For the First Time. Stephanie Doyle

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 her. It was so weird.

      “Tell them the license plate numbers. Tell them. If you can’t do this, it’s your fault what happens to her. Do you hear me?”

      Her fault? Of course it was her fault. She’d wanted to go to the movies. She had a crush on Peter. Julia knew it, too. It was probably why she was being slow. She knew it would make JoJo crazy and Julia lived to make JoJo crazy.

      It was what twins did.

      JoJo closed her eyes and struggled to think about what happened. The sound of the tires screeching. The vague shape of the body behind the wheel. The back of the van moving away from her as she screamed and screamed and ran so hard after them.

      She couldn’t remember one stupid letter of the license plate. She didn’t think she even looked at it.

      CHAPTER ONE

      MARK SHARPE LOOKED across his desk at the latest job candidate. Her hair was slicked into a tight ponytail, with a straight heavy band of dark hair falling down her back. The nose stud she obviously sported had been removed for the interview. She wore a black turtleneck blouse that looked as if it was strangling the life out of her under her suit jacket.

      Occasionally, when she fidgeted with the collar, he could see the hint of ink peeking out.

      A nose stud and a neck tattoo. Who knew what else she was hiding?

      “I wanted to let you know how impressed I was with your work on the Anderson case,” she said.

      Josephine Hatcher was the second investigator he’d interviewed. The previous one had wanted to talk about the Anderson case, too. Interviewing 101, he supposed—compliment the boss on his work. Some days, though, that case didn’t feel like an accomplishment. It felt like a family ripped to shreds starting with the murder of a daughter by her own father.

      “First getting the coroner’s ruling of suicide overturned and then learning her father was behind the poisoning had to be shocking. He’d been free for thirteen years until you uncovered the truth.”

      The other candidate had said almost the same thing. Mark was a genius, a detecting marvel, a hero for justice. Blah, blah, blah...

      “It took you a little long, though.”

      “Excuse me?” The other candidate hadn’t said that.

      “After you exhumed the body and were able to confirm the girl had been poisoned, the number of suspects was limited to her family and her boyfriend. Few others would have had sufficient access to her over the prolonged period of time it took to her kill her. Once you knew the method, how hard was it to eliminate suspects?”

      “Not hard.”

      Her lips twitched. “Just saying. Can I ask why you opened the case?”

      “Anonymous tip.”

      “Probably someone who knew her, knew the family dynamic.”

      “Probably,” he grumbled. Who the hell was interviewing whom?

      “Did