Until I Find You - Rea Frey Page 0,72
The air is cool and smells like cinnamon. “I’m baking,” Jess says in response.
“So you haven’t seen her?”
“Not today.”
Crystal follows her into the kitchen and takes a seat on one of the bar stools. The island is covered in muffin tins and baking sheets, as well as dozens of pastries. “This is quite the spread.”
“I know. It’s for a bake sale. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water’s fine.”
They descend into an awkward silence, but Crystal decides to get right to the point. “Tell me what’s going on. I’m worried about her.”
Jess slides over a glass of icy cucumber water in a crystal tumbler. “We’re all worried about her.”
She takes a cool sip. “Why is there a flyer with Jackson’s face on it?”
“Because she believes someone took him when we were at the park.”
“When?”
“Thursday morning.”
“Thursday?” Crystal struggles to keep track of the days in her head, all of them running together in a hazy clump. “You mean after she fell?”
“Yes. She thinks from the time she fell to the time she went to your house, someone took Jackson.” She lowers her voice. “It’s fine. She was trying to get an investigation underway, but it’s clear that no one believes … that everyone believes she’s mistaken. She’s tired. She’s grieving.” She shrugs.
“I’m confused.” Crystal sorts through the information. “So Jackson wasn’t taken?”
“No. But she believes he was. She thinks she has a different baby in his place.”
A cold vise clamps Crystal’s throat and squeezes. Bec thinks Jackson was swapped? “Wait, what?” Crystal replays their recent conversations. Has she been overlooking Bec’s paranoia in favor of chalking it up to grief?
“She thinks it’s another baby. Insists on it, in fact.” Jess opens and shuts the fridge and sets a carton of fresh eggs on the island. She takes one, cracks it, lets it ooze into a bowl. “But I’m telling you. It’s Jackson.” She cracks two more and then whisks them together.
Crystal takes a sip of water. “So you’ve seen the baby?”
“I have.” She pauses. “I mean, I don’t spend every day with Jackson, and I haven’t held him in a while, but it sure looks like him. I’m surprised they haven’t called you to come in yet.”
“I wasn’t at the park,” she says.
“But we went to your house, so…” She shrugs.
She takes another drink, and the cold shocks her system. “There’s literally no one who can confirm it’s him?”
“Not even her dreamboat of an ex.”
“What ex?” Suddenly, Crystal feels completely in the dark. She ransacks her brain for information of Rebecca’s ex, but they don’t talk much about their lives before they became widows. They help each other. They fill in. They lean on each other. It’s about the present. It’s about survival.
“His name’s Jake. He’s a detective. Look.” She releases the whisk and rinses it in the sink. “Bec needs someone who believes her. I’m not telling you to do something you can’t or don’t want to do, but if you could be there for her…”
“Of course I will,” Crystal says. “But she’s not answering my calls.”
Jess raises her eyebrows and lifts her hands in surrender. “All I’m saying is she needs a friend.”
“Funny because I thought she had some.” Crystal hops off the stool, too furious to sit. These women parade around and pretend to be sympathetic until something happens that they don’t understand. Isn’t it their job to be supportive no matter what? Maybe not to this extent, Crystal reminds herself. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“I don’t.” Jess wipes her hand on a dish towel. “I haven’t heard from her this morning. We were all at the police station late last night. I heard through the grapevine—aka Officer Hot Pants, aka Officer Toby—that she had a change of heart and said she made the whole thing up to get attention. It’s a mess.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Rob. He and Toby are friends.”
Crystal processes this information and turns to leave. “Will you please just have her call me if you hear from her? I’d really appreciate it.”
Jess nods and resumes baking. Crystal lets herself out and stands on the porch, contemplating her next move. The wealth of Elmhurst consumes her, all of these million-dollar homes and manicured lawns as far as the eye can see. This is a safe, respectable town, and yet something awful has happened to her closest friend.
And you weren’t there to help.
She knocks away the voice as she climbs into the car. She glances at her phone. She could