The Forgotten Girl (15 page)

The three of them spent a long time crying. They sat huddled together on the floor of the foyer. Nora wrapped her arms around Sierra, and Jason held them both. They didn’t move. Jason didn’t try to stand up when his back started to hurt and his leg fell asleep. It felt good to be with them. Despite everything, it felt right to share his grief with these two people. If Hayden had died far away, if he hadn’t seen her or Sierra again . . . would he have felt it as much? The fact that his sister and his niece had come back into his life, even for a handful of days, made the loss more profound. But it also allowed him to share the experience with Sierra. She wouldn’t be sitting in some little house in Redman County, receiving the news alone.

Eventually they all got up and moved to seats in the living room. Nora grabbed tissues, and Jason brought the bottle of bourbon and three shot glasses from the kitchen. He poured them each a shot, even Sierra.

Nora objected, but Sierra said, “No, it’s okay.” She looked at both of them. “I hardly ever drink, even with my friends. But this seems appropriate somehow. Mom would think it’s funny.”

Jason took out his phone. “I’m going to call Detective Olsen,” he said. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”

He dialed and the call went to voice mail. He tried two more times with the same result, so he texted. It took a few minutes, but a text came back.
On my way to your house.

“He’s coming over,” Jason said. “Olsen.” He looked at Sierra. “You don’t have to listen to this if you don’t want. You can . . .”

“We can go somewhere, if you want to be away,” Nora said. “Or you can be by yourself.”

“No,” Sierra said, sniffling. “I’m staying. I want to know everything I can know.”

“There may not be much to say right now,” Jason said. “They’re at the very beginning of figuring this all out.”

“I know,” she said. “And I want to say something else, and you guys can think I’m crazy if you want. But if someone needs to go down to the police station or the morgue or whatever and identify her, I want to be the one to do it.”

“No,” Jason said. “I can.”

“But I want to,” Sierra said. “I don’t want Mom to be . . . alone, I guess. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. Dying seems so lonely, and I don’t want Mom to be like that. If someone is going to look at her and say, ‘Yes, that’s her,’ then I want it to be me.”

Jason started to object again, but Nora said, “That makes perfect sense. It may help you.”

“And I know you might just be saying that now, Aunt Nora, you may just be placating me. But I mean it. I’m going to do it.”

Jason tried not to let his imagination run wild and become consumed with speculation about what had happened to Hayden. There was the blood in the car, the shoes and keys left behind. He closed his eyes. He hoped she hadn’t suffered, that whatever happened to her was fast and painless.

“Someone has to tell Dad,” Sierra said. “Maybe I should call him.”

“Do you have his number?” Jason asked.

“I have an old one. I don’t know if it works. I’ve texted him there, and he doesn’t write back.”

“Maybe we should just talk to the police first,” Nora said. “They’ll know what to do about that stuff.”

Sierra nodded. She was sitting back on the sofa, her feet tucked beneath her. She looked lost in thought. Composed but distant. She said, “Mom wanted to see my graduation from high school next year. That’s all she talked about.”

Jason knew what he was supposed to say to Sierra. He was supposed to reassure her, to tell her that Hayden would be able to see her daughter walk across the stage in a high school gymnasium and receive her diploma, that wherever Sierra went or whatever she did for the rest of her life, her mother would know and see. But Jason wasn’t the kind of person who could say something like that, even when he needed to. And he wasn’t even sure Sierra was the kind of kid who wanted to hear it.

So he kept his mouth shut as the moment passed.

*   *   *

When Sierra went upstairs to use the bathroom, Nora came over to Jason and sat next to him on the couch.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m all right.”

“Can I do anything for you? Do you want to talk about this?”

“Not now. I feel like we have to make Sierra our focus. Don’t we? I may have lost my sister, but she’s lost her mother. Her only decent parent.” Jason almost laughed. “Jesus. I almost said her only reliable parent. That’s not exactly true. But I know Hayden always loved her. Sierra never had to doubt that.”

“You’re right,” Nora said. “I wanted to talk to you about that too.”

“About Hayden?”

“About Sierra. I want you to do something when that detective comes over.”

“What?”

“You need to make it clear to him, in no uncertain terms, that Sierra is staying with us right now. She’s welcome here.”

“Of course. Why are you worried about this now?”

“I just don’t want the police to think they have to . . . I don’t know . . . take her off our hands. Like you said yesterday, she could end up in foster care. And we don’t want that. We’re family. She can stay with us as long as she wants.”

“Of course,” Jason said. “I’m with you on this.”

“We have to steer her away from calling her dad. She’s safest here.”

Sierra came down the stairs. “What are you all talking about?” she asked as she entered the room.

“I was just checking on Uncle Jason,” Nora said. “You’ve both had a shock.”

Sierra slumped down on the couch. She let out a long breath. “What do people do in situations like this?” she asked. “Do they just sit around? Do we talk? Or eat?”

“Mostly you just wait,” Jason said. “And time passes slowly.”

When Olsen showed up thirty minutes later, Jason was almost glad to see him. Even though Jason dreaded hearing the substance of what the detective was coming to say, he welcomed the chance to know something. Anything. He and Nora and Sierra had fallen into a glum silence, their conversation consisting mostly of small talk and mundane observations. It felt as though none of them dared bring up anything real—a memory, a theory about the crime—for fear of the flood of emotion it might unleash. They talked about anything but Hayden.

Olsen stepped into the living room, his face somber. He looked tired as well, and he hadn’t shaved. He wore khaki pants and work boots, the better to trudge around in the woods and the dirt.

“I’m sorry it took me longer to get here than I said it would,” he said.

“That’s okay,” Jason said.

“I just wanted to give you an update on where we stand in regards to the search for Hayden. Right now, we’re suspending the search. Things haven’t really changed as they relate to Hayden since last night, and—”

“What do you mean they haven’t changed?” Nora asked.

Olsen looked momentarily confused. “Like I said last night, absent any clear evidence of a crime, or any witnesses who can report a crime, all we really have to go on is the blood in the car. We did get results from our test. It is Hayden’s type. A positive. It’s a very common blood type.” His voice trailed off. He looked at the three faces arrayed around him. Jason couldn’t tell if he understood what they were all thinking or not. “Of course that doesn’t prove the blood is
hers
. Just that it’s her type. It will take more time—”

“You found a body up there,” Jason said, giving voice to their concerns. “We heard about that. You found a body this morning.”

“Who told you that?” Olsen asked. “Is it on the news already?”

“Who cares?” Nora said. “You found a body, right? Hayden’s?”

“We did find a body this morning on the Bluff. That’s part of the reason we’re suspending the search for Hayden. We have to process the area as a crime scene. And that’s a big job with it being out in the woods and so much area to cover. But the body we found isn’t Hayden’s. I can assure you of that.”

“How do you know?” Sierra asked.

Olsen paused, his lips pressed together. “We found a skeleton up on the Bluff,” he said. “Scattered bones. From the looks of things, we’d say they’ve been there at least five years. Maybe a decade or more. Did someone tell you it was Hayden? If they did, I’m terribly sorry. We never thought that at all.”

Jason felt lighter for a moment. Relief passed through him in a wave. He took a step back from Detective Olsen and sat in a chair, just as he did a few hours earlier when Colton arrived with his news. The problem hadn’t been entirely solved. They still didn’t know where Hayden was or what she was doing. But they knew one thing—the police hadn’t found her body up on the Bluff.

“She’s alive?” Sierra said. “Mom’s alive?”

Olsen raised a cautionary finger. “I can’t vouch for that. All I can tell you is that we haven’t found anything in that park to tell us she isn’t. We also haven’t found anything to tell us she is. As far as any investigation into her whereabouts goes, there’s nothing new to report. It’s been long enough now that you could report her as a missing person, and if you’d like to do that, we can.”

Jason looked over at Sierra. She leaned forward and placed her head between her legs, the same position someone adopts when an airplane is about to crash. She wasn’t making any sound, but Jason saw her shoulders shaking as if she was crying. Nora went over and placed a hand on the girl’s back.

“It’s okay,” she said simply. “It’s good news.”

Sierra nodded, indicating that she heard what Nora said. But she didn’t raise her head or say anything.

Olsen turned to Jason and said, “Maybe I should let you all get your bearings again. I have some things to get back to up on the Bluff.”

Relief didn’t seem like the right emotion. Someone was dead. A body had been found. And Hayden was nowhere in sight. The last he knew, she was with Jesse Dean. And her car had been abandoned with the keys and her shoes and a couple of bloodstains inside. So, no, he didn’t feel relief for very long. He felt what he frequently felt for Hayden—fear. Confusion. Anxiety.

“Do you mind walking to the door with me, Mr. Danvers?” Olsen asked.

Jason looked up at him. He nodded his head, then exerted what felt like a great deal of energy pushing himself out of the chair and up. He looked over at Sierra and Nora. Sierra hadn’t moved. She still sat with her head between her legs. Her shoulders had stopped heaving, at least, but she didn’t appear to be
making any progress toward sitting up or changing her position. Jason walked over and placed his hand on her shoulder.

He started to say, “It’s okay,” but then thought better of it. It wasn’t okay, not as far as he or anyone else knew. It was better than it had been. Maybe. But it wasn’t okay. Nothing was.

Sierra still didn’t move. She didn’t acknowledge his touch in any way.

Jason lifted his hand and followed Olsen out to the front door. The two men stepped onto the porch together. The sun had moved high overhead and was bright, causing Jason to squint. Olsen reached into his shirt pocket and exchanged his regular glasses for a pair of sunglasses. Jason only saw his own image reflected back at him.

“I just want to say again how sorry I am about the mix-up.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do you mind telling me how you found out that remains had been discovered up there at the Bluff?” Olsen asked.

Jason didn’t want to get Colton in trouble. But Colton was a big boy—and why exactly had he come over and given Jason half-baked information?

“Colton Rivers,” Jason said.

Olsen nodded as though he had suspected that very thing all along. “Are you friends with him?” he asked.

“We went to high school together,” Jason said. “He and I were supposed to be doing a project together. I was going to design the poster for the summer festival. Hell, I haven’t thought about work much lately. I’ve missed some time.”

“I’m sure he meant well,” Olsen said. “Do you want to file that missing persons report?”

“Does it matter?” Jason asked.

“If you file the report, she goes into the national database. It
means law enforcement all over the country will have access to information about her. If she turns up in Little Rock, Arkansas, or Boise, Idaho, the police there will notify us. It’s not a bad idea.”

“I keep trying to convince myself she’s in danger,” Jason said. “The blood in the car and all that. But she’s run off before. Disappeared for days or weeks at a time. I used to think she was like a cat. You know, you let the cat out of the house, and maybe it comes back at night and maybe it doesn’t. Sometimes it comes back all scraped up like it’s been in a fight. Or maybe it just doesn’t come back at all. And no one ever knows why.”

“Maybe that’s an indelicate metaphor,” Olsen said.

“Maybe.”

“Well, if you want to file that report later today, let me know. We have officers in Indiana making contact with Hayden’s ex-husband. I’m going to be occupied up on the Bluff for most of the day. We have to sort out that mess. A new mess.”

“Thanks for coming by.”

“Say,” Olsen said, “when Colton was up there and we were securing the crime scene, he told one of the officers about someone he went to school with disappearing from the Bluff on the night of graduation. Do you remember anything about that?”

To that moment, Jason hadn’t made any connection between the news of a body found on the Bluff and Logan. Why would he? But once the idea was raised, it started the wheels turning in Jason’s head.

“Logan Shaw,” Jason said. “He went to school with Colton and me.”

“A friend of yours?” Olsen asked.

“Yes. A good friend. But Logan left town. He didn’t disappear. Colton is involved with the family’s estate planning. That’s why he’s bringing it up. He was talking to me about it the other day.”

“So this guy, this Shaw, left town of his own accord?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re still in touch with him?”

“No. No one is.”

“I see,” Olsen said. “Thanks.”

“You know . . .” Jason’s words broke off. He wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“What is it?” Olsen asked.

“I’m trying to figure out if this is relevant or not.”

“You can tell me. I’ll decide how relevant it is.”

“You mentioned my friend Logan who left town way back when. As it turns out, Sierra told me that Hayden had mentioned Logan once many years ago. When Sierra asked about Logan again, maybe six months ago or so, Hayden acted angry that it had come up. It’s not really like Hayden to be that short with people. She was—
is
—an open book.”

“And that was all that was said about it?”

“Yeah. I’m just thinking about her car being found up there where Logan spent his last night. I don’t know.”

“You think your sister had something to do with this Logan disappearing?” Olsen asked.

Jason shook his head. “No. I guess I’m just speculating.”

“I spend a lot of my time doing that.” Olsen smiled. “Is there anything else?”

“The phone call.”

“What?”

“Someone called here earlier. On the landline. They didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t tell if the person was laughing or crying or what. It sounded like a woman. Maybe it was a kid. I don’t know.”

“And you think this was your sister?”

“I thought it might be. But then why didn’t she say anything?”

“Could have been a wrong number,” Olsen said.

“Yeah.”

“We can get into the phone records,” Olsen said. “See if we can determine the source of the call.”

“Sure.” None of it made sense to Jason. He couldn’t decide what was a rational concern and what was an irrational one. “Detective? Who do you think this is? The body you found in the woods?”

Olsen said, “That’s what I’m going to try to find out. But a lot of things have been happening up there over the last ten or fifteen years. Drug deals. Robberies. Vagrants. It’s pretty wide open right now.”

“If this body has been there so long, how did you just stumble across it today?” Jason asked.

“Cadaver dog,” Olsen said, smiling a little. He seemed pleased to brag about the police department’s work. “We brought one in to look for Hayden. If you’re looking for some good news, the dog didn’t pick up the scent of decomposition in the trunk of your sister’s car. It’s not conclusive of course. There are a lot of factors. Time elapsed and things like that.”

“But it’s something,” Jason said.

“If you’re looking for the building block for hope, you could do a lot
worse.”