The Forgotten Girl

by David Bell

  “She was a little freaked out by that text.”

  “I figured, but I had to say something. Then Jesse Dean took my phone away. I snuck it back from him once, but there was no service out here. He took me with him to the little grocery store up the road, and I called you. Do you remember that?”

  “I do.”

  “He got the phone back and that was that. I was talking to Jesse Dean most of the time and it was usually pretty calm. ‘Negotiating’ is maybe the right word for it.”

  “Negotiating what?”

  “I was trying to get them to tell the truth and come clean. About Logan. About all of it. If they’d listened to me . . . if they’d gone along with me . . .” She raised her arms and gestured toward the police cars and the ambulance. Her gesture encompassed the dead body in the cabin as well as her ex-husband in custody. “None of this,” she said. “None of this.”

  “You’ve known all these years that they killed Logan?”

  “I used to think I just suspected that they did it,” she said. “That was the lie I told myself.” She contemplated those words for a few moments, and then she said, “I knew. I was a fool, and I guess I always knew.”

  “Were you with them when they killed Logan?”

  “No. I wasn’t on the Bluff that night. Don’t you remember? I was grounded. Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me out on your graduation night because they’d caught me—”

  “Taking the money from Mom’s wallet.” Jason remembered it all. Their mother had been so angry she cursed at Hayden and grounded her for two weeks. It was one of the rare times that grounding Hayden worked, probably because she’d been so shocked at their mom’s display of anger. “That was right before graduation.”

  “They let me go to the ceremony, so I could see you get your diploma. But they dragged me home afterwards. They said I couldn’t go to any parties. Jesus, Mom was furious. And all over twenty bucks.”

  “So you weren’t there.”

  “I wasn’t. I didn’t find out that Logan was gone until his dad called our house the next day looking for him. That’s when you found out too, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I didn’t see Derrick for another five days because I was grounded. Mom wouldn’t let me talk to him on the phone. Nothing. It would have been longer, but he showed up at our house one night. Late, after everybody was asleep. He came by and threw little pebbles at my window. Then he climbed up the downspout and came in.”

  “And nobody heard him?”

  “Hell, no. We always did that. We had it down to a science. But this time Derrick wasn’t looking for what he was normally looking for. He just laid in bed next to me, cuddled up like a little boy, and let me stroke his hair. He acted like he wanted to talk, but really he just laid there. I could tell something was wrong. I thought maybe his parents had a fight. He got that way sometimes when his parents fought. I asked him if that’s what was going on, and he said no. Shit, I’d been locked up in the house so long I wished he had wanted sex, but that didn’t happen. And then I started to wonder . . .”

  “Wonder what?”

  Hayden shook her head. “I asked him about partying on graduation night, and he got real quiet. He just said it was a bust, that nothing happened. You know how strange that would be for Derrick or Jesse Dean. And then I mentioned all the stuff that had been happening in our house, the stuff that had to do with Logan being gone. The police coming over and pushing you so hard. How upset Mom and Dad were that their son was getting dragged into the middle of a police investigation just as he was supposed to be going off to college. I tried to talk about that. I thought he’d be interested. He knew Logan a little. And he knew you pretty well. But when I brought it up, he just shut the whole conversation down. He said he knew that Logan had run away, and they were making a big fuss over some spoiled rich kid who was having a temper tantrum. To be honest, I kind of thought the same thing.”

  “A lot of us did.”

  “He was very sympathetic to you.”

  “Really?”

  “He said that they were treating you like a criminal because Logan was rich, and that it just went to show that the police would push anybody around when they think a rich kid got hurt.”

  “I was Logan’s friend. And we had a fight that night. It wasn’t out of the blue for them to question me.”

  “I know. But then Derrick said the most interesting thing of all. At least it’s interesting looking back now. He said that if someone did do something to Logan, if they really hurt him or killed him, then Logan definitely deserved it.”

  “He didn’t explain any more?”

  “I asked him, and he wouldn’t say. I thought it was just his typical anger at a rich kid.”

  “But?”

  She turned away and looked toward the end of the ambulance where Sierra was being treated. She listened to the muffled voices for a second and then turned back. “I’m worried about my baby.”

  “I know. Do you want to go check on her?”

  “I’ve been smothering her ever since I got out of there,” she said. “I hadn’t seen her in days. I hate that. And now . . . who knows what’s going to happen to Derrick . . . ?”

  “He’s with the police now. They’re questioning him. He’s lucky they didn’t shoot him.”

  Hayden sniffled, reaching up and wiping at her nose and eyes with the backs of her hands. Jason stepped forward and put his arm around her.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Let’s talk about this another time.”

  “It’s okay. There isn’t that much more that I know anyway. What I know is that about six months after graduation night, Jesse Dean came to me. He came alone. Derrick didn’t know about it. We hung out on our own sometimes, but he seemed to be up to something. He had a fifth of Wild Turkey with him, and he started getting me to drink it. He drank it too, don’t worry. We both threw back our fair share.”

  The rain had mostly stopped, and the clouds overhead were parting again, revealing a crisply defined half-moon.

  “What did he want?” Jason asked.

  “He said he wanted me to do a favor for him and for Derrick. He emphasized that Derrick would really benefit from the favor. He implied that if I wanted to be able to keep dating Derrick, I needed to make this thing happen.”

  “He wanted you to write those cards and send them to Logan’s dad.”

  Hayden looked up, the surprise on her face almost comical. “How do you know that?”

  “I saw them. I thought I recognized your handwriting. And a couple came from Chicago in 1999. Remember that?”

  “Shit. Of course.” Hayden looked down. She shuffled her feet. “I know I committed a crime. Covering up a murder or conspiracy.” She shook her head. “When Jesse Dean asked me to do that, I knew they’d probably killed Logan. But I went along with it.”

  “Why did you?”

  “Why did I, Jason? I can hear the judgment in your voice. You’re thinking that poor dumb Hayden couldn’t say no to any guy and couldn’t avoid trouble if her life depended on it. Is that what you’re thinking? Is it?”

  Jason didn’t answer.

  “You’re right, of course. That’s true. I was a dumbass who couldn’t say no to a man. I was a drunk and a mess. Those aren’t excuses, but there they are.” She spread her hands apart. “I was worried about Derrick, okay? I loved him. And I was afraid of saying no to Jesse Dean.” She laughed a little, a bitter sound. “Jesse Dean even let me pick out the Father’s Day cards. It was like he was saying I was the little woman, the secretary or something, who was going to do the big man’s bidding. And I did. I bought the cards and wrote them. I tried to copy Logan’s handwriting out of one of your old yearbooks. When I ran off out west, I mailed them, and I sent more from Chicago. Later on, Jesse Dean knew some guy out west who mailed them for him. I wrote the cards because he wanted th
e handwriting to match every time. I never thought that stupid plan would work. What parent wouldn’t know their kid’s handwriting? I mean, dads can be pretty clueless, but a mother? Wouldn’t a mother know her child’s handwriting?”

  “Logan’s mother had some issues, apparently.”

  “I guess so. I’d never win mother-of-the-year. I took some years off being a mother, so maybe I’m no one to talk. Look at tonight. I got my daughter dragged out into the middle of this. But I’d always know my kid. Always. Her handwriting. Her smell. Her voice.” Hayden started crying again. “That girl’s mine. I’d never forget anything about her.”

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Doors slammed on one of the police cruisers. It started up and drove off slowly, its headlights making a cone of brightness through the trees and the gloom. After it was gone, Jason turned his attention back to Hayden.

  “Colton Rivers saw you with Jesse Dean. Downtown in Center Park. This was right after you came back and left Sierra at our house.”

  “Jesse Dean wanted to cruise, just like in high school. He said we were having our own little reunion.”

  “That’s a small reunion.”

  “Derrick was there too. We were good friends the way you and Logan and Regan were.”

  “Derrick was there?”

  And then he remembered what Colton had told him about that night at Center Park. There was someone in the backseat, someone Colton couldn’t see.

  “Wait a minute. Derrick was already in town back then?” he asked.

  “I met him and Jesse Dean here. I needed to talk to both of them. I came to town to tell them that I knew they’d killed Logan on graduation night. When we were younger, and I was so messed up and irresponsible, I told myself I didn’t want to know about all the stuff they’d done. But I couldn’t stay quiet forever. I told them I didn’t really care why they did it, but they had dragged me into the middle of it, and I wasn’t going to be quiet about it anymore. If they wanted, they could step forward and admit what happened. Otherwise, I was going to tell. I didn’t even know who I was going to tell. Logan’s family. Maybe the police. I certainly didn’t know how that would go. But I was going to admit what I knew.”

  “What made you think those guys would listen to you?”

  “I’ve got a little news flash for you, big brother. Your little sister thinks that people can change and grow. She thinks that if you present someone with an opportunity to be a different person, a better person, they’ll take it. It happened to me when I cleaned up, so I assumed they might be open to it as well. Hell, years had gone by. I thought maybe everyone would welcome the chance to make things right. And, short of that, I had to be the kind of person, the kind of mother, I wanted to be for my daughter. I had to do, or try to do, the right thing. I had to try. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”

  “But a guy like Jesse Dean? Jesus, Hayden.”

  “I was going to come forward no matter what. I cared about those guys. I married Derrick. I wanted to give them the chance. I didn’t want to blindside them.”

  “Do you know how insane that sounds? How did you think you would stop Jesse Dean from coming after you or Sierra? Obviously, it didn’t work.”

  “Didn’t work? That would be the understatement of the century. The whole thing blew up in my face. Not only did Jesse Dean refuse to come forward—he threatened me. He said he’d kill me if I tried to do it. Derrick helped with that a little. He stood up for me. He said there wouldn’t be any killing.”

  “Was he here the whole time? The police talked to him in Indianapolis.”

  “He went back and forth. When Jesse Dean calmed down a little and was keeping me out here, Derrick went home to Indiana.”

  “He left you with Jesse Dean?”

  “I told him to. He really did get a new job and a new start there. I wasn’t alone. Jesse Dean had that awful Rose Holland with him some of the time.” Hayden shuddered. “Talk about how the mighty have fallen.”

  “She killed our neighbors’ cat because she wanted to send a message to you.”

  “Figures. She’s disgusting. But Derrick was going to come back eventually, when he could, but then Jesse Dean made things even worse.”

  “What did he do?”

  Hayden looked toward the back of the ambulance again. She motioned with her hand in the opposite direction, and she and Jason moved away from the vehicle where it was certain Sierra couldn’t hear them.

  “Jesse Dean got it into his mind that I had told other people what I knew. First, he asked me about you. He thought I’d spilled this whole story to you, and if something happened to me, you’d go to the cops. I guess maybe he had a little talk with you about that.”

  “He did. He was very convincing.”

  “Well, guess who he was worried about next?”

  “He sent Tricia to try to get Sierra away from us.”

  “I know.”

  “He offered her drugs if she got Sierra out of the house. We said no.”

  “Thank you. That was smart.”

  “But then Derrick showed up. We couldn’t say no then.”

  “That was Jesse Dean again. He wouldn’t stop talking about Sierra. And let me tell you, that was the worst part of the whole thing for me. I wanted her to be as far away from here as possible. I left her with you because I wanted her to be with family, you know, if something happened to me. And I knew you’d both protect her. But Jesse Dean wouldn’t let it go. I think he might have even gone and looked for Sierra at my house. He left me alone a couple of times. He tied me up good. See?”

  She held up her arm, and Jason saw a raw bruise that encircled her wrist.

  “I thought you weren’t a hostage,” he said. “Don’t try to sugarcoat what these guys did to you. And Sierra. And how did blood get in your car?”

  “That was my fault.”

  “Your fault?”

  “I tried to get away from Jesse Dean, and I smacked my nose against the doorframe of the car. Really. It was klutzy, but it just bled. He took my shoes then. He locked the keys in the car, so it would look like I’d run off or something. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

  Jason looked down and noticed for the first time that his sister wore no shoes. “Jesus, Hayden.”

  “I was worried about Sierra more than myself.”

  “Sierra spent some time in your house. Jesse Dean must have just missed her. Somebody broke in the back window.”

  “Jesse Dean had my house keys, but he must have wanted to make it look like a random burglary or something.” She sniffed. “Eventually, Jesse Dean called Derrick and told him to get Sierra and bring her out here.”

  “Why did Derrick do that, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Because of me. Derrick was worried that Jesse Dean would hurt me if he didn’t. And Derrick is as dumb as I am. He thought he could calm Jesse Dean down. He thought if he brought Sierra out here and let him see that she didn’t know anything, then Jesse Dean would let her go. I guess Derrick thought he could get us all out of it. I wouldn’t have brought Sierra out here. I was willing to trade my life for hers.”

  “And that’s when Derrick killed him?”

  “Jesse Dean didn’t calm down. He didn’t act reasonable. He threatened all of us. Sierra was there. I made sure to get between her and Jesse Dean in case he tried something crazy. Eventually Derrick made a move to get us all out of there. I could tell he was working up to something. He had a look on his face. I tried to tell him not to. I gave him a look that said not to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping there was another way to end it all. I thought maybe someone would come out here and help. And, look, someone did. If he’d only waited a few more minutes.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He grabbed ahold of that andiron. The thing from the fireplace. He though
t Jesse Dean didn’t see him, and he went for him.” Hayden looked away from Jason as her body shivered. “I’ve never seen a fight like that. It was like two animals. Jesse Dean was pummeling Derrick, but then Derrick managed to get one good swing in, and that killed Jesse Dean. Split his face open like that.”

  Jason knew they were both seeing the disturbing visual, the ugly sight of Jesse Dean’s dead body they had left behind in the cabin. He suspected they’d both be seeing it for a long time.

  “Are you okay?” Jason asked. “Really okay?”

  Hayden arched her back. She stretched like someone who had been sitting still for a long time. She seemed to be trying to release a lot of tension from her body. “You know me, big brother. I always land on my feet. I can’t worry about myself too much. I have to worry about Sierra now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What did Derrick say to you after I left the cabin?”

  Jason felt his skin flush in the dark. He was embarrassed just thinking about it, embarrassed that he ever drove Derrick to feel the way he did.

  “He told me the truth,” Jason said. “That I always thought he was trash.”

  “He was sensitive about that. Especially with our family. He didn’t want Sierra growing up thinking her dad wasn’t good enough for the family.”

  “I did the same thing to you,” Jason said. “I asked Derrick why he and Jesse Dean killed Logan. I assumed it was about you, that you and Logan . . . that you two were fucking or something and that’s why they killed him.”

  He turned his eyes to Hayden. She was watching her brother, but she didn’t show any hurt or disappointment. In a way, Jason wished she would. He felt he deserved it, and somehow her lack of a response made him feel worse.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Logan and I just played games with each other. We weren’t going to do anything. Do you want to know why?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “Because he wasn’t interested in me. I wasn’t good enough for him. I never would have been.”