All those years of fury and fright; all those nights of despair; all that weeping and emptiness—and now her daughter wanted to be her daughter. She wanted to be Jennie again, and marry in the church where her real family went to Mass. She wanted her real father to be the real father and give her away in marriage. She wanted to become Jennie Spring Shields.
After all this time and all this pain, Donna’s daughter finally knew who her family was.
What do good people do when there is no good thing to do? The question had haunted them from the day Janie recognized her face on the milk carton.
Frank and Miranda Johnson were good people. They had done a good job rearing the little girl they thought was their granddaughter. They had done good things in their community and they had done good things keeping the lines open when Janie could not be reconciled to her original life. Frank and Miranda had constantly invited Stephen, Jodie, and the twins to their house. They had driven Janie down to New Jersey for Christmas and Easter, keeping their distance, staying at the motel until it was time to leave.
The media savaged them. Parents of a kidnapper: it must be their fault. Janie had stood by them literally and figuratively.
Donna remembered her joy when Janie trusted her with information, and her outrage about that information. Frank had known all these years how to find the kidnapper and had been paying her bills.
“I don’t think Miranda knows,” Janie had said. “I don’t want to tell her. I just closed the account. It’s over.”
But the FBI could have staked out that post office box! We’d have her by now! Donna wanted to shake her foolish child by the shoulders.
“My parents have been through enough, Mom. Capture and trial? No. I like to think that in the pieces of his mind he has left, Frank still has good things, like sunshine and football. I mean, who cares anymore?”
I care! thought Donna Spring. Hannah took a sledgehammer to our two families. I even care that poor Frank was crucified by that horrible woman, keeping his terrible secret, hiding money and accounts and staying anonymous until it gave him a heart attack and a stroke. I care for Miranda. I care for me! Every single night of my life, thinking if only I had held her hand in that shoe store in that mall.
I care that a woman of violence, like Hannah Javensen, could do anything to anybody. That even now she may be harming the innocent. And we could have locked her up!
But now, tonight, she thought, I care for you, my darling daughter. Imagine. You’re getting married. To the very boy who betrayed you on the radio.
Donna had three boys of her own. In fact, she had married a boy. Boys didn’t always think first. Or ever.
Donna gave Reeve credit for driving Janie to New Jersey five years ago to check out the Spring family. Janie and Reeve had parked across the street and stared at the front door of the house on Highview Avenue, watching four redheaded kids pile off school buses. Kids who looked like Janie. Donna imagined knowledge coating Janie like ice: she really was the face on the milk carton.
You’re only twenty, thought Donna. But in some ways, you’re as old as I am. You have suffered, you made difficult choices; every day you struggle to do the right thing, even when you can’t figure out what it is.
But Hannah … not so much. Hannah wanted to do the wrong thing.
Oh, how Donna Spring wanted Hannah to pay!
In Boulder, Stephen and Kathleen found the street on which the first possible Hannah lived. It was a long road. The person did not live at the expensive end. She lived at the dumpy end. Stephen and Kathleen found themselves facing a small house divided into very small apartments. Probably rented to students, with 100 percent turnover every year or even every semester.
“What will you say to her?” Kathleen wanted to know.
“All I want to do is look at her.” He walked right up and rang the bell. Nobody answered.
Stephen rang again and they waited again.
A woman walking a dog paused on the sidewalk. “I’m the landlady. You wanna rent a room? I got an empty one. You gotta share a bathroom.”
The woman was middle-aged. Somewhat heavy. Short puffy hair dyed blond, with gray roots showing. Bushy eyebrows. A big solid chin and very full lips.
“Thanks,” said Stephen. He looked at the list and read the first name out loud. “So that’s you, ma’am?”
“Yep.”
Scratch her, thought Kathleen. The Hannah in the high school picture is thin. Thin lips, thin hair, thin eyebrows, thin shoulders, thin nose. Weight gain wouldn’t change basic features. This was not Hannah.
Stephen said, “Did you ever rent to a woman named Tiffany Spratt?”
Who in the world was Tiffany Spratt? wondered Kathleen.
“Come on,” said the woman, gesturing with her dog-poop bag. “You think I remember them by name all these years, coming and going and skipping out on their rent? Mainly I have boys, though. Girls, they’re always wanting their own bathroom.”
“Thanks,” said Stephen. “Appreciate your time.” He walked away.
Well, this was the shortest and least productive interview on record. Kathleen followed reluctantly. Down the block, Stephen opened his wallet and took out the photograph of Hannah.
Imagine carrying the picture of the criminal who destroyed your life right in your wallet! Imagine it sitting there, where you’d see it each time you used a credit card! Its little yellow hair and its little prim smile always staring up!
Sick, thought Kathleen. If we got married, I would put a stop to that. But we’ll never get married. He’s not the marrying kind. And my parents say you can’t change anybody. Which is nonsense. I’ve changed myself a bunch to meet Stephen’s expectations.
Anyway, who was she to judge him for toting old photographs around? She herself had two photos of Hannah from the FBI website, the same high school yearbook photo and the computer-aged portrait.
“Ever since Jodie and I went into New York City trying to find Hannah I’ve carried this,” Stephen told her. “We were stupid kids, but it wasn’t a stupid idea. Hannah was arrested in New York once, and she’s out here somewhere. And a guy who writes huge bestsellers, who ought to know what he’s doing—his research team thinks she’s here in Boulder. So maybe the list exists as bait to get me, but I actually feel better about his research. He got some of it right. That can’t be Hannah, but she is the right age, and gender, and I think the poverty fits too.”
The reader of this future book wants way more than age, gender, and poverty, thought Kathleen. The reader wants description and conversation and analysis and photographs and background. Calvin Vinesett has a long way to go. Which is good. The book will take ages to write, and by then, Janie will be safely married and living far away under another name.
“Who’s Tiffany Spratt?” she asked.
“That’s the name Frank and Hannah chose for the post office box and the checks. I figure if we meet the real Hannah, she’ll be a little shaken that we know the name.”
It crossed Kathleen’s mind that the real Hannah was a kidnapper. By definition, violent. Should they really be wandering around trying to shake up people who liked violence?
On Wednesday, Lizzie was on the phone to her little brother yet again. “Yesterday,” she said sternly, “I visited the Harbor to see Mr. Johnson.”
Reeve was startled by this news. But then, his family had lived next door to the Johnsons for years. He used to be very fond of Mr. Johnson. Now Mr. Johnson was a shell. It was hard to be fond of a shell. You had to be fond of the history of the shell.
“You will have legal in-laws,” said Lizzie, the family attorney. “Donna and Jonathan Spring. And you will have emotional in-laws, Frank and Miranda Johnson. Instead of helping Janie with her burdens, you are whisking her away.”
“Isn’t that a form of helping?” asked Reeve.
“Does it help Frank and Miranda?” demanded Lizzie.
“Listen, Lizzie. Janie found that assisted living place, after searching everywhere for something
her parents could afford. She cleaned up that big house and got it repainted and found the real estate agent and got it sold. She put on that huge tag sale. She arranged the move from nine big rooms to three tiny rooms. She got Frank into his teensy bedroom with his walker and his eleven medications and she got Miranda into her teensy bedroom with her three medications. She got cable TV and telephone and Internet connections up and going. She arranged the furniture to fit and put the stuff Miranda wouldn’t part with in a storage unit. Every two weeks, for two whole years of college, she visited. You didn’t visit our parents every two weeks when you were in college. You didn’t even come home for Thanksgiving!”
“And I salute Janie,” said Lizzie. “But who will visit Frank and Miranda now that you’re taking their only child to North Carolina?”
“You probably should do it, Lizzie,” said Reeve. “Your house is closer. Yes, I think that’s the solution. You visit.”
Reeve rarely stopped Lizzie in her tracks. It was a pleasure.
But his sister had many topics to discuss. “Reeve,” she said, “I understand the ceremony will be in the Catholic church. Are you becoming a Catholic?”
“I’m not sure. The priest is letting me meet with him by Skype. We have two talks scheduled, and one more in person in New Jersey before the wedding.”
“It’s a serious decision,” said his sister.
“Getting married?” said Reeve. “I’m with you. How much more serious does it get?”
“I cannot support the pope’s decrees in many situations,” said Lizzie.
“And that applies to me how?” demanded Reeve. “Lizzie, I’m Christian. I can be a different variety of Christian. I know we’re too young to do this. I know we don’t have enough money and we haven’t thought it through and we’re crazy. But we’ll have the blessing of God.”
Totally fun. He had silenced her twice in one conversation.
• • •
Sarah-Charlotte’s roommate said, “I read a lot of true crime, you know. It fascinates me.”
Sarah-Charlotte did know. There was always some gruesome title lying open on Lauren’s bed. Nothing would make Sarah-Charlotte read true crime. She knew how lucky toddler Jennie Spring had been that her kidnapper had not tortured or murdered her. She knew that a person like Hannah Javensen who would actually snatch somebody’s baby would do anything. It was a chance in a million that when Hannah was ready to do worse than kidnap, she found herself near the one household where she could dump the kid and pretend the crime had never happened.
Lauren said, “Kidnappings are shocking because they involve innocent helpless children. But the Janie Johnson case is especially interesting. Janie was taken for no reason that anybody could discern. The kidnapper just felt like it. Imagine a woman so removed from normal human emotion that stealing a kid was no different from stealing a video game. The toddler survived, so it’s not like that Smith case where the mother drove her car into the pond and purposely drowned her little boys so she could date somebody who didn’t like kids. But I think Hannah Javensen is just as frightening. A kidnapper who presents a stolen child to her own mother and father like a birthday present. ‘Here! A granddaughter for you! Auburn curls and a polka-dot dress! Well—I’m off! Bring her up for me!’ The kidnapper wanted her own mother and father to get caught for her crime and suffer what should have been her punishment.”
“Hannah pulled it off,” said Sarah-Charlotte. “Frank and Miranda were hideously punished.” Although Janie was punished the most.
“As for Michael/Mick,” said Lauren, “it isn’t safe for Janie to be stalked by some kidnap junkie. Let’s investigate him. I’m so disappointed in Calvin Vinesett. I’ve read all his books, and I had no idea that he used researchers. I always imagined him going to the prison and visiting the killer and interviewing the sick and crazy parents—there’s always a sick and crazy parent, you know.”
“There is not,” said Sarah-Charlotte sternly. “I love the Johnsons. The sick and crazy person is Hannah. She was probably born that way. Or her body chemistry shifted sideways and she became that way.”
And then Lauren’s parents arrived at the dorm to take her and her stuff home for the summer, and the girls hugged good-bye. Sarah-Charlotte hauled the last of her own stuff down to the lobby, turned in her room key, and waited for her parents.
Mick had followed her too, trotting down the sidewalk that day, hoping to become friends. He really is a stalker, she thought, and she was utterly confused. The guy had a New York City apartment. Why would he travel to Boston, figure out what classes Sarah-Charlotte was in, and edge into her life?
I can’t tell him anything, she thought.
But what did he think I could tell him?
She had a thought so weird she couldn’t breathe. No, she said to herself. Impossible.
She batted her hands at her head, to get rid of the crazy thought.
I need a second opinion. But whose?
Not Janie. Not Reeve. They don’t need more kidnap in their lives. Not the Johnsons, for sure. Not the Springs, who are all kidnapped out. Reeve’s lawyer sister, Lizzie? She helped Janie once.
But Sarah-Charlotte didn’t like Lizzie, and the feeling was mutual.
A couple of times, Sarah-Charlotte had run into Brian, one of Janie’s younger twin brothers, who was also in school in Boston. Well, not Boston, really; Harvard students always said Cambridge.
She called him, but Brian was not willing to discuss the true crime book. Either he had things to do or he was not a fan of Sarah-Charlotte’s. Sarah-Charlotte learned only one thing: Brendan had given interviews. That didn’t get her anywhere.
And then her parents arrived, and triple-parked, and they flung boxes and duffels and suitcases into the car, and Sarah-Charlotte forgot.
Jodie’s plane was approaching Newark. She was pierced by the deep emotion of an American returning home after a long time. It wasn’t joy, but joyful heartache. Yes. I’m home. Oh, thank you! I’m home.
The plane was coming down over New Jersey, her beloved state, and below her was an ocean of small roofs and wide roads, hurrying cars and fat green trees.
They landed.
She would have kissed the ground if she had been at ground level.
At the gate, she had a drink of cold water from a fountain, and thought how Haitians would love such a thing, and then went to the ladies’ room and marveled at how clean and white and sweet-smelling it was.
She turned on her cell phone and called her parents.
“We’re waiting at baggage claim!” shrieked her mother, as if she needed to project volume all the way to Haiti.
When Jodie got to baggage claim, hundreds of other arriving passengers were on their cell phones, describing exact locations, but Jodie could skip that step. Hers was the crowd of redheads. Mom’s was getting gray and Dad’s was vanishing to a curly rim around a bald head, but that massive mane of red hair could only be Janie.
The difficult sister cared enough to come.
And then they were all hugging and laughing and saying pointless things like “How was the flight?”
“I want to hear all about Haiti,” said Janie.
Jodie thought, I could never explain Haiti. I didn’t understand while I was there. “First, I get to hear all about the wedding,” she said.
Haiti receded as if it had been a dentist appointment instead of another world and a year.
“Get in here, Reeve!” shouted his boss.
Reeve’s gut tightened. He’d done everything, hadn’t he? In the right order? In a timely fashion? Every detail correct?
He trotted into Bick’s office.
“So, how far have you gotten with these wedding plans? Because we have a problem.”
“We do?”
“I shouldn’t have okayed July eighth so fast. We’ve got the Big East preview that weekend and I want you on it. I can give you the second week in September, or else next weekend. June third. I figured things were gonna be pretty loose, seeing
the way you proposed and all. You didn’t engrave the invitations yet, didja?”
Oh, great, thought Reeve. Career or wedding. Love when that happens. “Let me talk to Janie real fast.”
He went out of Bick’s office. Out of the whole building. Into the shade of an overhang. Good thing there were cell phones. He was pretty sure Janie was in New Jersey for Jodie’s welcome home party, but a person could get confused following Janie’s family schedule.
“Janie? Problems. They don’t want to give me July eighth after all. How do you feel about either June third, or else September?”
They both burst into crazed laughter.
“That’s it? Those are our choices?” said Janie.
“Yup.”
“If we wait until September, I’ll be a crazy woman all summer. But there’s no way to put a wedding together in—oh, wow—that’s ten days!”
“Aren’t we just serving sandwiches out in the backyard, though?” asked Reeve. “And aren’t you getting a dress off the rack at the bridal mall?”
“Ten days,” Janie repeated.
“Come on, woman,” said Reeve. “I’ve crammed all my studying for entire semesters into ten hours. We can figure out how to say I do in ten days.”
“Except guess what—the actual wording is ‘I will.’ ”
“Will what?”
“I will take this man to be my wedded husband, to love and to cherish from this time forth. I love that word, ‘cherish.’ ”
“And will you want to cherish me in ten days or in four months?”
“I’ll call you back in a few minutes, Reeve.” Janie flew downstairs to find her mother. “We have to change the wedding date. How does June third sound?”
“Insane,” said her mother.
“True, but will you and Dad be here?” Janie giggled. “I know my other parents don’t have any trips abroad planned.”
“Let’s think. Brendan and Brian aren’t a problem. They’ll be home from college by then anyway, and all we have to do is button them into their wedding clothes. I’ll call Stephen immediately. He’ll be irritated, but he always is. Let me check with Father John and make sure we can get the church. It’ll be very exciting. There will be so much to do, nobody can sleep from now on.”
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