“No, we told the FBI that she has no other relatives, but they were adamant. The person killed in Cleveland is a relative.”
“Listen to me. I’ve known Jenn for more than twenty years, since we were kids in high school, and I’m telling you she absolutely does not have any other relatives.”
“The FBI is one hundred percent certain that it’s a relative.”
“I—can’t do this—this is all—this can’t be true—don’t do this to me.”
“Believe me, we pushed back hard on the FBI and with Ohio and they assured us that it’s true, Greg. Jennifer did not die in that crash.”
Greg said nothing.
“Alert your family, Greg. Press statements are going out soon in Ohio and New York.”
He stared at the cemetery, at the headstones and the wooden cross bearing Jenn’s name. He tightened his grip on his phone and pounded his fist on his knee with as much force as he could.
Wake up! This is another nightmare.
His disbelief, fear, and anger erupted.
“Kozak, if this is true then tell me—who did I bury?”
“We’re working on that. And we’re hoping it will lead us to Jennifer.”
“And if it’s true—” Greg stood and gulped air “—then it means Jenn is still alive.”
“Yes, she very well could be.”
Sixty-Three
Location Unknown
Will I ever get out of here? Will I ever see Jake and Greg again?
Jennifer Griffin’s neck, shoulders, arms, and hands were numb from digging at the wood using the same repeated motions.
How deep are those screws anchored?
She’d progressed about a full inch into the wood around the top hinge, and maybe half that around the lower hinge, and still the assembly hadn’t loosened. It was rock-solid.
She looked up at the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, dimming and flickering.
Like her hope.
How many weeks have I been kept here?
She had never seen her captor. Her captor had never spoken to her, except through those rare notes that made no sense to her.
They were cryptic, torturing her, deepening her fear that if she didn’t escape, she was going to die.
Accepting that these could be her last days, Jennifer ached to be with Jake and Greg.
To hold them and tell them how much I love them.
She reached for her notepad, to start a farewell letter to them.
“To My Sweet Son, Jake and Dear Darling Husband, Greg: Whatever happens to me, please know that I love you...” she began as tears stained her paper and she stopped.
How would Jake survive my death?
Jennifer knew the horror of losing her mother and father. Setting the pad down, reflecting on her life, on how Jake was nearly the same age as she was when her parents died in the fire, she knew that the scars of that kind of tragedy never heal.
She closed her eyes.
Her scars were sliced open in the months before she was taken when she found a small cardboard box on her doorstep.
It held an angel chime.
Seeing it had staggered her, thrusting her back across time to the fire.
Who sent this?
Why?
There was no message. No markings on the box.
Home alone, she had found the courage to start the chime, watching it, her joy and agony spinning like the angels. But staring into the dancing candle flames, she reeled with a thousand emotions.
She stopped the chime and hid it.
Telling no one about the chime, she struggled to get on with her life. Right up until the time she was abducted, she was grappling with her problems with Greg, Porter Sellwin, Kat—even that cable guy thing still bothered her. All the while, Jennifer had tried maintaining the facade of normalcy when in reality, she had plummeted into a black hole of despair.
She went to a psychologist, Dr. Maynart.
Her secret weekly sessions with him helped but were difficult. She wasn’t prepared to tell him everything at first. He understood. She told him what she could, little by little, and eventually, he told her that she appeared to be grappling with prolonged grief disorder over her parents’ deaths, and possibly, a recent trauma of some sort may have triggered it. She had progressed in her sessions to the point where she was ready to reveal the chime, bring it with her to a session and explain its significance in the tragedy—hoping that Dr. Maynart could help her unravel the mystery.
Why was the chime left anonymously on my doorstep?
Or did I give it to myself for reasons buried deep inside me?
And now, as her eyes went around her cell, she wondered:
Could the chime be related to why I was brought here? How? No one could possibly know its meaning in my life.
Sixty-Four
Buffalo, New York, Trailside Grove
Surfing channels, Greg found a Breaking News report from a local station.
“...has been a twist in the case of missing Buffalo-area mom, Jennifer Griffin,” the news anchor was saying. “We have pictures for you now while our Anika Shimo brings us the latest. Anika?”
“That’s right, Cora. Police in New York and Ohio have just confirmed that Jennifer Griffin, the missing Buffalo woman thought to have been killed in Cleveland, was misidentified and did not die in the freeway crash there after all. This turn of events comes after her family recently held a funeral...”
Shimo related the history of the case, and the TV screen in Greg’s living room filled with news images of flashing lights of police units at the church where yellow tape cordoned off a section of the cemetery. Jennifer’s face filled the upper right corner of the screen, above her name and the words: MISSING MOM WRONGLY IDENTIFIED AS DECEASED.
Then came more images from early in the case of Jenn’s Corolla in Blueripple Woods, of Greg being interviewed, police scouring the forest, graphics, arrows, maps, helicopters, dog teams, and volunteer searchers.
“...and our sources tell us that early in the investigation, Greg Griffin, the missing woman’s husband, took a polygraph but police have not released the results. And police won’t say if Greg Griffin has been ruled out as a suspect...”
Greg wondered if Jenn was alive, if she was watching, if she’d been abducted, wondered if whoever took her was watching, or maybe saw the news and went ahead and killed her.
Oh God.
There was footage of the fiery freeway crash in Cleveland with Shimo ending her report saying: “Jennifer Griffin was first identified by DNA as the person killed in that incident but later analysis by the FBI found the first results had been misinterpreted and now the FBI confirms that Jennifer Griffin was not the victim. The person killed has yet to be identified, and investigators have not provided further details. Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding this case deepens. Back to you, Cora...”