Before She Was Found. Heather Gudenkauf
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“Maybe she came home and I didn’t hear her. Can you hold on a second?”
Thomas lays the receiver on the counter and moves as quickly as he can to the bottom of the stairs. “Jordyn, are you up there?” he hollers. There’s no response. With a sigh he begins the ascent, one knee catching and crackling with each step, the other refusing to bend. By the time he reaches the landing, he’s out of breath, damp with sweat and thoroughly irritated.
“Jordyn!” he booms, pushing through the bedroom door, finding it empty. Grabbing tightly to the banister, Thomas makes his way back down the steps and picks up the phone, hoping that the officer hasn’t hung up, impatient for his return.
“She’s not here,” Thomas says, anxiety squeezing at his chest. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“We’ll send an officer over to your house, Mr. Petit. She’ll fill you in on what we know.”
The line goes dead and Thomas slowly lowers the receiver from his ear. He and Tess have raised Jordyn since she was four, after their oldest son, Randy, came back home and dropped her off. “I can’t deal with her,” Randy said, “and I can’t find her mom.” Then he left. They hear from him only a few times a year by way of a phone call, a postcard or birthday card.
Thomas wanted to tell Randy to stop calling altogether. That the sound of his voice and his letters made Jordyn sad and out of sorts. But Tess told him that barring Randy from Jordyn’s life would be a mistake that Jordyn would hold against them one day. So he held his tongue.
Jordyn is the daughter he and Tess never got the chance to raise. Betsy, their third-born, didn’t live to see her first full year and Tess never quite recovered from the loss. She loved her boys but they weren’t Betsy, and Jordyn reminded them of their daughter.
If Jordyn wasn’t at the Landry house, then where was she? The bar and grill, Thomas thinks. Maybe Jordyn went next door. She spent a lot of time in the office and the restaurant part of the business. Thomas limps to his bedroom and pulls on a pair of jeans from the bureau and a shirt from the closet.
Despite the recent trouble with the local police, the over-the-top drama, the slammed doors, the icy silences that come with a preteen girl, Jordyn has been more joy than trouble over the years. Tess taught her how to make gingerbread and ptichie moloko—birds’ milk cake—and how to knit. She braided her hair and told her about growing up on a farm, the daughter of immigrants from Russia, and stories of Baba Yaga and Kikimora, the House Hag.
For his part, Thomas taught Jordyn about how to run a business. Put her to work sweeping and taking inventory, taught her, much to Tess’s chagrin, how to mix drinks. All alcohol-free, of course.
Thomas pushes through the front door, the newly risen sun momentarily blinding him, the air mild against his face. Holding tightly to the wrought-iron railing, he picks his way down the four concrete steps that lead to the sidewalk. Directly next door is Petit’s. The twin buildings are two stories tall and made of red brick and weeping mortar.
When the boys were small they lived above the bar in the cramped second floor but eventually bought the building next door after Tess complained that the noisy patrons kept the boys up late into the night and filled their ears with crass language and their heads with unsavory ideas.
By the time Thomas climbs up the steps to the bar he is breathing heavily and sweating. Peeking through the window he sees Kevin, the young man who has taken over the day-to-day duties of running the bar, wiping down the scarred mahogany counter. He tries the door handle but it doesn’t open. Kevin keeps the door locked before opening time to ensure that no one wanders in with hopes of getting an early-morning cocktail.
He raps on the door but Kevin doesn’t even look up. Thomas can hear the faint trill of the phone and bangs harder, the glass shivering with each strike. He must be listening to music, he thinks. That’s why Kevin doesn’t hear the bar phone ring, why he can’t hear him knocking. He waves his hands in front of the window and Kevin finally glances up. Kevin takes his time unlocking the door and when he does Thomas reaches up and rips the earbuds from his ears.
Kevin looks down at him, startled. “Jesus, you scared me. What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Jordyn,” Thomas says, his voice cracking. “Is Jordyn here?”
“She’s in the back,” Kevin says, hitching a thumb toward the kitchen. “Why?”
“Jordyn,” Thomas calls, brushing past Kevin. “Get out here.”
“Jeez, what?” Jordyn rounds the corner in exasperation and halts at the sight of her grandfather’s angry face. She’s dressed in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, flip-flops and a T-shirt as if she’s just rolled out of bed. “What did I do now?”
“Why don’t you tell me,” Thomas says, hands on hips.
Jordyn looks him directly in the eye and lifts and drops her shoulders and as if daring him to contradict her says, “I have no idea.”
Thomas wants to shake the defiance from her face. He wishes that Tess were here. She’d know what to do and say. She would go to their granddaughter, pull her into a hug and Jordyn would apologize for making them worry. But Tess isn’t here and Kevin has returned to scrubbing the bar, earbuds placed firmly back in place. It’s just the two of them.
“The police are looking for you,” Thomas says. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at Cora’s house?”
“The police?” Jordyn asks, the confidence draining from her voice.
“Yes, the police. They’re on their way over here right now. What’s going on, Jordyn?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Jordyn exclaims, looking panicked, eyes brimming with tears. Thomas almost believes her.
There’s a tap on the door and both Thomas and Jordyn look over to find Officer Bree Wilson looking in at them. Curious, Kevin pulls his earbuds away from his ears. A freckle-faced redhead, Bree comes into the bar every so often with a booming laugh and a fondness for Bushmills Irish Buck. Thomas beckons her in and the door squeaks open as she enters.
“Morning,” Officer Wilson says. “Glad to see you home safe and sound, Jordyn.” To Thomas she says, “We’ve got a bit of a situation here, Tom, and I think that Jordyn might be able to help us out.”
Thomas’s relationship with the Pitch Police Department is made up of equal parts irritation and respect. Though the local cops tend to be hypervigilant in pulling his patrons over and running them through sobriety tests, Thomas had to admit that every time he called and asked for assistance with the occasional bar fight, they came right over. “We’ll do whatever we can to help. What’s going on?”
“We’re just at the beginning of the investigation so I don’t have much to tell you, but there appears to have been some kind of incident early this morning and there were some injuries.”
“Injuries?” Jordyn asks, gnawing on her thumbnail.
“I’m afraid so,” Officer Wilson says.
“Cora?” Jordyn asks. “How bad?”
“Do you know something, Jordyn?” Officer Wilson asks. “If you do it’s very important you tell me right now. One girl was beaten and the other one is in shock. Someone attacked them, Jordyn, and we need to find out what happened.”
Jordyn shakes her head and inches back toward her grandfather. “I don’t know anything.”
“But you’re okay? Not hurt?” the officer asks and Jordyn nods. “You were with Violet Crow and Cora Landry last night?”
“Yes,” Jordyn says in a hushed voice. “Are they going to die?” Thomas finds this question jarring, odd for a twelve-year-old, and he wants to shush her. Instead he puts a hand on her shoulder and Jordyn gives him a dirty look.
Officer Wilson rubs her fingers across her lips as if she might find the right words there. “They’re