For the First Time. Stephanie Doyle

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      PROLOGUE

      “I NEED YOU to focus, Josephine.”

      She was focusing. She was focusing very hard. She knew that the man in front of her was a police detective. He had brown hair with gray mixed in on the sides. He wore brown leather shoes and khaki pants that were fraying a little around the hem. His badge number was 79134.

      She’d made herself memorize it—79134.

      “Tell me again everything that you saw.”

      Why? She’d said it all already. It wasn’t going to change.

      “Do it, JoJo. Tell him again.” Her father paced in the living room, stopping every once in a while at the chair where her mom sat so he could put his hand on her shoulder. It only made her mom cry harder.

      “We were at the mall.”

      “The strip mall on Springfield,” her mother interjected. “It’s where I dropped them off. They were supposed to go shopping, then call me to pick them up. They were supposed to stay there.”

      The detective nodded, and turned to JoJo. “But you decided to leave the mall instead.”

      “We wanted to see a movie. Two boys from our class were supposed to meet us there.” JoJo winced at the sound of her father hissing. “It wasn’t like a date or anything, Dad. They were just friends.”

      JoJo and Julia were only fourteen. They had already been told by their parents over and over that they weren’t allowed to date until sixteen. Which was so stupid. All the freshman girls in high school already had boyfriends. They were, like, the only single girls in the class.

      “Don’t worry about that,” the detective said. “Focus on what happened. You left the mall.”

      “The theater was just up the street a few blocks. The movie was at three forty-five.” She remembered that stupid detail.

      Three forty-five p.m. Why only that one?

      “She was walking too slow. She always walked so slow. Then she stopped because her shoelace came undone.”

      JoJo could see it clearly. She was nearly half a block ahead. Julia bent down on one knee tying her shoe as if they had all the time in the world. Which, of course, they didn’t because it was already three-forty. What if the movie had started when they got there? What if they couldn’t find Peter and Jake? Then the whole point of doing this would be for nothing.

      JoJo shouted to her to hurry. But Julia flipped her the bird instead. It actually made JoJo smile.

      “Then a car pulled up along the side of the road. It was silver. A minivan. The kind where the side door slides over.”

      “Can you tell me the make? Was it a Toyota or a Ford?”

      JoJo shook her head. She only knew the makes of cars she liked. MINI Coopers and Volkswagen bugs because they were cool. She knew the Subaru her mother drove and the Toyota her dad had driven for years. But they weren’t minivans. It didn’t help. Nothing she knew was helping.

      “Then what happened?”

      “The side door opened and this guy jumped out. It happened so fast. He just grabbed her from behind. Then she was screaming and he put her in the van.”

      The tears that had been falling since she had watched her twin sister be dragged into that van came faster, but they wouldn’t help, either. She had to pull it together so she could tell the detective everything. It was the only way they would find her. Just like she’d told the people at the theater, and the first police officers who arrived at the scene and then her parents.

      “He wore jeans. His hair was dark. I think he had a hoodie on, but I can’t be sure.”

      “How could you tell what his hair color was if he was wearing a hoodie?”

      “It wasn’t on his head. The hood was down. It was gray. I’m sure it was gray. You know, like a workout sweatshirt.” She just remembered that, which meant maybe there were other things she would remember. Something important that would bring Julia back.

      “Then the van sped away. It made a U-turn in the middle of the street and was gone.”

      “Did you see the driver?”

      JoJo closed her eyes. “It was just a guy. I couldn’t really see. A shape behind the wheel, that’s it.”

      “But you know that the person who grabbed your sister wasn’t driving the van.”

      “Yes. It happened too fast. He grabbed her and the door was sliding closed and the car was moving.”

      “Okay, Josephine...or can I call you JoJo?”

      She shrugged. Whatever. She hated to be called Josephine. Julia sometimes did it to piss her off.

      “I need you to really think. When the car drove away did you see the license plate?”

      Everyone wanted to know that. They kept pushing her over and over again to think about it, visualize what the numbers and letters might have looked like. If she could just remember those numbers, then they could find Julia and everything would be all right.

      Only she couldn’t.

      “Think, JoJo!” her father shouted as he moved between her and the detective. “This is important. You have to think about what you saw and tell them the license. It’s her only hope.”

      She lifted her face to her father. “I can’t remember. I didn’t see it. I don’t think... Maybe it didn’t have a front plate. It was fast and I was running to get her.”

      “That’s not good enough!” he roared. “This is your sister’s life! Now think!” The blow to the side of her head knocked her off the couch.

      “Jonathan!”

      “No,” he barked at her mother. “She has to do this. You have to do this!”

      “Sir, I know what you’re going through right now. But this isn’t the answer,” the detective said, purposefully keeping his voice even and steady.

      JoJo lifted herself onto the couch with a ringing in her head. That was the first time her father had ever hit СКАЧАТЬ