Chapter Forty-One
Jules pulls the rental car up the familiar street to the house where she grew up. She’s surprised that the grass is so long, since her father used to take pride in cutting it every Saturday morning, making sure to linger the rattling lawn mower under Jules’s bedroom window while she slept in.
She’s greeted at the door by Dad, who takes her small suitcase from her. He’s aged one hundred years since she last saw him. He’s never been an outwardly affectionate man, so she’s surprised by the tight hug that lasts for too long.
Mom is in the kitchen. She still looks beautiful and put together. But it’s only midafternoon and she’s already two bottles of rosé in. She tries to hide the slur in her voice, but Jules knows the sound too well from her own voice.
She senses a distance between her parents, which stings her heart. No one mentions Clare at first, but her missing little sister crowds the room.
Like the other May Day cases, the task force has no leads in Clare’s disappearance.
The last anyone heard from Clare was when she told their parents she was going to bed.
The truth was that she planned to sneak out to a party—a May Day party that her friends now understand is grotesque.
Clare’s window was unlatched, so the FBI’s theory is that she shimmied down the drainpipe, just as Jules had done back in the day, and maybe he took her before she reached the party.
Clare’s boyfriend, who to his credit called their parents when she never arrived, was cleared.
And so was everyone else in Clare’s life.
But while the FBI speculates that May Day is behind her disappearance, with no trace of Clare they can’t even be sure he’s the perpetrator.
“How’s work?” Dad asks. He’s shown interest in her job this past year. Last month he even emailed Jules to tell her she’s in the window display of the Juicy Couture store at Westroads Mall, said he was proud of her.
“New York has been good. Lots of work.” That’s an understatement.
Jules has become something of a hot property.
She’ll never be a Veronica Webb, a Claudia Schiffer, a Naomi Campbell, but she’s made enough to buy her apartment in the city, live comfortably.
She considers telling her father that she met Tupac at the Versace show during NYFW but decides he won’t have a clue.
After marveling at the Motorola flip phone her agency gave her—“It’s so light!”—Dad soon turns to his standby: sports. Prattles on about the Cornhuskers, the crazy season the Bulls are having, even though he hates Chicago.
Mom is quiet, the wine and pills doing their thing. No judgment from Jules, she gets it.
In the living room, she sits on the couch, everyone fallen into silence.
She pets their dog Kyle. A memory makes her smile.
Every morning Clare would have “waffle time” with Kyle.
She’d grab her Eggo from the toaster, go to her room before school, where Kyle would sit on her bed and they’d share the waffle.
Mom and Dad tried to stop the practice, said it was unhealthy for Kyle, but the dog is still kicking.
She’s noticed that the house, usually so well maintained, is in a general state of disrepair. It’s as if Mom, normally so caught up in appearances, has said fuck it.
“I’m going to go sit on the porch,” Jules says.
Her parents offer empty smiles.
Perched on the old porch swing, she feels an ominous sensation like she’s being watched. She probably is—by Jack or someone on his team from the FBI’s May Day task force.
A car pulls into the driveway of the house next door.
She sees Amy—Clare’s childhood best friend until some teenage drama created a rift—get out of the car.
Another memory slams into her: Clare and Amy playing Barbies in the basement, Jules kicking them out when her friends came over.
Jules waves at Amy, who gives a timid wave back and disappears inside quickly as if she doesn’t want to talk to Jules.
Jules understands. The dark cloud of Clare’s disappearance must hang over everything in Amy’s life.
It’s certainly darkening Jules’s own life.
The crushing guilt that maybe if Jules would’ve told the police sooner …
if she had only— She decides to stop before she spirals.
These days so many things spin her like a top.
She pops another pill from the silver case she keeps them in.
She considers going inside. Telling her parents everything.
Telling them what happened to her. Telling them she’s agreed to be bait tonight for the FBI.
That rather than camp out at a hotel, she’ll go out, let herself be seen, even here at her house, at Carrie’s church, at a bar.
A lure, bait, an enticement, for a monster.
No, not a monster. The most frightening thing about May Day is that he’s not an actual monster.
He’s a man, living among us, and no one has a clue.
Maybe he will come after her again. But this time, she’ll be ready.