Page 39 of The Missing Half

“Of course I did. She said he was tall. Said he was wearing sunglasses and a hat, but that description could’ve fit almost every man there. I pushed for more but, you know, she’s four.”

“And did you do anything?” Jenna says.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did you tell anyone? Did you think about going to the police?”

“God no. I have nothing to do with any of this. All I wanted to do—what I still want to do—is exactly what that man said and nevertalk about it again.” She seems to hear the harshness of her words, because she gives me a guilty look. “I’m sorry, Nic. Kasey was the closest thing I had to a sister, so I get why you’re doing this. I really do. But please don’t come to my house again. I can’t put my family in any more danger.”

I hear Jenna asking one more time if Lauren knows any other information she didn’t tell the police and Lauren murmuring no, nothing, but I’m too troubled by what she’s just told us to absorb much of anything. I need to get out of here. Finally, we say our goodbyes, then Lauren deadbolts the front door behind us, and Jenna and I walk quickly to her truck.

“That was Brad at the playground last week,” she says once we’re inside. “It had to have been.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

Only an hour ago, the idea that Brad was capable of using a four-year-old girl to threaten Lauren into silence would have struck me as absurd—the man I know wouldn’t do that, he couldn’t. But after everything we just learned, I’m not so sure. Still, Lauren was right. Beth Anne’s description was so vague, it could’ve been anyone at the church last Friday. McLean or someone else.

“Nic,” Jenna says. “Look at the evidence. Lauren was the only one who knew about the affair, and Brad has enormous incentive to keep her quiet about it.” She hesitates. “I think we should go to the police.”

“What?”

“Someone is actively trying to prevent us from learning the truth. If approaching a four-year-old on a playground is this guy’s opening move, what’s he gonna do next?” Her eyes dart around, looking through the windows. “We should probably get out of here.” She turns her key in the ignition and pulls away from the curb. “I say we go to the police. Tell them about the affair and what happened to Beth Anne.”

“No.” I shake my head. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not? What happened at Lauren’s church is relevant to the case. This is the kind of thing that could make the police reopen the investigation.”

But that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.

That summer, Brad was—what? Late forties, early fifties. More than twenty years older than Kasey. More disturbing though is that he truly was an uncle to us. The man who, when we were kids, slicked countless Band-Aids onto our scraped knees, got us juice boxes when our parents had their hands full. He held us when we were babies, carried us as toddlers, took photos while we played naked in the mud.

The idea that the hands that tied my shoes when I was a kid were the same ones that took Kasey’s clothes off fifteen years later makes me sick. Then there’s Sandy. It’s not like I ever believed she and Brad were some storybook romance, but the idea of him betraying her so cruelly infuriates me.

And yet, no matter how much I hate him right now, I don’t want to destroy his and Sandy’s and my dad’s lives by making him the target of an investigation. And that’s exactly what would happen if we go to the police with the affair. They would reopen the case and only look at Brad.

“If Brad was the one at the playground the other day,” I start to say, and Jenna gives me a look. “If he was, he only would’ve been trying to hide the affair. Nothing else. He didn’t have anything to do with Kasey going missing. You heard Lauren. He has an alibi.”

“Yeah. One we heard secondhand seven years after the fact. It’s not exactly airtight,” Jenna says, but her voice has softened slightly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he had nothing to do with Kasey’s disappearance, but he knows a hell of a lot more about her and that summer than he ever let on. At a minimum, the police need to interview him about that.”

My eyes rove around the truck, desperate for any sort of argument or leverage. “Lauren doesn’t want to tell anyone. If we go to the police with the story of what happened to Beth Anne, she may not even corroborate it.”

“Nic, this affair is a huge piece of the puzzle that no one knew about until now. We have to tell the police.”

Something inside me snaps. “It’s not a puzzle, Jenna! It’s my goddamn life. Brad is—” The wordfamilyturns sour in my mouth. Brad is not my family. He never was.

“Brad cheated on his wife with a nineteen-year-old girl,” Jenna says slowly. “What he is is a piece of shit.”

I’m quiet for a moment. She’s right. Of course she is. And yet. “What about Jules?”

Jenna’s gaze flicks from the road to me and back again. “What do you mean?”

“Brad’s affair with Kasey has nothing to do with Jules. If we bring it to the police, they’re just going to focus on that. They may not look into your sister’s case at all. I say we take a few days. See if we can find any connection between the affair and Kasey and Jules going missing.”

Maybe it’s shitty of me to use Jules as bait, but what I said wastrue. And I know Brad had nothing to do with my sister’s disappearance—I just need time to prove it.

Jenna is quiet as she drives. An electrical tower outside my window catches my eye, and I realize we’re already at my apartment complex, taking the winding road to my building. “Fine,” she says eventually. “Let’s take a beat. Digest all this and talk in a few days.”

“Thank you.”

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