The Forgotten Girl (13 page)

“They want us to wait a little longer,” Sierra said. “They have more questions.”

“Are you okay?” Jason asked.

“Yes.” She shivered a little. “I just want to go.”

“What was in there?” Jason asked. “What did they show you?”

It took Sierra close to a minute to answer. She said, “Her shoes were in there. The shoes she was wearing when she dropped me off at your house. I think it’s the only pair she brought with her.”

She paused, and Jason asked, “Is that all?”

“Some clothes. They were hers. I think she brought them to change into while she was here or doing whatever she planned on doing. That seemed normal, I guess.”

“Was that it?”

“That’s all that belonged to her.”

“You shook your head about something at the end,” Jason said. “What was that?”

Sierra shivered again, but her voice sounded matter-of-fact. “There was a pair of gloves in there I’d never seen before. Black leather. And there were a couple more spots of blood.”

No one said anything. Nora reached out and took Sierra’s hand, but the girl barely registered the gesture.

Finally, Sierra said, “I’m sorry about taking it. I know I messed up.”

“Taking what?” Jason asked.

“The car. I know I shouldn’t have.”

She and Nora leaned in closer to each other, huddling for warmth and comfort. Jason stepped forward and placed his hand on Sierra’s shoulder. “It’s fine,” he said. “It’s just a car.”

When Jason was young, he found it easy to imagine that Hayden would die at an early age. She was simply too wild, too reckless, too much inclined to find trouble. In those days, he could imagine Hayden meeting her end in a car accident or from alcohol poisoning. She might drown or injure herself in some other way while intoxicated. Or she might try a new or exotic drug, something someone handed to her at a party, and overdose. But he never imagined her being murdered or injured by someone else’s hand, even though she ran with a rough crowd. Hayden knew how to take care of herself. She was nobody’s fool—and she knew how to read and manage people.

Jason understood that Sierra lived under that same cloud. When she cried after Colton came to the house, Jason knew exactly what the girl was feeling. It was a horrible thing for a teenager to have to live with—the looming threat of the end of someone she dearly loved. Jason had spent his teenage years with the same fears.

Jason laughed a little, and Nora looked at him.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“I said, ‘It’s just a car.’ My dad said that once when Hayden scraped up one of our cars. He could be so calm in a crisis sometimes. ‘It’s just a car.’”

“I wanted to find Mom.”

“We know,” Nora said.

Sierra chewed on her fingernail. She seemed to be finished
with talking, but then she said, “It just felt like no one was interested in finding her. You wanted to keep waiting.”

“We were just doing what your mom wanted us to do. She said give her forty-eight hours, and we were,” Jason said. “There are no right or wrong answers in a situation like this. I guess we’ve never been in a situation quite like this.”

“I wanted to find her so you could know she wasn’t the same as she used to be,” Sierra said.

“I understand why you did it,” Jason said. “Believe me, I want her back, and I want to know that she isn’t the same as she used to be. I think we all want that.”

“And I guess I wanted you to know I wasn’t just like her. I didn’t just take the car for the hell of it. I’m not like her, but I love her.”

“Of course. That makes sense.”

“She said you wouldn’t trust her. Or me, I guess. It didn’t seem fair.”

“We have things to talk about,” Jason said. “The police went into your room. They found some weed.”

“You let them go into my room?” Sierra asked.

“You don’t have much choice when the police want to search something,” Jason said. “Besides, we wanted to know where you were. We thought if they looked through your things, it might help us find you.”

“That’s true, honey,” Nora said. “We didn’t want to invade your privacy, but Jason thought—”

“I didn’t
think
anything,” he said. “It was the police.”

“So I know what this is about, right?” Sierra said. “I guess it wouldn’t do any good for me to say those drugs belonged to someone else. I know that’s what every kid in the universe says when they get caught with something like that. They say, ‘They belong to someone else.’ But they do. I’m not involved with that stuff.”

“Do they belong to your mom?” Jason asked.

“See?” Sierra said, although she seemed to be speaking to no one in particular. “You can’t—won’t—change your mind about Mom.”

“You scared us, Sierra,” Nora said. “That’s all. We don’t care about the car . . . or anything else. But we were worried about you. That’s why Jason is asking about these things, even though it’s probably better left for another time.”

“It’s a good thing you two didn’t have kids,” Sierra said. “You’d drive them nuts.”

“Hey,” Jason said. “You don’t have to talk to us like that.”

“Excuse me?” another voice said.

Jason stopped and turned. It was Detective Olsen. He approached them in the growing light. He either didn’t notice the family squabble or chose to ignore it.

“I understand you’ve had a long night,” he said. “Will you be home later?”

“Sure,” Jason said.

“There’s no reason for you to stay here now,” he said. “I can come by and find you at the house later today. We’re going to be working here for a while. We’re processing the scene carefully. That’s lab work, fingerprints and the blood. It could take a couple of days if they’re backed up.” He looked at Sierra again. “Did you go to your house recently? The house in Redman County you live in with your mom?”

“I did. Of course. I was looking for Mom. I thought she might be there.”

“Did you break in?” Olsen asked.

“Break in? I have a key. Did someone break in?”

“They did. They smashed a window. Was it like that when you went there? I’m talking about the little window next to the back door.”

“No,” Sierra said. “I would have noticed that.”

“When were you there last?”

“Yesterday. I was there for a couple of hours. I took a nap in my bed.”

Olsen nodded. “I think you should go home. Wait for news there.”

“What else is there to do here?” Jason asked.

Olsen pointed to the trees that surrounded them. “We have some searching to do,” he said. “We’ll probably have to call in some help from the county, maybe even the state. It’s a Saturday, so it might be a little harder to round up the troops. But now that the sun’s coming up, we intend to search through these woods for any other evidence we can find.”

“Do you mean you’re looking for Hayden?” Jason asked.

“We’re trying to find out what happened to her,” Olsen said. “If anything.”

“But the blood,” Jason said. “Doesn’t that say something happened to her?”

“If it’s hers,” Olsen said. “We’ll be checking on that as well. We’re certainly worried about your sister’s safety, given the blood. Maybe if we look around here a little more, we’ll have a better grasp on things. If you hear from your sister, let me know immediately. Okay?”

“We will,” Jason said.

He waited for Olsen to say something else, to tell him that the police felt confident that Hayden would quickly be found unharmed and returned to her life with her daughter. But Olsen didn’t say anything like that. He turned on his heel and walked back to his
work.

Jason was hungry, and Nora offered to cook something for everyone. Sierra agreed, saying that she had barely eaten the past two days. She sat at the kitchen table while Nora brought out eggs and cracked them into a pan. Jason made coffee and toast and laid out dishes and silverware until the food was ready.

Sierra ate quickly, greedily. Jason expected her to pick, as he and Nora were, but Sierra dug in. In the streaming daylight of the kitchen, she looked unwashed, her hair greasy and matted. Had she been sleeping in the car rather than stopping in a hotel? She had the money Hayden had given her. Then he realized the fallacy of what he was thinking. Sierra wasn’t old enough to rent a hotel room, at least not the kind of hotel room he would want his niece to be staying in. Maybe she was better off sleeping in the car, if that was what she did.

Sierra neared the end of her plate of food. Nora offered to make more, but Sierra shook her head. “No, thanks,” she said. “This is good.”

“You probably want a shower and nap,” Nora said.

“I do.” She took a bite of her second piece of toast. “And don’t worry. I’m not going to run off again. I did that once. I know I
fucked up—or messed up. Okay? I mean, I know I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jason and Nora said at the same time.

“I guess Mom and I have worn out our car privileges with you guys.”

Jason couldn’t help himself. He laughed at Sierra’s comment. When he started laughing, Nora did as well. They all did. It felt good to have that release for a change.

“Remember, it’s just a car,” Jason said.

Sierra looked at him, smiling a little. “Thanks, Uncle Jason.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You know,” Sierra said, “I didn’t find anything out there. Nothing except the car. I don’t know what I thought I would discover. I thought it would be easy, looking for her. She’s my mom after all. I guess I just didn’t think she would be so far away I couldn’t find her. Even when she was bad off, I knew how to reach her. I talked to her sometimes on the phone, if I was with Dad or Grandma. But now . . .”

Nora reached out and squeezed Sierra’s hand. “We’ll let the police do their work,” she said. “That’s about all we can do, honey.”

Jason knew Nora was right. He didn’t like it, but she was right. The three of them were completely powerless.

*   *   *

The house grew quiet after an hour or so. Nora and Sierra went upstairs to sleep, with Sierra once again promising that she wasn’t going to “fly the coop.” Jason promised himself he would stay vigilant. He listened for opening doors or windows, the sound of scurrying feet on the steps or the roof. He sat downstairs in the kitchen with his laptop, trying to catch up on work e-mails
that had come through during the week, but he found his eyelids growing heavy, his chin dropping toward his chest. His phone jerked him awake, and he grabbed for it, expecting to be hearing from the police.

“Hey.”

“Regan?”

“Did I wake you?” she asked.

“No. Kind of. It’s been a long day already.”

“Are you in the middle of something?”

“No,” he said. “I can talk a little.”

“I saw something on the news . . . and I was wondering if it was about Hayden.”

“It’s on the news? Already?”

“It’s on a reporter’s Twitter feed. They said there’s some kind of search going on at the Bluff, but they didn’t mention Hayden’s name. I put two and two together. They found her car there?”

Jason rubbed at his weary eyes. He told Regan what happened—Sierra finding Hayden’s car, the bloodstain, the opening of the trunk, and the items left behind. Regan didn’t say anything while he related the tale, but she did gasp a little when he mentioned the blood.

“I’m sorry, Jason,” she said. “Are you doing okay?”

“It’s fine. I’m worried about Sierra more than anyone else. This is her mother we’re talking about. Hayden wasn’t perfect by any means, but she and Sierra mean a lot to each other. I worry about what might happen to her if . . . I shouldn’t be thinking about that now. We don’t know anything yet.”

“Right,” Regan said. “But I’m sorry. Really.”

“Thanks.”

There was a short pause. Jason wished there were something mundane to discuss—the weather, sports, local politics. But
nothing came to his mind. All he saw, all he thought about, was Hayden and Sierra.

“I heard from Colton Rivers today,” Regan said.

“Really?”

“He came by my house this morning and asked me about Logan.”

“Your house? Are you working from home today?”

“It’s Saturday, Jason.”

Jason paused. “It is Saturday, isn’t it? Jesus. I forgot.”

Regan said, “Your friend Colton asked me if I’d heard from Logan at all over the years, or if I knew his whereabouts.”

“He’s relentless,” Jason said.

“He seems that way. I told him I hadn’t heard anything either. He said they’re going to hire an investigator to take a real look into finding him. Did you know they’ve tried that a couple of times before?”

“Colton told me.”

“It sounds like they’re getting serious now,” Regan said.

“What do you remember about Logan and Hayden? Do you remember anything about them spending time together?”

“Not really. I know if we were all at your house, Hayden would act flirtatious with Logan. They acted that way with each other.” Regan couldn’t hide the disapproval or jealousy in her voice. “Every word they said to each other back then was laced with innuendo, but I never took it seriously. Did you? I thought it was just a game they were playing. It was a game Hayden played with everybody.”

“You’re right about that,” Jason said.

“But she was dating Derrick back then, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she almost always dating Derrick, even when she was flirting with other guys?”

“Yes,” Jason said. “I’m grasping, I guess. It’s just that Colton saw her a couple of nights ago with Jesse Dean. And Jesse Dean and Derrick were friends. I know Hayden was here to try to make amends for something from the past. I don’t know. . . . Could whatever Hayden was here for have to do with Logan?”

“How could that be?” Regan asked.

“What if Hayden and Logan weren’t just friends?” Jason asked. “What if it went beyond a flirtation at some point?”

“We would have known,” Regan said. “We were all so close back then. We knew almost everything about each other’s lives. Could Logan have been mixed up with your sister and you not know about it?”

“I wonder how much I know about anybody. It’s all strange.”

“What is?”

“Her car was found up on the Bluff,” Jason said. “What was she doing?”

“What if she isn’t the one who put it up
there?”