See Jane Run

by Hannah Jayne

Riley turned and faced the university stretching through every window in the train station vestibule. “Here. Haven’t gone in yet,” she repeated.

  “Well, have a great time,” her father said, getting back on the line.

  “And be safe!” she heard her mother call from the background. “Don’t talk to strangers or wander away from the group or—”

  “Your mother says to have a wonderful time and don’t run off with any boys or get any piercings or tattoos. At least no new ones.”

  Riley looked at her shoes, wishing she could laugh with her dad, but the angst—and the guilt—was too tight. “Thanks, Dad,” she mumbled.

  “Say hello to the ole alma mater. Love you, turnip.”

  Riley’s breath hitched as her father mentioned the “alma mater” that he never attended.

  “Love you too, Dad.”

  Riley held the phone to her ear even as the line went dead. She was lying to her parents. She slid her phone off and jammed it in her pocket, feeling the edge of the birth certificate jabbing into her palm.

  My parents are lying to me.

  FOUR

  Riley took a deep, steadying breath and turned her back on the university. “Sorry, that was just—” Riley paused then spun around again, blinking, confused. “JD?” She took a few steps, her feet echoing loudly on the tiled floors, reverberating through the high ceilings. “JD?”

  “Hey.” He appeared behind Riley, and she clutched her chest, startled.

  “I thought I lost you.”

  JD quirked an eyebrow, cocking his head. “I was headed for my train.”

  Riley nodded dumbly then JD pointed over her shoulder. “Your train is that way.”

  “We’re on different trains?”

  “Of course. We’re going different places. And this is my train here. Have a nice trip—”

  “Don’t call me cupcake,” Riley barked, holding up a hand.

  JD turned, his hands on the straps of his backpack. Riley thought she heard him say “feisty” under his breath.

  “OK.” Riley turned and scanned the arches that led to the train platforms. Annoying as he was, she kind of wished she and JD were taking the same train. “See ya.” She glanced down at her ticket again then up at the platforms. Not a single number on the platforms matched a single number on her ticket. She bit her lip, her nerves starting to thrum just under her skin.

  “Granite Cay. Now boarding for Granite Cay. Train number 63 on platform 6. Now boarding…” The polite overhead voice faded off as Riley rushed to the platform, disappearing into the throng of people crowding onto the car.

  Once she was seated, Riley pulled out her Kindle in a feeble attempt to quiet her mind. She felt like a rebel, a spy. She felt like she was doing something naughty and dangerous, and the thunk of her heart felt good.

  Riley Spencer: bad girl. Free.

  She smiled to herself and halfheartedly watched the rest of the people file onto the train—a mother yanking her school-aged daughter by the arm, a slew of businessmen each more gray tweed than the next, and the man Riley had run into in the vestibule. He walked past her, offering not a smile but a pleasant enough expression, and Riley felt heat bloom in her cheeks. She hoped he’d move on to the next train car but she didn’t dare crane her head to look.

  When the train lurched to a slow start, there were still people clogging the aisle ways, and Riley hugged her backpack to her chest while people plopped into every vacant seat. The man from the vestibule wandered back and sat in the seat across the aisle from her, looking straight ahead.

  A tight fist of panic squeezed her heart.

  Is he keeping tabs on me? Following me? Does he know my parents? Do my parents know I’m sneaking around?

  The man pulled out a newspaper and unfolded it dramatically then buried his head and read.

  You’re an idiot, Riley. Lots of people bought tickets in Boone and then got on this train. Get. A. Grip.

  She plugged her earphones into her tablet and pulled up a playlist, turning the music up loud. She flopped her head back and tried to close her eyes, but her body was still humming with excitement—and anxiety.

  What if her parents knew someone on this train?

  Riley glanced around as carefully as she could, doing her best to scrutinize every face, trying to catalogue them: were they looking at her? Had they ever shopped at her father’s store? She was gripping the armrests, static whirring in her ears. She couldn’t remember when her playlist ended.

  “Hey. Hey!”

  Riley blinked and straightened up, immediately wincing at the crick in her neck.

  “JD?”

  She sat up, panicked, and slapped her palm to her forehead. “Did I get on the wrong train? Oh my—”

  JD shot her a nonchalant half smile. “No, you’re fine. Doing what you do best.”

  She scrunched up her face, not understanding. “Riding the train?”

  “No. Sleeping.” He smiled and Riley rolled her eyes.

  I wasn’t sleeping, Riley wanted to say—but she caught herself before “I was studying everyone on the train” rolled out.

  “What are you doing here?” Riley gripped the armrests and peeked out the windows. “And why are we stopped?”

  “Well, we’re stopped because we’re here, and I’m here because”— he looked down quickly, his eyes avoiding hers—“I’m pretty sure you don’t ride the train all the time.”

  Riley felt her stomach flop. “That obvious, huh?”

  JD held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. “Little bit. Especially since I’ve never seen you at the train station back home.”

  “We have a train station back home?”

  “Across the street from the mall. Nice place; only smells like pee on two platforms. Remind me to take you on a tour someday. You ready?”

  She followed him off the train and squinted in the bright sun. “How long did the ride take? Did I sleep the whole way? And hey, if you got on the train, where were you the whole time?”

  “Ry, the way you sleep, I could have crawled into your lap and taken a nap right there and you would never have noticed.”

  “How do you know how I sleep?”

  He yanked a Blow Pop from his jeans pocket, unwrapped it slowly, and popped it in his mouth. “You fell asleep in detention more than once or twice.”

  A little flutter went through Riley like an electric shock that tickled her palms and the soles of her feet. She told herself it was her shame at nodding off in the middle of school, but when she glanced at JD’s sure smile out of the corner of her eye, she worried it was more.

  “I have a boyfriend, you know.” She blurted it out then immediately regretted it. She had no reason to lie to JD—especially not such a stupid lie about an imaginary boyfriend.

  JD looked slightly confused. “OK. Then I won’t ask you to suck my Blow Pop.” He grinned, showing off perfect teeth tinged slightly blue by the pop.

  “I was just saying…”

  “All right, cupcake, where we headed?”

  “What about your concert?”

  JD waved at the air. “No big. I’ve seen ’em a hundred times. A girl lost in the big city? Never seen that before.”

  Riley crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You’re an ass, you know.” But even as the words escaped her lips, Riley knew she was lying. Every inch of her was glad that JD was there.

  “OK, so which way to Jane’s house?”

  “What?”

  “Your friend, Jane.” JD paused, his eyebrows going up. “Wait, there is no Jane, is there?”

  Riley felt the butterflies in her stomach again. She was in Granite Cay. She was close to Jane Elizabeth O’Leary—whoever she was.

  JD was staring her down with his no-nonsense eyes. “Out with it.”

  Riley swallowed.

 
“Hey, if I’m skipping a Death to Sea Monkeys concert for this…”

  They were still standing on the train platform, and the Granite Cay Hospital was directly across the road from them.

  “Let me guess: we’re here to visit your crazy mother in the psych ward?”

  Riley smiled despite herself. “I really can’t believe that you and Shelby Webber don’t get along better.” She paused when his expression didn’t change. “OK. No psycho mother, but I do have to go into the hospital to look up some records. Totally boring stuff. You want to grab a coffee or something and meet up later?”

  JD shifted his weight. Something flitted across his face—hurt?—but was gone just as quickly. “Do you not want me to go with you?”

  “No, it’s not that,” she lied, hiking up her already hiked-up backpack. “It’s just that, you know, hospitals. Gross. People die there.”

  “What do you need from the records room?”

  Riley had her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, her left hand repeatedly touching the birth certificate as if to assure herself it was still there—that this was all real. The paper was so soft it was almost clothlike, and when Riley looked into JD’s clear, earnest eyes, she almost wanted to spit out the whole thing. But she held back. Riley wasn’t sure what she’d find in the hospital records, and she wasn’t sure what it would mean for her or for Jane.

  I can’t betray her for a hot guy with nice eyes and a rap sheet, she thought.

  She shrugged. “Just some family stuff. You know, medical histories and all.”

  “Can’t your doctor just have them email it?”

  Riley opened her mouth, stumped. “Uh, no.” She rushed on. “The files are really old and they’re not digitized yet. So…I said I’d go in. So, I’ll meet you when I’m done?”

  JD pursed his lips. “One sec. I just want to get this straight. You tell your parents you’re going on a college tour and they, what? Said, ‘hey, just in case you happen to ditch the university thing and catch a train four hours away to Granite Cay, could you pick up some medical records for us?’ Something like that?”

  “Um, yes?”

  He swung his head. “Not buying it.”

  “Look, I’m just looking up some stuff for a friend.” Riley’s mind raced, images of the birth certificate, her web search, the black-and-white photo of the chubby baby from the HAVE YOU SEEN ME? picture bombarding her. “She was adopted.”

  “Jane?”

  “Yeah, Jane. She was adopted and she’s looking for her birth parents. I said I’d help her out.” She looked over her shoulder, trying to seem nonchalant, but certain the jerky action just solidified the fact that she was lying through her teeth. “Jane was born in Granite Cay, so this was all a—a happy accident.” She forced a placating smile.

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” JD jerked his head toward a tiny coffee house on their side of the street. “Do you want me to grab you something? Something nonfat and girlie?”

  Riley put her hands on her hips. “Nonfat?”

  JD took a step back and blew out an exasperation-tinged sigh. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear. Just come get me when you’re done.”

  • • •

  The hospital lobby was freezing, and Riley zipped up her hoodie and shuddered.

  “I know,” said the lady at the front desk, meeting Riley’s eyes. She was wearing scrubs with cartoon kitties all over them and a nametag that said Carla. “The air conditioner is stuck. Perfectly healthy people are walking in off the street and getting a bed!” She laughed at her own joke, her boobs, which were the size of Riley’s head, jiggling with the effort. “Can I help you with something, missy?”

  “Um.” It came out a pitiful squeak and Riley cleared her throat. “There was a baby born here.”

  “Well, honey, maternity is on the third floor.”

  “No, not a—I need to find a record on a baby that was born here.”

  Carla’s penciled-in eyebrows rose into her tight black curls. “A baby?”

  Riley pulled the birth certificate from her pocket. “She may have been adopted.”

  Carla sighed and leaned closer to Riley, pushing her elbows onto the desk. “Look, honey, I understand what you’re going through, but I can’t just go handing over those records. There must have been a reason why the adoptive parents asked for a closed adoption. I know it’s hard, honey.” Carla reached out and patted Riley’s hand; Riley stared down at the intricate pattern on Carla’s incredibly long fingernails and absently wondered how she typed. “But it was probably the best thing all around.”

  Riley’s expression sunk, and Carla pursed her lips into a tight pucker. “Did you want to do it? Did your parents make you do it? Make you give up your baby? Lord, you wouldn’t be the first who came back looking for their child. You’re awfully young though, aren’t ya?”

  Riley stepped back, shaking her head. “No. Oh, no.” She pushed the birth certificate toward Carla. “It wasn’t my baby. I didn’t have it. It—she—” Riley pointed to the page as if the complete explanation was written there.

  Carla smoothed the paper, her pursed pucker breaking into a soft smile. “Is this you, honey? Were you the one who was adopted?”

  Riley’s mouth went dry.

  “Your parents probably stole you…” Shelby’s words echoed in her head—but this time, the lightness in them was gone. Could I be baby Jane? Could I have been adopted? Riley tried to swallow. Or stolen? Again, her mind raced. She didn’t have asthma; her father did. Her mother burned if she so much as stepped into direct sunlight—Riley never burned. They were fiercely overprotective. They never let her go out alone. And the one thought that hit Riley like a punch to the gut: there were no pictures of her before the age of three.

  Because she hadn’t been there.

  “Hon?”

  Riley cleared her throat. “Yeah…I guess.”

  Carla tilted her head and her eyebrows rose into sympathetic slits. “Oh, honey. It goes both ways. I can’t give you any information unless you have ID. Does your ID have”—she took the page between her enormous fingernails—“Jane Elizabeth O’Leary on it?”

  Riley shook her head. “Can you at least—can you at least tell me if you have any records on any of these people? Like, did they come in later for a broken bone or chicken pox or something? Did they have any big illnesses?”

  Carla looked at Riley, head still cocked, ruby red lips pressed in a contemplative pucker. She looked all around her then leaned in close again. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but since I’ve been telling them to fix the dag-on air conditioning for two months now and they ain’t done nothing about it, I can take a small liberty.”

  Riley sucked in a breath, sure that an enormous, stupid grin was cutting across her whole face. Carla paused then and eyed her. “Just a small one. I can tell you if the family has been through here.”

  Riley’s heart pattered nervously as Carla heaved herself back into her chair and focused hard on the computer monitor in front of her. “Lemme see that paper again, honey.”

  Riley slipped the birth certificate over the counter and clasped her hands behind her back so Carla wouldn’t see them trembling. She looked over Carla’s head, studying everything on every wall while Carla typed and Riley’s heart leapt into her throat. She was about to start pacing when Carla said, “Hmm. Now that’s odd.” She picked up the paper and squinted at it, pulled a pair of cheater eyeglasses up her nose, and typed again. She threw herself back in her chair and it squeaked a few inches backward. “Hmm.”

  “Is everything OK?”

  Carla folded up the birth certificate and handed it back to Riley. “I’m sorry, honey, but there is no record of this birth in our system.”

  There was a tightness in Riley’s chest that spread slowly, heavily, through her whole body. “What?”

  Carla shook her head. “Birth certifica
te says the baby was born here, but no, I don’t have any record of it at all. Kind of like a phantom.”

  Riley leaned forward, rolling up on her tiptoes, her fingers gripping Carla’s counter so hard they were white. “But what about the parents? Did you look them up?”

  Carla clucked and shook her head some more. “Tried ’em all. Even different spellings, you know, ’cuz a lot of times people get nervous just after they get their babies. But nothing.” She shrugged, her big shoulders hugging her ears. “Nada.”

  “Well, maybe your records just don’t go back far enough.”

  “Nope. I’ve got records of births seven years before this one. I’m sorry, honey, but maybe you weren’t born here after all.”

  “Well, is there another Granite Cay Hospital? Maybe it happened there and they got the—the addresses mixed up.” Even as Riley said it, she knew how thin and desperate her explanation was. Carla knew too, and she patted Riley’s hand again gently.

  “I wish I could help you, honey, I really do, but there’s nothing here.”

  Riley nodded slowly, her whole body feeling numb. The room was enormous but the walls started to creep toward her. She stepped away from Carla’s counter and sat down hard on the closest chair she could find. It was grossly stained but she didn’t care.

  The baby wasn’t born here. The parents didn’t exist.

  If it was a regular adoption, Riley reasoned, there would be a paper trail. Unless her parents didn’t want anyone to know…

  Her throat constricted. Her parents wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t just steal a baby—or adopt one and hide the records. They were rule followers, a by-the-book family. They would have told her if she were adopted.

  Riley unfolded the birth certificate again, scrutinizing it, just as she had nearly every hour since she’d found it. If it were true—if her parents stole her—would the hospital have no record? Did the hospital destroy her record in an effort to protect itself? Riley felt sick and sweaty, but she didn’t want to be in that hospital for one minute longer.

  She made a beeline for the automated glass doors and gulped greedily at the lukewarm, non-germ-infested air outside. She edged away from some smokers, and her heart seized when she saw a man peering at her. I know him—I know him—I know him, Riley thought, trying to shake her brain from its fog.