I expect Russel to ask me more questions, to demand to know everything that’s going on. Maybe he’s resigned to the fact that his new wife is a nutcase. Maybe he is just trying to do whatever he can do to appease me.
“Are you sure this girl was in trouble?” is all he asks.
I shake my head. “I can’t say. It’s just, the guy she was with gave me a really bad feeling …”
I don’t know how else to respond. I’m still surprised that Russel hasn’t told me I’m overreacting, that after the scene I’ve already made on the plane there’s no need to conjure up an encore performance here.
Let’s just take our bags and go home. That’s what I want him to say. Instead, he stops someone wearing an airlines nametag. “Excuse me, is there someone from security I can speak to?”
For the next fifteen minutes, my face burns hot as I sit behind a desk answering a stranger’s questions.
“Did you have any interaction with the passenger in question?” “Did the girl you noticed say anything to you or try to signal you in any way?” “Did you overhear any conversation between this girl and the man she was traveling with?”
Now that I’m getting interrogated about two individuals I’ve never met in my life, I realize what a mistake I made insisting on speaking to security. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve told this officer that I was just overreacting on the plane. It’s nothing. I’m sorry for wasting his time.
Russel and the kids are waiting for me outside the cramped office. I can only imagine what’s running through my husband’s brain right now. Is he wondering what his parents think of me? Is he ashamed of my outburst on the plane? Maybe he’s wondering how to tell his kids that their new stepmom is certifiably insane.
I’m shaking by the time we’re done. The officer did a good job listening to my concerns, asked all the right questions. The problem is I don’t have any actual evidence. Nothing tangible to go on but the fact that a girl was wearing shorts and a T-shirt in the winter. But what does that prove? Maybe her next stop after Detroit was Hawaii for all I know.
My face is burning when I join Russel and the children.
“Everything okay?” he asks me.
I smile. “Yeah, I think …” I don’t know what to tell him. “I’m sorry for ruining the trip.” It’s the best I can do.
His voice is gentle. “Don’t worry about that. I talked to a gate agent while you were having your meeting. They got us on another flight. We leave in three hours.”
My stomach sinks. It was stupid for me not to have expected this. Russel’s glowing and raving on and on about what a huge blessing it is they were able to squeeze six of us on a flight together, and all I can think is I wish the attendant told him there was room for Russel and the kids but not for me.
I need time. Time to catch my breath. To remind myself that just because a girl’s wearing shorts doesn’t mean her life’s in danger. That just because I was captured and locked away for two years it doesn’t mean every other teenager with sad, haunted eyes is going through the same horror. The trauma I went through.
I had only been home for three months after escaping Henry’s basement when a policeman knocked on our door. I hated him and that stupid Styrofoam cup of coffee he always carried around with him.
“We’ve had a new development,” he said, stepping into our home without waiting to be invited. “Call your mom in. She’ll want to hear this.”
And then the officer proceeded to tell me the truth that’s going to haunt me until the day I die.
Henry hadn’t killed his daughter.
Concerning the murder of Jennifer Harris, Henry was completely innocent.