Batboy88: Two hours.
Jengrrl: OK. R U sure U don't want me to tell mom?
Batboy88: She won't understand.
Jengrrl: K.
'Who is Batboy88?' Emily tugged at Shali's shoulder.
Shali shook her head.
'Do you know?'
'I don't know. She's never mentioned him to me. I never heard of Batboy. A chat friend? She didn't say anything about him last night.'
'Last night?' Emily brightened. 'You talked with Jenna?'
'Yeah, she said she'd tape the Good Morning America show so we could watch it later. I told her okay. She said she was too distracted to get up super early.'
'Distracted?'
'I don't know. I'm thinking. She said you had a blowup with her dad yesterday. Does that help?'
Emily remembered. But Batboy88 surely wasn't David's handle. 'Was she upset?'
Shali watched as Emily frantically moved around the room, looking for something-anything-that might indicate where Jenna had gone. Her coat was missing. Her purse was nowhere to be seen. The hamper was empty. She'd left wearing what she'd had on at dinner.
'She seemed a little off, but she didn't tell me to forget coming to pick her up this morning.'
Emily processed what she was hearing and seeing. The bedroom that she had grown up in, the room that she lov ingly painted pink for her daughter when they returned to the big old house in Cherrystone, made her shudder.
She dialed David's number and he picked up. Noise like an ocean growled in the background. He was on the freeway, probably headed to the hospital.
'Are you alone?' she asked.
'Do you mean is she with me?'
'Not her. Is Jenna with you?'
David adjusted the volume of the speaker phone, his fingers too big for the tiny controls. Traffic whizzed past. He leaned closer to hear.
'For a second, I thought you said Jenna,' he said.
Emily let out a breath. It seemed like the first one since she dialed her ex. It was as if she was one of those apnea patients and had forgotten how to breathe.
'I did, David. Jenna's missing.'
'Missing?'
'Did you hear from her last night?'
'No ''
'Our daughter is gone'
Chapter Eleven
Wednesday, 9:15 A.M., Cherrystone, Washington
It was midmorning the day after Jenna Kenyon went missing. She hadn't been seen anywhere. Not at the school. Not Java the Hut. Not the arcade on Main Street. Nowhere. Just a day after it all started, Emily Kenyon dug into her own life and remembered how she'd barely given another mother's worry a second thought after a similar passage of time. She had worked missing persons before in Seattle and her own words echoed in her head like mantra that was meant to stall and placate.
'Sorry,' she had once told a mother facing similar circumstances, 'but your son's barely a missing person. He was only classified as a missing a few hours ago.'
'That's why I'm here,' the mother had said. 'You told me to go home yesterday.'
I realize that, but really, kids today, you know, they are different than we were'
The woman shook her head, sending a spatter of tears across Emily's desk. Emily pretended not to notice.
'But my son isn't like that. He's an honor student'
'He'll turn up,' she said, sending the woman away.
The end of the story, Emily never forgot, was that he was a dead honor student. He'd been found two days later in weedy vacant lot less than a mile from their house. A week or so later, two boys were arrested for murder. The reason? A girl one of them liked had said she thought the honor student was 'cute' Being cute got the honor student killed with a tree branch club and the broken end of a beer bottle.
The police, of course, jumped on Jenna's disappearance right away-something they likely would not have done if it had been a girl or boy outside the family of law enforcement. There had been endless phone calls. And the sheriff had called in a computer specialist from Spokane who was trying to figure out just who Batboy88 was, and if he could possibly be Nicholas Martin.
No media attention, though. Emily had not wanted to rally the media-not just yet. It seemed as if it would be more a distraction than a help. After all Jenna was a good girl.
An honor student.
Emily and Shali had driven all over Cherrystone, but no one knew a thing. The worst part of it was that the town wasn't so big that she'd be missed if she was anywhere. She thought of Elizabeth Smart and Polly Klaas-the two girls who had made the country wake up and take notice that the worst possible things can happen in the bedroom down the hall. That tucking in your daughter and kissing her good night did not guarantee that she'd be there in the morning. All the ugliest scenarios in the world came back to her like an avalanche, yet she did her best to dismiss them. One by one. As she sat in her office and saw the worried faces of those who knew her best, each with anxiety and concern etched over all their features, she prayed.
Her cell phone rang. It was her ex-husband.
'David,' she said, doing her best to remain calm, 'have you heard anything? Has your mom gotten a call from Jenna?'
'No. Not a word. Anything there? Should we really be alarmed?'
'You know something? I don't know why you even bothered calling. Or maybe you dialed me by mistake. FYI, your daughter is missing. You know, the cute little girl you left behind when you went off with what's her name?'
'Do you really want to go there?' David was ice. It was a practiced affect. He used to be a different kind of man, gentle, caring, even loving.
'Go where? I just want to find out where Jenna is.'
'She's my daughter, too' David kept his answer curt. 'And I love her.'
Emily softened a little. She hated herself for badgering him. After all he didn't take her. He didn't know a thing about her whereabouts. It sputtered through her mind that he might know, but she set the idea aside as beyond cruel. Even for David. Ultimately, Emily didn't think he'd stoop so low as to conspire with Jenna to get her back to Seattle.
'I know,' she said. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes hurt from crying.
Sheriff Kiplinger appeared in the doorway. He motioned to Emily that he needed to speak with her. He mouthed the words: 'It's important.'
'I have to go,' Emily said into the phone. 'Call me if you hear anything. I'll do the same' She looked up, clutching her cell phone tightly against her breast.
'What is it?' she said, almost daring the sheriff to tell her. She could barely read the man. She had no clue what was coming.
'There's someone here to see you'
It passed though her mind that Jenna was there. Thank God! I'll read her the riot act, but thank sweet Jesus that she's all right. But as the sheriff motioned around the corner, another young girl appeared in the doorway.
It was Shali Patterson. She'd obviously been crying. Her usually somewhat heavy-handed makeup had left a
