Chapter 22
Jennie
Newton Creek, Wisconsin
Present Day
Milo had followed them to Traeger Hall. Now he sat in the back seat of Zane’s vehicle as they drove back to civilization and away from the estate.
Their exploration of the mansion was over for the day.
Milo needed to go home. The fact he had followed them there was not only concerning but dangerous.
“I’m glad he’s okay,” Jennie stated. This was the second time since she’d arrived in Newton Creek that Milo had shown up on Traeger property. Alone.
Zane gripped the steering wheel, and Jennie noted his knuckles were white. He’d been uptight since they’d discovered the boy in the house. He’d been even more frustrated when Milo attempted to communicate something, and Zane couldn’t understand what it was.
Milo had been anxious, agitated, pointing multiple times at Jennie and repeating one word, “Man, man,” over and over again. But without the ability to explain further, they were lost as to what Milo was afraid of.
“He doesn’t understand the boundaries of safety.” Zane was visibly disturbed by the situation. “He doesn’t understand that he can’t just run around the countryside. The thing is, my parents own the Duck Blind, which is a small café just outside town.”
“I’ve seen it,” Jennie acknowledged.
“Yeah.” Zane nodded. “Well, it’s not too far from here, and Milo is often there with my parents, who help keep an eye on him.
But the boy’s a master at slipping away.
” Zane maneuvered the car around a corner.
“I mean, when I was his age and growing up in the country, I’d run around carefree too, but .
. .” He didn’t finish his thought, and Jennie understood why.
There were special needs with Milo, and as smart and independent as the quiet boy could be, he wasn’t mindful of the dangers the world posed.
“What do you think he was trying to tell us?” Jennie couldn’t get past it. The look in Milo’s eyes. The word man. What man? Or did he not mean this literally? And why had Milo focused on her so intently?
Zane voiced her thoughts as the Duck Blind came into view. “I’m worried about this man Milo kept referencing.” He pulled the car to a stop in front of the café and killed the engine.
The café was rustic with camouflage material in the windows for curtains and hunting decor on the outside that gave the place more the look of a shack than a restaurant.
Zane exited the car and opened the back door for Milo, who hopped out as though everything was in the past and nothing had happened.
The boy ran into the Duck Blind, leaving Zane to rest his arms on the roof of the car.
“Jennie, we opened Traeger Hall,” he stated.
It wasn’t a declaration of their success; it was an acknowledgment that they had done exactly what the threatening note in Hannah’s locker had warned them not to.
Jennie nodded. “And now Milo is scared of a man.”
“Yeah. I’m not cool with any of this.”
“I know” was all she could think to say.
“I’m going inside to let Mom and Dad know what happened.” Zane gave her a little wave, then headed into the Duck Blind.
Jennie leaned against Zane’s car and pulled her phone from her pocket. There was a missed call from a number she didn’t recognize. She checked, and sure enough, someone had left a voicemail. She took a minute to listen to it.
Gladys Quincy’s shaky voice greeted Jennie’s ears: “Hello, it’s Gladys. I got your number from my son-in-law, Percy Wellington.”
The lawyer was Gladys’s son-in-law? That was unexpected. Unexpected and a little too coincidental. That meant Percy Wellington, who’d brought up her father’s will in the first place, was Allison’s uncle.
The voicemail continued. “I was wondering if you wanted to come by my place. I have some things you might want to see. Let me know.” Gladys left her number for Jennie to call her back.
As Jennie finished listening to the voicemail, Zane returned to the car.
She tried to nullify her look of confusion. It didn’t work.
“What’s going on?” Zane drew up beside her.
“I got a voicemail from Gladys Quincy.” Jennie watched Zane for his reaction. Just as she expected, his eyes darkened.
“Gladys?”
“She got my phone number from her son-in-law, Percy.” Jennie waited again, and this time Zane outright frowned.
“Percy? Allison never liked him.”
“He’s the one who presented me with the codicil to my dad’s will,” Jennie reminded him.
Zane sniffed. “I forgot about that. So Percy knew we were going to open the place?”
“Not exactly. I didn’t tell him what I was going to do with the Hall.” Jennie tried to squelch the uneasy feeling churning in her gut.
“Percy has his finger on the pulse of everything in Newton Creek.” Zane didn’t seem convinced. “I guarantee he knows somehow. I’d never hire him as my lawyer. He’s like the used car salesman stereotype but in the legal world. What did Gladys want?”
Jennie didn’t want to dredge up anything for Zane, so she was careful as she responded, “She wants to show me some things. I-I think they have to do with Allison.”
“Oh.”
There it was. Zane wasn’t good at disguising his emotions, and the pain that reflected on his face was real.
There was also a surprising and unwelcome sting inside of her.
For a split second, she was jealous of Allison.
Jealous that she had someone who was still loyal to her years after her disappearance and death.
Envious of her little boy. Wishful that Allison’s world was one that could be duplicated. One that Jennie could find refuge in.
“You should go.” Zane’s statement brought Jennie’s eyes up to meet his. “Seriously. The Quincys haven’t shared anything about Allison since she disappeared. If Gladys is wanting some closure now that Allison has been found, this might be good for her. For them.”
“You care about them? Even after they blamed you and suggested you might have had something to do with it?” Jennie didn’t comprehend Zane’s being so understanding.
He sighed and then leaned against the side of the car next to Jennie.
Crossing his arms, he looked off into the distance as though conjuring up a memory.
Perhaps one of Allison. “They had to blame someone. It wasn’t going to be themselves.
There’s no point in blaming Traeger Hall, and they sure weren’t going to hold Allison responsible. I’m the best first choice.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Jennie replied, dropping her gaze to her feet planted on the gravel parking lot.
“Not much in life is fair.” Zane’s words pierced her in a way he couldn’t know.
She wasn’t about to expound either. Baring her soul wasn’t Jennie’s forte, nor was it a comfortable place to go.
Zane didn’t hold the same opinion. He continued, and Jennie could tell he didn’t notice that she was becoming more and more silent.
“We all have to find ways to cope with trauma. Not one person is exempt from it—we just experience it differently. Mine has been the unknown, and now Allison’s death being confirmed after eight years just raises more questions.
Did she run away? Who killed her? Was she being held prisoner somewhere?
Finding her doesn’t take away the pain and the hurt from the past. Everyone who cared about Allison has to say goodbye to hope.
The hope that she might turn up alive. That Milo could get his mom back. ”
“Do you still love her?” Jennie couldn’t help but ask, even though she probably shouldn’t have. She should have kept her nose out of Zane’s personal life.
He looked sideways at her and gave her a crooked smile.
“She’s my son’s mother. There were lots of opinions about her being young and pregnant, but there were two of us involved.
And I would have stood by her. I don’t know that what I felt for Allison was love so much as we were two kids barely out of high school, flirting with the idea of love.
But I’ll never regret that she gave me Milo.
He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
So yeah, I love her for Milo. I sometimes miss what could have been . . .”
His voice caught, and Jennie could see tears glistening in Zane’s eyes.
“But, you know, life goes on. It has to. And we must learn to move on with it or we become like . . . like Traeger Hall. Closed up, our memories collecting dust, and leaving everyone around us with a million unanswered questions. I believe God helps those of us who experience trauma so we can discover the path to keep going in spite of the pain. To have faith and find strength outside of ourselves and hopefully”—Zane’s gaze dropped to meet Jennie’s—“find beauty again.”
Jennie mused on his words for a long, quiet moment.
She looked away from him as she did. She couldn’t keep staring into those orbs that were so filled with strength and kindness.
The men she knew didn’t think like this.
Dad didn’t think like that. Find beauty?
It sounded so simple, yet her dad had made sure to destroy everything beautiful in her life, and up until recently, Jennie thought he might just destroy her future too.
His needs had sucked the life from her and had slowly killed Mom.
Sure, Dad would have blamed cancer, but in the end, Jennie blamed Dad.
He’d taken bits and pieces of her since she was a little girl.
He was the one who had created the mess, then left her behind to deal with it all.
“Jennie.” Zane twisted to lean his shoulder against the vehicle. He reached out and lifted her chin, gently turning her face toward him.
She allowed it. She allowed it because she was compliant. Compliance was a form of self-defense too—some people just didn’t understand that.
“None of this is your fault,” Zane assured her. “Not the note in Hannah’s locker, not Milo and whatever man scared him, and especially not Traeger Hall.”