Janie Face To Face

The First Piece of the Kidnapper s Puzzle
The woman who had once been Hannah barely remembered that day in New Jersey.
It was so many years ago, and anyway, it had been an accident.
It happened because she was driving east. There was no reason to head east. But when she stole the car and wanted to get out of the area quickly, she took the first interstate ramp she saw. It was eastbound.
She had never stolen a car before. It was as much fun as drugs. The excitement was so great that she had not needed sleep or rest or even meals.
Everybody else driving on the turnpike had experience and knew what they were doing. But although the woman once known as Hannah was thirty, she had done very little driving.
Back when she was a teenager and everybody else was learning to drive, her cruel parents had never bought her a car. They rarely let her drive the family car either. They said she was immature. And in the group she joined, only the leaders had cars.
She found the group during her freshman year at college. She hated college. She hated being away from home and she hated her parents for making her go to college. Even more, she hated admitting defeat.
The group had embraced Hannah. Inside the group, she did not have to succeed or fail. There were no decisions and no worries. She did not have to choose that one of those frightening things called a career. Her parents those people from her past had always been on her case about her future. Always demanding that she consider her skills and abilities.
Hannah did not want to consider things.
She wanted other people to consider.
While she was still useful to the group, earning money and getting new converts, she kept the name they had given her. But time passed and the group disbanded. Its members ended up on the street. She found herself homeless and helpless, and she needed another name. For a while she called herself Tiffany. Then she tried Trixie.
In the years that followed, she made use of stolen paperwork. She

CAROLINE B. COONEY is the bestselling author of many young adult books, including the million-copy plus bestseller, The Face on the Milk Carton, the first volume in the Janie series. Caroline B. Cooney lives in South Carolina.

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, February 18, 2013:
The fifth and final installment of Janie Johnson's story brings the series that started more than two decades ago with The Face on the Milk Carton to a highly gratifying close.