Since She Went Away(24)

“You would have liked the show I put on last night,” Jenna said.

She made sure to stop talking before she reached a traffic light. She didn’t want the people next to her—and in a town like Hawks Mill, it very well could be someone she knew—thinking she had totally lost her mind. But as she accelerated down the road, the music playing in the background, she told Celia all about the interview with Becky and the bleeped f-bomb on CNN.

“You’d have gotten a kick out of that one, C,” she said. “You would have shaken your head and laughed. You would have found the clip on the Web and shared it on social media. You would have had a good time at my expense, as usual.”

Celia always laughed at Jenna’s missteps, the things she said wrong, the times she messed up. But she almost always followed up with something more: a pat on the back, a smile, or a hug. “That’s our Jenna,” she used to say. “We love you for it all, babe.”

Jenna came to a light and felt emotion welling in her throat. Once she was moving, she pounded the steering wheel with the flat of her hand. “Where the f*ck did you go, C? Where the f*ck did you go?”

She didn’t let herself cry. She choked it all back, reminding herself once again that a new day had dawned. When she walked in to Hawks Mill Family Medicine, she saw Detective Poole waiting for her, and the whole notion of a new day went out the window.

? ? ?

Naomi Poole was about fifty-five. She wore her hair cut short and used the knuckle on her right index finger to push her owlish eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose every few minutes. She’d taken the lead on Celia’s case and had spent more hours than Jenna could remember asking questions and then more questions about Celia’s life and their plans on the night she disappeared. Jenna liked Naomi Poole and mostly trusted her, but couldn’t escape the feeling that the detective, as a consequence of her job, was always sizing Jenna up, sifting through every piece of information and reevaluating her. Jenna believed Naomi turned that critical eye on everyone she met.

“Hey, Jenna,” Naomi said, as casual as anything. She pushed the glasses up her nose. If someone didn’t know any better, they’d think Naomi and Jenna worked together, and the older woman was just greeting her at the start of another day. “I’m sorry to show up this way, but I needed to talk to you.”

Jenna knew the detective’s arrival wasn’t as casual as she’d made it seem. Naomi could have returned her call or could have texted. She’d done it before for smaller things about the case. She could have caught Jenna on her lunch break or even at home before she left. If there was one thing Jenna had learned since the night Celia disappeared, it was that detectives liked to talk to people on their own terms. They liked to decide the time and place of the conversation. They set the tone and the ground rules, even if it seemed that they weren’t. Jenna knew Naomi had something on her mind.

“Maybe we can sit on those benches over there?”

“Can I at least—”

Naomi smiled, the wise woman who had thought of everything in advance. “I already told them you’d be a few minutes late. They’re fine with it.”

They walked across the spacious lobby where everyone who entered the Medical Arts Building came in and studied the board to find out which floor their physician worked on. Functional, comfortable sofas and chairs ringed the perimeter of the room, and a security guard in a blue uniform sat at a desk, pretending not to be texting as patients started wandering in.

Naomi led Jenna to a sofa on the far side of the room, against a large window that allowed the morning light to stream in. Jenna placed her lunch and coat on the floor as the two women sat.

“What is the deal with this earring they found? And this guy? I’ve been going nuts and there’s no news about it.”

“We’re still piecing it together.”

It drove Jenna crazy that Naomi could be so calm and detached even in the midst of a crisis. Jenna knew it was part of her job to be cool, but would it kill her just once to be as riled up as Jenna was?

“Just tell me anything,” Jenna said.

“Yesterday a man went into Will’s Pawnshop, the one out on Hammond Pike? He tried to sell an earring. The clerk was on his game. He recognized it from the hot sheet and called us. A cruiser got there while the guy was still in the store. He claims he found the earring in a field on Western Avenue. He was out looking for aluminum cans and came across it in the grass. The snow had just started to melt. He says he’s heard about Celia’s case but didn’t put the two together when he found the earring.”

“Who is he, Naomi?” Jenna asked.

“His name is Benjamin Ludlow. He’s forty.”

“Benjamin Ludlow . . .” Something scratched below the surface of Jenna’s brain, something itching to get out.

“What is it?” Naomi asked.

“We went to high school with him.”

“I thought you might have. He’s a local guy, your age.”

“Jesus, Naomi. He’s a total creep. At least he was in high school. He was one of those guys who was always slinking around the corners of the building, leering at the girls but never actually talking to them. He scared us.” Jenna felt flushed. “Is he a suspect? Did he hurt Celia?”

“Everything’s on the table right now. This guy’s kind of rootless. Grew up here, as you know, and then served in the army. Moved around in the South and came back here about a year ago.” She stopped talking, but Jenna saw there was more.