When I walked into the kitchen the following morning, Alice was already at the table with yet another bowl of cereal, her eyes glued to some cartoon on the iPad. My parents were moving silently and robotically, furtively glancing at the living room TV tuned to Channel 7 and the Jensens’ morning show.
The show’s music swelled, and the credits started to roll but then were immediately frozen. The familiar, jaunty Wake Up the Bay! tune was stunted, replaced by the tones usually reserved for breaking news—natural disasters, mass shootings, election coverage. Instead of being immediately sent by satellite to a major office in DC or New York City, the show opened with the normal Channel 7 news desk, the daily anchors looking serious and distraught.
“We’re breaking into our regularly scheduled program to bring you this exclusive. Hope Jensen, seventeen, the daughter of Channel 7’s own Bruce and Becky Jensen of Wake Up the Bay! is officially being declared a missing person. We go to the Florence County Police Department press conference already in progress.”
The camera cut to an overbright shot of the white stucco front of the police department. The chief of police was gripping both sides of a wooden podium with big, meat-hook hands and staring out at the assembled crowd—mainly reporters with cell phones at the ready.
“At approximately eleven-oh-two p.m. on Monday night, Hope Jensen was having a phone conversation with a school friend. No one has seen or heard from Hope since. We are following every lead and taking this investigation very seriously. If you have any information…”
The police chief’s voice was drowned out by a flurry of shouted questions and waving hands.
“Chief! Chief! Will you be divulging the name of the person with whom Hope was speaking?”
“Is that person a suspect?”
“What have you done so far?”
“Any leads that you can tell us about?”
The police chief looked at his audience before patting them down to silence with his big hands. “There will be a more formal press conference later this evening where we’ll do our best to answer all your questions.”
“Are you forming a search party?” The question was asked by someone in the front row who didn’t bother to raise a hand or a microphone.
“Like I said, your questions will be answered in due time. Right now I’d like to present Mr. and Mrs. Jensen, who would like to speak to whoever might have Hope.”
“So it is a kidnapping!” Another disembodied voice. A sharp look from the chief of police.
Bruce and Becky Jensen were shuffled to the front of the podium. They looked like a matched pair: he in his crisp navy suit, she in her white dress with navy piping, a thick belt cinching her tiny waist. Becky held a framed, close-up photo of Hope that the camera zoomed in on before pulling out to get Bruce and Becky’s drawn faces in the shot. It was obvious they had been crying—the Hollywood kind that only leaves a heady trace of pink at the end of noses, that makes the eyes look dewy and watery rather than sunken and bloodshot.
“Hope, we want you to know that we love you very much, and we are praying and doing everything possible to ensure your safe return. We love you, baby.”
Bruce clapped a hand over one of his wife’s and squeezed obviously as they exchanged a tortured look. “If you have our daughter or know anything about her whereabouts, we implore you to contact us or let her go. There will be no questions asked. No follow-up, no consequences if you just bring our daughter home to us. Hope is our miracle, our special little angel. She wouldn’t hurt anyone, and she deserves to be home with us, with her family. Please, please just let her go.”
Bruce dissolved into tears, and the chief of police hurried them away from the crowd, whisking them into the police station. A second uniformed officer came to the podium.
I turned off the TV, pocketed my keys, and left the house without saying good-bye to anyone.
* * *
School was humming when I got there. There were more reporters, more cops, more adults dressed in somber suits clutching clipboards to their chests and urging students to talk about their grief or their guilt or their feelings. Everyone seemed to be focused on themselves, little ants walking in lines until I got there. Then, like I’d shown up with a marching band, everyone turned and looked. No expression on their faces except for something that looked like curiosity but only lasted a moment. And then I could see it. Eyes darkening. Lips twitching. Heads bending, hands cupping mouths, the whispers starting.
“Tony was the last one to see Hope alive…”
“You never know what people are capable of…”
“Do you think he could have…”
The whispers were deafening roars. The stares, the way their eyes burned. Accusation was everywhere. Tony did it. Tony is responsible. Hope is dead, Hope is gone, something horrible has happened to Hope, and it’s all Tony’s fault.
I was no longer the loser, the pansy, the oversensitive sap.
I was a murderer.
“Mr. Gardner, Tony, Tony!” A man in a suit who I didn’t recognize was leading the pack of adults calling my name. He wasn’t a cop, wasn’t a reporter—at least he didn’t have a microphone in his hand. He cut in front of the rest and made a beeline for me, clamping a hand over my arm and leaning uncomfortably close.
“Don’t say a word to any of them.”
“What? Who are you?”
The man in the suit steered me to the side of the school where the lunch tables were, holding his hand out behind him, stop-sign style. The advancing reporters, students, and cops actually stopped as though this guy wielded some kind of power over them. I stiffened and shook off his arm.
“Do I know you?”
The guy guided me to a table and presented me with a business card in one fluid motion.
Alfred Bellingham, Attorney at Law.
“I don’t need an attorney.” I attempted to hand the card back, but Bellingham refused it, looking everywhere but at me before he sat down.
“With all due respect, kid, you do. I’ve already left a message with your parents. Since you’re a minor, you can’t enter into any legal contracts with me without your parents’ consent. But Tony, the press and these cops are already doing a number on you. You need me. Do you have a lawyer yet?”
I couldn’t imagine that my parents would know where to find a lawyer, let alone this guy who’d seemed to appear out of nowhere.
“I don’t think I should be talking to you.” I left the card on the table and stood up, not exactly sure where I was headed. The reporters were chomping at the edge of the lunch tables, and Bellingham was behind me. The kids that were my friends last week were milling around, pretending not to pay attention, to care, but I could see their eyebrows raised, could see their eyes cut to me and back to one another before the whispering began again.
“You know they have blood evidence,” Bellingham said nonchalantly.
I stopped, his words dripping over me like slime. My skin started to crawl. “Blood?”
“Hope’s.”
I turned slowly. The cops hadn’t mentioned a thing. I thought of Hope, of her full, bloodred lips slightly parted as she threw her head back and laughed.
“They found Hope’s blood?” My stomach folded in on itself, and I gripped the cemented edges of the lunch table, my head, everything, starting to spin. “Does that mean she’s—”
Bellingham shook his head. “No, from what I hear they’re trace amounts, but the cops can spin it any which way, Tony. You need someone to protect you, protect your rights. You were the last to speak to her, right?”
“I-I… We were on the phone. How do they even know who—?”
Bellingham shrugged like it was common knowledge. “Phone records. Easy enough to get. Or they probably just found her phone.”
“No, I—” I paused and bit my lip, but Bellingham didn’t seem to react.
“Well, look. I’m not saying you’re a suspect right now. Neither are the police. But you’re the ex-boyfriend…”
I stiffened. “Hope’s not dead.”
Bellingham went palms up again, placating me like he had the press. “Of course not, of course not. No one’s saying that. You just need to be prepared, Tony. They could come after you. And when they do, they’re going to want to impound your car and come back to your house with a search warrant. I’m not saying you did anything wrong, but you could be in some serious trouble.”
I swallowed hard, my teeth gritted. “Did the cops send you? Do they want me to talk to you?”
Then Bellingham stood up and came uncomfortably close again. “I’m on your side, Tony. I want what you want. I want to get Hope back safely, to get to the bottom of this and prosecute who took her. But you need to be protected.”
“And you’re going to do that? Protect me?”
Bellingham shrugged, the sheen of his suit catching on the early-morning sun. “I want to try.” He pinched the business card I left on the table between his first two fingers and held it out to me. “Why don’t you have your parents give me a call at their earliest convenience?”
I hesitated, but took the card. It was heavy, with raised blue lettering and the scales of justice printed in blue and gold on the right-hand side. I couldn’t look at him. “Why do you want to help me? You don’t even know me.”
“I want to help Hope, just like you do. And I think the best way to do that is to help you. I don’t think you have anything to do with any of this.” He gestured vaguely, and I wasn’t sure if he meant Hope, the school, or the throng of cops and reporters. “And it’s important to me as an attorney to see that justice is served.” He pinned me with a gaze and sucked in a short breath. “For you and for Hope. Call me, okay?”
Without waiting for a reply, Bellingham nodded curtly, turned on his fancy wing-tipped shoes, and walked with intent directly toward the reporters and cops. Phones were flung forward, microphones pressed in his face, cameras flashing.
“Mr. Bellingham! Mr. Bellingham!” The reporters seemed to know exactly who he was. “Is it true that Tony Gardner has retained counsel? Will you be taking Tony’s case? Have the police instructed Mr. Gardner to retain counsel? Is he a suspect in this case?”
I watched as Bellingham expertly hushed the crowd.
“Mr. Bellingham! Does you being here confirm that Tony Gardner is indeed a suspect in Hope Jensen’s disappearance? Is he officially being called a suspect? Has he made any statements?”
The police officers wordlessly tried to push back the reporters, to edge a path for Mr. Bellingham. The reporters ignored the police and leaned in toward Bellingham, microphones and iPhones extended, ready to catch every word. I felt myself leaning in too, my breath tight in my throat.
Mr. Bellingham looked to the crowd, then back at me.
“I have no comment on the situation,” he said.