The Forgotten Girl

by David Bell

  “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.”
<
br />   “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.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Jason returned to work the next day. Nora took one more day off, agreeing to stay home with Sierra, to keep a close eye on her and try to distract her from thinking about Hayden. Jason felt conflicted. On the one hand, he worried that he should be staying home with Sierra as well, that it might take both of them to keep his niece distracted. On the other hand, he welcomed the chance to get away, to feel like some aspect of his life was returning to normal. When his mind started down the track that asked the question What if Hayden never comes back? he tried to turn his thoughts in another direction.

  He spent that Monday playing catch-up. E-mails. Page after page of e-mails. He deleted most of them. He went to a couple of meetings. The people he worked with didn’t know why he had been gone lately, and he didn’t tell them. He let them think he’d been sick, laid low by a stomach virus or something. They didn’t know much about his personal life or his family—or anything about Hayden and Sierra. He wanted it to stay that way. The little bit that ran in the paper used Hayden’s married name—Borders—so people couldn’t make the connection between them. The situation with Hayden had been years in the making. It felt like it might take years to unravel again.

  He did make one phone call. He dialed Colton at his office. Jason had tried Colton’s cell phone twice the day before, hoping to understand how and why the miscommunication occurred about the body found on the Bluff. But Colton hadn’t answered. When he called the law office and told the receptionist who he was, he expected to be put off again. Instead the call went through, and Jason found himself greeted by Colton’s mellow voice.

  “Hey, buddy.”

  Colton sounded relaxed, a man without a care in the world. And maybe he didn’t have any. A wife, a couple of kids, plenty of money. A secure future. No disappearing siblings. No questions about what the future might bring. Colton was home. Always at home. All of these things irritated Jason. He wanted Colton to feel as uncertain as he did.

  “I left you a couple of messages yesterday,” Jason said.

  “I know, I know. Crazy Sunday. Family stuff left and right.”

  “You said you would let me know what you found out up on the Bluff. I never heard from you. Instead Olsen told me it wasn’t my sister’s body up there at all. You turned our whole house upside down. Sierra thought her mother died.”

  Jason felt his voice starting to break as he spoke. The emotion came unexpectedly, and he cut off his words before he said or showed more.

  “I know, I know,” Colton said, his voice soothing and lawyerly. “That’s all my fault. I can’t apologize enough for that foul-up.”

  “Foul-up? It’s more than that.”

  “I can only apologize, okay? Look, think about it from my point of view. I was up there, and I heard that they’d found a body. I figured it was Hayden, and I thought to myself that rather than you hearing the news in an impersonal manner from some cop, you’d rather hear it from a friend. That’s why I came over, okay? I overstepped a little. You’re right. Hell, I already got a visit this morning from Detective Olsen. He gave me a verbal spanking. I’m chastened. Really, I am.”

  Jason’s temperature cooled. Venting at Colton brought some relief, and then hearing that Olsen had stepped in made him feel even better. At least someone in a position of authority was keeping Colton in line. Jason wasn’t sure anybody could.

  “What is your interest in all of this, Colton?”

  “My interest? You know. You all are my friends, people I grew up with. This is my community. If things are going on, I want to know. I want to help if I can.”

  “Is this a campaign ad, Colton?”

  There was a pause. “Now, that’s a low blow, Jason. There’s no call to say that to me.”

  Jason agreed. He didn’t like the hurt-puppy routine Colton was pulling. It felt like something his mother would do when he talked back—act hurt instead of angry—and Jason never thought that was fair. But it was effective. He didn’t know why he was taking shots at Colton. The guy had apologized. What else did Jason want?

  “Okay, I’m sorry too. It’s been a long few days.”

  “I know,” Colton said. “I hear you. I can see it’s been a terrible time for your family. But at least . . . Well, I don’t want to say it’s good news, but at least you didn’t get the worst news about Hayden. Right?”

  Jason tried to see it in a positive light. He’d been trying for twenty-four hours to get to that place. “Yeah.”

  “That’s about all we can do,” Colton said.

  “Say, Colton, do you remember anything about Logan and Hayden in high school? I mean, did you ever suspect the two of them were a couple?”

  “Hayden and Logan?” Colton said. “She was always with Derrick—that’s all I know for sure. She certainly liked other guys. We all knew that. You know, I was never really on the inside with that crowd. I wasn’t really on the inside with any crowd. I might have been the last guy to know back then who was going with who.” He paused. “What are you getting at? You think Hayden might know something about Logan?”

  “I guess I’m just thinking of everything,” he said. “Every angle.”

  “That’s natural,” Colton said. “Speaking of other angles . . . they found this body up on the Bluff. A skeleton.”

  “Right.”

  “Jason, have you thought about who that might be?”

  Jason had thought about it plenty, turning it over in his mind like the churned earth of an excavated grave. “You mean Logan.”

  “I do.”

  “How could that be?” Jason asked.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t. Well, I’m sure we’ll be talking about this more. If you need anything else from me, just let me know. And if I hear anything, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  “And don’t worry about the poster.”

  “The what?”

  “The poster for the summer festival. Don’t worry about it.”

  It had slipped Jason’s mind, the reason he ended up having lunch with Colton in the first place right before everything started to happen.

  “I can get back to it soon.”

  “Like I said, don’t worry. The committee found a company in town that can do it. You’ve got enough on your plate. Rea
lly.”

  After he hung up, Jason decided that Colton had never wanted him to do the poster in the first place. He just wanted an excuse to ask about Logan.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Jason left work just before seven o’clock. Only a few cars remained in the parking lot, and they likely belonged to members of the cleaning crew who came through the offices during the evening and overnight. On the factory side of the complex, which Jason couldn’t see, the lot would be full. The factory workers went twenty-four hours a day manufacturing the cupcakes and pastries that were then shipped around the world.

  Jason carried his keys in one hand and a satchel full of work in the other. A dented pickup truck sat two spaces down from his car, one of its taillights broken. Jason unlocked his doors with the remote and threw his bag in the backseat. As he closed the back and opened the front, the driver’s side door of the pickup swung open. Jason barely glanced up. He slid into his seat, ducking his head a little, and pulled his door shut. Before he could lock the car—something he always did, even in Ednaville—someone pulled the passenger door open and came into the car with him.

  Jason jumped. He turned his body a few degrees, so that he faced the passenger side of the car. The man wore a baseball cap, a flannel shirt, and a denim jacket. Jason saw his face in profile. It was unshaven, and the nose in its center stood out like a blade. The thought crossed Jason’s mind: I’m being robbed. This is how it happens when someone gets robbed.

  Jason hadn’t even buckled his seat belt yet. He grabbed for the door handle, hoping to push it open and get out. But the man reached a long arm across the cabin of the car and clamped down on Jason’s wrist.

  “Don’t,” the man said.

  He didn’t shout or yell. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded certain, like all he needed to do was say one word and Jason would obey. And Jason did. His hand went slack, and the man’s talonlike grip eased.