Page 43 of My Child is Missing

Josie thought of the text messages between Kayleigh and Braelyn from softball. “Once she started playing badly on purpose but had to stay on the team, the other girls got angry with her.”

Olivia met Josie’s eyes briefly. “Yeah. I mean, they’re a really good team. They almost went to state last year. If Kayleigh hadn’t played so badly, they probably would have. So the other girls, like, hate her.”

“Couldn’t the coach throw her off the team? Or bench her?”

Olivia laughed drily. It was the most natural and least nervous she’d been since Josie had met her. “Have you met her dad? He totally bullied the coach into keeping her on and giving her at least some field time, which made everyone else even more angry, and guess who they took it out on?”

“Kayleigh.”

“Yep. It was a shame. I told her she should just play. Like why screw over all the other girls on the team because her parents were being douchey?”

“What did Kayleigh say when you told her just to play?”

Olivia went back to peeling flakes from her croissant. “She said she didn’t want her parents to have the satisfaction. I told her she was being stubborn and only hurting herself, but she didn’t care.”

“The girls on the softball team were unhappy with her,” Josie said. “That’s fair. Was she having problems with anyone else?”

“I don’t know. At the beginning of the year, she was friends with a bunch of other girls. I’m not friends with them because we don’t take any of the same classes, but Kayleigh was in some after-school club with a bunch of them. Some writing club or something. A couple of months into school she said they started ghosting her. One of those girls is in her English class and she had some beef with her about some assignment and things got ugly. Then she started talking about this boyfriend. I think it made her feel better about herself, like she had something on all those girls who were mean to her. I didn’t think she was for real about it.”

“You never saw her with this guy?” Josie asked. She tapped her password back into her phone and his photo appeared again. She slid it across the table.

Olivia didn’t look at it. “No. I never did.”

Josie wasn’t sure she believed the girl, but she couldn’t force her to tell the truth. “You said she talked about him. What did she say about him?”

Olivia shrugged again. “I don’t know. Just that he was, like, older and stuff. He had a car. He thought she was awesome and called her brilliant.”

“Did she ever mention his name?”

Olivia shook her head.

“Never? Not even to you?”

“No.”

“Olivia, we know that Kayleigh was seeing this boy for at least a year. You said yourself that she talked about him a lot.”

Olivia broke through the center of the croissant and pressed her forefinger into the gooey chocolate center. The filling clung to her finger, dangling in a sugary string as she lifted her hand. Using a napkin, she caught it and wiped her skin clean.

Josie tried again. “Olivia, this is really important. It could be the key to finding Kayleigh. All I’m asking for is a name. A name that I will find sooner or later through our investigation. It would be very helpful if you saved me all that digging and told me right now. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that your best friend’s life may hang in the balance.”

Looking everywhere but at Josie, she muttered, “His name is J.J. But that’s all I know. I don’t know his last name. She never told me.”

“Thank you,” said Josie. “That’s very helpful. Any idea what that stands for?”

“No.”

“Does J.J. go to your school?”

“No. He’s older than that. That’s why they had to keep it a big secret. That’s what she said. Everyone at school just thought that was her way of getting out of ever having to prove that he was real.”

“Did she ever say where he lived? How they met? Anything like that?”

“No. I mean, I’m pretty sure he lives in Denton, but I don’t know. She didn’t tell me how they met.”

“Did she say how old he was exactly?” Josie asked.

“Like, twenty? I think that’s what she said. It wasn’t so old that it was, like, gross but old enough so he would seem cool to other girls at school, I guess.”

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