There was a pause on the line.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. Al, keep things moving on nine-seventy-five and nine-seventy-six. The footings should be done. Get the subs moving on the drainage and waterproofing, then get pouring concrete right away.”
“All right,” Clayton said. “Let me know if things change. Keep me posted.”
Al Clayton’s call pulled Greg back to the previous night with his crew at the Mulberry Bar. They’d pushed tables together in the section that was a few steps higher from the rest of the bar. They were eating wings, nachos, and burgers, and analyzing the virtues and faults of the Bills and Sabres.
Then what happened? I can’t think about that. Not now.
“Here it is,” Kat said.
Greg heard the rhythmic ticking of the Jeep’s turn signal as they arrived at the Rite Aid parking lot.
A canvas canopy had been erected over a couple of large folding tables. A breeze waved through an orange flag affixed to one of the metal poles as they walked to it, joining the two dozen people there. Several men and women wore fluorescent green vests, with IDs and ballcaps; most had walkie-talkies clipped to them.
Kat and Vince went off to talk to the volunteers while Greg was led to Doug Tucker, the retired firefighter who’d called him and was heading the effort in Ripplewood. He gave Greg a firm handshake.
“We’re only getting started. I’ll show you.”
Tucker took Greg to a table with maps and laptops. The reality hit Greg again when Tucker peeled a single page from the stack on a table and gave it to him.
The word MISSING stretched across the top over a color picture of Jenn, then her description, a summary of when and where she was last seen, and a color photo of her blue Corolla. A police number to call was at the bottom.
Greg looked at it without speaking.
“We got the information from the police,” Tucker said. “We’re also posting it on our sites, emailing it, texting it, getting it out everywhere on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it.”
Greg swallowed.
Then Tucker pointed to maps of Ripplewood.
“We’re dispatching teams to canvass door-to-door with the flyer along the route police think she traveled. Then we’ll expand it.”
“What about Bluebird Park?” Greg asked.
“We’ll send teams from Ripplewood to walk through the park from west to east.” Tucker’s finger traced the area on the map as he detailed the search. “In all, we should have nearly a hundred volunteers involved.”
When Greg turned to look at the others, who were preparing to set out, a woman approached him.
“Greg, I’m Nicole Pitcher, a teacher at Tall Elm.”
“Hi.” Greg recognized her from the times Jenn hosted their book club.
“We’ve got people from the school. We’re excused from today’s conference because we know Jenn.” She took him to meet them; most were strangers to him. “This is Monica Todd and Juan Perez—they’re teachers. Viola Johns supervises the cafeteria. Bert Cobb is one of the custodians, Thelma Clark is in the admin office. Anita Overhauser is with the parent advisory committee and Porter Sellwin is with the school board.”
“We’ll find her, Greg. I live here in Ripplewood, and we’ve got a lot people coming out to help.” Sellwin shook Greg’s hand.
Sellwin was a good-looking man. Greg recalled rumors about him being a player, even though he was married. And Greg had a vague recollection of seeing Bert Cobb a couple times before, maybe helping prep the field at one of Jake’s soccer games.
He thanked each of them then asked Nicole Pitcher about the people from Jenn’s book club, and she took him aside to meet them. They were near an SUV and dressed in hoodies, fleece vests, and jeans. Again, his memory of the women was hazy, having only glimpsed them briefly whenever Jenn hosted, which was once every few months. Nicole Pitcher, aware Greg was stressed, went ahead with introductions, starting with Liz Miller, who hugged him while blinking away tears.
“I’m so sorry. This is terrible,” she said.
Then Rita Spencer, a retired Realtor, said: “We’re going to find her, Greg.”
Maria Ortiz, who helped manage her father-in-law’s appliance store, took Greg’s hand and patted it. “We won’t give up until we get her home.”
Retired nurse, April Kent, nodded to Greg.
“We’re all praying we’ll find her.”
Basha Kominski, a receptionist at a law firm, smiled warmly. “We’re going to find her.”
“Please tell me—” Greg looked directly at the women “—you were the last people to see Jenn last night. Did she say anything to suggest she might not be heading home?”
Heads shook.
“Did she do or say anything that seemed odd, or out of place? Anything about her car?” Greg asked, trying to maintain eye contact with each of them, one by one, unable to conceal his desperation.
“No,” Rita Spencer said, “nothing like that.”
“She was fine,” Maria Ortiz added.
“The state trooper came to my house this morning,” Liz Miller said.
“Menza?” Greg said.
“Yes. Trooper Menza. He said he’d spoken with you,” Liz Miller said. “I told him there was nothing different about Jenn, or the evening. Everyone left at the usual time. After I gave him their numbers, he said he would talk to the others in the club.”
“He called me,” Basha Kominski said. “I was the last to see Jenn. Our cars were parked on the street. We talked for half a minute. She was going to send me a recipe for pecan pie. Then she gave me a little wave, got into her car, and pulled away, with me following her down Appleleaf Road to the intersection with Ripple Valley Boulevard. Then I turned right and she turned left for Trailside Grove.”
“That’s it?” Greg said.
“That’s it,” Basha Kominski said.
The other women nodded.
Frustrated, Greg drew both hands to his face and kneaded his jaw, noticing that April Kent focused on the scrapes on the backs of his hands until he made eye contact with her. She hadn’t said much.
“Can you remember anything at all, April?” Greg asked.
April Kent, her face betraying no emotion, shook her head.
“Jenn didn’t say anything out of the ordinary to me, and I sat beside her all evening,” she said, her eyes lingering on the scrapes on Greg’s hands.