Besides, somebody needed to stay calm and rational about this. She had looked after Jenny all their lives and would continue to do so.
“I swear, it’s going to be all right. It’s not like there’s anything we can do about it, anyway. We just have to stick to our story.”
Jenny grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to cover for me. It was my fault. I should come clean about it; that’s what you’d do.”
Taylor knew she meant it. Jenny would take the fall alone if she had to. Because, in her own way, Jenny always looked out for her, too. The only time her twin ever showed any kind of temper was when she rose to Taylor’s defense.
They were mirror images, people said, two halves of the same whole. Despite how much her sister’s niceness got on her nerves sometimes, Taylor knew she would absolutely lay down her life for Jenny if it was ever necessary. She also knew the feeling was mutual.
“We should just tell Dad,” Jenny added.
Taylor shook her head, horrified by the idea. “What’s the point? I mean, it’s not like I really saw anything, or know anything. I don’t have one tiny little idea what happened to Vonnie Jackson. And if you’d been at the meeting, like everyone thinks you were, you wouldn’t know anything either.”
Monday certainly hadn’t been the first time the twins had changed places. Usually, it was for Taylor’s benefit—like when they’d first started high school and she’d been flunking out of Algebra and needed her sister to take a couple of her tests.
That hadn’t lasted long. Their teachers had gotten pretty good at telling them apart because of their personalities and the one feature that distinguished them: the nickel-sized birthmark at the base of Taylor’s throat, just above her collarbone. Last year, their teachers had even gone to the school administrators, demanding that the Kirby twins be restricted from wearing turtlenecks, as ridiculous as that sounded.
But when they weren’t going to be closely scrutinized, they still pulled switches now and then. And Monday night, at the honors society meeting, nobody should have cared enough to tell which Kirby twin was there. It had been no big deal for Taylor to sit with the nerdy kids and pretend to be interested in all that academic junk. In fact, she’d liked it, smiling to herself as she thought about how she’d contributed to the delinquency of her straight-laced sister.
Monday night
had
been a very big deal for Jenny. She’d desperately wanted to spend a little more time with a hottie from Georgia State whom she’d met last summer at cheerleading camp. The guy was twenty-two and was staying at a local hotel, having driven down for the weekend just to see Jenny. So there’d already been a made-up sleepover at another friend’s house.
All of which, had he found out, would have caused their father to totally lose his shit.
Neither of them had wanted to upset him, or Mom, and figured one little switch so Jenny could have a couple more hours with the guy she was crazy about wasn’t such a major thing.
Who would have imagined somebody would kidnap Vonnie as she walked home from school that night? Or that Taylor—posing as Jenny—would be the last person to ever speak to her?
“What should I say if the police question me?”
“Exactly what I told you. You tell
my
story, as if it were yours. Every detail I told you, just pretend you were standing there, not me. Vonnie was in a great mood at the meeting, she got along with everyone, didn’t have any kind of disputes or fights. Afterward, she and I walked out together. I offered to drive her home, but she said her mom was coming to get her.”
At that point, Taylor probably should have insisted, or at least volunteered to wait until the ride showed up. Everybody knew poor Vonnie’s mom was a crack-whore. And, judging by what they’d all learned later, there never had been any scheduled pick-up. Vonnie had just made it up, probably so she wouldn’t have to let anybody from GHS see where she really lived.
I wouldn’t have cared
.
She really wouldn’t. Damn, how she wished she had waited. But she hadn’t done it—for one reason. All the kids at school knew which twin drove which car, and she and Jenny had forgotten to switch before they’d gone out. She hadn’t wanted to answer any questions about why she was driving her “sister’s” Beetle—which might get back to a teacher, and then to Dad. Being totally paranoid about it, she’d even kept her headlights off as she’d driven across the huge parking lot, not flipping them on until she’d turned the corner heading away from the school.
“You’re sure you didn’t see anything that could help her?”
“No,” she said, probably for the twentieth time since yesterday. “I left her there by the exit, went to get my car, and by the time I drove back, she was gone. I figured maybe her mom had actually shown up. Now, looking back, I guess she just started walking.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it,” Taylor said with a nod, absolutely certain.
“I promise you, Jen, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m not a psycho bitch. I know the kind of trouble Vonnie’s in. If I knew anything that could help find that girl, I woulda gone to Dad myself. But I just don’t. Meaning you couldn’t have either.”
Except, if she’d been there, Jenny wouldn’t have had the car worry and would absolutely have insisted on driving Vonnie home, or waiting for her ride. Taylor shifted uncomfortably at the thought. That guilt had been nagging at her, a lot. And it probably would for a long time.
That didn’t, however, mean there was anything she could do to change what had happened.
“It’s decided,” she said. “Until there’s some massive, compelling reason for us to tell somebody, we’ll just leave it as it is. You repeat what I told you and that’ll be the end of it.”
Jenny didn’t look entirely convinced, but at least that chin quivering thing had stopped. Still, she sniffled as she asked, “What do you think happened to her?”
“To Vonnie?”
“Yeah.”
Taylor frowned. “We both know what happened. That psycho ghoul got her.”
Her eyes looking shiny and wet, Jenny lay down on her side and curled up with a pillow, like a kid who couldn’t let go of her favorite stuffed toy. Honestly, Taylor couldn’t blame her. Retreating back into childhood, where stuff like this only happened in scary dreams or movies they weren’t allowed to watch, sounded really nice right now.
“I can’t stop thinking about her. Do you think she’s still alive?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor replied. She wanted to console her sister, answer as a hopeful kid. She couldn’t. Because the adult in her knew the truth.
“Even if she is, I don’t think anyone in this town is ever going to see Vonnie Jackson again.”
Chapter 3
Thursday, 4:15 p.m.
With every step she took toward her car, Lexie’s indignation grew. Yes, as a journalist, she’d become used to having doors slammed in her face, euphemistically speaking. But this was the first time it had ever
really
happened.
The guy was totally rude. Incredibly good-looking, yes, but talk about a bad attitude; his made the average angry teenager seem like a barrel of sunshine.
She had already called Aidan McConnell a whole lot of names in her head; now a few choice ones spilled out of her mouth. “Condescending, arrogant ass.”
To think she’d almost felt sorry for the man before she’d come here this afternoon, her hat in hand, her hopes high. After having researched him online as much as she could today, she’d almost come to the conclusion that he’d gotten a raw deal in Savannah. She’d definitely begun to rethink her psychic-stuff-is-garbage opinion, having read about the dozens of cases he’d proved instrumental in solving.
She’d been feeling self-righteous; not only was she going to find Vonnie Jackson and learn what had happened to the others, she could help redeem a crushed man in the process.
“Only the crushed man turned out to be a major jerk,” she muttered.
A handsome jerk with the most hypnotic blue-gray eyes she’d ever seen, but a jerk nonetheless. She shouldn’t have wasted the trip over here; she should have just kept on doing research into Vonnie Jackson’s life, trying to find some connection between her and the other girls who’d gone missing, beyond coming from the same general area.
There had to be something. Some tiny link that had drawn the eye of a monster.
She had a few ideas, and planned to tackle them as soon as she got back to her place. This wasn’t the kind of work she could do at the office, not with Stan reading over her shoulder. She’d gotten Walter’s blessing to work at home and had spent much of today there, other than breaks for a successful trip to Yvonne Jackson’s school and an unsuccessful one to the girl’s run-down apartment. Oh, and this total waste of time.
She glanced at her watch and considered heading back over to Berna Jackson’s place. Vonnie’s mother hadn’t been home earlier and a neighbor told her she’d been hitting the bars pretty hard in her “worry” over her missing child. Either she hadn’t come back at all or she hadn’t gotten the note Lexie had left in her door.
One more possibility: She’d gotten cold feet and wasn’t going to call.
“I hope you didn’t believe every word Chief Dunce said,” she muttered, having no doubt the chief would have browbeaten the woman to get her to keep her mouth shut.
Lexie reached the curb and was about to step off it when she heard a sound from behind her. Recognizing the low squeak, she jerked in surprise, glancing over her shoulder at the front of McConnell’s house. The door was swinging open.
He didn’t say a word as he stepped into the doorway, the late-afternoon sun framing him in fiery gold so he almost seemed to be surrounded by an otherworldly glow.
Knock it off
. So much for the hard- hitting journalist. Her overactive imagination was having a field day. She’d read all about his amazing abilities, noted his dark good looks, and was a little too curious about him, so now she was half fancying the man as some mystical being.
McConnell said nothing; he merely stared at her, long and hard, as if he hated her for making him take an interest in what she had to say. Well, that’s exactly why she’d left the flyer. She just couldn’t believe it had actually worked. Excitement made her heart skip a beat as she realized the reclusive mystery man had taken an interest.
He lifted a hand, palm out, all his fingers spread.
She understood.
Five minutes
.
Not about to waste one of them, Lexie turned and jogged back up the walk. By the time she got to the porch, he’d already disappeared into the grand old house, which, from the outside, looked just as secretive and mysterious as its owner. She walked right in behind him, unable to resist taking a quick peek at the soft, golden oak floors, the plastered walls and decorative crown molding. The house had once been a grand Southern showcase and was about four times the size of her 1970s-era duplex. Though clean and updated, it hadn’t been fully restored. If it were hers, she’d be spending every spare minute bringing this old beauty back to her former glory.
“Lock it, please,” he called from the closest room—the office in which she’d spied him a few minutes ago from the side doors.
She entered to find him standing beside a front bay window, gazing outside. A deep frown pulled at his brow, but didn’t detract from his strong, handsome profile, with a square jaw, slashing cheeks, and slight grizzle that said he hadn’t shaved today. She’d seen in her research that he was thirty- four, but he looked a little older. Not only because of his somber demeanor—his all-black clothes and the frown—but also because of the slight premature gray at his temples, stark against the rest of the thick, dark brown hair.
It was not unattractive, not in the least. The silvery gray matched that same hint of color in his eyes, which reminded her of a blue summer sky caught between sun and storm. And though she stood on the other side of the room, she still wasn’t sure she could hold an even stare if he leveled all that attention, that intuitive, otherworldly focus, directly on her. Because he was a little too knowing, as if he’d already done some kind of psychic stuff and figured out all her secrets, or would, if she let down her guard.
That’s crazy.
She’d met him fifteen minutes ago; they hadn’t even shaken hands. It had obviously been way too long since she’d been with a good-looking guy if this one could have her emotions all jumbled up just because of the way he looked at her. Well, and the way he looked.
“Say what you have to say.” His deep voice sounded more melodious than it had when he’d been barking at her from the other side of a closed door.
She shook off the strange sensations that had been washing over her since she’d first seen Aidan McConnell and focused on what she’d come here for. Not even wasting time on niceties or taking a seat, she jumped right in.
“Again, there’s a missing girl, whose name is Vonnie Jackson. She’s a senior at Granville High and she disappeared while walking home after an event at her school Monday evening. The school secretary told me Vonnie’s mother showed up there yesterday, a full day and a half after Vonnie went missing, to say she’d never come home Monday. Her books were found on the ground not far from where she lived.” She dug another flyer out of her backpack, waving it at him. “These were already up all over the school by the time I arrived this morning. The principal’s one of Chief Dunston’s cronies, like the guy at the other high school. But the vice principal’s more reasonable and isn’t as quick to believe whatever Dunston says. He’s very worried and has kids lining up to help form search parties.”
When she stopped to heave in a breath, he immediately began asking questions.
“Why aren’t the police taking an interest? Are they saying she’s a runaway?”
“How did you know . . . Oh, duh, I said that before, didn’t I? Well, they’re not taking an interest in any of the
other
missing girls. But as far as Vonnie goes, I don’t know if they’re interested or not, because they won’t talk to me. The chief made it clear to my boss that I am to stay out of it.”