The Forgotten Girl (12 page)

The ringing phone brought Jason out of a deep sleep. He dreamed of a broken window, the glass shattered on the ground, blood smeared around the pane. He didn’t reach for the phone, didn’t realize what it was until Nora nudged him in the side.

“Can you get that?” she asked.

Then he came back to himself. He remembered everything. Hayden. Sierra. The missing car. The drugs. He picked the phone up and answered without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?”

There was the briefest pause, the sound of breathing. And then a voice. “Uncle Jason?”

Jason snapped fully awake. The windows were still open, the room cool.

“Sierra?”

“I need you to come help me,” she said. Her voice sounded breathy, frantic. Was she being hurt? Chased?

“Where are you? I’ll come right away.”

“I’m at that park . . . the one outside of town. Heroin Hill.”

“I’m coming.”

“Hurry,” she said. “It’s Mom.”

“Hayden?”

“Her—” The phone faded, then came back. “—get here.”

“I’m coming. I’m coming right now.”

Jason bounded out of bed, grabbing clothes.

“Is she okay?” Nora asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m coming with you this time,” she said. “You don’t have a choice.”

Jason didn’t argue. He didn’t want to. “I know. Let’s get out of here.”

*   *   *

It was ten after five when they turned into the park. The night was dark, the headlights providing the only illumination on the winding road. Nora called Sierra back while Jason drove.

“Where are you?” Nora asked. “We’re here.” She listened. “Walnut Grove shelter?” Nora said.

Jason nodded. He knew it was to the left, about halfway around the looping drive that circled the park. He went that way, driving as fast as he could and still feel safe. The woods were full of deer. They had a tendency to jump in front of vehicles. The past fall a man on a motorcycle was killed when he collided with one. But Jason couldn’t help himself. He felt his foot getting heavier against the gas pedal, felt the car speeding up. Sierra was so close. She was right there.

And Hayden too? What did she try to say about her mom?

Had Jason been right there on top of both of them in the park earlier that day and missed them? He vowed not to miss again.

It took a few minutes for the shelter to come into sight. They hadn’t seen any other cars, no other people in the predawn eerie quiet. The headlights caught the eyes of an animal along the tree
line to the left. The orbs glowed red, but the animal—a rabbit?—turned and ran as the car came along.

Then he saw the two vehicles. At the picnic shelter parking lot, the headlights showed him their car, a black Honda Accord. The one Sierra took. As they approached, he saw the two-foot-long gash along the side as though it had scraped against something big. As the illumination of their headlights approached, the driver’s-side door opened. Sierra stepped out. She looked thin and young and scared. The headlights made her appear ghostly, ethereal. Jason didn’t recognize the car parked next to theirs, but he had a guess.

“There she is,” Nora said.

Jason stopped behind the two cars. He didn’t bother pulling into a spot. He jumped out, and Nora did the same.

“Are you okay?” Jason asked.

Sierra looked cold, even though the night wasn’t. She wore a T-shirt and jeans. Her red Chuck Taylor sneakers provided the only color in the darkness. She just nodded in response to Jason’s question, looking very much like a little child.

Nora came around and hugged Sierra. The girl didn’t return the hug, but she didn’t resist either. She let Nora fold her up in her arms. While Nora held her, she managed to take her own sweatshirt off and maneuver it over Sierra’s shoulders, a series of gestures that struck Jason as particularly maternal.

“You said something about your mom when you called,” Jason said. “Is this her car?”

Sierra nodded again.

It was a Toyota Corolla, about ten or twelve years old. It had dents in the front and the back, and the left rear tire, the one closest to Jason, looked underinflated. He couldn’t have expected Hayden to drive a car nicer than that one. Not yet anyway.

“Is she here?” he asked. “Did you see her?”

Sierra shook her head. “Just the car. I came by here tonight, just about an hour ago, and I saw the car. It wasn’t here before. I’ve been through the park about five times in the last day looking for her, and she wasn’t here. And the car wasn’t here either. But tonight it showed up.”

“Why did you come back tonight?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve been driving around. I thought maybe if I came here at night, I’d have better luck. I’ve heard about this place, about the drugs and all of that. I thought if she were drinking or just hanging out with bad people, she might come here. I was desperate.”

“You came here an hour ago?” Jason asked. “What took so long to call?”

“I looked around a little. I went down one of the trails.”

“You shouldn’t do that here,” Nora said. “You don’t know who could be in this place.”

“I wanted to look. I didn’t go far, and I couldn’t see anything. I called her name. I thought if she was here and she heard my voice . . . but there was nothing. No response. I didn’t see anybody. A couple of cars went by, but they didn’t stop.”

“Did you look in the car?” Jason asked.

Sierra had straightened up from the hug Nora gave her, but the two women still stood next to each other. Nora kept her arm over Sierra’s shoulder, holding her tight, providing warmth and comfort.

Sierra shook her head. “The door’s locked. All of them are locked.” She paused. “Mom never locks the car. She always says that if someone wants to steal something, they can have it. It’s an old car. It doesn’t even have a decent stereo.”

Jason’s eyes wandered to the trunk. It was closed tight. He
thought of Hayden and her mysterious mission. Being seen with Jesse Dean. He turned and went to the passenger side of his car, opened the door, and reached in. He brought out a small flashlight, one he carried for emergencies and had never used. The few times in his life he had ever broken down, he had called someone for help. His dad. A friend. Later, he relied on Triple A.

As he approached Hayden’s car again, he asked, “Did you see anything inside?”

“Too dark,” Sierra said.

Nora must have been thinking along the same lines as Jason because she gave Sierra a gentle squeeze and said, “Why don’t we sit in the car, honey? Where it’s warmer?”

“No,” Sierra said. “I want to see what’s in the car.”

Jason took the flashlight to the passenger side of Hayden’s car, the side farthest away from Sierra and Nora. He really didn’t want to shine the light inside. He worried about what might be in there. He hesitated. The night birds called in the trees, and up above, a bank of clouds slid past the half-moon. He turned the flashlight on and pressed it against the passenger’s side window.

The car was messy. Jason expected that. He knew how Hayden kept a car in high school, and this one looked no different. Paper wrappers littered the floor on the passenger side. He flicked the light up and saw the keys dangling from the ignition.

“The keys are still in here,” he said. “How is it locked?”

“They’re not power locks,” Sierra said. “You just push the button down and lift the handle. Mom couldn’t afford anything else.”

Jason continued to move the beam around. He saw nothing unusual, nothing besides the keys in the ignition. Someone didn’t care if the car was found, or else had left in a hurry. He shifted the beam to the backseat, and as he did his anxiety increased. But again he saw nothing. More junk. More papers and empty cups.
He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for or what he thought he might find. Did he expect to see a note that said, “Here’s where Hayden is and this is what she’s involved in”?

Jason straightened up and turned to the trunk. He played the light across the metal surface. He saw a splatter of bird crap, a couple of scrapes and dings. But nothing else. He passed the beam along the ground around the car. Still nothing.

“Do you see anything?” Nora asked.

“No.”

“I almost picked up a rock and smashed the window,” Sierra said.

“Why?” Jason asked.

“I could get to the keys and see what’s in the trunk.”

“I think we should call the police,” Jason said. “Let them handle all of this however they want.”

“But what if . . . ?” Sierra said.

“What?”

“What if she’s . . . in there. And she needs our help. Now.”

“There’s probably nothing in there,” Nora said.

Jason leaned over and made a fist. He lightly rapped on the trunk lid, creating a metallic thump. He waited a few seconds and tried again.

“She could be hurt,” Sierra said.

“I’m going to call,” Nora said. She had already taken her phone out. “She’s probably not here, but the police can arrive quickly. If they need to, they can get into the car.”

While Nora dialed and spoke to a dispatcher, Jason moved back to the side windows of the car. He shone the light inside again, looking for anything he might have missed the first time. He heard Nora giving their location as well as the name of Detective Olsen.
She finally said to both of them, “They’re on their way. Olsen’s coming even though it’s Saturday. Let’s just sit tight.”

Jason’s light picked up a smear near the bottom of the back of the front passenger seat. He hadn’t seen it before. It was small, only about the size of a half-dollar, and as he held the light on it, he almost convinced himself it was chocolate or shoe polish. Anything but what he feared it was. He wasn’t going to say anything, but Sierra said, “What do you see?”

He didn’t answer. He snapped the light off and stood up.

Sierra came around to his side of the car, her shoes scraping across the pavement. “Tell me,” she said. “I’m not a kid. Just tell me.”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“Show me.”

She reached for the flashlight, and Jason pulled it away. He wanted to tell her she may not always act like a kid, but she still was. He wished she didn’t have to know these things, even if it was she who took their car without permission.

She didn’t need to know everything, did she?

But he knew the answer. Sierra did need to know. She’d find out in a few minutes when the police arrived.

He flicked the light back on and guided the beam to the spot on the upholstery.

“What is it?” Nora asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jason said.

“Oh, bullshit,” Sierra said. “Fuck. It’s blood. It’s my mother’s fucking
blood.”

Detective Olsen and a crime scene technician arrived. They walked around Hayden’s car, using flashlights, while a couple of uniformed officers took statements from Jason and his family. Olsen and the technician paid as much attention to the ground around the car as they did the trunk. Then the technician went into his unmarked vehicle and brought out a Slim Jim, which he took over to the driver’s-side door of Hayden’s car. He popped the lock and opened the door, reaching in for the trunk release latch.

“Jesus, they’re going to open it,” Sierra said.

“Do you want to go home?” Jason asked.

“No,” Sierra said, her voice firm.

Jason felt relieved in a way. He wanted to stay as well. He wished he had picked up a rock and smashed the window. What if they’d waited too long? What if Hayden had suffocated in those moments while they called the police?

Nora tried to get Sierra to sit in the back of the car with her, to get out of the night air, as she put it, but Sierra refused. She kept her eyes glued to Hayden’s car, her focus singular and intense.

The trunk opened, and Olsen leaned over, shining his flashlight inside.

“I’m going,” Sierra said.

“No,” Jason said. “Wait here.”

“I’m not a baby,” Sierra said. “That’s my mother there.”

But Nora continued to gently hold on to Sierra, and Jason placed his arm out in front of her, although she didn’t make any real attempt to break away from them. She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to see. Jason felt the same way. It was no real struggle for him to stay back.

Even though morning had almost fully broken, the police officers—including Olsen and the crime scene technician—had their flashlights out and were sweeping them around the inside of the trunk of Hayden’s car. Olsen had pulled on rubber surgical gloves—they all wore them at that point—and occasionally he pointed to something inside the trunk that only the officers could see. But none of them reached in, and none of them touched anything.

As he watched, Jason felt hope creeping back into his body. Would they be so calm, so casual, if they were staring at the dead body of his sister? Then again, they were police officers, professionals who were trained to handle those kinds of moments. Maybe they simply treated the discovery of a dead body in the trunk of a car that way. Coldly detached, clinical. The same as dusting a door handle for a fingerprint.

Olsen straightened up and looked over at them. He pulled the surgical gloves off his hands and dropped them to the pavement. He said something to his colleagues, and received nods in response. Then he started back over toward Jason.

The day wasn’t yet warm. The sun hadn’t come anywhere close to rising all the way into the sky and burning off the night air. Despite that, Jason felt hot. His clothes felt confining and heavy, as though he were wearing a winter coat instead of a T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans.

“This is bad,” Sierra said. “Look at the look on his face.”

“He always looks like that,” Nora said. “He’s a cop. They try to be neutral and stoic.”

Olsen reached them and said, “I was wondering if any of you would be able to identify personal items belonging to Hayden. There are some in the trunk.”

“Is
she
in there?” Jason asked. “Is there a body?”

“Excuse me?” Olsen said. Then he seemed to understand. “No, there’s no body in the trunk. But there are personal items. We want to see if they belong to Hayden, or if they indicate that someone else left things in the car. Would one of you be able to identify these items?”

A watery looseness passed through Jason’s body. His joints slackened, and he felt his shoulders sag with relief.
Hayden wasn’t in there. There was no body.
He flexed his hands, realizing how tense his body had been while they waited. Helpless.

Detective Olsen looked at Sierra, and Jason thought it might be too much for her. He spoke up and said, “I can do it.”

“Will you really recognize her things?” Olsen asked. “You hadn’t seen her in five years.”

“I can do it,” Sierra said. She looked at Nora and Jason. “Really. I know everything she owns.”

“Are you sure?” Nora asked.

“I’m not identifying a body,” Sierra said. She turned to Olsen. “Right? You’re sure there’s no body?”

“I’m sure,” Olsen said.

“Let’s go, then,” Sierra said, stepping forward.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Nora asked.

“I’m fine,” Sierra said. She didn’t say anything else. She went with Olsen, and Jason heard him starting to give her instructions.

“You can’t touch or remove anything. Nothing at all . . .”

Then they were out of earshot.

*   *   *

Jason and Nora stood next to each other, alone. Nora’s hands kept moving. They worked against each other, rubbing and kneading. She didn’t look at Jason. She kept her eyes forward on the activity around Hayden’s car.

“Are you relieved?” Nora asked.

Jason thought he knew what she meant. “Yes.”

Nora looked over at him. “I could tell by the look on your face you thought Hayden was going to be in that trunk. To be honest, I did too. I was standing there thinking I didn’t know what we were going to do for Sierra if her mother was dead. I couldn’t even imagine it.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet. We don’t know where she is. And there’s the blood in the car.”

“I’m trying not to think about that,” Nora said. “I’m just going to keep focusing on supporting Sierra and helping her.”

“Makes sense,” Jason said. “I’m not sure there’s much else we can do.”

Sierra stood with the police. She looked young and small next to them. Olsen pointed into the trunk, just as he had before, and Sierra nodded her head slowly, almost fearfully. Olsen pointed at a couple of other things, and every time, Sierra nodded in the same way. After a few minutes, Olsen pointed to one more thing, and Sierra shook her head back and forth. Olsen seemed to ask her if she was certain and she nodded her head again. Then they straightened up from the trunk, and Olsen stood facing Sierra. He seemed to be instructing her about something else. He talked, and she listened. Finally, he pointed toward Jason and Nora, and Sierra walked back over.