What Janie Found (9 page)

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

When she was surprised, Reeve’s grandmother would say, “I’m floored!’”

Now Reeve knew what it meant. He felt as if Janie had used a martial arts hold and thrown him flat on the floor of Mr. Johnson’s office.

What was this insanity? Meeting her own kidnapper? By herself? In a strange town?

“Just looking’” was not worth a trip to Colorado. Anyway, if she “just looked’” at middle-aged women who had post office boxes, how could she be sure she had the right one? She wasn’t just looking. Of course she meant to talk to Hannah.

“Janie,’” he said, incredulous, “you can’t do that. Hannah’s off-limits. Finding her is a really crummy idea.’”

Actually, it was a really exciting idea. Hunting Hannah down would be like racing: Janie was pressing her foot to the floor, and nobody loved speed and danger more than Reeve. But this was out of the question.

“I can handle it,’” said Janie.

“But what if something goes wrong?’”

“What could go wrong? I’m just going to look at her. She won’t know who I am.’”

“That’s not a good enough reason to fly to Colorado,’” said Reeve. How could Janie be this stupid? “If you want her to have money, mail it to her. What’s looking going to accomplish?’”

“Okay, fine. I
am
going to talk to Hannah. When she picks up her check, I’ll be waiting.’”

Reeve was appalled. “But what would you say to her?’”

“
She’s
the one who’s going to say things. I’ll be the one listening. I want to know what happened.’”

“We know what happened,’” said Reeve irritably. “Forget your dumb questions. What if Hannah wants to come home with you or something? What if she wants to be at her father’s hospital bed? What’s your mother supposed to do when her criminal daughter shows up? Janie, don’t be selfish.’”

“I’ll do what I want!’” she snapped.

He stared at her. This is Janie? he thought. Sweet good Janie?

She read his thoughts. “I am sick sick
sick
of being the good guy! I want to know what happened. I want to look into her eyes. I want answers.’”

“Janie, there aren’t any questions left,’” said Brian.

“You don’t have any questions?’” said Janie to her brother. “You don’t want to know
why
? Why
me
? Why
us
? Why that afternoon? Where was she going? Why didn’t she take me the rest of the way? What did she think would happen to you guys? To your mother and father? What was worth the risk? What was the plan? You don’t want to ask any of that?’”

Oh, Janie, thought Reeve. None of the answers could be good.

So, Frank, he thought dully, what was your point—keeping that file? You had to know that one day somebody else would read it. What was
your
plan, Frank?

But this was a nightmare without a plan. It was a Slinky on a staircase, curling down to the bottom, nobody stopping it.

Brian was correct, of course. Any one phone call to any one adult would stop it.

But Brian was also correct that the four parents couldn’t and shouldn’t have to endure anything more.

My parents? Reeve wondered. They’re pretty immersed in Lizzie’s wedding and anyway, if I asked for their help, they’d dial 911. There’s Lizzie herself, but she’d just call Mr. Mollison. Once the FBI finds out, everyone we need to protect is exposed.

“There are laws,’” he said confusedly. “About checking accounts.’” Reeve didn’t have one. He wasn’t sure of himself. “You can’t write a check on your father’s account, Janie.’”

“Yes, I can.’” She was feverish with her plan. “I have my parents’ power of attorney. It’s a legal form you fill out at the lawyer’s office. It decrees that if a person is incapacitated, you take over.’”

This didn’t sound right to Reeve. Janie was a minor. Could you grant such power to a kid? Your own kid? Or, actually, in this convoluted case, somebody else’s kid you were just pretending was yours?

Practically speaking, though, Janie could write checks on that account whether it was legal or not. At a bank with a million customers, who would compare signatures? Nobody. Ever.

“I’m going to Boulder,’” said Janie.

“You can’t get in your kidnapper’s path a
second
time,’” said Reeve.

“I’m going.’”

Lord, it’s only been six months since the last time I was a total jerk, thought Reeve. Am I going to be a total jerk again? Or is it Janie who’s the jerk, and I’m just along for the ride?

I have to go too, and keep Janie safe while she hunts Hannah.

Hunt.
A word for a wren snatched by a hawk; a chipmunk savaged by a weasel. Janie was going to hunt Hannah down. Hannah was prey.

But she deserves that, thought Reeve dizzily. Hannah is a predator herself. “Then we’re all going,’” he said decisively. “All three of us. I’ll be the one who wants to go to school in Colorado. Brian will be the one who misses his brother. You’ll be the one whose father was on his deathbed, but they’re talking about moving him to a rehab center and you need a break. And when we get there, you’re not approaching Hannah, Janie. Promise.’”

I’m as crazy as she is, thought Reeve. I’m not only going along with her, I’m presenting the format! The Springs would be wild at the idea of Brian in the same town with the kidnapper, let alone the same room and the same conversation.

Well, I just won’t let him out of my sight. Or Janie either.

“Then it’s settled,’” said Janie. “Brian, you call Stephen. He has to set this up. My mother will let me go as long as Stephen finds a bed for me in a girls’ dorm or something.’”

“Do we tell Stephen what we’re doing?’” asked Reeve. He liked Stephen. He didn’t think anybody had told Stephen how rotten Reeve had been last year. It would be nice if Stephen had no knowledge of Reeve’s flaws.

Well, Stephen would consider it a real flaw that Reeve was actually helping Janie do this.
And
letting Brian be part of it.

“We don’t tell Stephen,’” said Brian. “He gets mad too fast.’”

“We have to be back in time for Lizzie’s wedding,’” said Reeve.

There was a wall calendar in the office, but the page hadn’t been flipped to July, because the owner of the calendar no longer knew what month or year it was. Janie ripped June off the pad. They studied July.

“We have time,’” she said. “We have ten days to put this together and get it done.’”

Brian telephoned Stephen.

Stephen had just come from a class discussion in which several students believed that the right cup of herbal tea would save them from pain and sorrow. Well acquainted with pain and sorrow, Stephen did not contribute to the discussion. He merely crossed these idiots off his list of possible friends.

He walked in the door of his dorm room to find the phone ringing: his little brother, asking to come visit. Asking to bring Janie and her boyfriend, Reeve.

The sweetness of it! The innocence.

A kid wanting his big brother.

“Yes!’” said Stephen, laughing out loud, he was so pleased. Brian wanted to see him so much he’d coaxed Janie to pretend she wanted to attend the university. And Reeve, whom Stephen liked a lot, really did want to transfer to Boulder.

Would that be cool or what? thought Stephen.

He had a girlfriend. Now there’d be a guy to hang out with. No explanations of his history would be required. Reeve knew everything.

“This is perfect,’” said Stephen. “There’s a ton of room in the dorms this summer. You and Reeve bunk with me, Bri, and Janie will stay with my girlfriend.’” Stephen ached to throw his arms around Brian, and talk, and ease his heart about Brian’s failed twinship.

“You have a girlfriend?’” said Brian. “You never told us.’”

“I’m not going to tell you now either. Don’t tell Mom and Dad, don’t tell Jodie, don’t tell Bren.’”

“Why not?’” said Brian. “Mom and Dad would be thrilled. Unless she’s some disgusting skank leading you down a sick and twisted path.’”

Stephen just laughed. “You’ll like her. It’s just easier to separate lives. I’ve separated mine, okay? There’s New Jersey, there’s Colorado, I don’t want overlap.’”

“I’ll never tell, Stephen,’” said Brian very seriously, and Stephen remembered how Brian adored him. Until that moment, he had not known that his summer was empty, because it was filled with Kathleen. Now he wanted his brother and sister fiercely. That the best thing they could think of to do with their summer was to visit him!

“Let me talk to Janie,’” he said to Brian. I’ll make it up to Janie that I never mentioned her all year, he told himself. I’ll make Kathleen swear never to tell Janie I left her out.

His sister’s voice was so eager. “Stephen? Is this really okay? Are you going to be glad to see us? We won’t come if we’re a nuisance.’”

“It’s wonderful, Janie.’” For the first time, he was okay calling her by her kidnap name. She was fully Janie Johnson, not at all Jennie Spring, and that was fine.

“When are you coming?’” said Stephen. Already, he could hardly wait.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

“Dad?’” said Kathleen. “Did you call around? How much is true? What else did you find out?’” Her voice was bright and fascinated.

True crime
was
fascinating. Unless it was yours.

Harry Donnelly had known his daughter would telephone, expecting inside information on the outrageous story of Jennie/Janie.

If anything, Stephen Spring had downplayed the drama. Every episode in the life of Jennie Spring/Janie Johnson was tragic. But more appalling, to the father of Kathleen, was the mental condition her boyfriend was in. People did not easily recover from such trauma. Some people did not recover at all. The last thing Harry Donnelly wanted was his daughter taking on some emotional wreck.

Kathleen liked people who laughed and took it easy. What was she doing falling in love with a kid who didn’t laugh and wasn’t easy? Trying to save him?

Nuts.

Harry Donnelly didn’t care whether Stephen got saved and learned to laugh. He wanted Kathleen out of this relationship.

“Stephen did not exaggerate,’” he told his daughter. “He left out a lot, probably because it hurts. I’m sure he knows all of it.’”

Harry Donnelly was not sure of that. There was one fact Stephen Spring, and presumably his parents, had never been told. Harry Donnelly was not going to tell Kathleen, either.

The kidnapper had been arrested in New York City but released because it was before Janie had revealed herself. When Janie turned up, police checked nationwide arrest records for the name Hannah Javensen, and the New York arrest was linked up. Investigators found that Javensen had flown out of New York the day after her release from jail.

There were two interesting details in that. When she was released from jail, the woman had no money. So who had paid for the plane ticket? A ticket bought on the day of travel was expensive.

The cult had fallen on hard times and dispersed to avoid arrest for drug dealing. They’d have no use for some middle-aged woman who was broke and in trouble. Harry Donnelly doubted very much that the cult had suddenly provided an expensive plane ticket.

The likely providers of such a gift were her parents.

The other interesting detail was that Hannah Javensen’s flight had not been direct to Los Angeles. It had had a stopover in Denver.

How easy, how logical, for her to drift toward Boulder. Boulder was one of several beautiful towns in the United States, in various climates, at various elevations, that had become a haven for the ditzy, the confused, the extreme, the all-too-relaxed.

People on the edge loved Boulder.

In the midst of this pretty university town, this sophisticated little city, were so many fringe people. What better town for an ex–cult member, on the lam from every possible law enforcement agency, to live in? She’d be in a population that was comfortable evading the law. A crowd with no taste for responsibility. Doing their own thing, not worrying where the chips might fall.

Stephen was a chip. He had fallen hard. The bruises still showed.

Harry Donnelly did not think Stephen had chosen the University of Colorado because he knew about Hannah’s flight plans. Stephen wouldn’t have been hanging around with Kathleen if he’d thought he could be ferreting out the kidnapper.

It was claimed that in the age of the Internet, anybody could be traced easily. But this was not true. If a person decided to get along without a Social Security number (which meant: without a traditional job) and without a driver’s license, or credit cards, or a phone, the path for tracing didn’t exist.

Harry Donnelly had easily established that if Hannah Javensen was in Boulder, she had no phone, no credit cards and no driver’s license. He’d checked under the name Johnson, too. There was nothing.

Suppose the Javensen woman had stumbled on another underground, similar to the one she had occupied in California. If this had happened—and Boulder was the place for it—only astonishing luck would bring her to the surface…the kind of astonishing luck that had led Janie Johnson to realize that the picture of Jennie Spring was her picture.

Luck existed.

But if Hannah Javensen materialized, Harry Donnelly wanted Kathleen in another state. “We liked Stephen, Kath,’” he told her, and this was true; he had liked Stephen a lot. He just didn’t want the kid around anymore.

Kathleen easily switched to the topic of Stephen’s virtues. She began listing for her father the wonderful things about Stephen Spring.

He said, “Kath, I’m going to be in Colorado again next week. Would it be too much to see your old dad twice in one month?’”

A lifetime in law enforcement had taught him that half the battle was being in the right place at the right time. He would think of the right thing to do when he got there.

“Oh, Dad, that’s perfect! You’ve got to come! Because guess who else will be here! You won’t believe this. Janie. The kidnapette. She and her brother and some friend who wants to transfer are visiting Stephen. Janie’s going to stay with me.’”

Well, well, thought Harry Donnelly. I’ll encourage the use of that word
kidnapette.
That should drive a little rift between Stephen and my daughter.

“Stephen,’” said Kathleen, laughing, “wanted me to promise not to ask Janie a single question. But I figure—two girls in a dorm—she has no hope. I’ll know everything by morning.’”

And in a family so full of secrets, that should drive a second rift.

“Good idea,’” said her father. “Be persistent.’”

Janie and Reeve and Brian didn’t need a single fake argument.

Everybody’s parents were delighted.

Reeve’s parents thought Colorado would be an excellent place to transfer to. Brian’s parents had already had a thrilled call from Stephen, making them promise to pay for Brian’s flight. As for Miranda Johnson, she’d actually have less to worry about with Janie away.

Janie had a worry of her own. It was twenty-four hours before the plane took off and she had not managed to be alone with her father. “I’ll sit with Dad,’” she offered again. “Take a break, Mom. Get some fresh air.’”

“No, thank you, darling,’” said her mother. She tugged at the sheets, smoothing and neatening, as if Frank’s motionless body could have disturbed anything.

Dad could breathe on his own now. His heart beat. But Dad himself, his personality and soul, was not doing much. He had yet to speak. “They’”—the shifting array of doctors and techs and nurses—said not to give up; things could still improve.

“How about another cup of coffee, Mom?’” said Janie.

“I’ve had so much coffee I’m on the ceiling. I’m excited about your trip to Colorado. Stephen is such a fine boy. You’ll have such a good rest, and think of all that mountain air.’”

“Yes,’” said Janie. “Mom, you’re so thin these days. I want you to go down to the cafeteria and eat something rich and filling.’”

Her mother said, “Actually, I have a wonderful book on tape I’m going to play for Frank. It’s the new—’”

“Mom,’” said Janie, pressed for time and courtesy, “I want to say stuff to Daddy. Getting-on-a-plane stuff. I want you to leave me alone with him for a while.’”

She should have said that to start with. Her mother lit with joy that Daddy’s little girl was going to tell him how she loved him. “Do you think he can hear?’” said her mother wistfully.

“Yes,’” said Janie, who was sure he could not. She took the precaution of shutting the door when her mother left. These weren’t things she wanted Miranda to listen to.

Her father’s hand was warm but limp. She could feel its bones and see its blood vessels, but the hand felt unoccupied. How—
how!
—could he have screwed up so badly with the first daughter and left the second daughter to deal with it?

I could yank out his tubes, she thought. Disconnect his monitors. I hate him, but I love him more. It isn’t a rich wonderful love. I resent loving him. But it’s there.

This man so flat on this mattress had no protection from the world, not even from Janie. Nothing stood between him and all things bad.

She had a sudden image of Hannah, eighteen and friendless, just this flat and unresponsive. No protection from the world. Clutching, grabbing, tightening her grip on strangers—any strangers; Hannah didn’t care.

Being alone was the greatest horror plot of all time. Nobody to sit with. Nobody to phone you. Nobody to notice. Had Hannah lived inside that horror story her first eighteen years?

“I’m going to look at her, Frank,’” Janie said quietly. “Your real daughter. The one you put ahead of me. I’m going to see where your money and your lies went.’”

She waited, but there was no sign that he heard or understood or even that he was there at all. She looked down on the father who could not look back at her and began crying. “I don’t know if you’re in there, Daddy, or if your soul went to God and your body forgot to die. A stroke is so terrible. Everything that’s happened to you is terrible, Daddy. Your very own daughter was a terrible thing to happen to you.’”

His monitors hummed.

“I’m going away for a few days.’” She felt as if she were leaving a message on his answering machine. “Brian and I are visiting Stephen at college. Mom will be on her own.’”

But there was no dialogue, because there was only one speaker.

Janie turned her back on Frank Johnson.

In Colorado there would be two speakers.

There would be answers.

“How did Hannah run away that first time?’” said Kathleen in the voice of one taking notes. “Did she walk? Take a bus? Train?’”

“How would I know?’” said Stephen. “That was years before Janie was even born. Kath, drop it. I don’t want us talking about this when Janie gets here.’” He would have run on ahead of Kathleen, but she had twice his stamina. He had never gotten used to the thin mountain air. He couldn’t pass her running up Flagstaff Mountain. A five-mile run, and Kathleen did it several times a week. It was all he could do to keep breathing at this altitude.

“You’ve let that kidnapette ruin your family,’” said Kathleen. “It is not healthy.’”

“Where’d you get that word? Don’t call her that. She’s my sister. She had to choose between two families. It was hell. It’s still hell. And we are not ruined.’”

“Stephen, you wouldn’t even admit to your own girlfriend that Janie existed. You have to let go of your anger. You have to let go of Janie.’”

No, thought Stephen. I have to hold on to her.

“It’s important to be open,’” Kathleen explained.

“Yeah, well, maybe in Boulder, but in our two families it’s important to leave the dark corners dark, okay?’” Stephen gave up trying to pass her. He dropped back instead. He was so eager to have this visit. So glad they were coming. The last thing he wanted was Kathleen shoving Hannah Javensen into it.

Lagging behind didn’t shut her up. Kathleen just slowed to his pace. “I can help, Stephen.’”

“Become a social worker. But leave Janie alone. Let’s talk about how we’re going to entertain them tomorrow.’”

Kathleen was scornful of people who did not use their muscles. Lazy couch potatoes needed to be taken out in the desert and made to run laps. It was her theory that Stephen’s guests would want to bike up the mountains instead of seeing them from a car window.

Stephen had his doubts about that.

When at last he and Kathleen reached the mountaintop, Stephen was overwhelmed by the geography spread around him.

In New Jersey, Stephen had never known what direction he was facing. He never thought about it. But in Colorado, direction was magnificent and inescapable. East—flatness to the Mississippi. West—the Rockies. Every peak made him marvel.

He loved the West. He wanted his brother and sister and Reeve to love it too. He wanted their visit to be perfect. He was so worried that something might go wrong.