CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATES!
Of course graduation would be the biggest news of the week. What else happened in Jericho?
In spite of the drama post–Mom & Tot Hour, Juniper couldn’t tear herself away from the photo. She and Ashley were side by side, arms thrown around each other and mortarboards askew. They were flashing peace signs for no apparent reason, and Juniper found she could remember the way her hair clung to her neck in the heat, the way Ashley smelled of bubble gum and that dime-store body spray she loved. It felt like yesterday and like someone else’s story at the same time. She didn’t know what that kind of happiness felt like anymore. But even then, hadn’t it been a ruse? A paper-thin likeness of joy that crumbled to dust at the first hint of adversity.
Every face in the photo was familiar, even though Juniper couldn’t name them all if she tried. Her time at Jericho High was a forgotten history, as meaningless and inconsequential as what she had for breakfast yesterday. But that wasn’t entirely true. Some of it mattered. And try as she might to forget, little things came rushing back. Inside jokes, teachers she had loved—and hated. Her first kiss with Edward Cohen behind the bleachers at a varsity football game. He tasted of cinnamon breath mints and, underneath that, hot buttered popcorn.
Juniper traced her fingers around the frame of the photograph. Those kids had no idea what was coming. She felt sorry for them.
A quick flip through the rest of the newspaper confirmed what she already knew to be true: there was no mention at all of the storm that was brewing in Jericho.
The Jericho Chronicle came out every Wednesday, and there were only four editions between the graduation cover story and a headline that looked entirely different. Juniper already knew what she would find. Years ago she had scoured the photograph for evidence, pressing her nose to the paper so that she could get a closer look and coming away with black smudges against her skin. She never found what she was looking for. And although she doubted she would now, she pulled out the Fourth of July special extended edition and made herself look again.
JERICHO ROCKED BY DOUBLE HOMICIDE
“Rocked” didn’t seem like quite the right word. Stunned, devastated, leveled. In many ways, destroyed. Jericho was never the same after the Murphys were murdered. It brought something dark and wicked home to roost: the gruesome, oily threat of menace; that unspeakable things could happen here, too—even in quaint little Jericho.
Though the heading was shocking, the photograph beneath was rather harmless. It was a shot of the Murphys’ acreage the morning after, yellow police tape strung across the gravel drive and a scattering of official vehicles parked haphazardly in the grass. Cal would have hated that. Tires raking up his lawn, gouging long, ugly hash marks across the careful expanse of green. Afterward, the place sat empty for years, and with no one to tend the grass, those heavy trucks left bare patches like scars.
The article itself was pallid, devoid of any real information except for the line that made Juniper’s lungs feel crushed every time she read it: Suspect in custody. They should have just written the truth: Jonathan Baker in custody. Everyone knew it.
Juniper glanced at her watch. Nearly three o’clock. The members of the Heritage Society would be filtering through the front doors soon, and she would have to go pick up Willa from school. This was neither the time nor the place for a more careful inspection, so after glancing toward the records room to make sure that Barry was still occupied, Juniper took the entire stack of magazines from June, July, and August and rolled them up. They made a fat cylinder that slid perfectly beside the laptop in her backpack. Everything about her petty theft was wrong, from the fact that she was essentially stealing from her dear friend to the atrocious way she had handled old documents, but Juniper didn’t care. The newspaper was an incomplete history anyway. Riddled with holes and white lies. She knew the true biography of Jericho. At least, some of it.
Juniper helped a few patrons find the books they were looking for and sent Cora a “thinking about you” text while Barry welcomed the Heritage Society. They were a boisterous group of gray-haired men and women who shook Juniper’s hand warmly and held her gaze as if to say, We know who you are and none of that matters to us. Juniper’s pulse quickened when one of the older gentlemen pulled her into a hug and whispered, “Glad you’re home, Ms. Baker. You belong here.”
Although she didn’t necessarily agree—not only did Juniper feel like an outsider, she wanted to be one—his words struck a raw nerve. The desire to belong was a weed that grew no matter how hard she tried to dig it up. Just when she thought she had it rooted out completely, a resolute sprout unfurled.