Since She Went Away

by David Bell

  “His name is Ed.”

  “Ed Burke,” Jenna said.

  The girl nodded. “But he’s not from Hawks Mill. He lived here once, a long time ago, I guess. But we don’t have any other relatives from here.”

  “But he has friends here or something?” Jenna asked. “If he’s lived here before.”

  “Work friends. He could get a job here.”

  “Where does he work?”

  “I have to go, Mrs. Barton. I’m late. I shouldn’t even be here. I really shouldn’t. My dad’s not home, and I need to get back.”

  “Are you a patient here?” Jenna asked, pressing. “Or is your dad? I’ve seen you somewhere, haven’t I?”

  Tabitha started backing away. “If you’ll just give the book to Jared. Tell him I really liked it. I didn’t finish it, but I liked it.”

  Jenna moved forward, following the girl. She wanted to reach out, to offer the girl a comforting pat on the arm or a hug. Tabitha didn’t have a mother. She lived with a very strict father, one who might even be—

  “Tabitha? Wait.”

  “Bye, Mrs. Barton.”

  “I can give you a ride. If you’re in some kind of trouble.”

  Tabitha turned and broke into a run, hustling across the parking lot toward the far side where there was an opening in the fence.

  Jenna broke in the same direction, running as best she could in her heavy coat. But she quickly saw she’d never catch up to the lightning-quick young girl.

  “Tabitha?”

  But she was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jared was watching TV in the living room when Jenna walked in the door. She carried the book in her purse, its bulk pressing against her body like a cinder block. He looked up when she came in.

  “Did you get stuck shooting the shit with someone?” he asked as he muted the TV. Jenna took a quick glance at the screen and saw it was a show about World War II. Grainy footage of airplanes diving and dropping bombs. She never knew what he’d find interesting. “Was it Sally? She always wants to bug you when you’re trying to get out of there.”

  She sat on the couch, the bulky purse beside her. She still wore her coat, and Jared’s eyebrows lifted when he saw the way she was acting. He knew something was up, since she usually made a beeline for the bedroom and changed into yoga pants as if her work clothes were on fire.

  “I didn’t talk to Sally. No.”

  He turned the TV off and sat up in his chair. He tossed the remote aside as if it offended him. “Is it because of this body they found? I’m sorry, it kind of slipped my mind, but I read all about it on Twitter today. Did the cops want to talk to you?”

  Holly Crenshaw. That name had slipped out of her mind ever since Tabitha walked up to her in the parking lot. “They did. This morning. I hate that stuff being all over Twitter.”

  “People like to talk,” he said.

  “Right. Look, honey, Tabitha came and talked to me as I was leaving work.”

  Jared’s body jolted as if he’d been stuck with a knife. Every muscle went rigid, and his eyes widened. “Just now?”

  “Just now. That’s why I was a little late. I’d stayed late anyway to catch up on some things, but then she found me in the parking lot.”

  “What did she want? What did she say? Mom, she hasn’t been in school for days.”

  Jenna brought out the book, its bulk making her hand sink toward the couch. She held it out to him, and Jared took it, handling it like something precious and fragile. “She said it belonged to you, and she wanted you to have it back. I tried to find out how she was doing, but she just took off. I even offered her a ride.”

  He stared at the cover of the book, one hand rubbing its surface while the other held it. “Why did she come and give this to you?” He asked the question absently, not really expecting a response. His words were the words of someone who’d been wounded, stung by another’s rejection. “She could have brought it to me, here or at school.”

  “She told me the two of you broke up.”

  “She broke up with me,” he said.

  “I got that feeling.”

  “Was she okay?” he asked. “I haven’t talked to her or seen her. She hasn’t been in school. Did I mention that?”

  “You did.” Jenna removed her coat and tossed it over the back of the couch. “Did it ever occur to you that Tabitha might be having bigger problems than your relationship? Maybe she’s in some kind of real trouble.”

  Jared told Jenna that he’d tried to search for information about Tabitha online but found nothing. No social media, no trace of the life she’d lived before she arrived in Hawks Mill. And then he told her about a discussion he’d had with his guidance counselor, the woman who dressed like a hippie and seemed to want to be everybody’s friend. Jenna always felt put off by her clothes and demeanor, but Jared loved talking to her, and if she helped him navigate school and get into college, then so be it. Who cared what she wore?

  “She said something about having to accept the fact that I may never see Tabitha again,” he said. “She knew something, something she didn’t or couldn’t tell me. I’d swear it.”

  “Why don’t you let me call Detective Poole?” Jenna said. “She could just do a little looking around if she has a free moment, which she may not.”

  “No, Mom.”

  Jared’s voice was insistent, as hard as steel. He rarely flashed an angry side, but when he did, he resembled his father more than Jenna wanted to admit. Marty had a short fuse and liked to play the role of the stern patriarch when he felt strongly about something.

  “But if she’s in danger, the police can help.”

  “No. You don’t understand. What if you call the police and tell them about Tabitha, and then they go to her house and talk to her dad? She could end up in more trouble or she could . . .”

  His voice trailed off. But Jenna understood.

  “You think she’ll blame you,” she said. “She’ll blame you and then what? You’ll never be able to get back together with her?”

  Jared looked down at the book cover. Jenna remembered those days when a fledgling little relationship meant more than anything else in life. There had been other boys in high school besides Ian. So many little crushes and flirtations, so many little disappointments and broken hearts. Hell, she felt that way when Marty left. He was no prince, but for close to six months after he walked out the door, she would have taken him back no questions asked. She had felt that desperate, that lonely and scared.

  “Jared, there are more important things than a relationship sometimes,” she said. “There’s a person’s safety.”

  “I’ll go. I’ll check on her.”

  “No.” Jenna rarely told Jared not to do something. She trusted him to make his own decisions. Mostly. But she needed to play the parent this time. “You shouldn’t go over there.”

  “Why not? It’s better than calling the police.”

  “I thought you were worried about what she thought of you. What’s she going to think if you come knocking on her door after she’s dumped you?”

  The word “dumped” sounded harsh and stinging, but Jared didn’t react.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said, his voice lower.

  “I won’t call the police, if you don’t want. Not right now. I’m holding on to that option, just so you know. If there’s more trouble with her or other bad signs.”

  “Fine. That’s fine.”

  Jared started paging through the book, not really stopping to read or look at anything. Just paging. It looked like a nervous gesture more than anything else.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I could call Stanley’s and order a pizza. I’m not cooking, I can tell you that.”

  “Sure. That would be good.”

  “Are you seeing Syd and Mike tonight? Or are you staying home
with Mom?”

  He shrugged. “I’m just hungry. Can you call soon?”

  “Sure.”

  She hung her coat up by the door, and on the way past the chair where Jared sat, she stopped. She wanted to hug him, pull him close the way she used to when he was little. He didn’t look up or invite any contact, so she ruffled his hair with her hand. He tolerated the affection without resisting, and then Jenna went down the hall to the bedroom. It felt good to change her clothes, to shed the day and all of its problems. She hoped Jared would stay in, that they would watch a movie together while eating the pizza, a little mother-son bonding they both needed.

  She heard a noise from the other room. Something opening and closing.

  “Jared?”

  She hurried back out to the living room. His coat was gone.

  She knew right away what had happened.

  He’d left to go check on Tabitha.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Jared knew what running out that way meant. It meant his mom would probably call the police.

  But she didn’t know where Tabitha lived. She didn’t know how to find him.

  He pulled his coat tighter around his body. It was close to six, the sky fully dark.

  He decided to cut through Caldwell Park. It offered a more direct route, one that might shave a few minutes off his travel time. Kids from school hung out there in the afternoon and evening. On summer nights, it was impossible to go there without running into someone he knew. When he walked Tabitha home the other night, he’d bypassed the park for that very reason. He didn’t want to share his limited time with Tabitha with anyone else. Alone, he didn’t care.

  He entered on the east side, a couple of blocks from where Celia disappeared. For a while, after her disappearance, the sidewalk was littered with candles and notes and stuffed animals. Most of that stuff was gone, the spot empty and back to normal. Jared wondered what the police did with all those trinkets. Did they keep them somewhere, as some kind of evidence or memento of the case? Or did they just trash them? He could imagine some cop with a garbage bag, showing up at night and sweeping it all away, tossing it in a Dumpster behind the police station.

  There were swings and jungle gyms at the south end of the park. His mom had taken him there when he was little, letting him run around while she studied her anatomy textbooks. In the middle sat a statue of Abraham Lincoln, Kentucky’s favorite son. Never mind that he lived in the state only until he was six years old and spent much more time in Illinois, people in the Bluegrass State liked to claim him.

  On the far side of the park, the west side, the city had constructed a little band shell. They painted it light blue, and in the summers offered live music. Mostly old guys trying to play bluegrass, their banjos and fiddles twanging across the lawn while even older people in lawn chairs nodded along. In the winter, the place looked desolate. It filled with dead leaves, and only the skateboarders congregated there, using the place for dramatic takeoffs and landings.

  As Jared passed by the band shell, he saw a group of four people, their figures dark outlines in the fading light. Kids from school, he figured, and he hoped he didn’t know them. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to get to Tabitha’s house and put his mind at ease.

  “Look who it is,” a voice said.

  Jared turned to the right, toward the sound of the voice, but he kept walking quickly.

  “Hey, hold it.”

  A girl’s voice.

  Jared slowed down, squinting as he peered into the quickening darkness. The girl was moving toward him, her long, wavy hair and tall boots growing visible. He thought he knew her, but it took a moment.

  She reached the lit path he walked on, stepping into the glow of one of the lamps.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Hi, Jared.”

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to Ursula Walters. He knew it was before her mom disappeared, way before. Their moms made them play together when they were kids, sometimes on the very swings Jared was just remembering. She had fascinated him when they were little. She was bossy and brash, braver than any of the boys he knew. He never forgot the time she shoved him, causing him to crack his head against the corner of a coffee table. With friends like that, who needs enemies, right?

  But he also used to go to sleep at night and think about her, imagining that they’d grow up and become more than friends. His mom and Celia liked to try to embarrass both of them by mentioning the way they used to bathe together as babies. Jared always felt his face turn red when one of the moms brought it up, but Ursula never blushed. She acted as though nothing in the world bothered her or knocked her off stride.

  “Hey, Ursula,” he said, hoping she didn’t want to talk.

  But she studied him up and down, taking in his clothes and his face, inspecting him as if she needed to know everything he was up to. A surprising amount of interest considering how little they spoke to each other. Around the time they became teenagers, Ursula had transformed into a mean girl, someone who ran with a crowd of rich kids. Their parents belonged to the country club, and they all wore the best clothes, as if they had Abercrombie & Fitch on speed dial. Jared felt squeezed out of her life, and he really didn’t mind. Once she’d started acting that way, his nearly lifelong crush dissolved.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry?” she asked.

  He looked behind her. Three bigger, older-looking guys accompanied her. Ursula was that kind of kid. She couldn’t spend time with people her own age.

  “Just walking,” Jared said, and started to move on.

  But the voice of one of the guys stopped him again.

  “Ursula, isn’t that the kid whose mom got your mom killed?”

  Two of the guys came forward, looming behind Ursula in the dark. The third guy, bigger than the other two, hung back, a red glow near his head telling Jared he was smoking. For the first time, Jared felt scared. The adrenaline and emotion that had fueled his rush toward Tabitha’s house shifted to something more desperate and pointed. His own safety might be in jeopardy.

  He wasn’t a fighter. He’d skirmished with a couple of kids on the playground years ago, winning one battle by pinning his opponent to the ground and emerging with a bloody nose and a detention from the other. But these guys were bigger and older, and they sounded tougher.

  “Don’t blame my mother,” he said. “She didn’t do anything.”

  “She stood Mrs. Walters up,” the kid on the left said, the one who had already spoken. He wore a puffy ski vest over a button-down shirt. Not exactly brawling clothes, but Jared had seen rich kids fight and he knew some of them were as tough as the poorest and most desperate students in town. Being rich didn’t mean someone wasn’t deeply pissed at the core of his being. “Handed her over to some killer on a silver platter.”

  The kid so casually threw the words “killed” and “killer” around. Everyone—the media, friends, family—took great pains to talk about Celia as though she were missing and might come back someday. Deep down, Jared suspected everyone knew the truth, but they never admitted it. This kid didn’t try to sugarcoat it, and he assumed Ursula felt the same way or else they wouldn’t be saying it around her.

  “It wasn’t her,” Jared said. He needed to get to Tabitha, to check on her well-being, and then he needed to get home so his mom wouldn’t worry too much. But he couldn’t just walk away from the confrontation, letting these kids—and by extension everyone else in town—think that his mother was the one solely responsible for leaving Celia alone on the edge of Caldwell Park that night. “It was me,” he said. “I made her late that night. Shit, she found some alcohol in my room, and we had to fucking talk about it. That’s why she was late.”

  Ursula just stared at him in the dark, but one of the other guys spoke up.

  “Oooo,” he said. “Rebel without a cause. Alcohol in the room, and Mom caught
him. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  Jared ignored him. “Of course, if it were me, I’d blame the person who actually kidnapped your mother. But what do I know?”

  Ursula studied him. The lamps that lined the walkway caught her brown eyes, making them shimmer like small reflective pools. She was impossible to read, and he thought at any moment she might reach out and slap him.

  Instead one corner of her mouth turned up, the beginning of a smirk. “Well, holy shit,” she said. “Everyone has a little secret, don’t they?”

  “You can tell your dad or the police. I don’t care, okay? But I have to get going now. You can get back to whatever worthless bullshit you were talking about before I came by. Like how your cleaning lady doesn’t fold your underwear the right way, or which handicapped freshman you want to bully on the bus.”

  The guy on the left’s hand shot out so fast Jared couldn’t have avoided it. He half punched, half shoved Jared in the chest, knocking him off balance. Jared caught himself and then moved forward, fists raised in a way he hoped didn’t look ridiculous. The guy scrambled toward him, but before they could come close to each other, Ursula was in between them, her arms raised like a boxing referee’s at the end of a round.

  “Stop it,” she said. “Knock it off.”

  They both stopped, Jared and the guy. Jared was thankful for the darkness. It covered up the shaking of his hands, the unsteady quaking of his legs. His opponent betrayed no nerves, no uncertainty. He stood glaring at Jared, his eyes cold. But he clearly did whatever Ursula wanted him to do. He took a step back.

  “Just leave him alone,” she said, taking Jared in again. She seemed to be seeing something new, but he couldn’t be sure if it was the information about the night her mother disappeared or his willingness to mouth off and fight a bigger and older kid. Jared tried to remember what impression she might have of him from growing up. It wouldn’t be one that included toughness and grit. How could it when the lasting memory of their childhood was sitting in a bathtub together, splashing each other and playing with floating boats and animals? “Go on, get out of here, Jared. You’ve been very enlightening.”