What Janie Found Read online

  He woke up, his mouth dry and his neck stiff.

  The rattles were Brian, flipping pages.

  “Reeve, do you want the window for a while?’” said Brian, leaning eagerly over Janie. His cheeks were pink and freckled, his eyes wide and excited. “It’s so neat to look down on the fields, Reeve. I finally figured out that the big circles are irrigation, they’re huge watering systems. For hundreds of miles, America is circles on squares.’”

  What if they found Hannah? What if she put her hand on Brian’s face or touched his hair? What if she grabbed his wrist and yanked him away with her?

  Janie hated the middle.

  She felt like a convict with prison guards. Brian to the left of her, Reeve to the right, the seat belt chaining her down.

  Even eating on a plane was like prison. The warden came by with soft drinks and you were allowed one, not two. You got pretzels but couldn’t order the hamburger and fries you craved.

  She could not stop thinking about the Law. Law with a capital L, as in police and FBI and real prison.

  What she needed right now was a prison library, where she could look up things like aid and abet. She was pretty sure that was what Frank had done when he helped Hannah leave New York. It was a crime to help a criminal. Was it less of a crime if the criminal was your daughter?

  Kidnapping was a federal offense; there was no statute of limitations. Whenever Hannah was found, she would be just as guilty as she had been when she took Jennie Spring out of the shopping mall.

  Was Frank just as guilty?

  What would they do to him if they found out?

  I’m endangering Frank, she thought.

  She tightened up, trying to pull away from the observing eyes of Reeve and Brian.

  And her other father, her big burly bearded father, whose greatest hope was that one day she would run toward him, laughing, and hugging, and gladder to see him than anybody.

  It had not yet happened.

  I could destroy both my homes doing this, Janie thought. Both my fathers. Both my mothers.

  Home.

  Hannah had never wanted it; Janie had wanted it so very very much.

  Janie tucked her elbows in and folded her hands. She looked at the neat calm package she presented to other travelers. Travel by lying, she thought. I’ve stacked up lie after lie, like planes waiting to land.

  I won’t crash. This will work.

  Sleep hit her, the kind of sleeping babies do in cars, induced by motor and vibration. In her sleep, the match that was Hannah set fire to the grass, the fire crept over the house and ate the walls, and Frank and Miranda suffocated inside.

  In honor of Lewis and Clark, Brian had abandoned the Trojan War and brought the Journals, although Lewis and Clark had crossed the Rocky Mountains much farther north. He flipped pages but didn’t read because the earth below was so fascinating. Maybe he would not study history after all. Maybe he’d become a geographer. What was there to do? Weren’t all places already mapped?

  The plane banked and prepared to land at Denver International Airport, and Brian saw where the Continental Divide thrust into the sky.

  We got away with it, he thought. We flew across this country under false pretenses. So there, Brendan! I can do interesting stuff without you. You think you’re the twin doing interesting things. Think again.

  But false pretenses lay like a row of spiky nails across the road of his thoughts. What if something went wrong? What if his parents found out about this? It wasn’t so much that Mom and Dad would be mad. It was that they would be crucified by having to go through it all, all over again.

  The earth was rapidly getting closer and closer. Denver International looked like a great white Arab tent in a vast and empty desert. Brian was from New Jersey. He liked buildings and people and traffic.

  Once inside the terminal, however, there were enough people and traffic to go around. Everybody was rushing, dragging suitcases on squeaky wheels, shoving briefcases through crowds, glaring at monitors. Their speed infected Brian, and his excitement came back, and his delight at outwitting the world.

  Stephen had instructed them to take an airport bus to Boulder. Reeve handled the details, retrieving baggage, buying their tickets, locating the right bus out of so many. Brian watched carefully, surprised to find there was nothing much to it; he could have done it. I’ll handle it coming home, he told himself.

  He called his parents from a pay phone to let them know he, Janie, and Reeve had landed safely, and his parents promised to call Mrs. Johnson when she got home from the hospital that night.

  The Lewis and Clark book was in his way. He was almost annoyed that he’d dragged a dumb book along. They were going to be way too busy for reading. And he was going to have a million things to think about, plus evading Stephen’s questions and sticking to Janie like glue, because he wasn’t going to let her approach Hannah.

  Lewis and Clark had no idea where they were going, Brian told himself, or how to find the West Coast, but they got there. Janie and Reeve and I have no idea where we’re going either, or how to find Hannah, but we’ll get there.

  The bus seats came in pairs.

  Janie and Reeve sat in the row ahead of him. Brian sat alone. He stared out the window. Back East you didn’t see the horizon. Trees and rooftops, dipping and rising roads, hid the sky. Rarely did you have a long view.

  We don’t have a long view of what we’re doing, thought Brian Spring.

  His excitement faded.

  Fear of actually finding Hannah replaced it.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  No sooner had they flung their duffel bags onto the floor in Stephen’s room than he insisted on a long walk to explore the campus and Boulder. Later, Stephen explained, they would meet his girlfriend, Kathleen, at their favorite sidewalk café, and close the day with a walk into the mountains.

  Brian preferred cars. Actually, he preferred parking the car at the door so as to cut down on walking time. This was the way Stephen had been brought up. Now Stephen strode along like a lifelong athlete, when in fact he had been in the running for New Jersey’s number one couch potato.

  Brian would not give Stephen away. Nobody would know that Stephen used to spend entire weeks lying down with a remote in his hand.

  He trotted at Stephen’s side while Janie and Reeve followed along.

  It was not possible to associate a kidnapper with this pretty bubbly active town. Everybody was outdoors. This was the walkingest place Brian had ever seen. People who were not walking were running.

  “It’s a Colorado thing,’” said Stephen. “People are into running.’”

  “Are you running now?’” asked Brian respectfully.

  “Kathleen runs,’” said Stephen. “Sometimes I trot along. I’m getting to be pretty decent on a bike.’”

  “I would only do the part where you coast,’” said Brian.

  Just a few blocks of houses stood between them and the start of the Rocky Mountains. The foothills were right there. Brian was awestruck.

  “It’s called the Front Range,’” said Stephen. “I love that. I’m in front. I’m on the range.’”

  There were tiny brick parks and a fountain; benches and a juggler and a chalk artist. There were enough street musicians that everybody’s music blended into everybody else’s, and the din was like the races, only tuneful.

  They turned a corner and across the street was the Boulder post office.

  Brian’s knees stiffened and his mouth gave a funny jerk, as if he had bitten down on a lemon. The woman who had mutilated their lives must walk in and out of those doors. Her fingers must hold those handles and her eyes stare out of that glass. In that building was the box where she got her money.

  The sunny laughing warmth of Boulder was unchanged, but Brian stood in the shade. It was real. Janie really meant to do this.

  “Bri?’” said Stephen. “You okay?’”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,’” said Brian. “Well, maybe I’m hungry.’” />
  “Planes are terrible,’” said Stephen sympathetically. “They never give you anything but pretzels. We’ll head to the café right now.’”

  Brian had never encountered a sympathic Stephen. Suffer and shut up about it, was Stephen’s theory.

  “What do you feel like having, Bri?’” said Stephen in a comforting voice Brian did not remember. “Real food, ice cream, just a Coke or what?’”

  I want to go home, thought Brian. I want us not to be doing this. I want not to find Hannah.

  Reeve walked a little behind the three Springs.

  He loved exercise and had gotten extra used to it this summer because he had no car, but he found walking through Boulder deeply upsetting. What if that middle-aged woman walking a dog, or that one on a bike, or that one window-shopping was Hannah?

  There was something dreadful about the brightness of light in the West. Nothing could be hidden from that sun.

  He stared at Stephen’s back and thought, I can’t stop Janie. But you could. Do I tell you?

  Lord, if only I could tell up front when I’m being a jerk.

  “Boulder is charming,’” said Janie. “I like it here, Stephen. I’ve never been in such a people town. I love all the little shops and sidewalk cafés. I want to live here and go in each one and eat all day, except for when I’m shopping.’”

  Shopping was the last thing on Janie’s mind. When they walked past the post office, her heart shot forward, leaped inside and stood in front of tiny boxes with tiny keyholes. If I could ask Hannah Javensen just one question, thought Janie, only one—what would it be?

  “It is a neat town,’” agreed Stephen.

  Janie despised liars, and here she stood, blithely lying with her smile, her posture, her voice and her topics. She glanced around for another lying topic to hide behind.

  Even the clothing here was different. At home, everybody would be wearing sneakers. Here, just as many people wore sandals. She had never seen grown women wearing cowboy boots. “I want cowboy boots,’” said Janie, and that particular lie became truth, because right away she really did want cowboy boots.

  “We are not here to shop,’” said Brian firmly.

  “But if we were,’” said Stephen, “we could easily find the right boots.’” He steered them toward a gathering of round white tables with stools tilting around like little hungry people.

  If I had one question, she thought, I would ask, Who failed? Did you fail our parents, Hannah? Or did they fail you?

  My wonderful parents who did everything right and loved me so. Were they crummy parents to you? What was your childhood? Was it the same as mine? Did they really love you? Did they do their best?

  Then why did you turn out bad?

  “Kathleen’s father says Boulder is dreamland,’” said Stephen. “This is a town for people who don’t have both feet on the ground. Like—for example—look at that guy in the torn shorts.’”

  The man was fortyish. His hair long and loose, he was running barefoot, singing along to the music on his earphones. He looked as if he might have bathed last week, or then again, he might have skipped it.

  “Boulder is full of people who don’t work,’” said Stephen, marveling. “Or they work now and then. Or if the spirit moves them. Meanwhile they soak up mountain air and the aura of the earth. And guess who pays the bills?’” Stephen shook his head. “Their parents. Can you believe that? After all these years? These guys run up the mountains and down the creek path and then they run to the post office and get their little monthly checks.’”

  Janie believed it.

  Stephen flagged a waiter. Then he smiled a smile as happy as Brian had ever seen on his brother’s face. “Here comes Kathleen,’” said Stephen. “She said she’d find us.’”

  So Stephen was not just in love with the West. He was in love with a girl. Brian checked Kathleen out thoroughly. She was long and lean and very tan. She wore no makeup, no socks and no jewelry.

  “Hey, you guys! I knew you from a block away!’” She enclosed Janie’s two cheeks in her hands, air-kissed each one and said, “I’m Kathleen. I’m so glad to meet you. You’ve got Stephen’s hair. Of course, he cuts his off. He should let it grow. Don’t you think he’d be adorable in a ponytail?’”

  Brian did not think Stephen could be adorable under any circumstance or hairstyle. Stephen was shaped like a tire iron, all his bones a little too long: too long in the forehead, too long in the neck, too long in the waist. His clothing fell around him as if any minute it would just leave and he’d be undressed in the street.

  How nice that a beautiful girl thought Stephen was adorable.

  Kathleen stroked Brian’s entire head with her palms. “Yours is nice too, but half an inch isn’t enough, Brian. People like you add color to the world. It’s your duty to let your hair grow.’” She said, “Stephen, what are you ordering? Did you order enough to share?’” She said, “Waiter! We need you again!’” She said, “So you’re Reeve! Well? Are you transferring here? What’s your major? I wonder if we’ll have classes together.’” She said, “Welcome to Boulder, everybody.’”

  Brian loved her. He took a long thick straw-suck of his chocolate milk shake and didn’t even mind when Kathleen said he must try wheatgrass. They sat around on the hard little stools and Stephen looked happy. He even looked soft. Maybe even relaxed.

  Kathleen took a huge bite of a veggie pita sandwich from which bean sprouts hung like lace. “You need to know, Janie, that Stephen told me the basic outlines. But he left out the details, and he doesn’t want me to ask a thing because your family is into dark corners, but I have about six hundred questions waiting.’”

  Janie did not tackle the six hundred questions. “What I want to talk about,’” she said, “is where to buy cowboy boots.’”

  “Ahh, a shopper,’” said Kathleen. “You’ve come to the right town. Boots are expensive, though, did you bring lots of money or a credit card? You don’t want cheap ones, and the purchase of cowboy boots will not deflect me from my questions.’” She gave Janie a dazzling smile and Brian did not like her after all. Kathleen expected to get her way with that smile, and probably always did. Brian studied the bottom of his milk shake and stirred chocolate bubbles.

  “I was hoping, Janie,’” said Kathleen with a smile so wide it was almost a glare, “that we’d stay awake all night, a two-girl slumber party, and you’d tell me everything.’”

  Brian could not look at his sister or his brother. They had been here, done this. People were so drawn to Janie’s history. You could slap them in the face with how much you didn’t want to talk about it, and still they would not let go.

  “Cut it out, Kathleen,’” said Stephen.

  Kathleen ignored him. “I cannot wait to get your viewpoint on Hannah Javensen,’” she said to Janie. “Why did she do it? Why you?’”

  Janie drank a lot of Coke fast. The familiar icy shock helped. Reeve’s hand landed in hers, his fingers taking hold, and the closeness of their hands felt good. He was hot. Not the hot of slang, meaning desirable, but the hot of temperature. Reeve’s physical warmth always startled her, and now the smooth kindness of his skin against hers overwhelmed her. She remembered, suddenly, how much she had loved him.

  “Janie?’” said Stephen. “You okay?’”

  “I got sideswiped when Kathleen said Hannah Javensen’s name,’” she admitted. “You’d think it wouldn’t mean a thing by now.’”

  Stephen shrugged. “I still have daydreams where I throw the kidnapper over a cliff and watch her bounce off rocks and get impaled a thousand feet below.’”

  Reeve’s grip tightened on Janie’s hand.

  Brian chewed on a curly french fry. After a while, he said, “Suppose she showed up, Stephen? What would you do?’”

  “I’d have her in jail in a heartbeat,’” he said. “Of course, it would be my heart beating, because Hannah Javensen never had a heart. But ten seconds after I figured out who she was, she’d be locked up.’”
/>   The sun burned their faces.

  “I think,’” said Reeve, “that I am going to have a hamburger after all. I am starved. Stephen, how do meals work on this campus? When you’re a student. You have a dining room or what? Because in Boston, you don’t sign up for the dining room if you don’t want. There’s so much takeout. Or vendors, delis, whatever.’”

  Stephen and Kathleen had a lot to say about food, and the anger in Stephen’s voice slid slowly away.

  They wandered up and down the shopping streets of Boulder. Stephen and Kathleen held hands. Reeve, uncertain, took Janie’s once more. She squeezed his and he thought, Whoa. Not bad.

  “It’s just a hand,’” she said to him.

  “It’s probably five percent of my body, though,’” said Reeve, “five percent with lots of nerve endings and hope.’” Then he almost snapped her wrist, jerking forward, calling sharply, “Brian! Stay with me.’”

  Kathleen turned, incredulous, to look at Reeve.

  “Sorry,’” muttered Reeve. He gave Brian an embarrassed wave and could not meet Stephen’s eyes. He thought, I can’t stand this. I can’t watch some sidewalk vendor twist balloons into animal shapes while I’m thinking, Hannah walks here.

  “Look,’” said Janie brightly, “a pawnshop. I’ve never been in one.’”

  “Mom would not give us permission to go in,’” said Brian.

  Kathleen giggled.

  “Stephen, you’re the oldest,’” said Janie. “Give us permission to go in a pawnshop.’”

  “It’s just a store, I think. I’ve never been in one either. All it does is sell stuff people want to get rid of.’”

  “Boots!’” shrieked Janie. “Look in the window! On that shelf! Beautiful red perfect gorgeous cowboy boots. I didn’t know leather came in red. Are they leather, do you think, Kathleen? They’re girls’ boots, aren’t they?’”