The Forgotten Girl

by David Bell

  Jason loosened his lips. “It’s my sister’s handwriting. Hayden. She wrote the cards. Hayden Lynn Danvers. She used to practice her signature in her room when she was a kid. Maybe she thought she was going to be a movie star. I don’t know. But I’ve seen that ‘L’ many, many times. It’s not exactly like my sister’s, but it’s close. She can’t hide herself. She wrote the cards and mailed them when she was out west traveling. Or she got someone to mail them somehow. We didn’t always know where she was or who she was with.”

  Olsen may have tried, but he couldn’t hide the interest that passed across his face. He couldn’t play the cool, disinterested public servant when presented with something choice.

  “You’re sure it’s Hayden’s handwriting?” he asked.

  “Would you know your own sibling’s handwriting?”

  “I’m an only child, but I see your point.” Olsen nodded, still absorbing the news. “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll look into it.”

  Jason leaned forward. “See, the two things are probably related. Hayden and Logan. If you find Hayden, then maybe we find out what happened to Logan.”

  “Thanks for piecing that together for me,” Olsen said.

  “I want my sister found.”

  “I was being sarcastic,” Olsen said. “I could piece that together on my own. But I’ll check out the handwriting on those letters today. Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

  “Right. Okay.” Jason didn’t even know if he wanted to bring up the next thing. He didn’t know what Olsen could do for him. “Maybe I’m just looking for you to set my mind at ease about something that happened yesterday.”

  “I’ll ease your mind if I can. The police are good at that.”

  “My brother-in-law came to Ednaville yesterday. Ex-brother-

  in-law. Sierra’s father. He came to the house, and he asked to take Sierra with him. I guess he thinks she should be with him now until Hayden resurfaces.”

  “He is her father.”

  “He is.”

  “What did the girl think of this? Did she offer an opinion?”

  “She wanted to go,” Jason said. “We put the question to her, and she said she wanted . . .” Jason felt the emotion rise unexpectedly and catch in his chest. He cleared his throat. “She said she wanted to go with Derrick, to stay with him this summer or until all of this blows over.”

  Against all logical hope, Jason wished that the detective didn’t notice the emotion in his voice. But how could he not? He was a detective. He noticed just about everything, especially the emotions of a man in the midst of a criminal investigation.

  “Are you worried for the girl’s safety?” Olsen asked.

  “No. I don’t think so. She seemed happy to see him.”

  “He’s not abusive in any way, is he?”

  “No.”

  “Do they have a custody arrangement?”

  “It sounds like they do. I don’t think Derrick has been utilizing it or supporting Sierra.”

  “Then you probably did the right thing letting her go with him. She might benefit from being with her father at a time like this.”

  “Right.”

  “Which is not to say you weren’t doing a good job with her, you and your wife.”

  “Thanks.”

  Olsen glanced away. He seemed to take a quick look at the photos of his own family that adorned his cubicle. He looked back at Jason and said, “So your sister wrote those letters to Mr. Shaw?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Was your sister up on the Bluff that night with you and your friends?” Olsen asked.

  Jason paused and thought about it. He could see so many aspects of that night vividly, more vividly even than recent events in his life. But it didn’t mean he knew every single thing that happened.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She might have been. I don’t remember seeing her.”

  “Did she know about the fight between you and Mr. Shaw?” Olsen asked.

  “Everybody did. Once the police started questioning me, everybody found out. A lot of people heard about it that night. You know how it is with kids and fights. A fight happens and then everybody starts talking about it.”

  “So your sister may very well have been up there on the Bluff, and she may very well have known about the fight you had with Mr. Shaw.”

  Jason started to say something, but the detective kept talking.

  “If this is your sister sending these letters, then that implies that she’s covering for somebody, right? I mean, why else do it? Unless she herself was responsible for Mr. Shaw’s death way back when. Is that possible?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “What kind of relationship did she and Mr. Shaw have? Were they friendly? Or more? You brought this up the other day. You said they were flirtatious or something like that. Now that you’ve had time to think about it, do you have any other sense of their relationship?”

  “No, I don’t. Hayden wouldn’t hurt someone.”

  “But she had a drinking problem. Some people drink and get violent.”

  “Hayden didn’t.”

  “Not ever?”

  “No. She was careless. Reckless even. But not violent.”

  “She’s back in town now. She needs to make amends for something from her past. She’s seen with Jesse Dean Pratt. She leaves her daughter behind and hasn’t made any contact with her. Or with you. And now these letters are in her handwriting, at least as far as you can tell. And you seem pretty certain.”

  “I’m the one who fought with Logan that night,” Jason said. “If anyone hurt him, it was me.”

  “You’ve been thinking about that fight more?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is there anything else you need to tell me, then? Anything else you remember?”

  “I just remember that I hit him. I knocked him down.” Jason shook his head. “I don’t know what happened after he left me.”

  Olsen’s face looked inscrutable, a blank mask. “Thanks, Mr. Danvers.”

  “Can you tell me . . . is there anything new? Any news about Hayden?”

  “As soon as there is, I’ll let you know.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Jason waited again in Colton’s office. He walked over there after leaving the police station. He didn’t bother to call first. He didn’t want Colton to duck him. He had no reason to think the lawyer was intentionally avoiding him, but Jason hadn’t heard anything from him for a couple of days.

  The waiting room in Colton’s office suite was well-appointed. A middle-aged receptionist handled the phones, and magazines about financial planning and retirement were fanned out across a coffee table in an order too casual to be anything but staged. Jason couldn’t think of any subject more boring than those. He crossed his legs and jiggled his foot in the air. After ten minutes, the receptionist’s phone buzzed. She listened for a moment, said, “Yes, sir,” and then stood up and led Jason through a wooden door and down a long hallway to Colton’s office, where the lawyer stood in the doorway, a smile on his face, when Jason arrived.

  “Come in, bud,” he said.

  Jason did, and Colton closed the door behind them. Colton lumbered to the other side of his desk and clicked a few things on his computer before turning away and looking at Jason. Colton wore a white shirt and a red tie, the knot pushing against his neck and creating a bulge of cleanly shaven skin.

  “How’ve you been?” he asked in his best sincere voice. “Heck of a few days for news, isn’t it? I’m deeply sorry to hear about Logan. I know you two were close. I know it must be tough.”

  “Thank you,” Jason said.

  “It’s a real gut punch,” Colton said.

  “I went out there the day I heard the news.”

  “To the Bluff?”

  “To
the Shaws’ house.”

  “Oh.” Colton perked up a little. “What were you doing out there?”

  “I know I should have been going to offer sympathy or whatever to the old man, but I had my own agenda. I wanted to see those cards that the old man got from Logan. Have you ever seen them?”

  Colton shook his head. He wore a cautious look on his face. “No, I haven’t.”

  “I talked to Pauline, the housekeeper.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. You don’t sound like you like her.”

  “She’s fine,” Colton said, although he clearly thought she wasn’t. “Mr. Shaw would never let anyone remove her from her position in the household. It’s confidential, obviously, but he’s made provisions for her in his will. She’ll be well taken care of.” Colton drummed his fingers on the desktop. “What about the letters?” he asked. “You saw them?”

  “Pauline showed some of them to me, the ones the police hadn’t taken.”

  “And?”

  “Obviously they weren’t written by Logan.”

  “I could figure that out,” Colton said. “Do you know who did write them?”

  “Hayden.”

  Colton mostly maintained his poker face. His eyes shifted just a bit, a quick glance away and then back to Jason. “Hayden,” he said, almost under his breath. “That is a surprise.” The phone trilled on Colton’s desk. He looked irritated as he picked it up and said, “Yes.” He listened for a moment, then sighed. “Ten minutes.” He hung up. “Sorry,” he said. “I have a meeting at city hall. So, Hayden sent those cards. It makes sense in some ways. She was kind of a rolling stone, and I’ve heard that those cards came from all over the country.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But the question would be why she’d do it. Who would she be helping?”

  “What about Mrs. Shaw?” Jason asked.

  “What about her?”

  “Pauline didn’t seem to be a fan of hers.”

  “No one in the Shaw house was a real big fan of hers,” Colton said. “Even Logan. Right?”

  “He didn’t talk about her much. I figured it was because of the divorce. He ended up with his dad, so there must have been a reason for that.”

  Colton didn’t say anything, but Jason saw the knowing look that washed across his face. There was something else there, something Colton knew about Mrs. Shaw.

  “What is it?” Jason asked.

  Colton opened his mouth and just as quickly closed it. He pressed his lips tight. But Jason suspected that Colton really did want to spill whatever he knew. The man was a lawyer. If he wanted to hold his cards close, he could. Colton didn’t seem to want to.

  “What?” Jason asked. “What’s the deal?”

  Colton cleared his throat. “Well, Mr. Shaw is a decent man. Very decent. He likes to take care of people. He doesn’t like attention.” Colton pointed at Jason. “That’s why he still lives in the same house. He could afford more and bigger, but he just doesn’t feel that he needs it.”

  “What are you driving at?” Jason asked. “Is there something about Mrs. Shaw?”

  “Mrs. Shaw had some problems when Logan was growing up. A drinking problem. Some emotional instability as well.”

  “She was sick.”

  “You know better than I do about the effect these things can have on families,” Colton said. “Hayden’s been a parent all this time, and a pretty good one to hear you tell it.”

  Jason remembered Derrick’s story about Sierra being left alone while a baby. He shivered a little. “Mostly.”

  “The kid turned out okay, right?” Colton asked.

  “She did.”

  “How is she, by the way?”

  Jason swallowed. “She’s spending some time with her dad.”

  “Derrick’s in town?”

  “He came to get her. You know, until Hayden . . . until we know more about Hayden’s situation.”

  Colton gave Jason a sincere look. He seemed to recognize and understand Jason’s attachment to and concern for his niece. “Anyway,” he said, “Mrs. Shaw. She struggled with these things. Not a good recipe when you have a little one, especially not a boy like Logan who could be . . . high-spirited, I guess is the term. Smart-mouthed. Rambunctious. ‘Challenging,’ I think is the word the parenting books would use now.”

  The phone rang again. Colton picked it up and snapped one word. “Wait.” He hung up, shaking his head. “People don’t even know how to tell time.” He tugged at his earlobe. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. When Logan was about ten, not long before Mr. and Mrs. Shaw divorced, Mrs. Shaw shoved Logan down a flight of stairs at their house. The stairs into the basement out there.”

  Jason’s hands were gripping the armrests of his chair tighter than he realized, but he couldn’t seem to let go. He looked down and saw the veins standing out on the back of his hand, rising from the pressure he exerted.

  “Are you okay?” Colton asked.

  “No.”

  “Shocked?”

  Jason’s mouth felt dry. “Yes, I am. He never said anything about it.”

  “He loved his mother, Logan did. I’m sure of it. But the old man wanted to keep her away from Logan as much as possible. That’s the arrangement they made. She was allowed supervised visits with him. Eventually, she saw Logan a little more. But always in the Shaws’ house and always with someone around, usually Mr. Shaw. Sometimes Pauline, I would gather. Mrs. Shaw remarried, as you know. She has stepchildren. To be honest, I don’t know how she’s doing. I guess she’s living a normal life now. But she wasn’t allowed to have a normal relationship with Logan when he was growing up. That’s why you really didn’t see her, even if you spent a lot of time out at the house.”

  Jason loosened his grip on the chair. His knuckles hurt, and he flexed his hands, trying to get them to feel normal again. He wasn’t sure they would.

  Colton stood up. “Look, I have to run to city hall. Thanks for coming by.”

  “Thank you.”

  “People surprise us, don’t they?” Colton said, as he slipped into a sport coat. “I know I threw you for a loop with that news. I was surprised to hear about Hayden and those letters. Do you want to sit here for a minute and regroup?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Jason stood and walked to the door, where Colton rested his hand on the knob. Colton didn’t open the door yet. He held his hand out, stopping Jason.

  “All that stuff I told you about Mrs. Shaw? It’s been hush-hush for years, of course. Only the family knew. I probably shouldn’t have told you, but with everything going on here, I thought you should know. Maybe you can understand Logan a little better. Maybe you can understand the whole situation a little better.”

  Jason nodded, but he wasn’t sure he ever would.

  Chapter Forty-two

  The brightness of the day hurt Jason’s eyes. He drove home with his sunglasses on and the visor tilted down, but the midday sun still poked at him, dug at him until he felt a headache developing. Colton’s bombshell reverberated in his mind. Logan’s mother had pushed her son down a flight of stairs. She was so abusive she wasn’t allowed to see him. And Jason had never known this about his very best friend. It was a secret shame Logan carried with him all his life, something he shoved away and wouldn’t or couldn’t share.

  Jason had to ask himself: What else didn’t he know about Logan? What else lay buried beneath the surface of his friend’s life?

  Nora was scheduled to work until the late evening. When Jason went inside their house, he again noticed the quiet. It hit him in the face like a blast of heat from the oven. No one was home. With Sierra gone, everything felt more empty.

  He dialed Regan’s number. He didn’t expect her to answer, but she did. She sounded energetic, almost cheery.

  “What do you know about Logan’s m
other?”

  “His mother?” she said, her voice flattening. “She wasn’t around much.”

  “I know that. But did you have a sense of her? As a person?”

  “Why are you asking me this?”

  “I’m just curious. You mentioned her the other day. You said you liked her.”

  “I did.”

  “You said she talked to you from time to time about your career and your plans. Was that it?”

  “Why are you asking me this again?”

  Jason told her. He told her that Mrs. Shaw had shoved Logan down the stairs when he was just a little boy, that she was forced to keep her distance from her son. After he finished speaking, he listened to her breathing on the other end of the line. It took Regan a long time to speak.

  “Did you know that when we were kids?” she asked.

  “Never. Did you?”

  “No. Logan wouldn’t tell me something like that.”

  “Why not?” Jason asked. “He had a thing for you. And, as you so accurately pointed out, you were a girl. I thought maybe he’d feel more comfortable telling you than me. I never knew.”

  “I—” She stopped herself.

  “What? You what?”

  “I don’t believe it. I don’t see how that nice woman could have done that.”

  “Nice woman? She sounds like a monster. You’re a mother. Would you ever do that to a child? To any child?”

  “Of course not. You don’t have to be a parent to know that. I’m just wondering why Colton is telling this to you now.”

  “I went to talk to him about everything that’s been going on, and the conversation got around to Mrs. Shaw.”

  “That poor woman,” Regan said. “She just found out her son is dead. She always seemed so alone. You know how you get a sense of that from some adults, even when you’re a kid? I got that sense from her. She seemed very alone.”

  “She deserved it.”

  “I don’t know, Jason,” Regan said.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “How she could have done that. That sweet lady.”

  “People manage to keep parts of themselves hidden.”