Page 9 of All Good People Here

At that, Luke let out a bark of laughter. “There’s nothing people here love to do more. But…this town crucified the Jacobs family all those years ago and they may not exactly like the way that looks now. So people will talk, sure, but you won’t be able to believe a word they say.”

FIVE

Krissy, 1994

Krissy no longer felt that she was in her own home. The light inside seemed bright and sterile, the sounds of camera flashes and clipped tones unfamiliar. Even the objects didn’t seem to belong to her anymore, and she almost asked permission from Detective Townsend to sit on the couch that had been in her sitting room since before she’d moved in over six years ago.

“Thanks for speaking with me, Mrs. Jacobs,” Detective Townsend said when they’d settled across from each other.

After they’d finished in January’s room, Detective Townsend had split Krissy and Billy up so they could do their interviews one-on-one. Billy was still up there, in January’s room with Detective Lacks, while Krissy and Detective Townsend were back in the sitting room off the entryway, and she was grateful for the change of scenery. Being in her daughter’s bedroom earlier, surrounded by all of January’s things, had made her panicky and claustrophobic. Also, to Krissy’s relief, Detective Townsend had closed the sitting room’s French doors, cutting them off from the chaos beyond. All that bustling around and shouting of orders had her twitchy with nerves.

“Why don’t we start with this morning,” the detective continued. “From the moment you woke up. Could you walk me through that?”

Krissy took a deep breath, a sudden wave of weariness penetrating the constant feed of adrenaline she’d felt since she’d discovered January was gone. The day seemed to be unfurling in fits and starts; sometimes it felt as though time were sped up, other times it dragged like molasses. “Our alarm went off at five, like it always does,” she began, and then talked him through the rest of the morning until the moment she and Billy had called the police—walking down the stairs, seeing the writing on the wall, shouting to Billy to come down, Jace running into her arms, searching the house for January.

Townsend was scribbling on a small notepad perched on his knee. When he finished, he looked up at her with sharp eyes. “And what about yesterday? Let’s walk through that too. Particularly if you can think of anything odd happening in the past twenty-four hours or so.”

“Um…” Krissy tried to remember what they’d done yesterday. When she couldn’t, she tried to recall any errant detail about it—what she’d worn, the weather, what the kids had eaten for breakfast—but her mind was full with images of her daughter dead and discarded somewhere. After a moment, she dropped her face into her hands and pressed her fingers into her eye sockets.

“I know this is difficult,” Townsend said, his tone coaxing. He’d softened since his lapse into rudeness upon finding the photo of January in her dance costume, but Krissy suspected that was due more to expedience than to sincerity. “Your mind’s going a million miles a minute, but try to focus. Yesterday was Saturday. Can you remember what you did yesterday?”

Krissy took a breath. “Right. Yes. It was just a regular Saturday. Billy worked. The kids did chores in the morning. They do littlethings around the farm—feed the chickens, gather eggs. Sometimes Billy lets them help with feeding the cows, stuff like that. They played in the house in the afternoon. I cooked and we had dinner. Then we just watched TV and did bedtime. With two young kids, that takes awhile.”

Townsend narrowed his eyes. “All right…That was good, but would you mind going through it once more for me? This time in more detail? The twenty-four hours before someone goes missing are crucial, and in an investigation like this, you never know what seemingly unimportant detail is gonna help solve the case.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling chastened. “Right. Sure.” She took a deep breath and started again from the beginning, this time in much more detail.

“And after you put the kids to bed?” Townsend asked.

Krissy shrugged. “I took a bath then went to bed. Billy was downstairs watching TV. I was asleep by the time he came up.”

“Hm…” He tapped the tip of his pen to the page, staring down at it as if trying to work out a particularly tough math problem. But when he spoke again, he’d moved on. “And what about January? What is she like? It probably doesn’t sound relevant, but I want to get a sense of the girl we’re looking for.”

“Right, no, I understand,” Krissy said reflexively. “January’s…”

But her voice caught in her throat before she could finish—saying her daughter’s name out loud had finally broken the emotional dam inside her. She’d somehow been functioning like a normal human for the past few hours, walking one foot in front of the other, sitting where she was told, speaking in whole, rational sentences. But she’d felt like a marionette on strings, operating at someone else’s command.

She inhaled a shaky breath. Her face felt wobbly with the sudden emotion as though her features were distorting and melting with it. Through her tear-blurred vision, Krissy saw DetectiveTownsend leaning toward her, a tissue in his hand. He always seemed to be doing that—appearing and producing things out of nowhere, like a two-bit magician. She wondered if it was something he’d mastered from years on the job, or if her brain was somehow blinking out, only registering time in scattered snapshots. She took the tissue and wiped her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said. “What was I saying?”

“You were going to tell me about January. What she’s like.”

“Right. Yes. January is…She’s got a big personality, loves to be the center of attention, in the spotlight. You saw all her dance stuff. She’s in classes every Tuesday and Thursday and she loves to show us all the moves she’s learned.” She shrugged. “She’s like I used to be. I was a dancer too.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could put them back in. It was an odd thing to say in an interview about your missing daughter. Detective Townsend seemed to think so too, because just before he corrected his face to neutral, he’d raised his eyebrows in what looked like both surprise and disdain.

Krissy continued quickly. “January is very close with Jace too.” Again, there was a hint of falseness in her voice she prayed Townsend couldn’t hear. “They’re twins.”

He studied her for a moment before saying, “Twins, huh? That seems like it’d be a special bond.”

Krissy shifted. He was looking at her so closely. “It is.”

“Well, Officer Jones will be with him today. If he says something, she’ll be sure to make a note of it. Sometimes siblings—even young ones—know more than parents do, and any lead we uncover at this point is a lead worth pursuing.”

Krissy felt a tightness around her rib cage. She hated the idea of bringing Jace into all of this, but she supposed it was unavoidable. “Of course.”

“Speaking of leads,” he said. “Is there anyone in your life you’dconsider an enemy? Anyone who might have a grudge against your daughter or your family?”

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