Running Scared: A Jennifer Bannon Mystery

By Brenda Chapman

Feeling somehow to blame for her father’s absence, thirteen-year-old Jennifer Bannon struggles to hang on to her dream that he will return and they can be a family again - a dream that doesnt include her mother’s new boyfriend, nights of looking after her little sister or a ninth grade year that is rapidly going down the toilet. Finally after two years of waiting Jennifer learns that her father is back in town, and suddenly the dream seems within reach. However, hope quickly turns to horror when Jennifer witnesses an event that threatens to tear apart her family and perhaps destroy the life of someone she loves. Will Jennifer be able to unravel the mystery in time, or will keeping a secret turn deadly?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Oct 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781459716674

Brenda Chapman

Brenda Chapman is a crime writer who has published over twenty books, including six in the lauded Stonechild and Rouleau mystery series. She lives in Ottawa.

Book preview

Julia

One

I had never been inside a police station before, but I guess there is a first time for everything. My mom, luckily, didn’t go totally over the edge when the police car pulled up in the driveway, even though I knew she was majorly unhappy when she heard about all the things I had kept from her that week. Could it really only have been a week since this nightmare had begun? Well, I had had enough stress packed into that one week to last me three lifetimes, and I sure was glad to let someone else take over.

Officer Long told me to take my time and just tell everything I remembered. She put me in what I think is called an interrogation room. It was quite small, without a window, but the fluorescent light gave it that shopping mall glow. They sat me on a straight-backed chair, behind a sizable wooden table that was covered with what looked like knife gouges and dark-blue ink splotches. I wasn’t uncomfortable, but I can tell you, this was no Holiday Inn. Officer Long brought me a can of diet pop and a doughnut that was all wizened-up with a film of chocolate icing that had hardened and cracked. Since it was past supper time, I gulped down both and soon felt an uncomfortable heaviness around my navel area.

I made myself breathe in deeply and felt the tightness in my chest ease just a little. I still couldn’t believe that one forgotten textbook could lead me into such a horror show. I held my hands together to keep them from shaking. How long before this fear in my stomach would go away? I really hoped that by telling what happened, I would be putting it all to rest. For a while there, I thought it was me they were going to put to rest.

My name is Jennifer Bannon. I am thirteen, nearly fourteen, years old and I live in Springhills with my mom, Alice Connelly, and my nine-year-old sister Leslie. I am very happy that my mom never resorted to naming us after soap opera stars or the cast of Charlie’s Angels. My best friend is named Tiffany Amber, much to her own disgust, although she goes by Ambie because she doesn’t want to be confused with the lamp. I think even her mother now regrets her past stab at cuteness.

My birthday happens to fall on Christmas Eve, making me the second youngest in my class. Ambie wins at being the youngest, having been born January tenth and having started school a year before she should have. She was always big for her age, with a vocabulary that the rest of us in the primary years had difficulty comprehending since, aside from Ambie, we’d only just mastered the fine art of stringing words into sentences. Half the time, back then, I didn’t know what she was talking about. Sometimes even now, I can be surprised by her knowledge of trivia and her mathematical ability. I never quite figured out why she latched on to a scholastically challenged person like me, although she did so from the moment we laid eyes on each other.

Springhills is a subdivision on the outskirts of Toronto. It is very much like a small town, although we are close enough to the action that we don’t feel cut off from anything. Mom isn’t making scads of money as an on-call nurse, but we manage in a three-bedroom bungalow on Maple Lane. Ambie lives six blocks over on Paul Anka Boulevard. It seems that Ambie is destined to spend her life associated with names that most of us wouldn’t choose. Even her cat is named Madonna.

It was an evening in early October. I think a Tuesday, because I had been at school and stayed late for the second-last volleyball practice of the season before the junior girls’ team was selected. Mr. Jacks, who was our coach again this year, had decided to have tryouts instead of just letting everyone be on the team like in past years. That meant showing up for every practice without being certain of even making the team. Luckily, I loved volleyball and was pretty good at it. Ambie, however, hated sports of any kind, so she didn’t even think about coming out to practices. That Tuesday, she’d headed right home after class and hadn’t hung around to wait for me and remind me what books to bring home as she usually did. That’s why I’d forgotten about the history assignment due for the dragon lady first thing Wednesday morning. It’s funny how these things all line up when you look back over them.

Miss Dragot had been teaching Grade Nine and Ten history since the Stone Age, and I suppose she had heard every excuse for incomplete homework ever invented by the adolescent brain. Unless you were home in traction with a broken hand, Miss Dragot did not accept late work. She was a really fierce-looking woman, short and wide with steel grey hair and even steelier blue eyes. She had a way of calling out your name in class that made you feel like you just had to be guilty of something. As a first-year high school student, she caused me to have heart palpitations on a regular basis.

I remember thinking that I could feel snow in the air for the first time as I scuffed home through the leaves captured along the curbs. When I scrunched the leaves underfoot, they let out that rich, earthy smell that reminded me of Thanksgiving and pumpkin carving and Hallowe’en caramel apples. The wind was coming up, and every so often a swirl of leaves danced across my path. Morton T. High School was a good half-mile from home, and I was just starting up our driveway when I remembered my history textbook, still back in my locker. Mom had been called into the hospital to work nights all week, and I knew she would be waiting for me to get home to look after Leslie so that she could catch the bus for work. There was no time to run back to school, and I experienced a feeling of unease that was hovering somewhere above my large intestine.

I caught the smell of macaroni and cheese as I hung my jacket on the coat hook inside the front door. At least I wasn’t going to have to make dinner. Our foyer entered into a hall that split left into the kitchen and right into the living room, where I could hear Leslie watching TV. Our three bedrooms and the bathroom were down a hall that exited off the living room.

Hi, Mom! I’m home! I called, as I always did—just in case she thought it was an axe murderer or someone coming in to steal the good silver. Not that we had any good silver.

Mom met me at the kitchen door. Her lips brushed my cheek, while at the same time, she fastened a gold scarf around her neck that Leslie and I had given her for her birthday. She picked up her coat and purse from the kitchen counter, so I knew that I had kept her waiting. There would be no chance to explain about my forgotten textbook.

The casserole will be ready in ten. Leslie has to do her math after supper, then she must, I repeat must, have a bath. She can watch one TV show if she gets done in time. Make sure the doors are locked before you go to bed. I’ll try to call at my break, if I get one tonight, that is. Mom looked more worried than usual. I knew she was trying to sound casual. Your father seems to be back in town. I heard at the grocery store that he and Uncle Phil were seen at Hunter’s Pub Friday night.

I told you that Springhills is just like a small town. Everyone knows your business before you do. Don’t worry, Mom, I said to reassure her. I won’t let Dad in unless you’re here.

Mom opened the door, letting in a blast of cold air and a couple of leaves. I wish he’d just stay away, she sighed and pushed the hair out of her eyes. Lock the door, Jennifer, and I’ll see you in the morning. With that, she was gone.

I suppose to put my story and the events that happened into perspective, I must explain the strange relationship between my parents. Apparently, as the legend goes, they met at a high school dance when Dad tripped over someone’s foot and landed squarely in front of Mom’s platform heels. She helped him up, and the rest, as they say, is history. Dad happened to be at the dance with that year’s prom princess, but he saw something in Mom that was much more substantial and up to the challenge of life with a man who could not sit still. I believe today that Dad would be labelled hyperactive, but then, he was just considered full of beans. He was also quite an attractive, romantic kind of guy, according to the legend, and before the end of their senior year, Mom and Dad were