abby
3 hours ago
Personally, I wish I felt more like praying. Because all I want to do is get my hands on whoever did this and leave them for dead somewhere, too.
msheard
3 hours ago
There should be some test for moral decency and kindness before people are allowed to procreate.
Carla Shrift
3 hours ago
I for one am not going to be comfortable assuming that it was the baby’s parents until someone shows me more than random statistics to prove it. Until then, I’m going to be dusting off the old alarm system and learning to sleep with one eye open.
sssuzy
2 hours ago
Personally I’m sick of having to climb over all those teenagers who hang out in front of the 7-Eleven. I know this is politically incorrect, but doesn’t it make sense to think the parents of this baby are probably some of those kids from Ridgedale Commons who are always hanging out downtown? Where are their parents?
FSH
2 hours ago
I’m not going to guess at where they’re from, but only a teenager would be stupid enough to leave the baby right where anybody could find it. Why even have the baby? Abortion is legal.
realdeal
2 hours ago
Maybe she was waiting for the daddy to propose. Isn’t young love grand?
Eric
2 hours ago
I know it’s not popular to bring up religion in this bright blue town, but some people—myself included—believe that life starts at conception.
Maureen
2 hours ago
So it’s better to kill a newborn than have an abortion? Is that seriously what you’re saying?
Dawn D.
1 hour ago
I just want to say, if we act afraid, our children will be afraid. Kids absorb everything.
246Barry
1 hour ago
THEY SHOULD BE AFRAID.
FIND HIM.
BEFORE HE FINDS YOU.
Kara
57 min ago
“Before he finds you”? You have got to be kidding me, right? I know that this is an open forum, but I’d seriously expect people to rise to the occasion under the circumstances. I haven’t been thrilled with a lot of what’s been said here, but this is a new low.
Piper Lee
42 min ago
Another Ridgedale murder?? Is anyone else freaked out that there was another murder in the EXACT same spot? I don’t care how long ago it was, that seems like a crazy coincidence.
Harry S
40 min ago
HELLO!!!??? The article says DEATH, not murder. Sounds like it was an accident.
KellyGreen
37 min ago
Or so they think. They could be wrong. Maybe the person who did it was in jail or something. That happens all the time, a serial killer stops because they go to jail for something totally unrelated.
JENNA
APRIL 25, 1994
The Captain finally said hi to me today. I know: fucking crazy.
But it seriously happened. There I was, walking down the science hall, the part where there are no lockers and that whole group of them is always hanging out. And he was with a couple of guys from the team. I think there might have even been a few girls there. Anyway, the Captain looked GORGEOUS, as usual. That hair and those eyes. He looks just like Rob Lowe. Just like him. Actually, he looks better than him. The Captain is the most perfect-looking boy I have ever seen. And let’s face it, I’ve seen my share of boys.
Plus, he’s so smart. I never would have thought that smart could be so hot, but it TOTALLY is. I’ve never talked to him myself. But when he recited the Gettysburg Address from memory at the Presidents’ Day assembly a couple years ago—Jesus! Totally masturbated thinking about it later. (Sorry, Jesus, for writing that so close to your name, but it’s true.)
So there I was, walking down the hall, and the Captain and I do that thing we’ve been doing for a while now where we stare and stare at each other in the middle of a crowd like it’s just the two of us. The thing that totally makes me feel like all I want to do is give him a BJ in the bathroom.
But I don’t want to do that, not this time. This time I’m going to try for something else. Something like other girls have. Who says I can’t have a regular boyfriend?
Anyway, this time, instead of looking away when I got close like he usually does, the Captain raised a hand in a kind of wave. And he said it: Hi. Out loud. I thought Tex’s girlfriend was going to barf on her shoes.
Sandy
In the end, it was the pain in Sandy’s thighs that helped the most. The harder she pedaled, the more her legs ached, the less she thought about anything—Jenna, Hannah, what had happened the last time she’d been out on the bike. That sick feeling of her body flying one way and the bike flying the other, like two halves of an exploding bomb. Or the vicious-ass burn of the concrete ripping a long strip of skin from her forearm.
For two hours, Sandy rode everywhere in town she thought Jenna might be: Sommerfield’s (the only bar other than Blondie’s that Jenna could stand), past the park up on Stanton Street where Jenna had had at least one hookup (the details of which she’d seen fit, as usual, to share with Sandy), and that shitty dump on Taylor Ave. where Jenna bought pot sometimes. There was no sign of Jenna or her car anywhere. Sandy was panting, her throat on fire, by the time she turned in to the parking lot of Blondie’s, where Jenna worked.
Blondie’s was the least fancy place in the fanciest part of downtown Ridgedale. It had a faded green awning and frosted glass windows. Inside wasn’t much better, with stained carpeting, cracked leather benches, and St. Patrick’s Day decorations up year-round. The bartenders were as old-school as the decor. Monte, with his big belly and tight white crew cut, had owned the place for thirty years. He worked there most nights with his son Dominic, a thinner, younger version of himself. Both Monte and Dominic were big, sweet guys, the kind Sandy wished Jenna would fall for. But they’d always treated Jenna way too nice to be the least bit interesting to her.
For decades, Blondie’s had been a favorite of blue-collar locals, people just like Jenna. But in the past few months, the bar had gotten popular with kids from Ridgedale University. Some campus blog had called the usual student hangout, Truth—a bar with a small dance floor, oversize chaises, and a “mixologist,” whatever the hell that was—“cheesy poser bullshit.” After that, the university kids wanted someplace “real” to get loaded. And Blondie’s was it.
“You know what one of those kids said to me tonight?” Jenna had told Sandy as they were driving home one night after Jenna’s shift bartending and Sandy’s waitressing at Winchester’s Pub—avoiding the bike for the past week had meant getting rides from Jenna. “That Blondie’s is ironic. What the hell does that mean?”
“That they’re dicks,” Sandy had said, slipping her shoes off in the passenger seat. Her feet always ached so much at the end of her shifts that she could feel them pulsing.
“Ha, that’s funny.” Jenna had laughed hard, smacking the steering wheel. “You’re right, baby. They are dicks. Every last one of them.”
Sandy tucked her bike into the sliver of an alleyway next to Blondie’s. Her phone chirped as she headed up the steps. Jenna, it had to be. Pulling it out by the skin of her teeth at the eleventh hour, like she always did.
Are you okay? I’m worried.
Hannah, not Jenna. Jesus. Sandy took a deep breath and blew it out hard. But she couldn’t lose it on this girl, no matter how bad she wanted to.