What Janie Saw Read Online Free PDF Page A

especially when they had to bring along a drooling man in a wheelchair.
    “Let’s go get ice cream!” cried Janie. Miranda loved ice cream, always agonizing over what flavor to choose as if she might never have another chance.
    “We can’t leave Frank. I don’t have an aide here right now.”
    “I can get him out of the wheelchair and into the van,” said Janie. “Hi, Daddy,” she said, giving him a kiss. He beamed at her with the innocent pleasure of a small child.
    But he was not so innocent. His kidnapper daughter had never been found. Not by the FBI or the police in several states. But Frank Johnson had always known where she was … and sent her money to live on. It was the worst secret Janie had ever had to keep, and she had not kept it well.
    She drove to the family’s favorite ice cream shop. You could order gummy bears or chocolate shots or crushed Oreo cookies mixed into your ice cream, but Janie liked her ice cream pure. She usually ordered one cup with three different flavor scoops. In childhood, she had had milk allergies, or so they’d thought. But either she’d never had them or had outgrown them or ice cream transcended all problems.
    From a placard in the big windows, Miranda read the choices out loud to Frank. He seemed to perk up at mint chocolate chip. “And I’ll have a scoop each of tiramisu and mocha,” said Miranda happily.
    Thank you, ice cream
, thought Janie.
You will give my poor mother a few minutes’ rest
. “You stay with Dad,” she ordered, “and I’ll go inside.”
    She got in line behind a big family who would probably take a large chunk of time, which was fine with Janie. She had a lot of thinking to do.
    She glanced at the unopened messages on her cell.
    There were none from her New Jersey family. Neither her New Jersey mom nor her New Jersey dad had texted, although they usually were in constant communication. Stephen, Jodie, Brendan and Brian would not only have seen the Visionary Assassins video, they would have it memorized. Brendan hardly knew that Janie existed, but the others usually copied their messages to Janie.
    And what did they think, these three brothers and this one sister who had suffered so many years on her behalf? Did they agree with the terrible sentiments in those lyrics?
    Janie Johnson, gone so long,
    Can’t remember right from wrong.
    And her New Jersey parents, on whom she would like to lean, at whose house she would rather live right now than the sad, difficult house of Frank and Miranda—what did they think?
    She knew. They would think that Janie had done the best she could, andthey would love her even if she hadn’t. She wanted her real parents so badly at that moment she thought she would start bawling.
    But if you started crying, you might not stop.
    I’ll visit New Jersey this weekend
, she thought.
We have to talk
.
    “Miss?” said a loud voice. “You ready to order?”
    The symmetry of her life struck Janie as violently as the chords of Visionary Assassins.
    When Hannah had walked away fifteen years ago with toddler Jennie Spring, she had bought that little girl’s trust with ice cream. Now here that little girl stood, in her Janie Johnson life, ordering ice cream for Hannah’s parents.
    Janie placed her order. Then Reeve’s ringtone filled the tiny ice cream shop and his photograph smiled at her on the cell phone screen.
    She wanted to leap back into being his girlfriend. If only she didn’t have the sordid knowledge of how low Reeve could stoop. “Hi, Reeve,” she said softly. She loved his name. She loved saying it.
    “Janie,” he said. “Listen.” He always started conversations that way, as if otherwise she would not. Although listening to Reeve was one of life’s pleasures.
    She didn’t want to lean on him again. She wanted to stand alone. But standing alone was hard. Not to mention lonely. “I saw the video,” she told him.
    “I wondered when you’d want to talk about it. I’m so proud of you, being so calm