celia to appear at any time. Up until a few years ago, it was always that way. Jenna would arrive at the house—late as usual—and she’d walk out to the kitchen, where she’d find Celia languidly enjoying a glass of wine or a gin and tonic. Maybe she’d be sitting with a much younger Ursula working on homework, or maybe she’d have a magazine or her cell phone in front of her, and when Jenna would walk in she’d look up, her face breaking into a smile.
“At long last,” she always said.
Jenna shivered at the memory, felt the icy hand of regret and grief grabbing her around the back of the neck.
Ian walked over to the refrigerator. “Wine?” he asked. “Or a beer?”
“Nothing. Is Ursula home?”
“She’s out. I told you. It’s Friday night. What teenager wants to be home? We never were.”
He was right. They played and partied hard, and they didn’t have computers and video games and streaming movies to keep them occupied. If they wanted something they had to go out and get it. Good or ill.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Ian asked. He pulled out two beer bottles. “I get the feeling this is going to be an unfriendly conversation. Maybe beer would help?”
Jenna nodded. She still felt cold and so kept her coat on. She slipped into a seat at the kitchen table, remembering the hundreds of nights she and Celia had sat there, talking and eating and drinking and talking some more. She never thought about any one of them being the last, even as their lives slowly changed the more Celia became involved with her country club life. She knew someday one of them would die, knew there’d be an end of some kind, but pushed it away, further and further out into the future. She wished they’d been closer in those final few years, wished she’d taken an emotional snapshot of every moment.
Ian placed the beers on the table, the caps off. He slid one over to Jenna, the bottom of the bottle leaving a condensation trail on the tabletop.
“So? You said something about the TV tonight and Ursula. You know, I told you not to trust Reena. She’s a snake.”
“Yeah. But that’s not really my problem right now. Why did Ursula go to her and tell her—” She stopped. “Shit, you don’t even know. Nobody knows.”
“Know what?”
She told him why she’d been late the night Celia disappeared. The discussion with Jared that kept her from getting out the door on time. Ian listened, his lips slightly parted.
“So you lied to the cops back then?” he asked.
“I didn’t tell them the whole truth. I think there’s a difference.”
He leaned back, sighing a little. “I understand if you didn’t want to involve Jared in all this,” he said. “I told you that before. I’d defend anyone who wanted to do that.”
“Listen to me. Nobody knew Jared made me late. Just Jared and me. And he told Ursula and a couple of her friends the other night. Now Reena Huffman knows about it, and she broadcast that news on TV tonight. The whole friggin’ world knows now. So either Ursula or one of her friends told Reena.”
He was slowly shaking his head, the corners of his mouth turned down. “I don’t think Ursula would do that.”
“She went to Jared and encouraged him to go on TV tonight. She practically begged him to do it when I wouldn’t let him. What’s her interest in all this?”
Ian pushed away from the table and stood up. He carried the beer with him as he walked to the sink, his back to Jenna. He stopped, staring at something on the wall Jenna couldn’t see, and then he turned around.
“I know how Ursula is,” he said. “I know what she can be like.”
“She’s been through a lot, Ian. I can tell.”
He held up his hand. “Maybe if I’d been around more, I could have taken some of her edge off. Maybe a father’s influence . . . I don’t know.” He swallowed more beer. “But you’re accusing her of something. And I don’t like the way it sounds.”
“Why did she want Jared to go on TV so much?” Jenna asked. “Why did she try to lead us into an ambush?”
“She didn’t do that, Jenna. She wants her mother to be found. She wants this murderer to be arrested.”
“And how does humiliating us on national TV accomplish that?”
“You said yourself it could have been those other kids who said something.”
“Do any of them do anything without Ursula saying it’s okay? We know who the queen bee is, don’t we? And, let’s be honest, we knew who the queen bee was when we were in school. We know who always got what she wanted.”
“I guess I should have expected that comparison.”