To let the cult choose all and guide all and decide all?
And then something—but what? What?—turned Hannah into a kidnapper.
I wouldn’t mind being a nonparticipant, thought Janie. I could lie in the sun forever and let my bones bleach.
But even if I do nothing about that folder, I am participating. The facts are still inside it. I’m not a toddler strapped in a swing. I’m more like a parachute jumper, wondering if the rip cord works.
Reeve’s car, #64 painted huge and neon orange all over it, was about to enter its first race. Reeve and the crew ran alongside, escorting their car to the track. Janie stood up in the truck bed to yell “Good luck!’” but over the roar of thirty cars without mufflers, nobody heard. She flung her arms over her head and did some cheerleader moves. Nobody saw. The boys on the crew were pummeling each other with delight as #64 peeled onto the track.
Lightly, she touched her paper bracelet. It was plasticized paper that would neither rip nor fade.
Among the discoveries Janie had made after she identified herself on the milk carton was that when Hannah had left home, she’d taken nothing: no bracelet, no prom corsage, no yearbook or flute. At some terrible point, Frank and Miranda had packed Hannah’s belongings in trunks, which sat in the back of the attic and gathered dust.
Janie was a saver. She liked to be reminded of every good thing and every good time. If I were last seen flying west, she thought, what would I take? Would I keep a flag bracelet, to remind me of Brian and sandwiches and cars?
Or would I leave everything behind, until everything became nothing?
Reeve came running back, waving and signaling, since speech was pretty much useless during a race. When she hopped down from the truck bed, he grabbed her hand. “Can’t see the race from here,’” he yelled. “We’ll run up and sit with Brian.’”
She smiled and ran with him. Running was a relief. It felt like an accomplishment.
I’m not exactly in a race, Janie thought. It’s more like hide-and-seek. Hannah’s not quite hidden anymore. So do I seek?
It was time for the water truck to circle the track and spray the dust down. Then stock cars would pack the track, driving around and around in single file; getting muddy, spinning out, wearing a groove.
The next race wouldn’t be ideal, because the surface would be damp and slippery. But soon the track would be smooth and perfect. The lucky cars in that race got the best.
Driving on dirt meant that each race changed the properties of the track. Your car didn’t necessarily ever have a lap when the surface was perfect.
The pungent flat stink of engine fuel filled Reeve’s nose. Janie’s hair brushed his bare arms. He hoped she’d be willing to stay all evening and party with the crew when the races were over and everybody sat around shooting the breeze while they packed up generators and fire suits.
“We came in fifth,’” moaned Brian. “I thought we’d win.’”
“Fifth out of thirty is good,’” said Reeve. “We keep that up, we get a trophy.’”
There were not divided seats, just bleachers, and the top row was packed with spectators. Janie and Reeve wedged themselves in where Brian’s cooler had saved a single space. Janie was in the middle.
“Speaking of trophies, Janie,’” said Brian, “what about Hunting Jaguars?’” Brian was drugged by too much sun. He could take nothing seriously. His voice was light and teasing. “Your father is supporting endangered species? Is that it, Janie? That’s why the file folder H.J. is in Paid Bills?’”
Reeve’s mind fixed on that word supporting, and suddenly he knew.
Supporting, thought Reeve. Oh, no.
No.
He felt the size of it: a betrayal as large as oceans, making his own betrayal a mere puddle. Janie had survived Reeve’s cruelty. In her father’s, she might drown.
On the track, a yellow flag was up. The cars moved slowly; quietly.
Why can’t Janie have a whole race when the surface is perfect? thought Reeve.
“Come on, Janie,’” said Brian. “Was that a checkbook in there? Is that what made you so mad?’”
The yellow flag lifted.
The green flag swirled.
I can’t help her, thought Reeve.
For a moment, he hated Mr. Johnson, and in that moment he felt more bound to Janie than he had by love. For her sake, he hated and he understood hate.
The cars leaped forward, and the sound of their engines was primal; gut-wrenching. They roared in circles, like Janie’s life, forever back at the starting line.
Reeve did not expect Janie to answer Brian, but at the next yellow flag, when the track was relatively silent, her voice came out, dented like a fender. “My father,’” said Janie, “knows where my kidnapper is. I think he may always have known I was kidnapped.’” She was shaking from the horror of it. Frank Johnson, knowing this was no granddaughter; real parents were out there in an agony of fear. “In any case, he pays her bills.’” A quivery desperate smile worked its way to her mouth. “My father is supporting my kidnapper.’”
CHAPTER
SIX
Never was the word that had ruled Brian Spring.
You will never leave the house without permission, you will never speak to strangers, you will never take risks. You will never be like your sister Jennie and disappear.
Frank and Miranda Johnson had claimed—in front of the real parents; in front of the New Jersey police; the FBI; lawyers; judges—“We didn’t know what Hannah did.’” Under oath, they had said, “We never heard from her again.’”
Never was their word too. We have never gotten in touch. We are not guilty.
But Frank had gotten in touch. He was guilty, thought Brian, his thoughts racing. Covering the tracks of a kidnapper! Mr. Johnson could probably be arrested for that. Well, probably not on his deathbed.
Besides, somebody would have to tell.
Brian wasn’t telling. Janie wasn’t telling.
Reeve? Would he? He’d told things before.
“I bet your mom didn’t know, Janie,’” said Brian, working it out. “She wouldn’t have let us into the office, sorting through his papers, not if she knew. But’”—Brian frowned, not liking this flaw in the research process—“you’re not going to be able to ask your father for details. Stroke victims. Sometimes they don’t learn how to talk again.’”
He began speculating when and how Hannah and her father got in touch, and how much money he had given her.
Janie said nothing, while Reeve stared at his hands, but Brian was oddly excited. He was part of a team and they had a secret. Frank Johnson knew where the kidnapper was. Brian would go home in possession of this secret like a spy in war. It would give Brian an edge. He needed an edge.
They sat through thirty laps of another race, while little kids whose fathers were on pit crews ran up and down the bleachers, eating hot dogs and playing tag.
When the race ended, silence sat around like dust. They could taste it.
There’s another edge, thought Brian. The edge Janie’s standing on. She dumped our family after living with us only a few months. She waved goodbye and went back home to live with the good guys.
But she was wrong. She went home—to the bad guys.
You hollowed out your stock car when you rebuilt it for racing. Reeve’s #64 was a Monte Carlo, seats removed, glass out, roll bars added, doors sealed.
Reeve felt the same.
Last winter Lizzie’s law firm had had a case involving the possible laundering of drug money. And whose drug money had it been but the very cult of which Hannah had been a part? Cult records recorded Hannah’s death. Lizzie had even found a death certificate on file in Los Angeles County. She’d told Reeve about it but made him promise to say nothing. It wasn’t her right to reveal what she had stumbled on. The information, Lizzie explained, would eventually reach the right people in the FBI, who would notify the Johnsons that Hannah was dead.
But that never happened. The Johns
ons were told no such thing.
Why not?
Lizzie did not make mistakes. It was what made her so tiresome. Made it impossible to imagine William, and how he could be in love with her. If Lizzie said Hannah was dead, then Reeve believed she was.
So who was Frank Johnson supporting?
It couldn’t be Hannah.
…unless Hannah had faked her death.
Or the cult had faked it.
Did a cult believe that anybody who left their group to do something else was dead? So they filled out papers?
And if so, who was the person who cashed those checks Frank wrote?
Some other cult member could have stumbled across family information in yet another file, in yet another hidden drawer, and could be using it to extort money from a desperate parent!
Reeve imagined Frank Johnson endlessly paying off a fake daughter, slamming the drawer shut on his secret, joining Janie and his wife in the kitchen for a snack, smiling as if there were no lies.
“You two are so dense!’” said Janie, flapping her baseball cap for emphasis, glaring first at Reeve on her right and then at Brian on her left. “I can’t believe I’ve told you but now I have gone and told you and yet you don’t understand anything!’”
Reeve was exhausted. He lacked the strength for more thinking. “Your father can’t talk about it, Janie. I know you’re not going to tell the police. You’re certainly not going to tell your mother; she can’t handle another problem. She can’t even put gas in the tank.’”
Janie slumped her shoulders, flung her mass of hair backward and then ratcheted herself up again as if she were with the two stupidest people in America.
“My mother had me go through those files for a reason,’” said Janie, slowly and clearly. “Remember? She wants me to handle the bills.’”
The boys wore the blank stretched smiles of people who don’t get it. They nodded, though, hoping Janie would see something worthy in them.
“I have to decide whether to keep supporting her,’” said Janie. “My own kidnapper.’”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
In moments of delight, Kathleen tended to attack. She liked to yank so hard on Stephen’s red hair he was glad baldness didn’t run in his family, or this would start it.
“They’ll be here in a minute, Stephen!’” said Kathleen. “I can’t wait for Dad and Mom to meet you.’”
He almost forgave her for choosing his clothes and then ironing them. He could not have fallen for a girl who shrugged about parents. Stephen’s parents had held his hand (and he theirs) through so much.
“There they are!’” Kathleen was much too loud. People turned and stared. Stephen just laughed, enjoying her noise. Kathleen leaped away from him, hauling open the hotel door and flinging herself all over her parents. A dozen strangers watched and smiled, enveloped in Kathleen’s reunion.
“This,’” said Kathleen, hanging on to her father’s arm and beaming, “is my dad, Harry Donnelly. Dad, this is Stephen.’”
“Mr. Donnelly,’” said Stephen, shaking hands. “It’s great to meet you.’”
There was not even time to let go of Mr. Donnelly’s hand. Not even time to say hello to Mrs. Donnelly. It turned out there were things Kathleen had never gotten around to mentioning either. She said proudly, “Dad just does consulting now, but he was an FBI agent.’”
Stephen felt actual horror.
His spine lifted him up, his feet moved him backward, and his hand turned cold and stiff inside Mr. Donnelly’s.
How many times had the Spring family had to deal with the FBI?
The last time Mr. Mollison, their own personal FBI agent, had come back into their lives, it had been to interrogate Janie. He had thrust her up against the living room wall, demanding details. Stephen’s father had intervened; made the FBI go away and refused to let them talk to Janie again.
Stephen liked Mr. Mollison but equally loathed him, because when you had the FBI in your life, you knew your world was neither normal nor safe.
All that was safe and normal exploded for Stephen. He didn’t want dinner with these people, even if they were Kathleen’s parents. He could feel the past getting ready to scorch him again.
He did manage a smile for Kathleen’s mother. He did follow the maitre d’ to the table. He sat down without kicking anybody’s chair. But he could not look at Mr. Donnelly. He knew, because he was overly familiar with police, that the man would be fully aware of his reaction. If Stephen’s eyes met Mr. Donnelly’s, he would not see the much-loved father of Kathleen Marie. He would see the eyes of a cop who wanted to know why.
Apparently, dinner was wonderful. Everybody else ordered exotic: buffalo sausage or venison steak. Stephen had a glorified hamburger and difficulty chewing. He knew his cheeks were smudged red from anxiety, and that Harry Donnelly would see that mark of tension.
Kathleen, less aware, said, “Gosh, it’s warm in here, isn’t it, Stephen? Your cheeks are as hot as if we’d just run up Flagstaff Mountain.’”
Stephen nodded and stirred his iced tea.
Mrs. Donnelly was a river of information about high school friends Kathleen had never mentioned. Stephen let the gossip pour over him. It was rather pleasant, hearing how Kelsey was happy at the University of Wisconsin, Josh had not failed out of UConn after all and Craig was transferring.
Stephen was letting his mind drift toward dessert, because halfway through any meal, Stephen lost interest in protein and began to think about sugar, when Mrs. Donnelly said, “Tell us about your family, Stephen. We know you have twin brothers, Brendan and Brian, and a younger sister, Jodie.’”
He had been with Kathleen since last October and never mentioned his second sister.
He knew that, he had intended that, but the public proof of it shocked even Stephen Spring.
If he told about Janie, he would never again be a guy Kathleen met at college. He would always be, as he was in New Jersey, a guy whose sister had been kidnapped.
But if he didn’t tell, what kind of loyalty was that?
Stephen was holding his glass of tea so tightly it squeezed out the bottom of his grip like toothpaste and landed on the table.
When Janie had been at her worst—temper tantrums; stalking away from her real family so they’d let her go back to her fake one—Stephen’s mother and father had ordered them to accept her behavior. No matter what, said Stephen’s parents, we will go on loving her.
I want to go on lying about her, thought Stephen.
He felt like a basketball player on the free-throw line; score tied; three seconds left. Ignore the screaming crowd, the hope of victory and the fear of failure. Try to think of nothing except a little metal hoop and a little dangling string.
Stephen tried to think of nothing except his duty to his family and a few dangling lives.
“Actually,’” he said, fighting for control over his voice, “I have another sister. I never told you, Kath. She was kidnapped when we were little. It destroyed our lives.’” He pressed the icy glass against his cheek, literally trying to chill out. “She turned up a year and a half ago and the situation is crummy. I don’t want to talk about it.’”
He drank firmly, like a punctuation mark, and Kathleen said, “What—are you nuts? Of course we’re going to talk about it. Start at the beginning. Don’t leave out a thing.’”
For Kathleen it was a soap opera, delightfully close to hand. Her interrogation took an hour. Stephen thought he had probably lost weight from the stress of it. He ordered a second dessert.
“Wow,’” said Kathleen, tilting back in her chair. She licked her lips as if the story had been chocolate cake. “So right now, your sister Jennie is staying Janie, keeping her kidnap name, living with her kidnap family, and you’re all agreeing to this!’” Kathleen shook her head. “And nobody is even rude enough to mention to the Frank and Miranda parents that their real daughter is a kidnapper?’”
Stephen shrugged. It didn’t come easily. There was nothing
to shrug about. “Janie loves them. We knock them, we lose her again. Actually, I kind of like her parents. My little brother Brian is even spending the summer with them. It’s the kidnapper we hate.’”
“Hannah,’” breathed Kathleen dramatically.
“I never call her Hannah. It’s too friendly. You call her Hannah, you could let it go. I’m never letting go. If I ever found that woman, I’d get my revenge.’”
Kathleen frowned. “I don’t think that’s kind, Stephen. The poor woman is some demented loser who couldn’t even keep her place in a cult. She had to steal a kid to have company. Anyway, so many years have gone by.’”
“Not that many years.’” Stephen didn’t have enough air to speak. His voice cracked over the thought of the years, and how they had gone by for the Springs.
“Janie didn’t suffer,’” Kathleen pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter,’” said her father. “His family got stabbed in the back every day of Stephen’s childhood.’”
Mr. Donnelly sounded as if he were familiar with the Spring/Johnson nightmare. Worry slammed through Stephen. Was Mr. Donnelly just a consultant? What did he consult about? Could he be seeking information from Stephen? Could he be investigating the kidnapping?
No. It wouldn’t happen this way. Kathleen couldn’t have been sicced on him to get information—she wouldn’t have waited since October to reach the topic.
And probably Mr. Donnelly was just familiar with kidnapping in general; had possibly handled one. But not Janie’s.
It was coincidence. Stephen was overreacting. Kathleen was just a girlfriend and Mr. Donnelly was just her dad. Nothing was going to split open.
His head hurt so much that he wanted a bandage to wind around his jaw and up over his hair.
“If I were Miranda Johnson,’” said Mrs. Donnelly, “and I found out that my daughter did what Hannah did, I’d kill myself.’”
Stephen nodded. He thought Mr. Johnson sort of had.
“Did you ever try to find the Javensen woman?’” asked Mr. Donnelly.