Before She Was Found - Heather Gudenkauf Page 0,46

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Frustration erupts in his chest and it’s enough to propel him forward. “Jordyn Ann Petit,” he hollers, his fist pounding against the wooden door frame, “you open this door right this minute!”

The door slowly opens and Thomas expects to see a stone-faced, defiant Jordyn standing in front of him. Instead his granddaughter wears an expression of intense fear.

My God, Thomas thinks, she’s terrified of me. Thomas is immediately contrite, ready to apologize. He never, ever wants Jordyn to be afraid of him. A healthy amount of respect would be nice, but never fear.

“Grandpa,” Jordyn says, her face crumpling as she throws herself against Thomas, her arms barely reaching around his wide waist. Thomas stands there momentarily dumbfounded, arms extended out to his sides as if unexpectedly struck by a wave of cold water.

“What is it?” Thomas asks, finally lowering his arms and returning Jordyn’s fierce embrace. “What’s the matter?” Thomas is expecting Jordyn to say that she’s sorry for going out in the middle of the night without permission, to express remorse for saying that she didn’t want to go and to want to check on how Violet and Cora were doing, to apologize for locking herself away in her room for hours.

Jordyn weeps into his neck. This isn’t a spat-with-friends, sorry-for-being-naughty kind of cry. These are bone-deep sorrow-filled cries.

“No one was supposed to get hurt, Grandpa. It was all just a stupid game,” she croaks.

It takes a moment for Jordyn’s words to register with Thomas but still they make little sense. What kind of game would lead to two girls being hospitalized? He thinks of Jordyn’s earlier confession that they had taken some beer from the bar. Had alcohol played a role? The train yard was filled with old junk; maybe after drinking the girls had been horsing around.

“I never meant for something bad to happen,” Jordyn cries. Thomas awkwardly pats Jordyn’s head, his mind racing. She pulls away from the hug and holds her phone out to him. “We didn’t do anything. I promise. It’s not us.”

Thomas takes the phone from Jordyn and examines the screen. It’s a horrible picture of Jordyn and Violet holding knives and covered in blood. “It’s not us. It’s fake, but people are sending it around to everyone and saying we hurt Cora,” Jordyn says, leaning into him, her shoulders rising and falling with each sob.

Thomas squints at the image on the screen and upon a closer look he can tell the photo has been doctored. He has so many questions but he starts with a simple, “What happened?”

“We snuck out to go look for Joseph Wither.” Jordyn sniffles. Thomas knows this game. The boys did the same thing when they were kids. They would creep from the house and run down to the railroad tracks searching between boxcars.

“I took the beer from the cooler.” She looks up at her grandfather. “I know I shouldn’t have. It tasted gross. We were telling ghost stories and going to hunt for Wither. I was going to run into the field and hide and then jump out and scare them but we didn’t get that far.

“Just before we got to the train yard we thought we heard someone else coming. We got scared and ran off in different directions. After a few minutes I started going back to see if I could find Violet and Cora but then I heard the screaming and the train coming and I ran home. I know I should have gone back to help. I thought at first maybe one of them got hit by the train and I couldn’t stand the thought of it.” Jordyn screws her eyes shut and shakes her head from side to side. “I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing it.”

“But Cora wasn’t hit by a train, Jordyn,” Thomas says patiently. “Someone stabbed her and beat her. Badly. What do you think happened? And don’t tell me it was Joseph Wither. He isn’t real.”

“I know, I never thought he would show up. It was a game but I think Cora and Violet really believed it. They talked about it all the time. I’m so sorry.”

“So you have no idea what happened? What were you going to do when you found him?” Thomas tries one more time. Jordyn hesitates a second too long. “What? You need to tell me,” he says firmly.

“We were just trying to protect ourselves,” Jordyn says. “We brought the knife thingy.”

“Protect yourself? How?” When Jordyn doesn’t answer he knows. “You brought a weapon?”