Page 7 of The Missing Half

“What’d you say?”

“That half the people in there were sketchy guys. They had us describe some faces, but we couldn’t give them any names. Then they gave us their cards and told us to call if we thought of anything.”

“She was working the night she went missing,” Jenna says. “That’s why they were so focused on talking to people at the bar. Jules usually got home late, around one or two. But that night, I woke up around three and she wasn’t there. I called her cell and it went straight to voicemail. I wasn’t worried exactly—not then, anyway.But she had a shitty car and sometimes forgot to charge her phone. And I didn’t like the idea of her being stuck at the bar after it closed. Like you said, lot of sketchy guys.

“So, I decided to drive over to make sure she was okay, but she wasn’t there. On my way home, I took a different route and found her car pulled over on the side of the road. It was the middle of nowhere, a cornfield on one side, trees on the other, and it all looked so…wrong. The only light was her car’s interior one. Her door was wide open.”

I suppress a shudder. It’s eerily similar to the scene I’ve imagined all these years.

“I learned later from the police that her car had broken down,” Jenna says. “That’s why she’d pulled over. I just…” She shakes her head. “She was fifteen minutes from home, you know. If her car had lasted fifteen more minutes, she wouldn’t have pulled over and he wouldn’t have found her.”

He. He is the part we haven’t gotten to yet.

Chapter Five

One woman who disappears from the side of the road, according to the police, is an anomaly. She could’ve run away to start a new life, could’ve been high on something and wandered into the wilderness, could’ve been tracked by an angry boyfriend / ex-lover / fill in the blank, then lured out of her car and murdered. It was a setup, an accident, a personal attack. It was a one-off. On the flip side, if there had been a string of disappearances, it would have been foul play, perpetrated most likely by a stranger. A Ted Bundy. A Zodiac Killer. Some people still argue this theory, say a serial killer was just getting started but then got locked up for another crime. Or died. Or moved because the investigators were getting too close. But that’s just people on the internet sensationalizing the story.

Two women from the same area who disappeared under almost the exact same circumstances points to someone on the periphery of their lives. Someone who knew Kasey and Jules, at least in some small way. Someone with a screw loose who believed that if he wanted something, he should have it.

That has been the extent of the prevailing theory among local law enforcement since 2012, which is such shit—not because it’s notaccurate but because it’s nothing. It’s like saying the victim who was stabbed thirty-seven times in the back died from murder.

I remember one of the many visits from Detective Wyler, the detective assigned to Kasey’s investigation. It was squeezed in between Christmas and the New Year, and he’d called ahead of time, which was unusual. My mom made coffee, poured a little something into her own, then she, my dad, and I sat in the living room to hear what the detective had come to say. I could tell by the way he was staring at the carpet that it was going to be bad news.

“You all know how we’ve profiled the perpetrator in Kasey’s disappearance,” he began. “The man we’re looking for is probably hiding in plain sight. He has a job, not necessarily a good one, but he pays his taxes. He functions in society and most likely owns or is familiar with some sort of property where he took Kasey after the abduction. But in a case like this…” Wyler rubbed his hands together. “In the case of an abduction, it is unlikely that this man would keep a hostage alive indefinitely. I want to let you know we’re still doing everything we can to find out who took her, but I also feel I need to set expectations. After almost six months, the odds of finding Kasey alive—well, they’re not good.”

He walked out shortly after this, coffee untouched. Before the front door even shut behind him, Dad dropped his head into his hands, and I heard the choked sounds of him trying to stifle his sobs. Mom stalked wordlessly into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of her favorite grieving drink, vodka Diet Coke. Without even deciding to, as if I were one of those puppets with the strings, I followed the detective out the front door and onto the driveway. I’d been drinking soda out of a coffee mug, and as Wyler pulled out, I smashed it onto the concrete and screamed.

“I don’t know how it worked with your sister’s investigation,” Jenna says, and my head snaps up to look at her. For a moment, I’d almost forgotten she was in the room with me. “But when the police talked to me, they were so focused on Jules’s present day-to-day life. Like, they asked about her co-workers and people who went to the bar. They asked about our family and whether or not she was seeing anyone. But then they never really dug into her past, you know. Ididn’t think much of it at the time. I was so…” She waves the fingers of one hand vaguely. “But now I wonder—what if they were focused on the wrong thing? What if Jules knew this guy years before she went missing and then crossed paths with him again right before it happened?”

“I mean…” I suddenly feel exhausted, scraped out. I know I agreed to this, but I just want to hear whatever her sister wrote in her diary that summer. Did she mention a person the police never interviewed? A place they never checked out? And how could it possibly connect to Kasey? After years of disappointment, I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but maybe this would all feel less futile, less painful, if I understood whatever new puzzle piece Jenna discovered. “Yeah. That seems possible.”

“Right?” Jenna says. “So, I was thinking we could go through Kasey’s and Jules’s past together. You know, sports teams, schools, after-school programs, all the places they worked, friends, friends of friends.”

I pop an M&M into my mouth. I want to track down Ilana from AA and tell her to go fuck herself. Candy will never replace a glass of wine. “Don’t you think this would be easier if you told me what Jules wrote in her diary? Right now, we have nothing to go on. It’s a needle in a haystack. But if you told me what you found, we could work backwards from there.”

“Right, I get that, but…” Jenna’s gaze flicks over the carpet.

“Oh my god,” I say, “it’s not like I’m gonna hear your thing and just stop talking.”

“No, it’s not that. I just—I don’t want to plant some idea in your head and then have us only look in one direction. I want you to stay objective, you know? Open.”

“Okay. Fine.”

“Look,” Jenna says. “Your sister got the Grand Rapids police on her case. Jules got fucking Podunk Mishawaka PD. I honestly don’t know if they botched her investigation because they were shitty or because they just didn’t care, but if I’m doing this, I’m gonna do it right.”

I lift my palms. “I said okay, didn’t I?”

“Thank you.” Jenna glances at the little notebook open in front of her. “So. What part of town are you from?”

“The south side, kind of. Near the train tracks. You?”

“North. Up Grape Road, past the memorial park, just east of the apartment complexes.”

I know the neighborhood she’s talking about. Kasey and I didn’t grow up with much, but I realize now Jenna and Jules might’ve had less. From everything I’ve gleaned about Jenna so far, I would’ve guessed the opposite. She seems to have salvaged so much more of her life than I have. “Why’d you guys move to Osceola?” I say.

“That was all Jules. It happened about three years before she went missing. We were living together in an apartment in Mishawaka, working there too. Then one day out of nowhere she woke up and announced she wanted to leave. She’d already found a place in Osceola and a new job in South Bend. I didn’t really care where I lived, I just liked living with her, so I said okay.”

“That seems pretty sudden. Did she say why?”

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