by David Bell
“What is it, Colton?” Jason asked.
Colton’s face was red. He came the rest of the way. “Jason, you may want to sit down.” He pointed to one of the chairs they kept on the porch.
“What?” Jason asked. “Tell me.”
But he knew. He knew before Colton said the words, before he felt his body going backward and plopping into the chair as though someone had pushed him. He felt the words roll across him like the concussive wave from an explosion.
He knew.
“Are you sure, Colton?” he asked, even though Colton was always sure. He knew everything. He didn’t speak without being certain.
“I’m sure,” Colton said. He reached out and placed a heavy hand on Jason’s shoulders. He even gave a squeeze, his attempt at comforting the bereaved. “The police will be contacting you soon. I only heard because I was up there.” He paused before he said it again. “They found a body, Jason. They found a body up on Heroin Hill.”
* * *
“What were you doing up there?” Jason asked.
It was the next question he thought to ask. What was Colton doing hanging out at the Bluff? Why was he bringing Jason that piece of news instead of the police?
“I stopped by this morning to see how the search was going,” he said. “My family was getting ready for church, so I went up there just to check things over. I’m nosy—you know that. I went by yesterday as well. The cops, they all know me.”
Jason still held the newspaper. His grip tightened until the paper started to crumple in his hands. He looked down at the porch and saw ants running, the grain of the wood, and the cracks in the paint. Hayden was gone. He couldn’t think of anything else. His sister was gone.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” Colton said. “I thought someone would have called by now. I thought you might need some help. This was almost thirty minutes ago.”
“What happened to her?” Jason asked. “Was she . . . Did someone kill her?”
“I don’t know,” Colton said. “They hadn’t even brought it—her—out yet. Her. I don’t know what they’re doing. It takes a while to gather all the evidence and everything. Secure the area. They have to be real meticulous with this stuff in case there’s foul play.”
Jason looked at the house. Through the screen door he saw the stairs that led up to Sierra’s room. She slept, unaware of what she was about to learn.
“Are you sure, Colton?” Jason asked, and he realized he was repeating himself. He didn’t know what else to do or say.
“I was there. I heard them talking. I heard them call the coroner.”
Jason dropped the newspaper. He raised his hand to his mouth. He felt something stirring in his gut. Sickness. A tingling passed up the back of his neck and across his scalp. He imagined his face was bone white. Black dots danced across his vision.
Colton came closer and with a low grunt knelt down next to the chair Jason sat in. Again, Colton placed his hand on Jason’s shoulder. Jason caught the sweetly clean scents of soap and shaving cream coming off Colton’s body.
“Do you want me to get Nora for you?” he asked.
Jason uncovered his mouth. “No,” he said. He took a few deep breaths, trying to restore his equilibrium. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to clear the spots. When he did, he saw Hayden. The little girl in the sandbox. Crying. In need of a helping hand. Hayden the wild child. Hayden making that toast for their parents and saying the exact right thing at the exact right moment. Hayden walking out the very door he sat next to for the last time. He let her go. He let her walk away.
Jason opened his eyes. “I should go up there to the Bluff,” he said.
“No,” Colton said. “You should stay here. With your family. They’re going to need you. Very much.”
“But Hayden’s alone . . . just . . . tossed aside in the woods.”
“You can’t help them,” Colton said. “Do you want me to go inside with you? Maybe you need some support.”
Jason straightened up. He blinked his eyes a few times and cleared his throat. He tried to force the images of Hayden from his mind. He tried not to think of her body—rag doll limp, bloodied and bruised—lying in the woods.
“No,” Jason said. “I need to do this. Colton, can you go back up there, back to the hill? Find out what’s going on for me.”
Colton hesitated just a moment before he said, “Okay. I will. Gloria drove the kids on to church without me. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
But Jason wasn’t really listening. He was looking inside the screen door again, trying his best to envision how he was going to do what he knew he had to do. He stood up. His legs felt jittery. When he stumbled, Colton reached out and steadied him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Colton asked.
Jason didn’t answer right away. The images flooded back in his mind. Hayden. A thousand moments rushed past his eyes. Hayden the child on her bike, Hayden the teenager at the beach, Hayden the mother who came to his house asking for help.
Hayden.
“My sister, Colton,” he said. “My baby sister.”
“I know. I’m sorry. She was really something.”
Jason let Colton steady him for a few moments. When his uneasiness seemed to have passed, Jason nodded to Colton. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m okay now.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. I’ll be okay. This wasn’t unexpected, right?”
“We don’t ever expect these things,” Colton said.
“Find out what you can,” Jason said, looking at the house again. “I’ll take care of things here.”
* * *
Jason didn’t go straight upstairs. He wandered out to the kitchen, not even conscious of his legs moving. Not even conscious of a purpose. He worried that Colton’s arrival and their conversation on the porch had woken Nora and Sierra, but when he stopped and listened, he heard nothing from above.
In the kitchen, he stared at the walls. He thought of his mother and father. At least they were spared this news. They had lived in fear of the middle-of-the-night call for so long, and Jason saw them as the fortunate ones. They died before it came. He was the only one left, the one who would have to see to Hayden’s burial and the tidying up of her affairs.
Her daughter.
He reached up and opened a cabinet. He brought down a bottle of bourbon, something called Rowan’s Creek. A friend gave it to them after a trip to Kentucky. Jason occasionally sipped a glass in the evenings, but that morning he poured a shot and threw it back like a college kid. It was smooth, the oaky warmth spreading through his body as it reached his stomach. He didn’t know what he thought it would do, but the act of downing the shot calmed him. He leaned against the counter and gave in, letting the sobs shudder through his body. For a moment, he felt out of control, his torso shaking as though it was being wracked by seizures. The shuddering slowed, but not the crying. He wiped at his eyes and nose with both of his hands and the back of his arm. He grabbed a napkin and used that to finish cleaning his face.
His mind turned to Nora and Sierra. What if they found him this way? He tried to gather himself by taking deep breaths. He needed to regain his composure so that he could go upstairs and tell them the news.
Then the phone rang. It was their landline, which they’d been planning to eliminate anyway. Only telemarketers seemed to call that number anymore, but the sound of the ringing jolted Jason. It could be the police. Olsen. It was probably Olsen. When he answered, there was no sound on the other end. For several seconds, nothing. Then rustling.
“Hello?” he said.
Someone made a noise on the other end. It sounded like laughing, or even perhaps crying. But no one said anything.
“Hello?” Jason said again.
Then the call ended. Whoever was there hung up. Jason held the phone in his hand, staring at it. Were they l
aughing or crying? Was it a wrong number?
He put the phone down slowly. Wondering. Could Olsen have tried to call and been interrupted? But the sound from the other end sounded lighter, higher. Like a woman’s.
It couldn’t be Hayden. She was gone.
“Who was it?”
Jason spun toward the voice. Nora and Sierra stood in the kitchen doorway, their faces expectant and fearful at the same time. Jason didn’t know what to say, so he told the truth.
“No one,” he said. “There was no one there.”
“They just hung up?” Nora asked.
“No. They made a noise. Something. They might have been laughing.”
Or crying. But he didn’t say that out loud.
“Was it Mom?” Sierra asked. “Did it sound like her?”
Jason still didn’t answer. He thought the same thing. Maybe it was Hayden. But why would she call and say nothing? He didn’t even know if she had the number. And after what Colton told him just moments before . . .
“Jason? What is it?” Nora asked. She came into the room, moving toward him. “I can see that something else is going on. What is it? Why is the liquor out?”
Jason didn’t look up at them. He could face Nora, but he couldn’t face Sierra. He just couldn’t. He was looking at the floor when he finally said, “They found a body up on the Bluff.”
* * *
Sierra turned away. She shook her head over and over. Back and forth as she walked away. She didn’t speak or make a noise, and Nora and Jason followed her. But Sierra stayed ahead of them until she reached the foyer, and then she turned around and looked at both of them.
“No,” she said. “No. It can’t be.”
“The police will be by soon,” Jason said. “They’ll tell us more.”
“How do you know that wasn’t her on the phone?” Sierra asked. “How do you know?”
Jason didn’t know what to say, so he simply repeated himself, and when the words came out of his mouth, he felt foolish. Incapable of handling the occasion that required him to be the adult, the strength for this young girl.
“They found a body up on the Bluff,” he said.
“How do you know?” Sierra said again. Her voice rose as she repeated the line. Her voice grew louder, even as she collapsed to the floor. “How do you know? How do you know?”
Chapter Twenty-four
The three of them spent a long time crying. They sat huddled together on the floor of the foyer. Nora wrapped her arms around Sierra, and Jason held them both. They didn’t move. Jason didn’t try to stand up when his back started to hurt and his leg fell asleep. It felt good to be with them. Despite everything, it felt right to share his grief with these two people. If Hayden had died far away, if he hadn’t seen her or Sierra again . . . would he have felt it as much? The fact that his sister and his niece had come back into his life, even for a handful of days, made the loss more profound. But it also allowed him to share the experience with Sierra. She wouldn’t be sitting in some little house in Redman County, receiving the news alone.
Eventually they all got up and moved to seats in the living room. Nora grabbed tissues, and Jason brought the bottle of bourbon and three shot glasses from the kitchen. He poured them each a shot, even Sierra.
Nora objected, but Sierra said, “No, it’s okay.” She looked at both of them. “I hardly ever drink, even with my friends. But this seems appropriate somehow. Mom would think it’s funny.”
Jason took out his phone. “I’m going to call Detective Olsen,” he said. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”
He dialed and the call went to voice mail. He tried two more times with the same result, so he texted. It took a few minutes, but a text came back. On my way to your house.
“He’s coming over,” Jason said. “Olsen.” He looked at Sierra. “You don’t have to listen to this if you don’t want. You can . . .”
“We can go somewhere, if you want to be away,” Nora said. “Or you can be by yourself.”
“No,” Sierra said, sniffling. “I’m staying. I want to know everything I can know.”
“There may not be much to say right now,” Jason said. “They’re at the very beginning of figuring this all out.”
“I know,” she said. “And I want to say something else, and you guys can think I’m crazy if you want. But if someone needs to go down to the police station or the morgue or whatever and identify her, I want to be the one to do it.”
“No,” Jason said. “I can.”
“But I want to,” Sierra said. “I don’t want Mom to be . . . alone, I guess. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. Dying seems so lonely, and I don’t want Mom to be like that. If someone is going to look at her and say, ‘Yes, that’s her,’ then I want it to be me.”
Jason started to object again, but Nora said, “That makes perfect sense. It may help you.”
“And I know you might just be saying that now, Aunt Nora, you may just be placating me. But I mean it. I’m going to do it.”
Jason tried not to let his imagination run wild and become consumed with speculation about what had happened to Hayden. There was the blood in the car, the shoes and keys left behind. He closed his eyes. He hoped she hadn’t suffered, that whatever happened to her was fast and painless.
“Someone has to tell Dad,” Sierra said. “Maybe I should call him.”
“Do you have his number?” Jason asked.
“I have an old one. I don’t know if it works. I’ve texted him there, and he doesn’t write back.”
“Maybe we should just talk to the police first,” Nora said. “They’ll know what to do about that stuff.”
Sierra nodded. She was sitting back on the sofa, her feet tucked beneath her. She looked lost in thought. Composed but distant. She said, “Mom wanted to see my graduation from high school next year. That’s all she talked about.”
Jason knew what he was supposed to say to Sierra. He was supposed to reassure her, to tell her that Hayden would be able to see her daughter walk across the stage in a high school gymnasium and receive her diploma, that wherever Sierra went or whatever she did for the rest of her life, her mother would know and see. But Jason wasn’t the kind of person who could say something like that, even when he needed to. And he wasn’t even sure Sierra was the kind of kid who wanted to hear it.
So he kept his mouth shut as the moment passed.
* * *
When Sierra went upstairs to use the bathroom, Nora came over to Jason and sat next to him on the couch.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m all right.”
“Can I do anything for you? Do you want to talk about this?”
“Not now. I feel like we have to make Sierra our focus. Don’t we? I may have lost my sister, but she’s lost her mother. Her only decent parent.” Jason almost laughed. “Jesus. I almost said her only reliable parent. That’s not exactly true. But I know Hayden always loved her. Sierra never had to doubt that.”
“You’re right,” Nora said. “I wanted to talk to you about that too.”
“About Hayden?”
“About Sierra. I want you to do something when that detective comes over.”
“What?”
“You need to make it clear to him, in no uncertain terms, that Sierra is staying with us right now. She’s welcome here.”
“Of course. Why are you worried about this now?”
“I just don’t want the police to think they have to . . . I don’t know . . . take her off our hands. Like you said yesterday, she could end up in foster care. And we don’t want that. We’re family. She can stay with us as long as she wants.”
“Of course,” Jason said. “I’m with you on this.”
“We have to steer her away from calling her dad. She’s safest here.”
Sierra came d
own the stairs. “What are you all talking about?” she asked as she entered the room.
“I was just checking on Uncle Jason,” Nora said. “You’ve both had a shock.”
Sierra slumped down on the couch. She let out a long breath. “What do people do in situations like this?” she asked. “Do they just sit around? Do we talk? Or eat?”
“Mostly you just wait,” Jason said. “And time passes slowly.”
Chapter Twenty-five
When Olsen showed up thirty minutes later, Jason was almost glad to see him. Even though Jason dreaded hearing the substance of what the detective was coming to say, he welcomed the chance to know something. Anything. He and Nora and Sierra had fallen into a glum silence, their conversation consisting mostly of small talk and mundane observations. It felt as though none of them dared bring up anything real—a memory, a theory about the crime—for fear of the flood of emotion it might unleash. They talked about anything but Hayden.
Olsen stepped into the living room, his face somber. He looked tired as well, and he hadn’t shaved. He wore khaki pants and work boots, the better to trudge around in the woods and the dirt.
“I’m sorry it took me longer to get here than I said it would,” he said.
“That’s okay,” Jason said.
“I just wanted to give you an update on where we stand in regards to the search for Hayden. Right now, we’re suspending the search. Things haven’t really changed as they relate to Hayden since last night, and—”
“What do you mean they haven’t changed?” Nora asked.
Olsen looked momentarily confused. “Like I said last night, absent any clear evidence of a crime, or any witnesses who can report a crime, all we really have to go on is the blood in the car. We did get results from our test. It is Hayden’s type. A positive. It’s a very common blood type.” His voice trailed off. He looked at the three faces arrayed around him. Jason couldn’t tell if he understood what they were all thinking or not. “Of course that doesn’t prove the blood is hers. Just that it’s her type. It will take more time—”