Jack lifted his chin. “Cheryl wanted to be a newscaster. Not a journalist. She dreamed of being on TV and ‘keeping the world informed
.’ That’s what she called it. We worked on that.”
Sara and Kate were silent as they waited for him to continue.
“My dad, my real father, Henry, had a video camera. I asked him if I could borrow it and he said yes. Henry was always kind and...”
When Jack trailed off, Kate felt the bad memories threatening to take over. She guessed that Henry was yet another loved one who had been taken from this man. “What did you do with the camera?”
Jack got himself under control. “Filmed her. She wrote newscasts, read them, and I recorded it all. She wrote tragedies and funny stories, everything. She wrote parodies of the people in town, then did them in accents. I’d laugh so hard I’d fall down. She wanted to learn how to report any story with a straight face.”
As he remembered, Jack smiled. “She got really good at it but I tried to trip her up. I used to stand behind the camera and make faces at her. I would switch what she’d written with some comedy routine and see if she could keep from laughing. One time I replaced her story with tongue twisters. She read them perfectly, but afterward she knuckled my scalp so hard it was sore for two days.”
“You did love her,” Sara said.
“Oh, yeah. I did.”
Jack held the necklace out on his open palm. “Her birthday was just days before school was to start. I asked her what kind of party she was going to have. That made her laugh. She said that people like her never had birthday parties.”
He paused. “I knew what she meant. She had the kind of life I would have had. But my mother had the good sense to divorce my worthless father and marry Henry Lowell. Men like Roy Wyatt didn’t waste money on birthday cakes for kids.”
“So you gave her a party?” Kate asked.
“I did.” He smiled. “I wanted to buy her an engagement ring but I thought it was a bit early for that.”
“A tad,” Kate said. “You got her the necklace?”
“Yes. I used all my savings from years of grandparent gifts and went to the local jewelry store. Mr. Hall was selling necklaces with initials on them.” Jack chuckled. “I had a hard time deciding if I should give her my initials or hers. Mr. Hall persuaded me that my young lady would probably prefer her own name around her neck.”
“Did you have guests at the party?” Kate asked.
“Absolutely not! When it came to Cheryl, I was totally selfish. Just us. That’s all I wanted. I bought a little cake from the bakery but didn’t put a name on it. The women there were curious, so I said it was for my father.”
Jack closed his eyes for a moment. “Cheryl and I sat right here, on these steps, and had our own little party. She loved the necklace and said she’d wear it forever. I made a video of her cutting the cake. She acted like it was a newscast.” He held up his hand like headlines. “‘Cheryl Morris’s sixteenth birthday rocks the world. World peace is declared.’ She was very funny.”
Jack’s voice had a catch in it. “What happened was all my fault. I think the bakery told Roy that I’d bought a cake. Whatever happened, he came looking for me. I was so excited about her birthday that I’d left my bike at the front of the house. Roy saw it.”
He hesitated. “Cheryl and I were eating cake and laughing when Roy showed up. He was a real a-hole. He’d had just enough beers to put him in the stage of ridiculing us. A few more and he would have been using his fists.”
“He made fun of you,” Sara said. It wasn’t a question.
“He humiliated us. Said we were fooling around with each other. He...” Jack let out a breath. “At the time, I didn’t know what he meant, but I remember his words. He said that it looked like Cheryl was going to be just like her mother. He looked her up and down and said he’d sure like to be her first customer. Then he looked at me and said that maybe it was too late to be number one.”
“Yeow,” Kate said. “Nasty!”
“Roy was,” Sara said. “He never missed an opportunity to hurt someone.”
“Cheryl ran into the house and slammed the door. Roy...” Jack took a moment to calm himself. “When he left, Roy backed his truck over my bike. He said he had enough problems without me knocking up the town slut’s daughter. He said I was never to see her again.”
Kate swallowed. “And all this when you were eleven years old.”
“What happened after that?” Sara asked.
“I called my mom and she came and got me. I said I never wanted to see Roy again. When Cheryl didn’t show up at school, I thought it was because of me. The next Saturday, I walked to her house.”
“But she wasn’t here,” Sara said.
“The storyteller knows.” Jack affectionately kissed the top of her head. “Cheryl and her mother were gone. The house was locked but I could see that the inside was a mess and it was empty. I walked all the way to the sheriff’s office and told old Captain Edison that my friend had been kidnapped.”