by David Bell
On graduation night, Logan interrupted all their forward momentum. A group of kids from their class, maybe thirty or forty, had gone up to the Bluff to drink and party. Jason couldn’t say how he knew, but he knew it would be the night for him and Regan to finally get together, to finally act. He sought Regan out, making sure to find her in the crowd of drinking high school graduates as soon as he arrived, and the two of them walked off alone to talk. Almost right away, Regan told Jason that she had spoken to Logan earlier that evening, right after the ceremony at the high school.
“Logan says he wants to be with me,” Regan said. They sat together, their bodies close. In the distance they heard the shouts and cries of their friends. “He says he and I should be together, that we should run off together.”
“Is he drunk?” Jason asked.
“Probably.” Regan paused. And then she said, “When I told him that you and I might . . . we might be about to get together, he got really pissed. He said he wants to talk to you. He needs to talk to you.” She paused again. “I think you should go find him. He’s here, somewhere. Probably with the other kids, drinking more. The two of you are such good friends. I’d hate to think I caused something.”
“You didn’t cause anything,” Jason said. “He caused it.”
“Jason,” Regan said. “Just . . .”
“Just what?”
“Just remember the two of you are friends.”
“I’m not the one who has trouble remembering that.”
Jason didn’t say more, but he knew exactly why Logan was doing what he was doing. As Jason went in search of his friend—his best friend—the anger in his chest grew, a slow-spreading stain on the inside of his skin. Logan took—and possessed—the best of everything. Clothes, cars, toys, girls. And Jason deferred and deferred and deferred. The two of them settled into natural roles over the years. Logan the brash one, Jason the quiet one. Logan the jokester, Jason the audience. Even when the jokes were directed at him, when Logan’s little comments and digs turned away from other people and toward him, Jason laughed.
He stood up to Logan on a few occasions. When Jason did push back against his best friend, he saw another side of Logan, one that mostly remained hidden. That was the angry Logan, the one whose comments grew more biting and personal. In those moments, Logan took digs at Jason’s family, at their small house, their rusting car. When Logan said those things, his eyes glazed a little and some of the light disappeared from them like the sun dipping quickly behind a cloud. And Jason always bent. He backed away and let Logan win.
That night, he was tired of it.
The fight, like most fights not in movies or on TV shows, didn’t last long. It wasn’t graceful or choreographed. The red tint in Logan’s eyes told Jason that his friend had been drinking. A lot. But Logan struck with words first rather than fists. He told Jason that he could give Regan a better life because he had more money, and that Jason was doomed to a life of struggle because of his desire to major in art at college. Jason threw the first punch at that point. Jason had never been in a fight, not with Logan and not with anyone else. He’d never hit anyone. He swung wildly, adrenaline and emotion fueling his efforts. Logan swung back, screaming with every punch. Most missed their target, and the few that landed did little damage.
Until the last one Jason threw. His fist connected with the side of Logan’s head, just above his left ear. Logan crumpled to the ground. He lifted his hands to his head, both protecting himself from further blows and trying to bring relief to the injury he had suffered. Jason saw that Logan was crying. It took a moment, and then Jason realized he was crying as well. The thought popped into his head as he stood there in the woods: When was the last time you cried like this?
He bent down to help Logan. But his friend sprang to his feet. “Don’t touch me,” he said.
“Logan.”
“I’m gone,” he said. “I’m done. I’m done with you. I’m done with all of it.”
Jason never saw him again.
But Logan saw Regan after he left Jason. Logan found her among the partyers and repeated his request—demand?—that she run off with him. He said he was leaving Ednaville and Ohio and everything he knew behind. Regan told Jason about this the next day, after people started to realize Logan was gone—and before the police came and started speaking with Jason about the events of that night.
The chime of his cell phone broke his reverie. It was Nora.
“Hey.”
“Jason, the police are here at the house.” She sounded breathless, frantic.
“Did they find them?”
“I think you need to get back here. Where are you?”
“I’m on my way.”
He took one more quick look at the scenery before starting the car.
Chapter Sixteen
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 bl
oodstains 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.”
Chapter Seventeen
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 obstinat
e 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.”
