Page 11 of Missing White Woman

After the briefest of hesitations, I kept going to the primary suite.

* * *

The door stayed closed for the next two hours. Didn’t even open for a bathroom break. I knew because I walked by several times, hoping it’d magically open and there he’d be. Ready to spend time with me before I had to go.

I wasted time in the living room, catching up on what had happened to Janelle Beckett. It wasn’t a hard thing to do. CNN was my gateway drug. Like Ms. Morgane said, the disappearance had gone viral to the point that it had made national news. The television had been on and muted when I came downstairs. Still, I saw the headline: New Jersey Woman Still Missing. I fumbled around until I found the remote just in time to hear the anchor say the local police were asking the public for help. They included the number for the tip line.

I was already tumbling down the rabbit hole by the time the show cut to commercial. Information was everywhere. And like with all good stories, it was important to start at the beginning. It took a while, but I found the first post about Janelle going missing. Like Ms. Morgane said, it was on TikTok. An account named A Brush With Billie featuring a white woman as blond and pretty as Janelle. She had pink highlights. Apparently, Janelle was one of her followers, and an online friend had asked Billie to get the word out, which she did in a stoic close-up with tears running down her cheeks that somehow didn’t mess with her makeup.

“My name is Billie Regan. Normally I talk to you about makeup, but not today. One of my followers, Janelle Beckett, is missing, and we need your help to find her. Her last known location is Journal Square. That’s in Jersey City, which is right across the water from Manhattan. She texted one of her dog-walking clients Monday, saying she lost her wallet and asking if they’d seen it. This was at 8:45 p.m. No one’s heard from her since. A neighbor says they heard someone leaving her apartment around ten and thinks it may have been Janelle. The client even stopped by her place. No answer, and the stupid super wouldn’t let him in even though he told him he knew Janelle.”

Billie paused, eyes looking down in a way that I knew meant she was reading comments. “The police have been alerted but apparently are dragging their feet on looking for her.”

Billie stopped to give the camera a look letting us know exactly how she felt about that, then continued on.

“My follower asked me to get the word out. So y’all go ahead and signal boost.”

There were over 2 million views.

Billie Regan had posted regularly about Janelle in the days since, with random updates, memories, and pleas for folks to message her if they had any info. She also shared more about Janelle, echoing much of what Ms. Morgane had briefly told me. Janelle had grown up around Jersey City. Graduated college nearby at someplace called Montclair State University. She had dreams of doing Broadway but had yet to get her big break so she was still walking dogs to pay the bills.

Her parents had died in a car accident a few years back, and there was a sister in Rhode Island, but so far she hadn’t done any interviews—even refusing to talk when a local news reporter came to her house, chasing her and her two kids from their car to the front door. That didn’t stop them from filming her tear-streaked face through the glass. Billie found the harassment appalling. Each of her videos ended the same, with the promise that her “DMs are open.”

I only stopped watching when I stumbled upon something else that grabbed my attention. The link to Janelle’s Instagram—her profile pic the beautiful double-bun photo I’d seen tacked to every tree trunk in a five-block radius. There were lots of pics of dogs in parks, but the last post was of Janelle, still in space buns, pretending to eat chocolate cake. The caption read: I want someone to look at me the same way I look at chocolate cake.

She’d tagged a place called Bunz. I struggled to remember if I’d passed it on either of my runs or when Ty and I were heading to the PATH train. It didn’t ring a bell. It had almost half a million likes, and the comment section was chock-full of theories and arguments. I wasn’t the only one who thought a boyfriend may have done it. But others had their own speculations. The worst were the ones blaming her for what had happened—making Superman-sized leaps about her putting herself in danger. The top comment was someone who went by Rachhhh with even more numbers after it. A woman goes out in the middle of the night by herself in a city to “find her wallet” and disappears. Shocker!! Ladies, we need to stop putting ourselves in these positions!!!

It had more than 10,000 likes and 300 responses.

I felt for Janelle at that moment. We didn’t know much about what had happened to her, but one thing was clear: something did happen. She was a victim at the mercy of strangers’ assumptions. I knew how that felt.

I resisted the urge to respond. Instead, I just liked every comment calling Rachhhh every name in the book.

Two hours later and I was as convinced as half the internet that it had to be someone Janelle knew. A friend or an employer—maybe even someone on this block. They could’ve watched me as I ran by. It was enough to make me shiver. I was two degrees of separation from a missing woman and I didn’t like it at all. It made me feel vulnerable in a way that I hadn’t felt in over a decade. It made me want to become a couch sleuth—desperate to find some clue about what exactly had happened to her so I could feel some sense of control.

I only put my phone down when the sound of my stomach was louder than the bajillionth Janelle Beckett missing theory video I watched. It was then I realized Ty still hadn’t left the office. He had to be as hungry as I was.

My knock was tentative at first. He mumbled something from the depths. I took it to mean “come in.” I plastered on a smile as I opened the door—not wanting him to know I’d spent the last couple hours scaring the hell out of myself. He was right where I’d left him, still in the black office chair, his fingers across the keys the only thing moving. He didn’t turn as I approached, so I spoke.

“Hey, you. I know you have to be starving. Figured I could whip up some eggs or maybe we can do something simple, like Mexican. I ran by a taqueria this morning.”

He said nothing.

“Okay,” I said. “No Mexican. Pizza? Chinese? Burgers? Stop me when I get to something you want. I could go on all day.”

Still nothing. I leaned on the desk next to him, trying to be sexy. Instead, I knocked over the glass of Coke from the morning. It didn’t look like he’d taken more than a sip. “Crap,” I said and reached for it, hoping to minimize the damage.

Ty looked over like he’d been hit with a defibrillator. He immediately grabbed for the jump drive as I righted the glass, then used my T-shirt to sop up the mess, catching the stream mere centimeters before it reached a haphazard pile of paper. He didn’t say anything at first. Just sighed. Way worse than yelling.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just wanted…”

He was examining the jump drive like it owed him money. And that’s when I realized.

“That’s one of those crypto things, isn’t it?” I didn’t understand any of it. Just enough that if I’d ruined the drive, someone would lose a ton of Bitcoin. And it would be all my fault.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I know I’ve been stuck in here all day, but I only need thirty minutes. Please.”

“I just wanted to know if you’re hungry.” I dabbed at the desk just to give myself something to do other than make eye contact.

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