Callie makes her voice low. “Can we please talk about it, Jane? The voicemail? Even if you don’t remember it, I think you meant it. Come on, it’s me, Janie. Tell me.”
Jane raises her gaze to Callie’s face. Her eyes brim with tears. She tries to speak and makes a sound that’s not quite a word. Like someone choking. Callie takes her hand but before she can speak comes the patter of feet, fast on the hardwood.
“Mama!” Opal thrusts herself between Jane’s legs, pulls back and looks up at Jane’s kohl-rimmed eyes, penciled brows. “You look… weird.”
Callie can’t look at Jane again so she puts her hand on Opal’s shoulder. “Your mama looks like a fox.”
Jane clears her throat. “Opes, will you go find the necklace you made for Aunt Callie?”
Opal nods solemnly, runs out of the room again. Jane zips her makeup bag, her movements brisk and sure.
“Jane, come on…”
“How are you doing, by the way? What’s the news? On your mom?”
“No real changes. The troopers brought dogs out but after all that rain they couldn’t find any kind of trail. I keep calling hospitals and rehabs and shelters, keep driving by her house to see if she’s come back.”
“Why would she have started using now?”
“Beats me. Unless… I don’t know. The whole thing at the station just sent her over the edge somehow. The Baby Doe case coming up again. The two of us at each other.” The admission makes her breath feel shallow. She keeps thinking about what Steve said, that people make all kinds of choices when they are hurting. AndCallie had caused the hurt. She embarrassed her at the station, hadn’t believed Jenna about being sober. She had been cruel and impatient. She hadn’t listened at all.
“It’s not your fault, Callie.”
Callie sighs. “I just know there’s something else going on here. Call it intuition, or whatever. But Sabrina’s bracelet, the fact that no one has seen her, Fauver’s record of being violent. It feels like it adds up to something bigger. Like maybe she didn’t choose to leave the baby. What if someone made her? And maybe my mom knew that.”
Jane opens her mouth to say something, closes it, looks down at her hands. Callie had been careful not to say the other thing, but maybe she edged too close to it anyway, the air in the room suddenly too warm.What kind of person chooses to abandon a child?Because who knows what Jane had intended, when she talked about leaving in that morphine-addled voicemail. Whether leaving would have included Opal or not.
Jane puts on a smile, raises her eyebrows. “Want me to see what the TikTok crime girlies have to say about it?”
“Please don’t put any of this on the internet,” Callie says, her voice harder than she intends.
“Joking! Joking, Chief Hauser. But maybe I can help you. I’m entering myRear Windowera. Invalid. Lots of spare time.”
Damien raps on the doorframe. “Sorry to break up the girl talk but we’ve got to go now if we want to be on time.”
Jane rolls her eyes. “He’s right. Gotta run. Last week I calculated what these sessions costs by the minute. Not good.”
Damien grimaces. She can’t tell if it is the cost itself or if he doesn’t like Jane talking about money in front of Callie. Jane leans her head to Callie’s shoulder for a moment before taking Damien’s hand and letting him help her up.
She meets thescientist—Adrian—on the bank of Rancocas Creek. He’s got two kayaks in the water and raises a paddle in greeting as she pulls up.
She texts Jane before she gets out of the car. This Adrian seems normal, gentle—it had been Callie’s aggression that characterized their first meeting—but she can’t be too careful.Meeting a guy on a first date. Watersports. Call the cops if you don’t hear from me in two hours.
Don’t get too wet HAHAHA
You’re gross
Sorry, invalid’s gotta live a little But I’m glad you’re letting yourself have some fun.
“What’s that smirk about?” Adrian asks.
“I just can’t believe I’m doing this.”
He holds out a life jacket for her. She can’t help but wonder who wore it before her. Whether it will hold the smell of some other woman the way a shirt or coat might. But when she shrugs it on all she can smell is lake water, clean, faintly metallic.
“Well, I’m excited. How are you feeling about your maiden voyage?”
“A ship has a maiden voyage, not a person, right?”
