Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,74

guy’s condo number.”

“Right. Like I’m going to let you go alone,” she scoffed. “I’ll be back in a second. Don’t…” She glanced around her condo as if seeing it with new eyes. As if cataloging all the things I might see or touch or take. I almost told her I didn’t care about her shit, but she spoke up first. “Just…don’t go anywhere.”

She turned and walked across the carpeted living room to the shadowed hallway, and from there, back into the shadowed bedrooms. Just off the foyer was her kitchen. It was a little bigger than the one we had with some nicer appliances.

The coffee pot hissed and gurgled and I went in to help myself, opening her cupboards until I found a mug. Making no effort to stay quiet.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was muffled through the heavy concrete walls.

“Drinking your coffee,” I said.

It was flavored with something sweet, but I drank it anyway. Her fridge was covered with coupons and pictures and I leaned in to look at them, wondering what kinds of things a woman like Fern took pictures of.

They were old, but the face in most of the pictures was unmistakable.

Apparently, Fern had taken pictures of Joan. A teenage Joan, in baggy clothes with a petulant sneer on her mouth.

Her natural hair color was red. Not bright. But dark. It suited her.

There was another girl in the picture, who hadn’t quite learned the petulant sneer and smiled widely at the camera.

Jennifer.

I leaned in closer, as if I could tell from some old picture whether or not the girl was worth saving. There was another picture, the edge curled up and I pressed it flat. A Christmas or birthday. There were presents and Jennifer had a ribbon around her neck. Joan was looking down at a box in her lap.

“I gave them phones.” I jumped slightly at Fern’s voice.

“They didn’t have phones before?” Teenagers had phones. Fuck, grade school kids had phones. It was so commonplace it was weird when they didn’t.

“They didn’t have anything when they came to me.”

Finally I looked over at Fern, her face locked down tight as if she kept every emotion behind high high walls. And razor wire.

“If you want to know more, you have to ask her,” Fern said, because apparently I wasn’t as good at hiding my thoughts. “But,” she pointed at the picture, “I could tell Ol—Joan was thinking of leaving. Jennifer was going to turn eighteen and graduate. She’d been accepted into Florida State and I knew the second Jennifer was gone, Joan would drop out of community college and she’d leave, too. I felt like there was nothing I could do, so I got them phones, thinking if they were ever in trouble, at least they could call me.”

“Did you bug the phones?”

“I didn’t go that far.” Fern’s laugh was dry—the sound of stone rubbing against stone. “I guess I should have. But I thought they’d keep in touch with me. That they would…try.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t.”

“Joan and I drove Jennifer down to school. We got her unpacked and settled. We drove back here, and when I woke up in the morning Joan was gone. No note. No nothing. I called, I texted, and I never heard anything. But I never changed my number, in case they needed to reach me. And once a year I emailed the two of them, just to let them know I was still here. If they wanted—”

“To come back?”

She nodded; I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye.

“I never thought it would be like this,” she said. “But I probably should have guessed. Joan and me…we’re a lot alike.”

“No shit.”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “I did the same thing to my family. When I left them…I left. I never looked back. Joan was doing what the women in my family have been doing for years. But Jennifer wasn’t like that. She was a sweet girl. Trusting. So smart.”

She swallowed hard. And then again. And I stepped back like Fern was some kind of bomb about to explode all over me. “Do you…do you know where Jennifer is?” she asked.

“You’ll have to ask Joan.” I wasn’t stepping into that mess. No way. In fact, looking at these pictures, hearing Fern’s side of the story, I was beginning to see how fucking pointless what I was doing might be.

Joan was Joan.

And apparently Joan left.

“You ready?” she asked. I drank the last of my coffee, wincing at the taste.