Splinter (Fiction — Young Adult) Page 5

  I need my father more than ever before, especially now that Dad and Heather have split.

  Cassidy’s commentary during our trip to school this morning revisits me. Heather actually thought we’d skip town! What else does she think?

  If the public has just learned about the coincidence that is Trina Jordan, I can’t afford to listen to anything anyone has to say—not even Heather. Not if I still want to believe in my father.

  Cassidy is waiting by my locker by the time I emerge from the maze of administrative offices in which I’ve spent my day. Her backpack is secure on one shoulder, and the Jeep keys dangle from her hand. “Zack Snapchatted me about ten times today. We have a streak going.”

  Okay. I guess that’s as important as everything else that happened today.

  “And there he is again.” Her phone alerts, and a silly smile takes over her face. While responding to her new message, she says, “Where were you all day?”

  “I went to the nurse.”

  “You were there all day?”

  “For about an hour.” I spin the dial on the combination lock around, and glance up at my stepsister when I say, “Then I had to go to the counselor.” Lot of help that did. The woman’s questions about my feelings were completely pointless. How did she think it made me feel to know the news was on in the commons? Actually, I feel great. I’m glad everyone knows another half-truth about my father’s past.

  “Yeah,” Cassidy says. “Lots of talk today.”

  A sense of exasperation weighs on me, and I feel the pressure building. I open the compartment in my mind where I keep the map. No need to unfold it just yet, but I keep it at the ready. “For a while, there, I was wondering if maybe you lived on another planet where Zack MacElroy is the center of the universe.”

  “Sami, come on. Of course I heard. Everyone was whispering incessantly about it after fourth hour.”

  I make no effort to disguise my groan of disgust. “You set them straight, right?”

  “Well, no. I mean, it’s been my experience that if you just ignore them—”

  My locker opens with a clang and rattle. “Really, Cass? Some of those jerks think silence is confirmation. You know what they’re saying now, right? They’re saying Cassidy Solomon was right there, and she didn’t deny it.”

  “Well . . . I didn’t think of it that way. It’s not like there’s a rule book for this sort of thing.” She cups a hand over the top of my locker door and leans in a little closer. “And besides. I was talking to Mom about this last night. It’s a little weird that Dad never said anything about this girl before.”

  “Why would he?” I feel my defenses starting to bubble and boil over, despite the fact that I’ve been wondering the same thing since I learned of Trina’s existence. “I mean, how many of your ex-boyfriends do you still talk to? And not on Instagram.”

  Cassidy shrugs, but before she can utter whatever logical argument is dancing on the tip of her tongue, I press on. “Dad and this girl went their separate ways, and that’s that. What happened to her later has nothing to do with Dad.”

  “Right. I’ll say that next time.”

  I slam my locker door. An uncontrollable sense of irritation with my sister needles at me. She agrees with me. Or does she? There’s nothing to fight about, but I can’t let it go. I’m angry, and I can’t seem to talk myself out of staying that way.

  She said it herself last night: she has somewhere else to go. This isn’t her life anymore. Worrying about Dad, worrying about how other people see Dad. She can walk away from it without leaving a piece of herself behind.

  “What?” she asks. “I’m sorry I didn’t defend Dad, okay? I will next time.”

  She got the Jeep.

  She got Kismet.

  I got a perpetual headache and a cloud hanging over me.

  “Okay.” I pull my phone from a pocket in my bag. “Listen, you go ahead. I’m going to go home with Brooke”—I’m already texting her so she doesn’t leave without me—“so she can catch me up in trig.”

  “Brooke’s working at the Nun this afternoon. And I thought you’re coming by anyway. For those new leggings.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. But first I have to . . . I’ll ride there with Brooke, okay? And if I don’t make it today—”

  “You’re still going tonight, though, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. If I don’t make it to the Nun, pick me up at seven, all right?”

  Her brow crinkles a little, but she backs off. “All right.”

  “See you then.” I practically throw myself down the hallway in the opposite direction.

  A few strides later, I nearly bump into Brooke.

  I don’t even give her time to say hello. “I swear, it must be great to be Cassidy. She gets all the easy parts of being Dad’s daughter. Today was hard, okay? And what’s she focused on?”

  “Let me guess. My idiot of a brother.” Brooke hooks an arm through mine, and we pivot down a hallway. “You okay?”

  “I guess.” I fill her in on the migraine, the long hours I spent crashed on the counselor’s sofa. “Meanwhile, Cass apparently acted like it was any other day.”

  “Maybe it’s just easier for her to ignore it all.”

  “Sure, it’s easier. I just don’t see how it’s possible.”

  “Want me to talk to her?”

  Could anything good come from Brooke intervening? “I’ll get over it. It just irked me, that’s all. I mean, I know that since the separation, she has a reason to distance herself from the mess, but Dad’s the only real father she’s had.” And she should know better than anyone that my father isn’t the reason Trina Jordan’s gone.

  “Maybe this is the only way she can deal, Sam.”

  “Okay, but she’s actually suggesting that maybe my dad’s hiding something.”

  “She said that?”

  “Not in those exact words, but—”

  “So you just want to come with me, then? Alex and I were going to stop at the Madelaine before my shift at the Nun. You want a bubble tea or something?”

  “No, thanks.” What I really want is answers. Explanations. “Can you drop me off at the police station?”

  “Sure, but . . . why?”

  Because I know there’s more to the story, details of Trina Jordan’s case that the police can’t share with the media. And if Lieutenant Eschermann wanted to talk to me yesterday, maybe he’ll disclose more today.

  I close my eyes, and instantly the map appears and towns push up out of the parchment.

  “I’m glad you came in.” I open my eyes, and Eschermann’s gaze doesn’t break as he joins me at the table where I’ve been instructed to sit. “I wish we could’ve handled this last night. Before the media got hold of the story.”

  I try to nod. The truth is I do understand, and even appreciate, his wanting to talk to me. But that doesn’t change the fact that the cops are putting me in a tough position every time they convene on our lawn.

  Neilla Cooper sits at the far end of the table and flips open a notebook. She gives me a wink, as if I’m still six. Relax, she says with just a look. It’s just me. Just the girl who used to babysit you, just the girl who used to catch rides to the NU campus with your parents. Her familiar, sympathetic face does make this a little easier to endure.

  The lieutenant takes a seat across from me, in front of a file folder I’ve seen countless times. It’s about half an inch thick—the sign of a cold case without much to go on—and I don’t have to look at its worn edges to know its tab bears my mother’s name.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I take a sip of the water Neilla offered me upon my arrival. “Before you show up at my house again, can you call? Can we deal with some of these things over the phone, maybe? I mean, I get that it’s your job to find my mom, but—”

  “Good,” he says. “It is my job, and you’re a witness to her disappearance. Even if she simply decided to walk away.”

  “That’s what happened,” I assure him for the hundredth time. I glance
at Neilla, who probably remembers more about that time than I do. I gauge her reaction. Does she agree with me? She tilts her head and gives me a little shrug.

  “Okay, why?” Eschermann asks. “Why would she just up and leave? No good-bye to you, no note—”

  “I never told you she didn’t say good-bye,” I interject. “She said ‘see you Wednesday,’ which is sort of like good-bye.”

  “But you never saw her Wednesday, did you? And she’s made no contact since.”

  “That’s not true, either. She sends the postcards.” That reminds me. I open my backpack and pull out the postcard from Charleston. “I put it in a plastic bag this time. You know, just in case.”

  “Did your father handle it before you put it in the bag?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So we shouldn’t find his prints on it.”

  I catch on to what he’s insinuating.

  “He may have taken it out after I put it in the bag, but . . . I don’t think so.” I slide Charleston across the table. “Here.”

  “Thank you.” He pushes the postcard to the edge of the table, where Neilla is sitting.

  In the momentary silence, the scuttle of the police force at work beyond the wall fills the dead air. Proof of life going on as scheduled, even though I feel as if mine will never be the same . . . and not only because my mother took off ten years ago, but because of whatever development has come to light in Trina Jordan’s case. “It’s been a long time, Sami.”

  I nod. I didn’t come here to get into this again, but Eschermann seizes any opportunity to work me over. I decide to let it play out. Maybe if I listen patiently and don’t get too mouthy, he’ll feel like sharing some new information with me.

  “Why . . . How does a mother like Delilah Lang stay away from her child for ten years without a word? How do we have a mother telling her ex-husband she’s going to Georgia for the weekend, then never returning? And how is it that the ex-husband never calls the police when, weeks later, Delilah still hasn’t returned home to retrieve her daughter, and won’t answer her phone? We don’t have a missing persons report filed until six weeks after she’s gone. And even then, the call came from one of your mother’s friends. Not your father.”

  “I know.” They’ve been asking Dad to explain this scenario for as long as I can remember. “They were divorced. Doesn’t that mean it isn’t—wasn’t—Dad’s job to keep track of her anymore?”

  “Does that also mean it wasn’t your mother’s job to tell anyone in her life that she was alive? Even after her absence sparked widespread publicity? Wouldn’t she want to set the record straight, let us know that there was no need to search for her?”

  I set my cup of water on the table as carefully as I can. If I keep holding it in my shaking hand, I might spill it. “I think my mother is selfish. I think all the things that seem suspicious to you are just evidence of her selfishness, her inability to care about the consequences of her leaving.”

  He ignores me, presses on. “Furthermore, we have the issue with the neighbor. Have you remembered why you were in his basement?”

  I shrug. We’ve been over this before too. The day Mom left, I turned up in Schmidt’s basement and he walked me home. “I don’t remember. I know I used to play with his nephew, but . . . I don’t even know if Ryan was there that day.”

  “You were supposed to have had a sitter, yet no one in the neighborhood remembers sitting for you that day,” Neilla reminds me. “I sat with you all the time. I was always your parents’ first choice. I was free that day, but your parents didn’t call me. And you don’t remember who was supposed to have been there, either.”

  “Well, I also don’t remember Heather being around back then, but obviously, if she was my father’s alibi . . .” The police know Dad and Heather were childhood friends, reunited after my parents’ divorce. The situation with my mother had kept Heather at a distance for a while, but eventually they’d found their way back to each other.

  Kismet, they’d said.

  Which is how we’d named our dog.

  “You know what’s always bothered me about the alibi?” Eschermann says. “The officer who talked with your dad interviewed Heather at the same time. They were afforded a chance to sync their stories. Heather could’ve simply followed your dad’s lead, agreed with whatever he said. I’ve always wondered if Heather would’ve cooperated, had we interviewed them separately.”

  Cooperated? You don’t cooperate with the truth. You simply tell it. “You think Heather lied for Dad.”

  “Your memories of Heather in your life come after your mother’s disappearance. You father’s explanation was that he and Heather didn’t involve you and Cass in the early days.”

  I read between the lines: Eschermann thinks Heather covered for Dad, and they didn’t actually get back together until after she lied for him, which isn’t impossible, considering it took them a couple of years to get married.

  Of course, Heather’s always said that before she could commit to Dad, she wanted him to prove he could live without alcohol. He worked a program, but he slipped up a few times in the earlier years. So that always made sense as the rationale for Heather taking their relationship slowly. But Eschermann’s idea makes sense too.

  “Sami. Do you believe your mother is out there?”

  “I believe she was in South Carolina recently. And Rhode Island last year.”

  He leans back in his chair, super casual, and laces his fingers together. “I’m going to share something with you, something that won’t be made public. Can I trust you not to talk about it? You understand how important that is, right?”

  I do.

  “A passport renewal application in your mother’s name was submitted some weeks ago.”

  “What?” I tighten my grip on the straps of my backpack. “That means . . .” It’s more proof she’s alive. I can’t even say it. I don’t want to jinx it.

  “The authorities alerted us,” Eschermann says, “and they opted to process it to see if it established a lead.”

  “It was delivered to a box in one of those delivery suites,” Neilla tells me. “A passport can’t be renewed through the mail unless the address is the same as on the original application. This means someone applied in person with your mother’s credentials.”

  In person. The thought of seeing my mom . . . in the flesh . . . “In person where?”

  “In Georgia,” Neilla says, “in a suburb of Atlanta.”

  Atlanta!

  “Trouble is,” Eschermann says before I have a chance to crescendo, “the box isn’t registered to Delilah. It’s registered to a C. J. Lang.”

  “My father? Why would he have a mailbox—”

  “We don’t think it’s likely that he rented it. Besides, he couldn’t apply in person for your mother’s passport, and how would he accept delivery of it in Georgia? But in any case, by the time we were alerted it was out for delivery, we were too late to intercept delivery at the box, and whoever is renting in C. J. Lang’s name had already collected the passport.”

  “So all you have to do is find C. J. Lang.” There’s too much excitement in my words, but I can’t contain it. This is a real lead! An honest-to-goodness lead! And if Dad had let me talk to Eschermann last night I would’ve known about it yesterday!

  “We’ve checked the information on the application at the delivery suite. It’s untraceable. Whoever rented it paid with a pay-as-you-go credit card. The card defaulted the week after the passport delivery. C. J. Lang doesn’t exist.”

  I feel myself deflate like a balloon with the helium escaping.

  Dead end.

  “But the passport does,” Neilla says. “We know that for certain. So the question is . . . was it your mother or someone else who ordered the passport? If it was your mother, why would someone wanting to remain hidden apply for a passport renewal in her own name?”

  “Maybe she wants to head to Europe.”

  “Maybe.” Eschermann nods. “Or maybe someone wa
nts us to think she’s going abroad. Someone wants us to think she’s still alive.”

  My stomach clenches. I know what he’s not saying: that he believes someone killed my mother, and that this someone is throwing red herrings at us to cover up the crime.

  “In any case, we’ll be alerted to any travel plans, and we’ll secure DNA from anyone traveling under your mother’s name.”

  “And you already have my DNA on file to compare.” I wish there was more I could do. Knocking on doors in an Atlanta suburb sounds like something Brooke might spearhead with me, even if I know my father would never allow it.

  “Sami . . . there’s more.”

  If there’s more, which I take to be good news, I wonder why he looks as if he just accidentally ran over someone’s golden retriever.

  Eschermann moves aside my mother’s file and opens one hiding beneath it. “This is Trina Jordan.” He slides toward me an eight-by-ten glossy photograph.

  I peruse the photograph I saw online last night. In person, it looks dated—at least ten, maybe twenty, years old. But still recognizable as the pretty woman whose image has been stuck in my head all day. Shoulder-length dark hair in haphazard waves, parted off-center on the right side. “I looked her up online yesterday.”

  He drums his fingertips on the table. “Your father married Trina Jordan before he married your mother.”

  I look up. My father was married before my mom? Married to this woman, whom he initially told me he’d never even heard of?

  Something tumbles in my gut, like I’m going to be sick. I force a swallow. Try not to show that I’m shocked, that I didn’t know. But in my head, triangles are forming, and I’m trying to put the pieces together but none of them fit.

  “They weren’t married long. Less than a year. This is Trina Jordan’s college graduation photo, taken a few months before she married your dad. Less than a year later, their marriage was annulled. Some time after that, he married your mom and moved up here. Meanwhile, Trina Jordan took her dog for a walk one day and never returned home. She and her family weren’t on good terms, and they assumed she’d left of her own volition. A few months ago, she was reported missing by a younger sister, who’d finally figured Trina would have come back . . . if she could have. Turns out the remains of a woman were found about ten years ago in rural Georgia, classified as a Jane Doe. We were just alerted of a possible correlation to your mother’s case.”