Page 48 of Missing White Woman

Chunky Monkey. My favorite before I’d sworn off dairy. I grabbed it anyway, walking to the kitchenette to pick up two spoons. Screw a bowl. She’d beelined right for the table separating the kitchen from the living area. I was a few seconds behind, ripping off the top of the container like it was Ty’s head.

Neither of us spoke at first, just shoved spoonful after spoonful into our mouths like kids anticipating Mom catching us at any moment. I ate until I felt it deep in my stomach. I’d pay for it tomorrow morning, but it wasn’t like I could feel any worse.

She raised her hand to her mouth to wipe away ice cream that wasn’t there. A. Kristine McKinley wasn’t the type to have food on her face. “You okay?” she finally said.

And of course I went with the joke. “I did say it was always the boyfriend.”

But then I started to cry. Again.

Adore immediately came around the table to hug me. “You need to be kind to yourself.” She sounded like one of the corny memes my boss loved to send. “You found a body. Bludgeoned. And it happened when you were in the house. Upstairs. Asleep. That’s scary, Bree, on its own.”

“That’s what I’ll tell Janelle Beckett’s sister. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t do crap to help with catching her killer.’ A woman died so horribly they can’t even officially ID her, but I only cared about my boyfriend.”

She ignored that. “You do realize that maybe the reason you were so focused on trying to find Ty is you didn’t want to process how scary that was for you. You have nothing to apologize for. You didn’t kill Janelle Beckett.”

“What if Ty did?” I said. “What if by doing nothing I helped him get away? There’s no way he’s still in Jersey City. He could be in Mexico for all we know.”

“Don’t put that burden on yourself.”

“You’re being nicer to me than I deserve. I’ve been nothing but an a-hole since you saved me from the cops.”

“We’re both a-holes then. When I saw you in a video posted on Twitter, you looked so upset even from a distance. I recognized you immediately, knew you needed help. But I wasn’t going to come. I was just going to sit in my apartment and think about how badly I messed up. How I wasn’t there for you before when you needed me. But then I decided that even though I couldn’t change the past, I could do the right thing now.”

There was a pause then. It was like we were at the edge of the cliff, looking down, waiting for the other to say the word so we could jump.

“Bree, we need to—”

But then her cell rang. She pulled her eyes away from me to look at the caller ID. “I have to take this.”

I stayed stock-still while she went into the bedroom to talk lawyer shit. Once again, I did a mental replay of everything that had happened over the past two days, kicking myself for what I’d done wrong at each stage. Finding Janelle’s poor body and not even calling the police. Then focusing on getting my cell, getting to Ty. Protecting him. I skipped forward, to the video from the alley. Me not telling Detective Randle immediately that I recognized the hoodie. I mentally pressed fast-forward again to a few minutes ago. Adore trying to make me feel better, broaching the conversation we should’ve had twelve years ago. It was silly and it was childish that we’d ignored each other for so long. It shouldn’t have taken someone dying to bring us back together. But here we were.

Adore was right about one thing, though. Even if I couldn’t change the past, I could change the present and make things right.

By the time she came back into the living room, I’d rehearsed what I was going to say a good ten times.

“I want to talk to the police.”

* * *

After we made the call, I had no clue how long I pretended to nap. Adore had closed the blackout curtains and I’d unplugged the bedside clock after I got sick of the red light taunting me. Still, I tossed and turned like someone had stuck a pea under the mattress. Except I wasn’t some princess. I was just a fool.

And just like a fool, I still checked the hashtag. Some were bragging how they knew Ty and Janelle had a connection. How this had screamed a crime of passion from the jump. And now we just had proof.

Others were still on the lookout—posting “Ty sightings” with exact locations and times. Some had gotten braver. One group of teens followed a Black guy out of a drugstore, calling him a murderer until he made it to the safety of his car. The only thing he had in common with Ty was that he loved black hoodies.

That one had 14,000 likes and hundreds of comments from people saying they’d shared the license plate number with the police.

That was my fault too. They wouldn’t have been harassing that poor man if I’d helped the cops find Ty.

There was a knock and I jumped, surprised Adore was still there. I hadn’t been much company since I’d finished the ice cream. I felt sick to my stomach and I couldn’t blame either Ben or Jerry.

Adore banged on the bedroom door again. Those police knocks. I just lay there, staring at a ceiling I couldn’t see in the pitch-black. And suddenly there was light. I looked over, past the mess I’d made of my stuff even though I’d only just gotten my suitcase back. Adore was beautiful even in blacked-out profile. When she spoke, it was soft. “They’re doing another press conference.”

“You can turn on the light,” I said.

She did but still stood there as I willed myself up, then scrambled to find where I’d left the remote. My hand patted aimlessly beside me before I finally found it under one of the pillows. “Come in,” I said, and she did, sitting on the edge of the bed.

I turned the bedroom TV on. “What channel?” I said, then realized it didn’t matter. It was on all of them.

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