The Forgotten Girl (17 page)

“What does that mean?”

He started tracing on the window again. “It means you need to stay out of it. Just back away and remove yourself. None of this is a thing for you to be involved in.”

“What do you mean by ‘this’? Do you know where Hayden is?”

“Whatever Hayden is here for. Just . . . stay the fuck out of it.” He spoke with more authority and emphasis than he had at any time since he’d climbed into the car. He punctuated his words with short karate-chop-type gestures. “Some things are beyond you, you know? Your sister travels in a different world from you. Working in a dentist office doesn’t change that. Okay?”

“If she’s in trouble, maybe I can help her. That’s what I’m trying to say. How do I know she doesn’t need something from me, and I don’t even know where she is?”

“Just stay out of it, Professor. Swim in the shallow end of the pool, okay? And if the police come to my house again because they say you told them something about me . . . I’m giving you a freebie here because I don’t think you know what you’re doing. And because I’m friends with Hayden. But if there’s another knock on my door like that, whether I’m home or not . . . I just can’t let that stand.”

Jesse Dean looked like a man struggling. His words as well as the look on his face told Jason he was trying to suppress some deeper impulse, one that would have likely resulted in the infliction of pain upon Jason. Jason felt sweat forming near his hairline. He was hot. He wanted to start the car, to at least get air circulating somehow. He felt like he was in a cage with Jesse Dean, but he didn’t want the man to get out. When Jesse Dean grabbed the door handle and pulled, Jason reached over and placed his hand
on Jesse Dean’s left arm, an instinctual grab. He didn’t want to hold on to the
man
. He wanted to hold on to the surest bet he had for finding Hayden.

Jesse Dean whipped around. He brought his right hand up and pressed its palm against Jason’s throat, driving Jason’s head back against the seat. Jesse Dean applied steady pressure. Jason felt his airway tightening, but he couldn’t turn his head or slip free. Just as Jason felt the air completely shut off, Jesse Dean let go. He lowered his hand and pulled back. Jason’s head slumped forward. He raised his own hand to his throat and placed it there, massaging the skin while the air came back with coughs and gasps.

“Don’t do that,” Jesse Dean said. “I told you. You’re in over your head here. You’re going to get fucked.”

Jason’s air came back. He cleared his throat several times.

“You’re okay,” Jesse Dean said, his voice still calm. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“That’s reassuring,” Jason said.

“I’m going now,” Jesse Dean said. “Pretend you didn’t see me if the police ask. I’m leaving Ednaville anyway.” He reached for the door again but didn’t push it open. “If Hayden doesn’t come back . . . well, just remember that everyone makes their own choices in this life. Okay?”

When Jason spoke, his throat felt scratchy and raw. He believed he could feel the bruises forming. “Hayden’s car? The Bluff? Do you know anything about that? They found a body up there, but it’s not hers. It’s a skeleton. They’re going to stop looking for Hayden. Should they keep looking up there? Do you at least know that?”

“A skeleton?” Jesse Dean said. “I saw that on the news.”

Jason waited for him to say more, but he pushed the door open and left, slamming it closed behind him. Jason looked up.
He saw someone in the cab of the truck next to Jesse Dean. The face looked over at Jason, laughing. It was Rose. Rose Holland. Before Jason could do or say anything else, Jesse Dean was in the pickup and driving away, the broken taillight looking back at Jason like a jagged smile.

When Jason arrived at home, he found Nora and Sierra watching a movie in the darkened living room, a bowl of popcorn and several empty Coke cans on the coffee table before them. They were sitting close to each other on the couch, their bodies supported by pillows brought down from the bedrooms. Jason didn’t recognize the movie they were watching. On the screen, a man sat in a bar discussing his girlfriend with his best friend.

“You’re trapped, man,” the friend said. “You can’t live with her, and you can’t live without her.”

Nora looked up without pausing the movie.

“We decided we needed a break,” she said. “Something to take our mind off of everything.”

“I don’t want to interrupt.”

“We’ve both seen this one before,” Sierra said. “We’re just getting to the good part.” She didn’t look back at the screen. She kept her eyes on Jason.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. She tried to put on a brave face, but Jason still saw the burden of Hayden’s disappearance in her eyes. “Aunt Nora is a good playmate.”

“Good.” He didn’t know what else he could say. “I’m heading upstairs to change.”

“Hey,” Nora said. “I wanted to show you some mail that came today.”

“Do you want me to pause it?” Sierra asked.

“No. Not unless he gets to the train station. I want to see that part.”

Nora followed Jason up the stairs. He started to undress, taking off his shirt and slipping out of his pants. Nora came into the room and closed the door behind her.

“What gives?” he asked. “You don’t even look at the mail.”

“What happened to your neck?” Nora asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing? Jesus.” She stepped forward. “I didn’t see this in the dark downstairs. It looks like someone tried to choke you.”

“They did.” He told her about Jesse Dean climbing into the car and his warning to back off. While he told the story, he found his hand reaching up and gently touching the irritated skin around his neck. He suspected it would hurt worse in the morning. “I think he knows something. First he denied that he knew where Hayden was, but then he started saying things that made me believe that wasn’t true. I don’t know. That’s the sense I got from him.”

“Are you going to tell Olsen?” Nora asked.

“Tell him what? They already know about Jesse Dean.”

“He assaulted you.”

“Sure. He also made it very clear to me that he knows where I live. And that he knows Sierra is staying here. He didn’t phrase it as a threat, but it sure sounded like one.”

“All the more reason to call the police.”

“We’ll see. The guy’s always been a maniac.”

“Sounds like it.”

Jason looked at his throat in the mirror. He saw the angry red mark on his skin. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever talked to Jesse Dean. Maybe I said hi to him or something in school. He was always this mythological figure to me, larger than life. He seemed smarter than I expected.”

“Most sociopaths are smart.”

Jason turned away from the mirror. Nora was sitting on the bed wearing shorts and a Mets T-shirt and had her hair pulled back with a headband. She sat far enough back on the bed that her feet didn’t reach the floor, and she swung them around in circles while they talked.

“You might be right,” Jason said. “But there was something about him. It was as though he was telling me that I shouldn’t assume things about him, that I shouldn’t look for easy answers when it came to him. Or Hayden.”

“And then he choked you?”

“I didn’t say he was all soft diplomacy. Why are you up here anyway? Did something happen?”

Nora reached into her shorts pocket and brought out a slip of paper. She held it between her thumb and forefinger. “We got a call today.”

“The police?”

“Derrick.”

“Derrick? What did he want?”

“He wants to talk to you about Sierra. Apparently, I’m not good enough to hear whatever he has to say. He didn’t say what exactly was on his mind. He was kind of evasive to be honest.”

“What did he say to Sierra?” Jason asked.

“He said he didn’t want to talk to her yet. I was relieved about that. We’d just come back from the video store, and she
was making the popcorn when the call came. I took it in the other room. He did ask how she was doing, and I said she was hanging in there as best she could.”

“Did he ask about Hayden?”

“Not really. He asked if there was any news, and I said there wasn’t.”

Jason came over and took the paper from her hand. He unfolded it and saw a phone number with an Indianapolis area code. “Did he sound . . . I don’t know . . . unusual in any way?”

“He seemed pretty calm,” Nora said. “Not that he and I have ever had much to say to each other.”

“And you didn’t tell Sierra he called?”

“No,” she said. “I felt like a shit keeping a secret from her, but I figured it was best until we knew what he wanted. Why disrupt her mind even more? Do you think that was the right thing to do?”

“Yes, it was. I’ll call him.”

Through the closed bedroom door, they heard Sierra call for Nora. She stood up and opened the door. “Is it the train?”

“Yes.”

“Be right there.” Nora turned back to Jason and spoke in a low voice. “Find out what he wants. But don’t take any shit from him, Jason. Don’t let him convince you of anything.”

“What would he convince me of?”

Nora pressed her lips together like she was holding something back. “I’m terrified he’s going to say he wants to come and take Sierra away from here.”

“I know,” Jason said. “But if he wants to do that—”

“Talk him out of it. That’s what you need to do. Talk him out of it. Man to man and all that shit. Just turn him in another direction.”

“We don’t even know what he wants, okay?”

Nora still looked upset. She pressed her lips together again and looked away from Jason.

“I hear what you’re saying,” he said. “I do. I’ll do whatever I can. I will. I’m going to see what’s on his mind.”

“Fine,” Nora said. “I just . . . This is important to me.”

“I know.” They stood awkwardly before each other. “Hey,” Jason said. “At least I can’t get choked through the
phone.”

Jason closed the door behind Nora. He placed the paper with the phone number on the nightstand. He tried to remember the last time he had spoken to Derrick. If he hadn’t seen or spoken to Hayden in five years, it had to be longer than that for Derrick. Six? Seven? He and Derrick had always carried on a cautiously respectful relationship. Without saying it out loud, both men seemed to accept that they were vastly different from the other, and so they confined their talk and interactions to the most superficial topics. Sports. Weather. Jason realized something was about to change with his former brother-in-law. They were going to have to have a
real
conversation, either about Hayden or Sierra or both.

Derrick’s voice had always sounded thin, like something in his lungs wasn’t providing enough air to create full volume. And the voice fit the makeup of Derrick’s body. He was a tall, reedy guy, and looking at Sierra, it was easy to see where she got her length and height.

“Derrick? It’s Jason.”

Jason didn’t know how much time—if any—the two of them should spend on pleasant formalities. Should he be asking what Derrick was doing with his life? Did any of that matter in the midst of a crisis?

Derrick made the decision for them. He didn’t waste any time in getting to the business at hand.

“Thanks for calling back,” Derrick said. “I was hoping we could talk about Sierra.”

“She’s doing just fine, if you’re calling to ask how she is.”

“I talked to Nora about that already,” Derrick said. “I know you two would take good care of her, but we have to make some decisions about her. About where she’s going.”

Derrick possessed a coldness. That was the only way Jason could think of it.
Coldness.
He always seemed to be holding something back and maintaining a distance from the people he interacted with. In that sense, he seemed like a good complement to Hayden, who laid everything bare for the world to see. But his manner made Jason uneasy as they talked about Sierra. Jason didn’t want his niece’s future to seem like a business transaction, something handled based on practicality and good sense.

“We don’t mind having her here,” Jason said. “She has schoolwork to do, and she’s been trying to do some of that. We have an extra room for her.”

“I know that. And I appreciate it. But it seems like maybe she should be with her father at a time like this. There’s so much uncertainty about Hayden. There always has been, I guess, but now . . . Well, the police called and filled me in. They told me about the car. And the blood. I even had to prove my whereabouts to them. I guess if something happens to a wife, even an ex-wife, they look at the husband. I think they’re backing off of me, at least for now.”

“You know Hayden’s all cleaned up,” Jason said. “At least she was when she came to our house the other night. It seemed real, Derrick. But then—”

“Someone saw her with Jesse Dean.”

“Yes. Are you in touch with him at all?”

“Jesse Dean and I aren’t friends anymore. He’s . . . he’s always been a little too wild for me.”

“Do you know why Hayden would be with him? She came here saying that she needed to make amends for something as part of her twelve-step program. Is there something that has to do with Jesse Dean that she would need to make amends for? Sierra says her mom was talking to Jesse Dean on the phone before she came here.”

“Well, you know Hayden. If there’s something bothering her, she’s not just going to let it go. She’s going to keep gnawing at it until
everybody
has to deal with it. She and Jesse Dean were friends of course. Sometimes they even spent time together without me. When I was at work and things like that, they’d hang out. I don’t even want to think of what could have happened between the two of them.”

“Are you saying there might have been something between them? Something sexual?”

“I’m not going to sit here and act like I don’t know who Hayden was back then. So there’s nothing she could do that would surprise me.”

“Since you brought that up . . . do you know if there was ever anything between Hayden and Logan Shaw?”

There was a long pause. Jason feared he may have offended Derrick by bringing up something potentially unpleasant from the past. Maybe he was okay with speculating about Hayden and his good friend Jesse Dean. But Hayden and a guy like Logan? A rich guy? Was that too much?

“Derrick?” Jason thought he heard voices in the background, someone talking on Derrick’s end of the phone. “Hello?”

“That’s your friend, right?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. I never knew everything she did. I don’t know anything now.”

“You don’t sound too worried about Hayden’s safety. Are you? I mean, the blood in the trunk and the car just sitting up there on the Bluff with the keys in it. All of that.”

Derrick sighed. “Let me tell you something you probably don’t know. In fact, I’m sure you don’t know about it, because I never told you, and I’m sure Hayden didn’t either. She liked to act like she told everybody everything, but there were some things she wouldn’t spill. And there were things she wouldn’t tell
you
because she valued your opinion of her too much. She looked up to you. She always did.”

“I know.”

“One night when Sierra was about a year old. Maybe a little more. She was able to crawl by then and was even pulling herself up by the furniture and then falling down again. I came home from work. Do you know what Hayden was doing?”

“I don’t know. Drinking, I guess.”

“She was drinking all right. But she wasn’t doing it in the house. She was gone. She went out drinking and left Sierra home alone. A one-year-old.”

Jason felt heartsick hearing the story. He felt like someone had thumped him in the center of his chest. If Sierra seemed vulnerable as a teenager, then he couldn’t bear to imagine her as a neglected child. . . .

“Did she come right back?” Jason asked.

“Two days,” Derrick said. “Two days of partying. She told me she made sure she left close to the time I was getting home so the baby wouldn’t be alone for very long. Can you believe that?”

Jason didn’t try to answer right away, but he felt compelled to mount some defense of his sister, who had so frequently been
indefensible. “She’s changed, Derrick,” he said. “I’d like to believe that.”

He
wanted
to believe it. But he wasn’t sure he could. How did he know that Hayden was a different person after all the broken promises? What made him think she meant it this time?

“I’m telling you this story not because I want to trash Hayden to her brother. I wouldn’t do that. And I wouldn’t trash her to Sierra either. She and I don’t play those games.”

“Then why are you telling me this?” Jason asked, although he could have guessed at the answer that came.

“She’s left her child behind before,” he said. “More than once.”

“And you think this is just another one of those broken promises?”

“I haven’t been the best father either. I know I haven’t seen the girl in a while. You see, I want to come there and be with her and take her in. I want to play a more active role in things, the way a father should.”

“Sure,” Jason said.

“You don’t sound like you believe me. You’re probably lumping me in with Hayden, and that’s okay.”

“Derrick—”

“But I’m trying to get some things resolved in my life. Things have to be set up a little better. I’m starting a new job. I’m moving into a new place. It’s tough starting over at our age, you know?”

“I know.”

“Right. You’ve been laid off and had to move out of New York. You get it. Look, I’m hoping I’ll have some things taken care of soon, and then . . . then things will just make more sense. I’m hoping Hayden does come back. I hope she sees her way through and puts Sierra first again.”

“Are you supporting Sierra?” Jason asked.

“I am. Lately. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“What if Hayden doesn’t come back?” Jason asked. “What if . . . You know awful things happen to people, especially up on that bluff. I’m sure you know they found a body up there when they were looking for Hayden. A skeleton. What if something similar happened to Hayden? What if her body is somewhere?”

Again, Derrick’s end of the conversation seemed to have stopped. Jason listened for a moment and heard the sound of laughing, faint and distant, from downstairs. Sierra and Nora and their silly movie. He looked at the phone and saw the call was still active.

“I need to know . . . has Sierra said anything else about Hayden?” Derrick asked. “Anything besides hearing her talk to Jesse Dean?”

“I think she’s as in the dark as we all are,” Jason said.

“Good,” Derrick said. “That’s good. She doesn’t need to be mixed up in this stuff.”

“She’s not.”

“And you’re really sure that’s all she said?” Derrick asked.

“Yes. I’m sure. Are you sure? What exactly are we talking about here, Derrick?” Jason asked.

“Let’s just keep her out of it, okay? We can all agree on that.”

“Of course,” Jason said, but Derrick had already hung up.

He went downstairs where Nora and Sierra were watching the end of their movie. When he came into the room and stood next to the couch, Nora looked up at him.

“So, how’s it going?” she asked.

He knew that she wanted to know if Derrick was coming to get Sierra.

“I think everything seems fine,” he said. “Just fine.”

“Good,” Nora said. She turned her attention back to the movie.