Page 42 of In Her Mind

“Right,” Frank responded. “Back then it was punk. Today, it’s whatever new form angst takes—’goth’ wasn’t a thing back then. I was never part of any of that tortured youth stuff. I guess some of us just watched from the sidelines.”

“Did you know him well back then?” Jenna asked.

“Bill and I? No, we ran in different circles,” Frank admitted. “I kept my nose clean, mostly. But it’s funny, isn’t it? How people can change. Or how they can hide who they really are.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Jenna thought aloud. “They never change at all, just learn to conceal it better.”

Her finger paused over the yearbook page, drawing a line under the caption as if to underline its significance. “‘Rigor Mortis performing ‘Sid Vicious Has Risen from the Grave,’“ she read out loud, her voice tinged with curiosity. The name Sid Vicious sparked only a dim recognition.

“Who?” Jake asked, clearly trying to remember.

“Lead bassist for the Sex Pistols,” Frank said, leaning back in his chair as he cradled his coffee mug. “Died young, drug overdose.”

“SV,” Jenna murmured, the initials resonating with her as she tapped the yearbook photograph. “Sid Vicious.”

Frank’s reaction was immediate, his startled gaze meeting Jenna’s. “You think there might be a connection?”

“Maybe he was Lisa’s secret boyfriend,” Jake chimed in. “Lisa might’ve kept it quiet, considering her dad. You know how strict he supposedly was.”

“Seems too far-fetched,” Frank countered with a skeptical grunt, dismissing the notion with a wave of his hand.

Yet Jenna’s intuition echoed louder than any skepticism could quell. She leaned closer to the yearbook, her eyes tracing the contours of Bill Hartley’s youthful rebellion captured in black and white. Her mind, trained to seek patterns, refused to let go of the thread they had unwittingly tugged.

“Coincidences in our line of work are rarely just that,” Jenna stated flatly, closing the yearbook with a determination that settled heavily in the room.

A flicker of memory sparked through her thoughts, illuminating a moment she had witnessed in Bill Hartley’s class. “There was this one time,” she murmured, “when Mr. Hartley seemed different from his usual self.”

She recalled his usual demeanor, a placid lake of patience and understanding.

“There was a girl named Lori McBurney,” she said. “She had long black hair that fell down her back like a waterfall. The only time I saw him behave … well, inappropriately was around her, and it happened just once. He leaned too close over her desk as he told her in an intense whisper that she reminded him of someone from his past. It made the whole classroom uncomfortable for a minute or so. But then the moment passed, and Mr. Hartley seemed himself again.”

“Reminded him?” Frank queried, catching the implication in Jenna’s tone.

“Of a girl he knew,” Jenna confirmed, her gaze returning to the yearbook. “That’s all he said, but Lori looked a lot like Amber and Lisa—same build, same long black hair. It seemed strange at the time, but a lot stranger now.

“Frank,” Jake said, “tell us more about Sid Vicious.”

Frank sighed, leaning back against the kitchen chair, which creaked under his weight. “Sid Vicious, eh? Well, he was a real icon of the punk scene back then.” He frowned as he dredged up history. “Most famous, though, for how it all ended. He and his girlfriend, they were a mess—drugs, booze, and all sorts of trouble.”

“Girlfriend?” Jake interjected, his interest piqued.

“Twenty years old, if I recall correctly,” Frank continued. “The story goes, she wound up dead, and Vicious might’ve done it in a drunken rage. Some say he confessed; others claim he couldn’t remember a thing. The case was never solved.” He shook his head, the unsolved mystery echoing the uncertainty they now faced.

“Never solved,” Jenna echoed softly. There was a symmetry to the ambiguity, a pattern that resonated with the enigma wrapped around Lisa Donovan’s own story. Jenna felt the edges of their investigation blurring into the fuzzy lines of the past, where secrets lay buried beneath layers of half-truths and faded memories.

Jenna’s fingers stalled on the edge of a brittle page, her gaze fixed on Frank as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. The silence in the room seemed to press against her eardrums as she awaited the name that might bridge the gap in their case.

“What was his girlfriend’s name?” Jake asked.

Frank paused to think for a moment before it came to him.

“Her name was Nancy Spungen.”

The revelation fell into the space between them like a dropped coin, echoing with significance. Jenna’s eyes darted toJake, who mirrored her intensity. Frank’s brow furrowed, a slow understanding dawning across his weathered features. They all knew it was more than just a name — it was a potential key to a lock that had kept them confounded for too long.

SV and NS; Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. The connection was too poignant to ignore.

“Could that be what we’re looking for?” Jake breathed, voicing the collective thought.

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