Page 12 of The Missing Half

And yet this memoryissomething. I can feel it in my gut.

Jenna said that three years before Jules’s car was found on the side of the road, she’d wanted to move because she’d been in a quote-unquotefunk.And now I remember that sometime in the weeks before Kasey went missing, she was acting strange too.

I’m not sure how to make sense of the timing, and I have to admit the connection is far from concrete. Maybe they aren’t even related at all, but this memory feels pertinent—to Kasey’s investigation at the very least. And now that it has risen to the surface, other snippets of memories are rising too. This wasn’t the only time that summer that Kasey acted this way. For a while there, maybe a week, maybe two, something was off. I remember telling Detective Wyler that just before she’d disappeared, she’d been stressed with school, but could that really have been all it was? Because if I let myself sink into the memory rather than let it blur past me like I’ve always done, I can see something I’ve never before let myself examine: There was a look of fear in Kasey’s eyes when she told me to be careful that night.

For some reason, late that summer, my sister was scared.

Chapter Eight

I walk through my front door, head to my room, and sit on the edge of my bed, where I pull my phone from my back pocket. For the first time in what feels like ages, hope spreads its small wings in my chest and starts to flutter. Could there really be avenues in my sister’s case that no one’s explored? I try to smother it. As I’ve learned, optimism only ends in pain. Still, I have to look into what this memory means. It seems like an enormous stretch, yet I can’t help but wonder: Could Kasey and Jules have had the same reason for suddenly acting so off?

The only thing I can think to do is to look into any overlaps between Jules’s life before she moved to Osceola and Kasey’s before she went missing. Did they interact with any of the same people? Go to any of the same places? Thank God Jenna sent me pictures of the notes she was taking during our conversation before I kicked her out of my apartment, so at least I have those to reference.

But as I go to pull them up, I see a series of new texts from a number I don’t have saved. I tap on them and realize with a jolt they’re from Jenna.

Hey Nic, thought I’d give you some time before I reached out but I just wanted to apologize. It was really shitty of me to lie…especially about that. I hope you know I was just desperate. Not that it excuses it or anything but maybe you can forgive me?

I also wanted to let you know that I’m not done looking into our sisters cases. I know you’re probably still upset but I really believe if we team up we could find something.

Please just give me another chance. I promise I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you.

Conflicting emotions war inside me. She’s right about one thing: I am still upset. But a part of me understands why she did what she did. Hope is an intoxicating sensation. I got a mere taste of it and here I am digging into the one thing I promised myself I’d never revisit. Jenna’s hope may make her delusional and a liar, but in the wake of uncovering this memory, it’s harder to blame her for it.

I stare at her words for a long time. Finally, I tap the reply box. My cursor blinks at me. I click back out.

Jenna’s notes are messy but thorough. On one of the pages she photographed and sent, she wrote a timeline of both Kasey’s and Jules’s lives side by side, their entire existences reduced to two little columns of facts. According to this, three years before Jules went missing, just before she and Jenna moved to Osceola, she was living in Mishawaka and working at a barbecue restaurant on Grape Road called Famous Jake’s. I remember Jenna asking about it, but it hadn’t rung any bells. It still doesn’t. But at least it’s a place to start.

I type “Famous Jake’s” into my internet tab, and up pops the restaurant’s profile complete with a location, photo gallery, website, and menu. Below are the wordsPermanently Closed.It’s not surprising. Jules worked there ten years ago. I copy the old address on Grape Road, paste it into my maps app, and see that it’s about a quarter of a mile south of Funland. I can take an early bus tomorrow morning and bike there before work.

Sitting on my bed, I feel my legs itch to start moving. All that separates now from then is the span of a few hours, but if the busoperated at night, I’d be on it. Patience, as people have told me throughout my entire life, is not my strong suit.

—

When I approach 2452 Grape Road on my bike the next morning, I’m confused. I must have entered the wrong address, because I’ve never been to Famous Jake’s—have never even heard of it before the other night—but the commercial strip I’m pedaling up to now is a place I’ve been hundreds of times.

I brake and hop off my bike, my breathing heavy. I didn’t think to wear anything other than my uniform, and I’ve already sweated through my thick collared shirt. Leaning my bike on the kickstand, I pull my phone from my back pocket and squint at the map on my screen. I pull up my internet tab and search for Famous Jake’s again, comparing the listed address with the one I typed into my maps app. They match.

“Holy shit.”

I look up at the storefront. There are two business signs in frontof me, two doors. Maybe this is a coincidence, but it doesn’t feel likeit.

I click over to my messaging app, to Jenna’s texts, but hesitate, my finger hovering over her number. Do I really want to call her, the person who used my own sister to trick me into talking? But I have to tell someone, and who else am I going to call? The person I used to tell everything to was Kasey. I had friends once upon a time, but I vanished from their lives the summer my own was turned on its head. My mom’s been emotionally unavailable since she remarried and moved to Florida six years ago, and I think a lead about Kasey’s disappearance might break my dad if it turns out to be nothing.

I stare down at Jenna’s text:I really believe if we team up, we could find something.Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I’m starting to believe it too. Plus, if there’s one person in the world I can empathize with, one person who deserves my solidarity, it’s this woman. Because we are the same, she and I. The two sisters of the two Missing Mishawaka Girls.

I tap her number and she answers before the first ring is over.

“Nic! Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’m so sorry about the other night. I should never have lied to you and I’ve honestly been feeling really terrible about—”

“Look,” I say. “Forget about that for a second. I mean, I’m still angry, but…I think I might’ve found something.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Remember the other night when you said that just before you and Jules moved, she was acting weird? She wasn’t going out, or seeing friends, or anything like that?”

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