Since She Went Away(17)

“You’re trying to change the subject.”

“Yes. Are you hungry?”

Jenna gave in. “I could eat something,” she said. “And that wine’s almost gone. But I have more in the kitchen.”

Jenna pulled some grapes and decent cheese out of the refrigerator and found a box of crackers in the cupboard. She pointed across the room. “There’s another bottle in there. Cabernet if you want to open it.”

Please, she thought. Let me learn something about this case. Something real.

Even if I have to wait until tomorrow.

I promise I’ll drink less.

“I have to pace myself,” Sally said.

Jenna looked up at the clock. Seven o’clock. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Sally asked. She dug in a few different drawers until she found the wine opener, and then she went to work on the bottle.

“Jared. Get a load of this.” She tried to shift away from Celia. From the earring. A man in custody. “Did your sons ever have girls in the house? I mean, without you knowing it?”

“Probably all the time. I don’t want to know what they did.” She poured them each a glass. “Ignorance is bliss.”

“I came home today after all that crap at the barn. I walk into his room, and he has this girl on top of him. I’d never seen her before, didn’t even know he was hanging out with a girl. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Buy him some condoms,” she said.

Jenna had just started chewing a cracker with cheese on top, but she paused to give Sally a look. “That’s all the motherly wisdom you could come up with? He’s over at this girl’s house now. But how do I know that? Should I call over there? Or go over?”

“Relax. Kids are going to do what they’re going to do. I thought you trusted him.”

“I do. But how do I know I trust her?”

“You think she’s a bad influence?”

“I just met her. And ever since Celia disappeared . . . I try not to be too paranoid or crazy about what Jared does.”

“But it seeps in.”

“Exactly. It colors everything I do. I check the back of my car before I get in, even in broad daylight. I rush from the car to the front door like the bogeyman is about to get me. Like I’m a dumb girl in a horror movie. And I worry about Jared when he leaves the house. He’s a boy, so I figure he’s a little safer. But still . . . he’s young. He could be a target for something.” Jenna sipped her wine, then threw a grape into her mouth and bit down. She pictured the girl, Tabitha, in her mind again, tried to reexamine her first and only impression of the girl objectively. “And there was something about this girl, Sally. Something about the look in her eye. There was an edge to her, a toughness, something you wouldn’t acquire just growing up the way Jared did. Even with his dad leaving us high and dry.”

“A lot of kids come from shitty homes,” Sally said.

“It wasn’t just that, although I suspect her home life isn’t great. She basically said her parents are separated. It kind of sounded like she doesn’t have any contact with her mother. And her clothes looked . . . well, I suspect she’s poor. But her eyes . . . they didn’t have the spark of youth the way you’d expect to see it. There was something off there, something cold.”

“Maybe she thought climbing on top of Jared would keep her warm.”

Jenna picked up a grape and threw it at Sally. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping me?” She laughed despite the long, shitty day. The wine had helped her get there.

“It’s good to hear you laugh,” Sally said. “Hell, I almost feel bad.”

“About what?”

“The serious stuff we’ve been talking about. We can forget it if you want. Or talk about it another day.”

But Jenna was shaking her head, even before Sally finished speaking.

“Are you kidding?” Jenna asked. “I’m glad you finally asked.”





CHAPTER TEN


Jared’s hands were no longer cold. He flexed them in the darkness, felt an aching heat in his knuckles. Light rain started to fall, frigid drops pinging against the top of his head and dotting his face. He wished the man would walk away, leave the room and Tabitha alone.

The man moved even closer to Tabitha, who stared up at him with a look that seemed to waver somewhere between fear and disgust. He made a quick lunging gesture with his left hand. Tabitha flinched, as though she thought he was going to hit her. Jared tensed, took a step forward.

But her father’s hand—fat and broad like a large cut of steak—stopped inches from her face. It brushed along her cheek and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her father spoke to her, the words lost to Jared, as he continued to stroke her hair. Tabitha’s eyes remained wide, but some of the tension drained from the rest of her face. The skin around her mouth relaxed, and the rising and falling of her shoulders as she breathed settled into a more natural rhythm.

She nodded to something he said, her eyes staring up at him with nearly complete attention and devotion.

Jared felt the jealousy twisting in his guts again, an irrational but powerful surge he couldn’t stop. He needed to turn away, to let Tabitha be with her father without his spying on her.