“You’ve always hated me for marrying Greg. You’ve always been an interfering bitch. You have no idea what was going on in the parking lot and you have no right to accuse me, Kat!”
It was a bitter, epic battle.
Now, Jennifer brushed at her tears, regretting all the mean things she’d said to Kat, wishing she could take them back.
Needing to rest, she sat on her mattress, shaking her head at the turns her life had taken. If her issues with Greg, Sellwin, and Kat weren’t enough, there was the strange thing with the cable repair guy, who’d come to the house a few months earlier. After his service call, Jennifer was certain that in the days and weeks that followed, she had seen him in other places, like Walmart or the mall. In the distance, stealing glances, or staring.
Now, goose bumps rose on her arms because she wasn’t sure—but she thought she saw him at the Korner Fast store the night it happened.
Her life had been taken up in a whirlwind that seemed to have started when the candle chime arrived on her doorstep.
Who put it there? Why?
It pulled her back to her childhood, memories of her mom and dad, and their small frame house. How her mother worked so hard as a cashier, standing on her feet all day then coming home to rest, have a cigarette, and sip rum and Coke. And how sometimes Jennifer saw her mom sitting alone on the sofa, staring at nothing and crying. And if Jennifer came into the room, her mom would take her into her arms.
How in her arms, Jennifer felt the weight of her mother’s sadness as though she were carrying something unbearable. She would search Jennifer’s eyes, stroke her hair, on the brink of unburdening herself of some great pain, as if on the edge of a revelation, but all her mother said was: I love you more than anything in the world, honey...
Then she remembered how her dad worked long, long hours, driving his cab. Coming home, having a beer, smoking his Lucky Strikes, one always tucked in the corner of his mouth while he showed her card tricks.
Jennifer remembered that year. It was winter. Her mom had retrieved a box from her stored Christmas decorations that Jennifer had never seen before. It held a candle-powered angel chime.
Her mother set it up, struck a match, lighting the candles, dimming the lights in the house, showing her how it worked.
The heat from the candle flames propelled the three angels to spin like a carousel, the tiny metal sticks striking the tiny bells, making a pretty chiming as the angel shadows danced across the room.
Jennifer thought it was magical.
“This chime was my mom’s, Jenn. She gave it to me, and now it’s yours. But only a grown-up can light the candles for you. Promise me you’ll never play with it by yourself.”
“I promise, Mom.”
Jennifer loved her chime, watching it for hours while the winter winds swept over Lake Erie, bringing heavy snowfalls. With her mom and dad working so hard, it came as a blessing when one day a teenage boy knocked on the door and offered to shovel their small driveway and sidewalk for twenty bucks.
He did a good job. Her mom liked him, and he came around every time it snowed. Whenever he finished, her mom invited him to get warm and have hot chocolate while Jennifer showed him how her chime worked.
They would sit together, not speaking, her mom smoking and having a couple glasses of rum and Coke, the boy and Jennifer drinking hot chocolate while all of them watched angels spinning. The boy was quiet, shy, almost self-conscious, always insisting, despite her mom’s protests, on leaving his wool cap on his head, pulled down over his forehead, and his scarf loose around his chin. Still, the candle flames would glow in his eyes as he watched them flickering in Jennifer’s and her mother’s eyes too.
Jennifer loved that time in her life, right up until the horrible night she woke in her bed, hearing her mother and father screaming, inhaling the suffocating smoke, feeling the heat, the horror of her home on fire. The sirens, the noise, no way out, Jennifer could find no way out...
But I did get out. I did survive.
A firefighter smashed her window and saved her life.
Now, wiping at tears, she looked around her prison.
I have to get out of here. But no firefighter’s going to save me this time.
Seventy
Clarence, New York
“I don’t believe it.”
Kozak looked at Carillo then at Lieutenant Phil Becker after he’d told them about Porter Sellwin’s crash on I-90, east of Buffalo.
“They’ve airlifted him to Erie County,” Becker said. “He’s got life-threatening injuries.”
Digesting the information, Kozak leaned forward in the chair at her desk. She and Carillo had returned to the barracks from Cleveland less than twenty minutes ago. While driving home, they’d read the emailed statement that Eugene Bickersley had given to the NYPD, which prompted her to call Sellwin.
“I spoke to him, what, an hour ago?” Kozak told Becker. “He agreed to come in.”
“Maybe his crash has something to do with the call?” Carillo said.
Becker kept checking his phone while standing before them as the three investigators broke down recent events. The school principal’s statement had been so troubling that they had moved immediately on warrants.
Even before Kozak and Carillo got back, Becker had reached out to a judge and sent her emails. Becker presented a case of exigent—life-and-death—circumstances in the suspected abduction of Jennifer Griffin based on the statements and actions of Porter Sellwin. Becker also indicated to the judge that additional warrants would likely be needed.
The judge agreed that probable cause existed to issue the initial warrants, which concerned all of Sellwin’s credit and banking card transactions around the time of Jennifer’s disappearance.
The response by the security branches was swift with Becker now flagging a transaction.
“Look, this one just came in,” Becker said. “About an hour before Jennifer left her book club meeting, Sellwin purchased gas, duct tape, and a flashlight at a Sunoco, close to Ripplewood Creek.”
“This raises questions,” Kozak said.
“If he knew her routine, he could’ve been lying in wait for her.” Carillo typed on his keyboard, finding Sellwin’s driver’s license. “He lives in Ripplewood Creek. He’s six feet even. His height fits for the person who moved Jennifer’s Corolla.”
“Sellwin’s crash could’ve been a suicide attempt,” Becker said.
“Or he could’ve been distracted, looking at his phone, maybe desperate to remove anything incriminating before meeting us?” Kozak said.
“I’ve already requested our guys at Sellwin’s crash site and Genesee County treat it as a crime scene, not a traffic accident. FIU is rolling on it,” Becker said.