But you know what? I fought him. I did things that I’d always thought about doing to Thomas. And you know what? It felt good.
~Jenna
When Jenna finished her entry, she closed her diary and secured it with the elastic band around its center. She crouched down on the floor and slid it underneath her nightstand, securing the Velcro in place. Then she crawled back up on her bed and logged into her ChillChat account.
Chapter Forty-Five
Jacob
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Six Days After Jenna’s Disappearance
I’ve just returned from walking Brady to his bus stop, and Julie already has more tasks for me.
“Now I need you to change two burnt out lightbulbs—one in the basement and one in my mom’s room. Then, while you’re in Mom’s room, why don’t you go ahead and administer her meds? I need to clean up Sam.”
I hold in my irritated sigh. This isn’t what I meant when I said I would make it up to her after she’d told the police I was home with her last Friday night. I didn’t really have anything specific in mind, but none of this was it. I help plenty on the weeknights when I’m home and on weekends, so all this extra stuff before I leave for work is a pain in the ass. “Okay, but those are the last two things I can do because I have an appointment at ten.”
“Fine,” she says as she wipes the kitchen table clean then moves over to Sam in his filthy highchair.
In fact, she hasn’t been looking at me much since I told her about Jenna. How does she expect us to work things out when she’s being so cold and distant?
When I get down to the basement, I pull my phone out of my pocket and check a local news app I downloaded for the sole purpose of checking for new articles about Jenna. I almost drop the lightbulb I’m holding when I see a new headline.
Person of Interest in the Jenna Kemp Case Identified
“Crap, how the hell did the media get my name?” I say to myself. Then I reason that I might be jumping to conclusions. There could very well be another person of interest at his point. Maybe Jenna was talking to other people on ChillChat. Or maybe that relative of hers who assaulted her when she was a kid has something to do with it. The thought makes me nauseous. Most of the chat room conversations I’ve had are shallow and only about one thing, but it was different with Jenna. I really enjoyed my chats with her and wish she was still around. I’m tempted to click on the article, but I know if I do, I’ll never get out of here on time, so I pocket my phone and finish the tasks Julie assigned me.
After I finish pouring water into my bedridden mother-in-law’s GI tube, I tidy up her blankets and turn on the TV for her. She can’t watch it, but Julie says she likes to listen to it.
I need to get going if I want to make my appointment in Oconomowoc on time. When I enter the kitchen, Julie is standing at the counter staring at her phone screen. The dishwasher is open but still not unloaded, and Sam is clean and in his playpen, but his highchair is still a little dirty. I need to get out of here before she asks me to help with any of it.
“I should be home around—”
“Why . . . is your name . . . in the paper,” she growls. “And how are you still a person of interest?”
I close my eyes and wish I was anywhere other than standing in my kitchen.
“Jacob, my sister forwarded me the link to this article. Do you have any idea what that means?”
I take a seat at the kitchen table, set my bag on the floor, and lower my forehead onto my hands.
“No? You don’t have anything to say? Fine. I’ll spell it out for you. It means everyone we know is going to know that you were using a filthy chat room to pick up women! And some of them might even wonder if you did something to that girl.”
“I’m not a person of interest anymore, because I did nothing to Jenna,” I say, not even bothering to look up at my wife. “And I have no idea why the press would say that.”
“Oh, but you are a person of interest. To everyone who reads the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this morning. Have you seen this yet?” Julie slides her phone across the table, and it lands directly under my nose. I close my eyes again, though, because I don’t even want to see it anymore. I don’t have to either because I’m sure Julie will tell me what’s in it.
“And just FYI, Sienna Carter, the woman you went on a few dates with in college, has informed the whole world, including me, about your porn fetish.” This gets my attention, so I finally look up at her. Big mistake. She’s looking at me like she wants my head on a stake. “I guess there’s still a lot I don’t know about you.”
“Come on, Julie. That was something from my college days. You know me.”
She shakes her head with a smirk. “I don’t believe you never met Jenna Kemp in person, and I don’t believe you’ve never met up with any of the other women. Tell me the truth, Jacob. I know you lied to me, so just tell me the truth!”
“Julie, I swear I never met Jenna in person, and I also never me—”
“You’re lying. I know you are. Tell you what, how about you tell me the truth, and I don’t go down to the police station and recant my statement about you being home with me on Friday night?”
“Julie—”
“I swear to God, Jacob, I’ll do it.”
I sigh heavily and run my fingers through my wavy hair like a madman because Julie doesn’t bluff. “Okay, Jenna and I had plans to meet on Friday, but I canceled them. I’ve also had plans to meet one other woman, but it was at a Starbucks, and she didn’t show.”
Julie narrows her eyes at me. “And?”
“And that’s it, Julie. I swear on my mother’s good name.”
“And you swear you didn’t know Jenna Kemp was a minor?”
“I swear it,” I say, making an X on my chest with my finger.
She shakes her head and turns to the dishwasher. “Please pick up a rotisserie chicken on your way home from work.”
I exhale a slow, silent sigh of relief because at least the article doesn’t reveal the truth about my infidelity with women from ChillChat. If it did, Julie would be asking for a divorce instead of a rotisserie chicken.
Chapter Forty-Six
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Two Weeks Before Jenna’s Disappearance
Jenna’s phone chimed. It was the sound she’d assigned for notifications for ChillChat. She glanced at the screen wondering if it was a response to her comment in the discussion about which sex offender levels should qualify for rehabilitation. Jenna’s opinion was that there should be zero tolerance, and she was ready to defend her stance.
Instead, it was a response from a private chat.
Patty P.: But do you think he likes me?
Jenna typed her answer and immediately hit send.
Runner Girl: ABSOLUTELY. But even if he didn’t, you’d still have to break up with Tim. No lying to each other, right? Okay, then . . . You’ve been stringing Tim along, waiting for Mario to make a move. That’s not cool.
Then she went back to doing homework on her Chromebook. But she had a hard time concentrating because she couldn’t ignore when someone responded to her on ChillChat.
She was obsessed with the site. The anonymity of it allowed her to express herself the way she was never able to before. At first, she did a lot of observing in chat groups, but over the last few days, she’d begun to type responses when a thought struck her. And the more she participated, the more comfortable she started to feel. Leighton kept reminding her to not trust people on there and to not share any personal information, but she didn’t see the harm in sharing certain generic things like her favorite color or what her dog’s name was. Patty P. was her first private ChillChat friend. They were in a chat room called Relationships for Dummies, and Patty and Jenna had bonded in a conversation about whether it’s okay to date a friend’s ex. Patty and Jenna both said absolutely not. Patty sent Jenna a private chat request the next day, and they’d been messaging back and forth ever since.
Besides Patty
, Jenna had private chats going with a few others too. Duke was a dog lover she met in a chat room called Let’s Talk Dogs, and he sent her an old comic called Marmaduke one day. Jenna figured that’s where his nickname came from. So, Jenna responded with a Snoopy cartoon, and now they send cartoons containing dogs back and forth. Leighton saw the conversation once and told Jenna that Duke was probably a thirty-year-old guy who lives in his mom’s basement and sending comics was his way of flirting. StoneFX found Jenna in a chat room about marathon training. He’d told Jenna he was a forty-eight-year-old divorcee just looking for a friend with similar interests. When he asked Jenna how old she was, she said she was twenty-six. The next day, he asked her if she’d like to meet for a run because she also said she lived in Chicago where he lived. She told him they needed to chat more first before meeting in person. Then there was Jake B. He’d only just contacted her privately on Tuesday night, but they spent hours chatting. It wasn’t until Jenna realized it was after one in the morning that she said goodbye. The next day, Jake B. contacted Jenna again, but unlike the lighthearted getting-to-know-you conversation they’d had the day before, he asked if he could vent. She said sure, and they ended up chatting again for hours about how depressed he’d been lately. It was amazing how Jenna could relate, not to the exact life experiences he’d described, but to the way he was feeling in response to a life of pretending.
Jenna was finally able to finish her homework when she silenced all notifications from the discussions she was part of and closed out all but one of her private chats. She was still hoping to hear from Jake B. that night.
It wasn’t until around ten after she’d gotten ready for bed, let Lulu out to use the bathroom, and made her lunch for the next day that he messaged her.
Jake B.: Know what I just realized?
Runner Girl: Hi! What?
Jake B.: We never properly introduced ourselves. I’m Jacob.
Jenna thought for a moment about whether to give him her real first name. She quickly decided it was harmless information. How would anyone track you down with your first name?
Runner Girl: So, is your nickname really a nickname in real life? My name is Jenna.
Jake B.: No. So that’s just my way of staying anonymous on here. :)
Runner Girl: Are you feeling better today?
Jake B.: A little bit now that I’m talking to you, but I still have a lot on my mind.
Runner Girl: You can tell me anything.
And Jacob did. He told Jenna all about how stressed he felt about having to take care of his deceased wife’s ill mother and how much it reminded him of his own mother who’d been bedridden due to an accident and died when he was just nineteen. That led to stories about his alcoholic father who’d abandoned them because he was unable to cope with his mother’s health issues. Jenna was happy to hear that Jacob at least had kind and caring grandparents who’d stepped in to care for him and his mom after his father left. Jacob then went on to talk about how in debt he was after paying for the health bills and funeral expenses of his grandparents. He could have put them in a nursing home and walked away, but that wouldn’t have been right after they’d cared for his mother when she was ill. They nearly went bankrupt having to pay for all the medical equipment and home health care nurses she required. And now he was going through the same ordeal with his mother-in-law. The only silver lining was that he stood to inherit a good chunk of money when she died, including a lot of land up north. Jenna listened, only asking relevant questions for things she wanted to know more about. Two such questions were how he met his wife and what happened to her. He told her all about how he and his wife met in college when they worked together at the student union bookstore. It had been a few months after his mother had passed away, and he’d moved into an apartment on campus. After he and his wife got married, they tried to have children but couldn’t. So, they began fertility treatments during which they found out she had stage four uterine cancer. What started out as the hope of having a child turned into the hope that she would survive, but she didn’t.
Somehow, Jenna and Jacob ended up chatting well into the early hours of the morning. In fact, it was so early that Jenna decided to not even go to sleep before school. Instead, she did something she hadn’t done for a while. She went for a run. While she ran, she thought about Jacob’s parting message that night.
Jake B.: Maybe the next time we chat, we can actually talk. I would love to hear your voice. Call if you feel comfortable. I’m busy this weekend, but Monday night works great for me. 414-555-2375 Bye, Jenna.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do. All she knew at that moment was that talking to Jacob was making her feel like she might be able to tell someone other than Leighton and Sticks about Thomas. After the things Jacob had shared with her, maybe she’d even feel comfortable telling him. She had three days to decide what she was going to do.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Keeley
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Six Days After Jenna’s Disappearance
“Hey, Mom. I’m home,” I call out as Delaney and I enter through the back door. We rushed straight home after school because my mom had texted me that she’d been in touch with Bonnie. She was expecting us at four, so my mom had left work early and said she’d be waiting for us when we got home.
“I can’t believe I would have been babysitting for Stella tomorrow tonight if we hadn’t found out about Thomas.”
“How did you get out of it?” I ask.
“I called Audra and told her a family emergency came up. I felt horrible talking to her and knowing what I know, especially when I heard Stella laughing in the background. That poor little girl.”
“Yeah, poor Audra too. Did she ask what the emergency was?”
“Um, actually, yeah. So, I said my Grandma Shirley slipped in the bathtub and broke her hip and we had to drive to the hospital in Stoughton tomorrow after school to see her. She was very sympathetic and said she’d pray for my grandma. I felt even worse about lying to her then. To think she’s going to pray based on a lie I told. I’m sure God will love that.”
We hear my mom padding down the stairs, and we enter the kitchen at the same time, Delaney and I from the mudroom and my mom from the hallway. She’s wearing the leggings, fuzzy knee-high boots, and a sweater I picked out for her the last time we went shopping together. The outfit screams comfy-cool mom.
“Hey, sweetheart. Hi, Delaney. I’m glad you’re able to go over to see Bonnie with us.”
“Hi, Mrs. Simon.” Delaney gives my mom one of her signature angelic smiles reserved for parents.
“So, Keeley, I just got off the phone with your father, and he thinks—”
“You told Dad?” My voice is an octave higher than normal.
“Well, not everything. But, Keeley, you can’t expect me to process all of this on my own. Your father has worked with clients who’ve been abused, so he has experience. You know? He thinks it’s a good idea if we come right out and tell Bonnie what Jenna wrote about Thomas instead of just handing over the diaries and sitting there while she reads it for herself. After we find out how she’s doing, of course. We can’t just march in and start out by telling her that her nephew is a sick son of a bitch.”
Delaney and I look at each other, eyes wide, then we both look at my mom and nod. She’s right. He is a sick son of a bitch. And my dad is a good resource when it comes to issues like this. God knows he’s seen it all as a therapist. I just don’t like the thought of him thinking about what Thomas did to Jenna. Actually, I don’t like thinking about it myself. I’m also worried that now he’s going to psychoanalyze Jenna every chance he gets, the way he normally does whenever someone we know has anything traumatic happen to them.
My mom clasps her hands together. “Ready to go?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to talk about this with anyone,” I say.
On the short car ride over, we talk about Jacob Bickers and the article that everyone at school was
gossiping about today.
“I just don’t understand it,” Delaney says. “I thought he was questioned and released on Monday.”
“Well, I imagine the media needs to report something about Jenna, and so far, Jacob Bickers is the only lead they seem to have.” My mom turns down the volume of the radio as she talks.
“Is it legal for them to talk to a bunch of people who knew him a long time ago?” I ask. “I mean they interviewed people he went to high school and college with.”
“I don’t think there’s any law about reporting on people’s opinions of someone,” my mom says with a shrug. “And those people’s opinions got people talking. That’s what news outlets want.”
“I still can’t get over the fact that Jenna was using a chat room to meet people. The police have to be able to find someone else they can question from there,” I say.
“And how Bickers is a forty-three-year-old married father of two,” Delaney adds. “I wonder what his wife thinks about him talking to a sixteen-year-old.”
“He said she told him she was nineteen, though,” I say.
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