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“Holy shit.” He crashes into me with a hug. We hold on to each other for what is probably minutes. “I missed you so much, B,” he says into my hair. He’s already falling back into his big-brother role flawlessly.
“Missed you too.”
We all sit down, and I explain the little I know about what I suspect happened. I tell them about Julianne. The journals. How she told me I was adopted. Hearing that was hard on them. Mom and Dad are especially crushed, they are heartbroken I grew up thinking they didn’t want me.
I’m livid. Being mad at Julianne doesn’t even scratch the surface of my feelings toward her. But I’m also angry I let her manipulate me for so long without questioning anything. I was so stupid. Julianne did so much damage. It’s not something I’ll be able to easily erase. Even though my parents have told me I was never unwanted, it doesn’t mean the years of programming haven’t made me believe it. I’ve spent the majority of my life hearing it, and I can’t take away the deep emotional wounds that go with those messages.
Jack is on a laptop trying to run information about Julianne and dig up anything he can on her based on what I told them. I show them the Stellar Genetics page with the DNA match. Apparently, the whole reason they all joined was in case I ever did so they could find me. I don’t like to think about what would have happened if I’d never taken that test. They all feel guilty they haven’t been keeping up on the updates, but I don’t blame them. After I joined, I easily got twenty emails a day telling me that a neweighth cousin, four times removedhad matched to me. It’s annoying as hell; I turned off the notifications same as them.
They have questions about what happened that day, but I don’t remember. I have no recollection of even going to Niagara Falls. There are no memories of me going missing. If that’s what the police want to know, they are out of luck.
“There’s no pressure to try and remember anything,” Mom reminds me.
I can’t count the number of differences between our lifestyles. They seem so dependent on one another, so connected. In contrast, my independence has been a large part of my life. I’m pulling back and struggling to reconcile that we are not only related but that I’m a missing piece of their puzzle too. And what does this mean going forward? Going back to Vancouver doesn’t seem like an option for my future.
TEN
Jack: It’s her.
October 19, 2000
Niagara Falls was the best decision. Sometimes life throws you opportunities and you have to be ballsy enough to take them. Most people aren’t smart enough to do what is necessary.
But I’m not like most people.
ELEVEN
The truth is out. I was abducted. I’m at the police station doing something called a “return home interview,” and they have been asking me questions all morning. I immediately hand over the journals and explain I’ve dog-eared pages I think are relevant, and I gave them the address of Julianne’s old apartment in case they wanted to investigate more. I’m told there’s been a new lead on an old murder case in which Julianne Fournier is a suspect, apparently Vancouver and Toronto detectives have been working the case for the last few months. That’s reassuring. One of the men leave to grab evidence bags for the journals, and I’m left alone with Tim Rollins, the main detective on my case.
“So, if I was taken, wouldn’t there have been some kind of AMBER alert for me?”
“There was, Niagara Falls had one sent out within the hour, but that was in 2000. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the technology to broadcast it as successfully as we do today.”
“What about in Canada, though? I mean, Niagara Falls is close enough to the border, why wouldn’t they do it there?”
“They didn’t have an AMBER alert system until two years later. Once she took you over the border, she was in the clear. Even if she had been stopped, she would have claimed you as Elizabeth, and she’d have all the documentation to back it up. Hell, even the photos are convincing. Your resemblance to her daughter was remarkable. Unless there was a DNA test, nobody would have thought the wiser.”
“And I never told anyone, so nobody thought to do it.”
“Birdie, I’m going to level with you for a minute, human to human. You are the victim here; you were only six. God knows what would have happened to you if you would have tried to report her, it would have blown her cover, and she would have done anything to protect it. Off the record, if she did kill Elizabeth, she wouldn’t hesitate in killing you too. Your silence might have been what kept you alive.”
The other detective returns, and Tim sits back in his chair and nods to me to make sure I understand what he’s saying. I do. But it’s still a hard pill to swallow. They stand and bag up the evidence as I say goodbye to it. They’re the last things I have of Julianne’s, and a giant weight has been lifted when I let go of them. She’s not my problem anymore. I hope every single person who spoke at her funeral discovers how vile and deplorable she really is. I want every thread of her reputation to fray and burn.
Despite the smorgasbord of pamphlets in front of me, regarding trauma and how to find support systems, I just want to leave this all behind. For now, I will box it up and hide it away in the deepest, darkest part of my brain. I don’t want to spend any more time thinking about her. I’ve wasted too much time, and I need to start living my life again.
The air smells like stale coffee and copy paper, the phones are ringing behind the big metal door, and one of the fluorescent lights in the far corner of the room flicker just enough to make me want to toss this chair up there and smash it.
“Do you have any more questions?”
“Not right now.”Please, say I can leave.
“Understandable.”
He sits back down, and I groan internally. My ass is numb from this hard plastic chair. This is why people break when they’re being interrogated. It’s not the cross-examination, it’s the goddamn chairs.
“This is still an open investigation, we want to rule out that there isn’t a group of people working together, or that it’s not part of a trafficking ring. Details of the case are best kept to yourself right now.”
“Okay,” I answer. “So, does this mean I can leave?”
