The Forgotten Girl (11 page)

Jason parked behind the police cruiser in their driveway. When he reached the porch, Nora waited, holding the door open for him.

“What is it?” Jason asked as he went inside. Nora didn’t answer. Jason turned right and entered the living room. He saw two men—one was middle-aged and wore a suit. The other was a young officer in a crisply pressed navy blue Ednaville police department uniform.

The man in the suit held out his hand to Jason and introduced himself as Detective Olsen. He wanted to ask Jason questions about their car.

“What’s going on?” Jason asked. He looked back at Nora. “What happened to Sierra?”

“There’s been an accident,” she said.

“Is it Sierra?” Jason asked, turning back to the detective. He couldn’t resist asking. He needed to know if Sierra was okay.

“Mr. Danvers, would your niece have any reason to be in Redman County?” Olsen asked.

“She lives there now. With her mother.”

“I told them all of this,” Nora said.

The detective, Olsen, was trim and of average height. He looked to be Jason’s age as well, and he wore his hair closely cropped to
his head. He used his index finger to push his rimless glasses back up his nose. The light blue tie that accented his tan suit and white shirt hung slightly askew. He was a far cry from the older, rumpled, and tired-looking man who questioned Jason after Logan couldn’t be found. “But she’s staying with you now? Temporarily? I learned that from Officer Van Poppel, who was here this morning.”

“Yes, she’s staying with us while her mother takes care of some personal matters. Can you just tell me what happened to Sierra?”

Olsen hesitated, moving his eyes back and forth from Jason to Nora. Then he said, “Your vehicle was involved in an accident a couple of hours ago. On Highway Thirty-eight. It clipped another car and kept going.”

“Did someone get the license number?” Jason asked.

“The driver of the car that was hit.”

“Did they see who was driving our car? Was it Sierra?”

“We don’t know,” Olsen said. “But she would have reason to go back to Redman County, right? She’s looking for . . . ?”

“She’s looking for her mother. My sister. Did you go and look at their house in Redman County? Maybe she went there.”

“Of course,” Olsen said. “There was no one home at the residence.” He brought out a phone and tapped it a couple of times. “Four Eighteen Sweetgum Lane. Is that your sister’s address?”

“I don’t know her address. I hadn’t seen her in five years.”

Olsen looked up from the phone when that piece of news was delivered, his eyebrows lifting just a little. He said, “We did find some irregularities at the house.”

“What irregularities?” Nora asked.

“One of the back windows was broken,” Olsen said, reporting the news casually. “It appears as though someone broke the window with a rock and gained entry to the house.” Olsen cocked his head, as though trying to anticipate Jason’s reaction to his next
statement. “We also found some bloodstains on the floor of the home. I’m guessing whoever broke the window cut themselves as they went inside the house, but we’re not sure. It’s possible we’re dealing with a more serious injury. Or else something that resulted from a struggle.”

Jason felt weak. He shifted over and let his body weight take him down into an overstuffed chair. He rubbed at his temple, then looked up at Nora, who wore a stricken look.

“Wouldn’t Sierra have a key?” she asked.

“I don’t want to assume anything at this point,” Olsen said.

“And Hayden would have a key for sure,” Jason said.

“I was just wondering if anything else has occurred to you since this morning,” Olsen said. “I know I wasn’t here when the report on your niece running off was initially filed, but maybe you’ve had time to think about some things. Where else she might go? Who she might be with?”

“Jesse Dean Pratt,” he said. “That’s all I know. Hayden was with him last night. She used to be friends with him. Find him and maybe you’ll learn something.”

“We’re familiar with Mr. Pratt,” Olsen said.

“And Sierra’s friend,” Jason said. “Patricia.”

“We’re trying to contact them as we speak. We’re looking for both your sister and your niece, although since your niece is a minor, it’s a more pressing matter.” He turned to the officer who was with him. “Did you all look through the girl’s room this morning?”

“I wasn’t here,” he said.

Olsen turned back to Jason and Nora. Before he could ask, Nora said, “Yes, help yourself. Look at whatever you need to look at.”

“It won’t take long,” Olsen said.

“It’s at the top of the stairs on the right,” Nora said.

When the sound of them clomping up the stairs stopped,
Nora came over and sat in the chair next to Jason’s. “Did you find anything out today?” she asked. “Anything?”

“No. Jesse Dean showed up about a week ago and then left again. His wife lives in the house. The police had already talked to her. I drove through the park. Thompson Bluff. Nothing there but broken beer bottles and shattered dreams.”

Nora looked up at the ceiling. “I thought about going through her stuff, but it felt like a violation.”

“But you’re willing to let the police do it?”

“I’ve been sitting here all morning, waiting for news. At this point, I’m willing to allow just about anything.”

They waited more long minutes. Finally Olsen called to them from the top of the stairs. “Mr. and Mrs. Danvers? Can you come up here for a moment?”

Jason and Nora stood and hustled up the stairs. Jason went first, and when he reached the top and turned into the guest room, he found Detective Olsen standing next to an open dresser drawer. The uniformed cop stood next to him, his thumbs hooked in his belt.

Jason came over and looked inside. Sierra’s clothes had been moved aside. Beneath them, he saw a plastic sandwich bag containing what appeared to be a greenish brown clump. Even though it had been years since Jason had seen it, he knew it was pot.

“I’m assuming this doesn’t belong to you?” Olsen asked.

“Would it help Sierra if I said it did?” Jason asked. He couldn’t lie. He figured getting the truth out was the best thing for Sierra and Hayden. “It’s not ours,” he said. “I don’t know where it came from.”

*   *   *

Jason and Nora waited downstairs in the kitchen while the two officers finished looking through Sierra’s room. Olsen told them that the drugs gave them the right to search the entire house, to
turn the whole place upside down, but he wasn’t going to do that since the pot appeared to belong to either Sierra or Hayden.

While they sat and waited, Nora and Jason said very little to each other. To Jason, the drugs felt like a violation. When he factored in the “borrowed” and apparently damaged car, it felt like he’d entered an absurd time warp, one in which he watched his niece transform into his troublemaking sister. He tried to wrap his mind around it all. The pieces didn’t fit. How could Sierra be so levelheaded
and
involved with drugs? He understood taking the car. She wanted to find Hayden. But drugs? Unless—

“They probably don’t belong to her,” Nora said.

“Would I feel better if I knew they belonged to Hayden?” Jason ran his hands through his hair. “And someone broke into their house? The drugs are making it harder for me to be sympathetic.”

Nora leaned in closer. “Was Hayden ever involved in anything like that? Those kinds of drugs?”

“She did a little bit of everything in high school. But alcohol was her drug of choice. She looked so cleaned up. . . .”

“There has to be an explanation,” Nora said.

“I agree. And one of those two lunatics needs to come home and give it to us.”

Nora reached out and squeezed his hand. “Think positive.”

“I’m trying. Thanks.”

The police finally came back downstairs. The uniformed officer carried the evidence out to the car in a plastic bag while Olsen stayed inside.

“We’re considering everything right now,” he said. “We have to make sure they’re safe, that nothing happened
to
them. But if they aren’t in danger, if they aren’t up to something else, this isn’t too deep for your niece or your sister yet,” Olsen said. “But it could be headed that way.”

“We want to find them as much as you do,” Jason said. “I suspect we want to find them even more than you do.”

“Is there anything else you can think to tell us before we go?”

Jason paused, then said, “I went to Jesse Dean Pratt’s house today, looking for . . . I don’t know what I was looking for. I guess I was just hoping. I talked to his wife. I just wanted to tell you that. I figure you don’t want a civilian mucking around in what you do.”

“We don’t. Do me a favor? Just stick close to home. You can do a lot more good here, for your sister and your niece. You know them, and they know you.”

Jason lifted his head toward the ceiling. “Based on what you found upstairs, maybe I know a lot less than I thought.”

Nora had gone up to the bedroom to try to read, and Jason sat in the living room staring at a Reds game on the TV. The players threw and hit the ball. They ran around. But the actions meant nothing to him in his distracted state of mind. If someone asked him the score, he couldn’t have answered, even though it was in a box on the top of the screen. He didn’t even notice who the Reds were playing. He thought of the police and the discovery in the drawer. The accident. The broken window in Redman County. Hayden gone. Sierra gone. Were they involved in something together? Why did Hayden really have to bring Sierra to the house? Were they both in the same trouble? And now was the trouble coming down on them?

When Regan called, he jumped again and scrambled to pick up his cell phone. Jason wanted it to be Sierra or Hayden on the line, someone bearing real news, but short of that, he was glad to talk to someone sympathetic.

“I’m just calling to see how you’re doing,” Regan said. “If anything new has happened.”

Regan never called him at home, and Jason suspected Nora hadn’t heard the phone ring. If she had, she would have come down the stairs to find out if there was news about Sierra. The
TV was playing loud enough and Nora was far enough away that the sound was masked.

“There’s nothing new really,” he said, his voice low. “We’re just waiting.”

“Is this okay? Can you talk now?”

“Sure. For a few minutes.”

Then it seemed like Regan didn’t know what to say. Jason assumed she wanted to talk, but she didn’t, so he waited. On the screen, the manager from the opposing team argued a call. He screamed and pointed at an umpire who absorbed the barrage with a stoic resolve.

“I know I’ve been a little obstinate when you’ve tried to talk to me about Logan and the past.”

“I noticed that.”

“It’s not that I don’t care, or that I don’t want to remember the past,” Regan said. “I do. I care, and I want to remember most things.” She paused, and it sounded as though she had taken a drink of something. Wine? “It’s strange to live in Ednaville all this time. I don’t really feel much nostalgia for the past. It’s all around me, every day, so I guess I don’t notice it as much. I feel it sometimes, like if I drive past the school or see someone we grew up with. But most of the time, it isn’t really alive in a meaningful way. Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“But when you and I reconnected and started talking a lot and seeing each other . . . I don’t know. The past really did come alive, and I felt intense nostalgia as well as some loss to be quite honest.”

“Loss?”

“Just the realization that a lot of water has gone under the bridge. You know?”

“I know.”

“I think about everything that’s happened since high school. College and then I got married and I had kids and, shit, I got divorced. I did all of those things. Jason, my kids are teenagers. Angela starts high school next year. That’s crazy to have a child that old.”

Jason’s mind went to Sierra. He knew . . . kind of. At least for the last two days, he knew. And what did people say? To be a parent was to worry?

“I’m sorry,” Regan said. “I bet you’re thinking of Sierra.”

“I went by the Bluff today,” Jason said. “That’s the first time I’ve been there since that night.”

“Why did you go there?”

“Looking for Sierra. Or Hayden. Since Hayden’s had some substance abuse problems in the past, and, you know, that place is so messed up—”

“It is.”

“It was strange being there,” Jason said. “I understand what you’re saying. I felt the nostalgia too. Maybe I felt it even more because the place looked so different. I couldn’t help but realize how much time had passed. I thought of Logan and that night.”

“I want to apologize for something,” Regan said.

“What?”

“The other day I said you hero-worshipped Logan, that you looked up to him too much. I realize that was a little bit of a cheap shot. You balanced him as well. That’s a more accurate way to put it.”

“No, you’re right. I was always the runner-up to him. I followed along in his wake. He got everything he wanted.”

“Not everything,” Regan said quickly and with an edge to her voice.

“I said some awful things to him that night when we fought. I called him out for being spoiled, for thinking that all the best things should flow to him automatically. I told him he needed to let someone else have a turn in the sun.”

“And what did he say to you?”

“He insulted my family. And me. My future as an artist.”

“He always had a cutting tongue.”

“Maybe he was smarter than I gave him credit for, at least about my career.”

“Stop that.”

“He told me I’d never understand the way the world works because I hadn’t grown up with money. He said I just didn’t get it.”

“He was full of it.”

“He was. But . . . I’m sure you saw through it sometimes. He was insecure. He was scared. He lived in his dad’s shadow.”

Jason remembered Logan’s sixteenth birthday party, which was held at the country club. Logan’s father had come late, and then after about thirty minutes was called to the phone. When he came back to the table, Mr. Shaw announced that he needed to head back to the office in order to deal with some crisis. Jason watched Logan’s face. He shook his dad’s hand and said good-bye as though it was no big deal, but Jason knew his dad’s departure hurt him. When Jason asked Logan about it later, Logan just shrugged and said, “That’s how the old man keeps the clothes on my back.”

“I was angry with him graduation night,” Jason said to Regan, “but I felt sorry for him a lot of times as well. He could seem so lost. His mother wasn’t around because of the divorce. . . . That house must have been awfully lonely.”

“I don’t think you have anything to feel bad about,” Regan
said. Her voice sounded tired. “He started the fight. He was a big boy.”

“But that was the last conversation we had. Ever.”

“Jason?”

Jason tensed a little.
Nora.
He put the phone down.

“What?” he said.

“Are you talking to someone?” Nora was calling from the top of the steps. “Is someone here?”

“Just a minute,” he said into the phone.

“Is it news?” Nora asked.

“I’ll be right there.” Jason picked up the phone again and whispered, “I have to go. It’s late.”

“Is it Nora?” Regan asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re allowed to talk to an old friend,” Regan said.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”

Jason ended the call, but he didn’t head upstairs right away. He stared at the TV a few minutes longer, remembering the times he watched Reds games with his own father. He wouldn’t have traded parents with Logan, not ever. But he certainly knew there were times when he would have gladly traded lives with him. House for house, bank account for bank account. Logan’s life could look so enticing to anyone on the outside, but something that night twenty-seven years ago made him willing to throw it all away.

Jason turned the TV off and went upstairs. The bedroom was dark. Nora had already turned the lights out, and in the pale glow that leaked in from the street, he could see her shape beneath the covers. The ceiling fan overhead made a soft whirring noise, stirring the air. The windows were open and a light breeze moved the gauzy curtains. Jason didn’t undress or get ready for bed. He sat in a chair across the room.

“Who was on the phone?” Nora asked.

“It was Regan. We talked about the past a little.”

“The past? What about the past?”

“You don’t mind that she called me?” Jason asked.

“Should I?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “She’s a friend. I’m just trying to be open about everything, the way the marriage counselor taught me.”

“Me too. But you don’t have to roll your eyes every time the marriage counselor comes up. It helped us.”

“I know.”

“I’m not arguing with you about Regan,” Nora said.

“Thanks. Do you remember my friend Logan? The guy who left town on the night of graduation?”

The covers rustled. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Jason could see Nora moving, turning over and sitting up with a pillow placed behind her back. “Of course I remember,” she said. “Your best friend. What about him?”

“Colton’s looking for him.”

“Why?”

Jason explained about the will and Logan’s dying father. He said, “Because we fought that night and had words, I’ve always felt a little responsible for him going away so suddenly.”

“I remember. And I’ve told you that’s you being unfair to yourself. You didn’t make anyone go away. You didn’t make Hayden or Sierra go away either.”

“Just hear me out,” he said. “I think all the time about the people who’ve gone away. My parents are gone. Your dad died last year.”

He hesitated. He didn’t know exactly where he was going with his thoughts.

“What?” Nora said, after a long pause.

“I guess I think that if all of them were here again, the ones who
can
be here. Logan, Hayden, Sierra. If they were all here, then . . . somehow things would feel complete in a way they haven’t for a while. You and I are doing well, but there are so many other parts of my life that feel incomplete. My family. Friends.”

“That’s sweet, Jason,” Nora said.

“Sweet but crazy?” Jason asked. “Naive?”

“Impossible maybe.” Across the dark room he saw her yawn. “It’s late and we’ve had a long day. Why don’t you come to bed and
sleep?”