Since She Went Away (12 page)

Despite Celia’s easy victory, or maybe because of it, a barrier always existed between Jenna and Ian, an invisible force field that seemed to repel them away from each other in even the most mundane situations. They rarely shared a joke or made much more than small talk. As the
years went by, Ian worked more, spent more and more time invested in his career. The truth was, Jenna and Celia’s friendship existed independently of Ian and almost never involved him.

“That hasn’t been the case with us,” Jenna said, hoping the line of questioning would end. She was late for work, and if Naomi expected to hear something new from her about Celia’s marriage, she would be waiting a long time. “You’ve talked to Ian more recently than I have.”

“I guess so, then.”

“How is he doing?” Jenna asked.

“He’s holding up as well as he can.”

“He was treated pretty poorly when Celia disappeared,” Jenna said. “People assumed . . .”

“We didn’t.”

“But you questioned him. For a long time. Repeatedly.”

“Wasn’t I supposed to do my job?” Naomi asked, her voice acquiring a little edge. “Wasn’t I supposed to do that for Celia?”

“Of course.” Jenna felt bad for implying that the detective had been too hard on Ian. He was the missing woman’s spouse. Everyone knew the odds. And Ian could take care of himself. “I can only tell you what I know from Celia about their marriage, and that’s that they were doing as well as they always were.”

Naomi didn’t speak, but she held her gaze on Jenna’s face for a longer period of time than seemed normal. Something flickered in the woman’s eyes, a poker player’s glint that said she might just know something Jenna didn’t. But again, just like the emphasis on the word “closer,” was it something Jenna was simply imagining in her own off-kilter state?

“Well, I’ll let you get to work,” Naomi said.

They stood and shook hands, and Naomi promised to be in touch if she needed anything else.

“Can you do me a favor, Detective?” Jenna asked.

“Sure.”

“Can you tell Holly Crenshaw’s family I’m thinking of them? I know what this is like. I hate to think of other people going through it as well.”

“I’ll pass it along.”

“And you’ll let me know—”

“If we learn anything from Ludlow, anything I can share, I’ll call.”

As Jenna walked across the lobby, heading toward the entrance to Family Medicine, the sense came over her that Naomi was watching her walk away. Jenna didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to know the truth, but couldn’t help herself. She craned her neck around and looked, but Naomi was gone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

J
enna fell into the easy rhythms of the workday. She tried not to think about Ian. Or Celia. Or Benny Ludlow. She never thought she’d be thinking about Benny Ludlow again.

But how did he end up with Celia’s earring?

Were Celia and Holly Crenshaw hurt by the same person?

Was it Benny Ludlow?

Sally distracted her. They traded notes over how tired they were when they woke up that morning. “Are you kidding? The wine helps me sleep,” Sally said. “That’s why I drink some every night. Doctor’s orders.”

Jenna admitted her sleep had been lousy, the lingering effects of the previous day’s events, particularly the disagreement with Jared.

“The boys,” Sally said, shaking her head. “They develop the sassiest mouths. If mine hadn’t been so big, I would have kept right on spanking them.”

Just before eleven, Jenna stepped out to the lobby and called a patient back. A middle-aged man, someone she had never seen in the office before. Possibly a new patient or someone she simply hadn’t crossed paths with yet. When she called the man’s name, he looked
up, a hopeful smile on his face. People usually smiled when they were called back. Their wait was ending. They were that much closer to getting an answer from the doctor or receiving treatment. More than anything, they didn’t have to wait anymore.

But as the man came closer to Jenna, the look on his face changed. His brow wrinkled, the smile disappeared. When she attempted to make the usual small talk—
How are you today? Is it any warmer out there?
—the man grunted.

She understood. Some people didn’t want to talk. They wanted the business conducted without any of the frills. Except the smile the man first showed marked him as a talker . . .

When they entered the exam room, Jenna pulled out the blood pressure cuff.

“Just relax your arm,” she said. “No need to roll up your sleeve.”

The man cleared his throat. “Is there another nurse who can do this?”

“Excuse me?”

“Another nurse,” he said. “Besides you.”

Jenna didn’t follow. The man refused to meet her eye. “Is something wrong, sir?”

Then he looked up. “I don’t want to be helped by someone with a foul mouth, a troublemaker. It’s just not my values, that’s all.”

It took a moment to understand what he referred to, but then she knew. The TV interview. Reena Huffman. In the lobby, his face fell because he recognized her.

“Are you serious?” Jenna asked.

“What you’ve put that family through,” he said. “They’re pillars of the community.”

Some other “foul” words popped into her mind, and she wished she could share them. But she didn’t. She stepped out of the room without saying anything else and handed the chart off to one of her colleagues.

•   •   •

The receptionist in the lobby of Walters Foundry, a young woman with a bright smile and hair the color of straw, informed Jenna that there was simply no way she could see Mr. Ian Walters today. She offered to call upstairs to his private office and schedule the appointment herself with Ian’s secretary.

But Jenna didn’t feel like being turned away.

Something Naomi said stuck with her. Jenna did surf those Web sites and message boards because it made her feel as though she was doing something productive, even though, deep in her heart of hearts, she knew her little gestures didn’t make a bit of difference. Jenna remembered those first days after Celia’s disappearance. She walked the woods and hills of Hawks Mill with a group of volunteers. She manned a phone bank, dutifully writing down tips and leads.

None of it made any difference as far as she could tell. Celia remained lost, out of reach of all of them.

The other volunteers, as well as the observers and the citizens who casually followed the case around the country, they too slipped back to their daily lives, and the story barely left a mark on them. Another crime or crisis would pop up in the news, another distraction, and if something came up regarding Celia, they could flip the channel right back and pick up where they’d left off. The Reena Huffmans of the world would be sure nobody missed a detail.

Jenna, and those closest to Celia, floundered in the mire. No path forward presented itself. There was only looking back and regretting. Jenna wondered if she was stuck most of all. She wasn’t a member of the inner circle, a tight group she imagined included Celia’s mother, her sister, Ian, Ursula, and perhaps other friends Jenna didn’t know well, and she couldn’t walk away. Patience had become her watchword. Answers, if they came at all, wouldn’t come quickly. She understood the harsh
truths: Even if they did find Celia’s body—in a rotten barn, a ditch, or a forest—they wouldn’t necessarily be any closer to knowing what had happened to her, unless they could firmly tie it to somebody. Benny Ludlow or anybody else. They’d only know she was dead, an unpleasant truth Jenna tried to push from her mind whenever it crept in.

She needed to do something.

So Jenna told the secretary—
insisted
—that she call up to Mr. Ian Walters’s private office and tell him Jenna Barton was here to see him.

Needed
to see him.

The cheery young woman did as she was asked, never losing her smile.

A few minutes later, the phone on her desk rang. She nodded, writing on a small pad of paper. She tore it off with a flourish. “Mr. Walters says he’ll meet you at this address in fifteen minutes.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

J
enna took a seat at the Landing, Hawks Mill’s nicest restaurant. She arrived shortly before the height of the lunch rush and asked for a table for two. She felt self-conscious in her scrubs among the lawyers and executives and wealthy retirees who all were coming in wearing coats and ties and large rings. It was several years since Jenna had eaten at the Landing. Dr. Phillips, the founder of Hawks Mill Family Medicine, once brought the whole staff there for a holiday party. Other than an occasion like that, Jenna wouldn’t spend the money on a place like the Landing. When the waiter asked her what she wanted to drink, she asked for a glass of water.

While she waited, sipping her water, she bounced her feet under the table and rested her hand on the cool glass to keep from tapping her fingers too much. She tried to think of the last time she and Ian had spent any time alone. She guessed it was before he and Celia started dating, long before the two of them were married. Celia missed school one day, so Jenna started walking home alone. She didn’t mind the solitude. She let her mind drift, taking in the leaves that were just turning, the warm fall air that already carried a hint of decay. Her mind drifted so far she didn’t notice Ian until he was walking beside
her, a couple of books in one hand, the other tucked into the pocket of his jeans.

Even then he was taller than everyone else, almost to his adult height of six-four. His hair was longer then, a lock of it tumbling over his forehead, but he didn’t give in to the grungy fashions that were sweeping through the high school. She never saw Ian in flannel or ripped jeans, never saw him in Chuck Taylor sneakers with the names of bands scrawled on the canvas in Magic Marker. She doubted his parents would allow it. They might not let him back in the house if he dressed that way.

When he showed up alongside her that day after school, she jumped a little as he said hello. He apologized, and she told him he’d materialized like a ghost.

“God, I hope not,” he said. “Not yet.”

He asked Jenna a lot of questions about her family and her life. What did her mom and dad do? What did she do for fun? Did she have siblings? She answered all his questions, trying to keep the nervous edge out of her voice so he didn’t think she was a babbling, bumbling idiot. But when she turned the questions back to him, when she asked about his family and his friends and his life, he didn’t reveal much. Even then, a screen existed, a barrier Ian didn’t seem to want to let Jenna see behind.

They said good-bye in front of her house, and only then did Jenna wonder about how far Ian would have to walk to get back home. She knew his family lived in a nice new subdivision, one a couple of miles on the other side of their school. She thought about calling him back, offering for her mother to give him a ride. But she didn’t speak up. Ian seemed so at ease walking away, so sure of who he was and where he was going, that she figured he had it under control. People like Ian always had a way.

The next day, Jenna told Celia that she didn’t have to worry about how she made it home, that Ian ended up walking her. Celia didn’t say
anything. She gave Jenna a knowing look, one that Jenna didn’t fully understand at the time, but two days later she did when Celia and Ian were a couple, and the barrier that had always existed with Ian, the one Jenna hoped over time might fall away, became permanent. They spent time together over the years, but always with Celia there. And only in the context of Jenna being Celia’s friend and not really Ian’s.

The waiter came back one more time, as the restaurant started to fill. People stood near the front door, waiting for tables. And Jenna sat by herself with only a glass of water in front of her. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes had passed. Maybe Ian had been held up. Maybe he just didn’t want to deal with her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to order something?” he asked. Between the lines, Jenna heard what he really meant. Are you
ever
going to order
something
?

“My friend, the person I’m meeting, he should be here very soon.”

And then the crowd at the door parted a little, and Ian stepped through. He looked across the restaurant and made eye contact with Jenna. He nodded, his lips a compressed line.

He was there.

•   •   •

When Ian reached the table, Jenna didn’t know what to do.

Since that awful November morning, the two of them had found themselves in the same room on more than one occasion. The police station, the volunteer headquarters. But every time Jenna wanted to speak to Ian, to offer him some form of an apology for her part in the events that led to Celia’s disappearance, she couldn’t get close. Either circumstances beyond their control intervened, or Ian steered himself away, walking in the opposite direction in a manner that didn’t feel entirely purposeful but still left Jenna feeling shut out. And blamed.

Jenna stood up, and the waiter retreated. In full adulthood, Ian
stood six-four. He was long and lean like a basketball player, and his suit—the jacket and pants black, the white shirt open-necked without a tie—fit him as though it was custom-made, which it no doubt was. He wore a look of caution, his face impassive, his hands close to his body. Jenna took a half step forward, wondering if they were going to hug. Wouldn’t two old friends do that? Wouldn’t two old friends who had shared a mutual loss do that very thing?

But Ian kept his distance. He reached for the chair and not Jenna, so she had no choice but to follow suit and take her seat again, this time across from him. The waiter rematerialized and handed Ian a menu, which he set aside, ordering water and placing his hands on the table. Jenna was able to study his face and saw that the previous few months had taken a toll. His hair contained some strands of gray that Jenna swore had never been there before, and his eyes looked tired. Lines were starting to form in their corners, and she believed the lids looked heavier, weighted down by the seemingly endless days that had passed since Celia disappeared.