Since She Went Away(6)

“What, then?”

“Forget it,” she said. “I should go.”

“No, I want you to stay. Please?” Jared decided to pull out all the stops, open up the way he wanted her to. If he was going to lay it all on the line, he figured this was the time to do it. “I want to tell you something else. About Celia. And my mom. About what I had to do with her disappearing.”

She turned to face him, her eyes open wide.

And she stayed.





CHAPTER THREE


Jenna wandered away from the reporters, her feet crunching over the cold, uneven ground. She shivered, and not just because of the rising wind and the thickening clouds that blocked out the already meager and distant sun. Tension rose inside her as she waited for something to happen, a growing pressure that made her bones and muscles so taut she thought she’d explode.

She couldn’t escape the feeling that the whole thing was a farce, a dog and pony show orchestrated by the media and the police. The police, who wanted to look as if they were still working on Celia’s case, and the media, who needed the ratings. Jenna just wasn’t sure whether she was the dog or the pony. Or both.

She pulled out her phone and texted Jared. He’d be out of school and heading home, and she didn’t want him to hear on the news or from social media that something related to Celia’s case was brewing. He’d never said much about Celia’s disappearance or the media storm that blew up in its aftermath. Jenna got the feeling he didn’t know what to say to her, and she understood the two of them already existed in a tricky, difficult-to-manage space. Single mother, teenage son. She tried not to lean on him too much, tried not to make him her confidant, her sounding board in the absence of a husband or a serious boyfriend, and that choice meant some distance had grown between them, a cautious boundary Jared respected but perhaps didn’t fully understand. He’d certainly been supportive of her in the months since Celia disappeared. He’d treated her with great kindness and deference, but that served only to make Jenna feel even worse. Wasn’t she supposed to be looking out for him?

Call me!!!

She studied the text for a moment. Were three exclamation marks too much? Or did they adequately convey her concern, her need to speak with him? She went ahead and hit SEND. Jared was a little secretive, a little private, but what teenager wasn’t? He possessed a good sense of humor, one that was less cutting and drier than hers. He was sensitive, every bit as likely to read a book as to camp in front of a football game on TV. She didn’t know what she’d do if he’d been a meathead jock. What would they talk about then?

Then she texted Ursula, Celia’s daughter. Her only child. She’d be out of school as well—she was the same age as Jared—and Jenna hated to think of her hearing about this on the news.

Can you give me a call?

She needed to talk to Ursula more, be more of a presence for the girl who hadn’t had a mother for several months.

A text came right back from Ursula: Dad warned me. Thx.

Jenna wondered once again how her life had ended up like this—having to tell her son and her best friend’s daughter she was at a crime scene where a part of a woman’s body had been found. But Jenna knew exactly how it had happened. She was the one who invited Celia to go out. She was the one who proposed they meet near the park. She was the one running late—

“Jenna?”

Becky’s voice—more cautious, less cheery—brought her back to the reality of the barn. And what—or who—might be resting inside. Jenna turned and saw Becky approaching, taking careful steps like someone walking through a minefield.

“Something’s going on over there,” she said.

Jenna looked beyond the reporter’s shellacked hair and saw a flurry of activity near the barn. More cops gathered at the opening, and more rushed to join them, their movements full of hustle and energy. A broad-shouldered man in a dark jacket with the word “Coroner” stitched across the back in gold letters joined the cops, his hand clutching the kind of black bag an old-time doctor brought on a house call.

Jenna started forward, her feet propelling her whether she wanted to move or not. The cold seemed to have departed her legs and torso, replaced by a flushing heat, something that spread through her body so quickly she reached up and undid the buttons of her coat, letting it swing open to the cool air. The reporters ignored her. They instructed their cameramen to heft their equipment back onto their shoulders, the lights glowing in the gray winter afternoon. She sensed Becky next to her, the reporter no different from the rest of them, caught up in the excitement and anticipation over what might be revealed from inside that barn.

Jenna cursed herself for losing control of her emotions, for thinking something important and relevant was about to happen, but how could she stop the feelings from surging? She felt hot and sick, almost like a feverish child, as the events of that November night came back to her. She’d called Celia, yes, begging her to go out. The two women had drifted apart over the previous few years. They were both raising children, both working, and Jenna knew that happened to friends sometimes as time went by, even the best of friends. But they both had high hopes for that night, a chance to reconnect away from their kids, their jobs, their everyday lives. A chance to be free and even a little wild again just like when they were teenagers.

But Jenna blew it.