Chapter One
T he feel of the smooth glass stone between her index finger and thumb could always calm Jesse Albright, especially when she felt the start of a panic attack. Like now. Setting the stone down on the dashboard, she turned to the passenger seat and said to her daughter, “We’re here, Soph.”
She pulled into the entrance of the Countryside Mall, parked the truck, and got out.
“You know the drill, sweetie.” Jesse gazed around the parking lot, her head cocked to the side like a dog listening intently. Not hearing anything in particular, she strode into the mall, heading straight for the trendy clothing store, Zone, as if she owned the place then went directly to the KidsZone section.
“May I help you?”
Jesse recognized Monica’s loud, nasally voice. The dark-haired high school student took her sales job way too seriously.
“Oh, great,” Jesse muttered to Sophie. “You-know-who is working today.”
Monica gave her a questioning look.
“I’m just browsing,” Jesse said.
“You do like to browse here, don’t you?” Monica said sarcastically.
“Yes, I do.”
The girl turned toward the checkout counter and grunted. “Bluejay, right?” Jesse said to Sophie. “That’s what you’d call her. Pushy, show-offy. A bully. Right, hon?”
Monica spun around to face Jesse. “Just who are you talking to?”
Taken aback, Jesse straightened her shoulders. “No one. No one at all.” Shaking her head, the girl mumbled, “Weirdo.” Then she twirled back around and walked over to the front desk, where she conferred with her young colleagues, rudely pointing and nodding toward Jesse.
No, her daughter wasn’t there. She hadn’t been in years. But Jesse often spoke to herand was fairly certain Sophie heard her, somehow. She didn’t care if people thought she was crazy. For Jesse, who spoke to few people anymore, it was a comfort even if Sophie never actually answered back. She moved on to the circular clothes rack where she had last seen Sophie six years ago. She’d always told her daughter that if they ever got separated, she should go back to the last place they had been together.“If you were with mein thecookieaisle, wait for me back in cookies,”she would say,as if it werealla game. So Jesse kept coming back to the Zone, week after week. Just in case. Fall V-neck sweaters in autumn shades hung where colorful cotton T-shirts had been displayed That Day. Jesse stood at the very spot, her own ground zero, still looking for Sophie or any kind of clue. “I love this, Mommy. Can I have it?” Sophie fingered a pink top with the image of one small red bird with a black wing. Her bird obsession had begun when she was five, after her dad bought her a simple backyard feeder.
After that, she’d devoured any book on the subject and began keeping a bird-watching journal. And later, she’d started her life list, an inventory of every bird she’d ever seen. “Not today, honey.” “But, Maaah–aaahhhm, it’s so cute.” “Don’t whine, Sophie. You’re not a baby.” Jesse was in a foul mood. She’d been working on a commissioned painting that wasn’t going well—a large oil of the Buckley Barn over in Deerfield. The perspective was off, and Jesse wanted to trash it. And she had argued with Cooper that morning over something stupid.
Two hours later, she couldn’t even remember what had precipitated it—running out of milk? Cooper having to work late again?—but it turned into their typical fight. They’d both left mad, their unspoken issues hangingin the air, heavy and unresolved. Things had been strained between them for months—little sex, no real communication, but plenty of pent-up anger.
“But, Mom, it’s the tanager from this morning. Isn’t that amazing?” Jesse looked over at her daughter. She had smallish hazel eyes and dark eyebrows that made her look serious and worried. Her black binoculars hung around her neck. She never went anywhere without them and often fell asleep with them clutched in her hand at night. Jesse sometimes imagined Sophie as a young woman walking down the aisle in her wedding gown, wearing those damn things round her neck. The pink top Sophie held had the word tweet below the bird in a lowercase typeface. She would have looked cute in it.
“But, Mom, I need it.”
“You need it? I don’t think so. You have lots of tops.”
And those were her last words to her daughter. Jesse bit the inside of hercheek until shetasted blood, then sheshook herself out of her memory. She turned away from the KidsZone section and caught a whiff of something. Watermelon? Sour Patch watermelon gum. Sophie’s favorite. It seemed to come from a petite teenager exiting the dressing room, carrying an armful of clothes. Her short brown hair was chopped and shaggy, as if she’d given herself a bad haircut without a mirror.
“Any luck?” Monica asked the girl.
“I’ll take this one,” the girl said in a high-pitched Minnie Mouse voice that made her sound about six years old.
There was something about the girl, something familiar, and it wasn’t just the watermelon gum. Jesse turned back and cruised through thestore, making her usual rounds. She touched the clothes, scanned the floor, the shelves, and the racks, sliding hangers over, looking for that missing piece of the puzzle. A secret hatch in the floor whereaten-year-old girlcould havefallen and disappeared. An article ofclothing. A shoe. But there was nothing. As usual. It was just a store like any other. Not bothering to check for size, Jesse grabbed a long-sleeved white top and headed for the dressing rooms. Over the years, she methodically checked each dressing room over and over. She walked past the numerous vacant ones, bending down to look under the closed door of each cubicle in case Sophie was hiding there. She entered the last one, locked the door, and sat on the small bench. She tried to avoid looking in thefull-length mirror, not wanting to see what she’d become.
At forty-eight, her face was drawn and pale, her body thinner than it had ever been. But her startling white mane was the first thingpeople noticed and still something she couldn’t get used to. Sprinkled with black, the mass of wispy strands hovered about her head likea prairie warbler’s nest. Even though she had stopped painting after That Day, she still dressed like an artist in paint-splattered,patched jeansand men’s oversized thrift storeshirts. She hadn’t cared about her appearance, put on any makeup, or had a haircut in years. No one would be able to tell that she’d once had a happy life. A husband. A child. Work she loved.
She exhaled, whispering her mantra, “Mommy, Daddy, Sophie,” her eyes glistening. Memories of her old life were always seeping into her brain. Trying to keep them at bay was exhausting. A shiny reflection bounced off the mirror, something on the floor catching the light just so. She got down on her knees and reached under the bench, and as sometimes happened two, three, and four times a day, Jesse found a lost item. It was an old Nokia flip phone. “2 Voice Messages,” the screen said. It wasn’t password-protected, and she played back the messages. Both were hang-ups. The numbers were from an area code she didn't recognize. She snooped around, looking for photos and texts. She found only one blurry photo of someone’s feet wearing purple flip-flops. It was hard to tell if it had been taken on purpose. If the phone had received any texts, they must have been deleted. She tossed the phone into her purse to examine it later.
Exiting the dressing room, she saw that teenager again, walking out of the store with a Zone bag. The girl wore purple flip-flops. So it was her phone. The girl could have been sixteen. The age Sophie would be now. Sophie had long brown hair, but that was years ago. It could be short now, likethe girl’s.And Jesserealized the girl had Sophie’s habit of biting her lower lip, giving her the same worried expression. But the high-pitched voice wasn’t Sophie’s. The girl wasn’t Jesse’s daughter, yet something pushed her on. Jesse followed her and the sugary scent of watermelon gum into the food court, where she often observed teen girls. Over the years, she’d followed some as they texted and gabbed into their cell phones, oblivious to everything but their addictive plastic screens. Jesse often saw teens who resembled the grown-upSophiein Jesse’s imagination. But when Jesse got close, the similarities always faded away. The girl with the choppy hair and purple flip-flops glanced behind her. Her eyes met Jesse’s, then she sped up and ducked into the entrance of the Cineplex without buying a ticket. Jesse followed the girl until she felt a firm hand on her arm, accompanied by a deep male voice.
“You’ll have to come with me.” He was a linebacker-sized man in a navy-blue blazer with Security embroidered on the pocket.
“Oh, I’m not going to the movies. I left something in there. I’m not crashing or anything.”
“I’ve been watching you. I’ve seen you loitering around here before, stalking teen girls. They got names for people like you.”
“What? No, no. I’m not going to hurt anyone.” He tugged Jesse along by the arm.
“Explain it to my boss.”
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