Since She Went Away

by David Bell

  “The way I was treated?” Jenna said.

  “Of course. There was no excuse for it. They shouldn’t share your private business on TV like that. It’s a violation.”

  “So you’re taking my side?” Jenna asked.

  “Don’t I always?”

  Jenna almost laughed. A million responses raced through her mind, but she held them all in. She felt real gratitude, a warmth in the center of her chest. Her mother could be counted on when the chips were really down. Jenna always knew that.

  “Thanks, Mom,” she said.

  “Do you want to talk about this more?”

  “I can’t now,” Jenna said. “I’m on my way . . . I’m going somewhere. But really. Thanks.”

  “Always, honey. Always.”

  • • •

  Ian opened the door, wearing a button-down shirt and jeans. He held a pair of reading glasses in one hand and looked surprised to see Jenna standing on the porch.

  She’d driven away from his house the night before feeling sick about his admission that he’d had Celia spied on, and he looked like a different person—one without the stardust glow she’d seen encircling him ever since the day they first met.

  Jenna stepped inside and looked around. She smelled coffee brewing and maybe something baking. “Is Ursula home?”

  “She’s asleep. It’s only nine o’clock.”

  “Have the police been here?” Jenna asked.

  “Detective Poole called. She said she needs to come by later. What is this about, Jenna?”

  “I need to ask Ursula something.”

  Ian closed the door and stood in front of Jenna, blocking her access to the rest of the house. He was a good eight inches taller than she was. His body was still trim, his shoulders still broad and thick. “What do you need to ask Ursula?” Then a knowing look crossed his face. “Are you still on this kick about why she wanted Jared to go on TV? Look, Jenna, I’m going to have to ask you to lay off of her. I saw the news today. They arrested that man.” He lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes. He kept his hand there, obscuring Jenna’s view of most of his face. “I’ve wanted this to end for so long, to just know something. And now that we might learn something, the real truth about it all, I’m terrified. I just don’t want to find out. I don’t want to get some final answer. What would I do then? Do you know?”

  “Ursula didn’t just push Jared to do it,” Jenna said. “She went online, to message boards where they talk about missing persons cases. She went on there and she led another man on, making him think these photos he was taking in another state were photos of Celia. She encouraged this guy to think Celia was alive and living in his town.”

  Ian looked like a man who understood only half the story. He tilted his head to one side, as though her words might register in his brain and make more sense if he pointed his ears a different direction. “I don’t follow any of this. Can we go out to the kitchen? Ursula’s bedroom is right up there, and I’d like to know what you’re saying about my daughter before she hears it.”

  Jenna looked up the staircase. She wanted to break past him, shove Ian aside, and go right to the source. But she held herself in check. No need to make a scene. No need to run wild.

  Yet.

  She followed Ian out to the kitchen, where he offered her coffee, which she accepted as she sat at the table. Her body felt energized, but she knew it wouldn’t last. The mixture of adrenaline, fear, and lack of sleep would bring her back to earth soon. She’d crash like a meteor.

  As clearly and patiently as possible, she explained about Rick Stearns, their conversations online and his firm belief that he had found Celia living in Indiana.

  “Someone using the handle ‘Little Bear’ went online and told him that the pictures he took of this other woman were of Celia, even though they clearly weren’t. ‘Little Bear,’ Ian. Ursula.”

  “Do you know how many girls in this country are named Ursula? And do you know how many people might call themselves ‘Little Bear’? It hardly seems like proof that my Ursula was involved.”

  “But she told him Celia used to go to Indiana when she was a kid, that her grandparents lived there when she was little. How many people know that? I barely remembered.”

  Ian tapped his fingers on the tabletop. His nails were neatly manicured and even. “Any of her good friends would remember that. Maybe it was on the news. Knowing that one fact about Celia doesn’t make someone special.”

  “Why did she push us to go on TV? Why did she tell Reena about Jared and the alcohol?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Ursula seems to be in the middle of a lot of things. Hell, Ian, she’s friends with the kid whose father was murdered by William Rose. She’s connected in a number of ways. Why?”

  “Because her mother disappeared.” Ian’s voice rose, and he thumped the table with his right hand.

  Jenna sat back. The volume of his outburst and the display of emotion caught her short.

  Ian looked angry. A flush rose in his cheeks.

  But he regained control of his voice. “Goddammit, Jenna. Her mother disappeared. Of course she’s involved.”

  Jenna didn’t know what to say.

  Had she pushed too hard again?

  But Jenna was in the middle of it too. And Jared.

  She needed to know.

  “Let’s ask her, then,” she said. “Natalie, the missing girl, she came back. To my house.”

  “She did?”

  “She was there when Henry Allen was killed. And Henry Allen and William Rose mentioned Bobby’s name and Ursula’s name. Why, Ian?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Let’s go ask her. We’ll just ask her why those men, the men you had following Celia, were saying her name right before one of them killed the other.”

  “You want me to wake her up on a Saturday for this nonsense?” His eyes looked cold, skeptical. His voice still maintained an edge of anger. “You say you don’t want Jared dragged into this. Don’t you think I feel the same way about my daughter?” His voice sounded choked. “Our baby. She had a shitty night last night, in case you don’t remember.”

  “I had a shitty one too. And you know Ursula has always had a temper. She’s even been violent a few times.”

  Ian’s eyes looked like glass. “Really, Jenna? You’d say that?”

  “Do you want me to go up there and wake her?”

  Ian rubbed his freshly shaven cheeks. His eyes remained cold. “Goddammit, Jenna, it’s always something with you. You’re always shooting off your mouth about something, always pushing people to talk when they don’t want to. Or do things. If you’d left Celia alone that night—”

  He stopped. But Jenna’s cheeks burned. She ground her teeth together, holding her tongue.

  Ian stood up, the chair scraping against the floor. “I’ll ask her. She’s my daughter.”

  She heard him walk to the front of the house, heard his shoes on the stairs, rising above her.

  Little Bear. She trusted her hunch.

  It was nothing but a feeling. But it felt right.

  It made sense. And she didn’t want to wait anymore.

  She went out to the foyer where the stairs rose to the second floor.

  When she arrived, she saw Ian coming down, his face perplexed.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Ian paused halfway. He pointed behind him, somewhere up the stairs.

  “She’s not there,” he said. “I thought she was home, but she must have . . .”

  Jenna went up, moving past him, and entered Ursula’s bedroom. The bed was made, possibly never slept in. She looked around, pulled open some drawers. It looked as though things had been removed. Underwear, socks. She stepped into the bathroom. No toiletries were visible, no jewelry, no retainer or toothbrush or makeup.

&n
bsp; She ran back out. “Ian? She left. Did you know this?”

  “No. I swear. She was here last night.”

  “So she didn’t hear they arrested William Rose?”

  “Not from me.”

  “She ran away.” Jenna moved down past Ian. She didn’t know where she was going, but she needed to move. “Her things are gone.”

  He stayed rooted in place on the stairs. “My God. What have I done? How did I let her get past me and out of the house?”

  “She’s not a baby, Ian. She’s fifteen. You can’t control her.”

  “But her mother’s missing. And now she . . .” He fumbled in his pockets, his hands shaking. He brought out his phone. “Let me call her. She wouldn’t just . . . leave. Leave me.”

  Jenna watched his face while Ursula’s phone rang. It rang and rang, and Ian’s complexion grew more pale. He hung up and tried again. He still didn’t get an answer, so he left a message.

  “Ursula, honey . . .” He managed to keep his voice level, but Jenna could sense his struggle. “I need you to call me. As soon as possible. I need to know where you are. Right away, honey. Okay?” He paused but didn’t hang up. “You’re kind of scaring me, honey. I need to know where you are.”

  He lowered the phone and stared straight ahead, his body slumping back against the wall of the staircase.

  “Why don’t you come downstairs?” Jenna asked. “You can sit.”

  “I have to call the police, don’t I?”

  “Yes, you should. Right away. She could be in danger or running away. You need to know why she’s doing this. Why now.”

  Ian nodded as he started dialing. “Why would she run now? After everything.”

  “I have no idea,” Jenna said. “But you’re right when you say we need to know.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Jared walked across town. The day promised to be bright and clear and warmer, but it was early enough for his breath to puff like little clouds as he moved.

  He thought of Natalie. He didn’t know where she was or who she was with. Detective Poole said she’d go to the doctor and then into foster care. She told him to be patient, to wait as the process played out.

  The time ahead of him stretched out like an endless highway, like walking through quicksand toward a destination that receded farther and farther away.

  He needed to so something besides sit in his room and wait.

  His mom. She was off looking into something about Celia. He knew it. Something that old guy, Domino, said. It set her off. The old guy who saved his bacon. He hoped he was okay, that his blood pressure hadn’t soared off the charts or blown up in his brain.

  After fifteen minutes of walking, the sweat forming in his armpits and on his back, he came to Bobby Allen’s street. It was the same house he’d lived in when they were kids, just a half mile from Ursula.

  Jared walked up to the front door and was about to ring the bell when he heard a car coming down the driveway. Bobby sat in the driver’s seat, and he looked over at Jared, standing on the porch with his hand raised.

  Bobby didn’t look completely surprised. He stopped the car and rolled down the window as Jared moved across the grass.

  “You looking for me?” Bobby asked.

  Jared said yes, although it seemed obvious.

  “I guess this isn’t strictly a social call,” Bobby said. “We didn’t even do that when we were kids.”

  “I wanted to ask you something. I’m sorry, Bobby, but it’s something about your dad. And Natalie.”

  Bobby didn’t look surprised or offended. He waved his hand. “Get in.”

  Bobby looked as tired as Jared felt. As he drove, he gave off a jittery energy, the kind kids had when they’d been up all night studying and throwing down coffee to stay awake for a test. Jared chalked his behavior up to the weird aftereffects of grief.

  “Where are we going?” Jared asked.

  Bobby stared straight ahead. “That depends on what you ask me.”

  The first budding of fear sprouted in Jared’s chest. Bobby drove downtown and around the square. He did it once and then he did it again, circling while Jared sat in the passenger seat.

  Jared started. “Okay, so Natalie—”

  “Your girl.”

  “Right.”

  “And the daughter of the guy who killed my dad.” They were starting a third circuit around the square. “My mom told me they caught him today, by the way. At your house.”

  “Yeah,” Jared said. “I’m glad they did.”

  “I was supposed to have gone somewhere sooner, but when that news broke . . . well, my mom was kind of upset. My sister too. I had to stick around, and then the cops came by again.”

  “You have somewhere to be?” Jared asked.

  “It’s probably too late,” Bobby said. “I was meeting a chick.”

  “Ursula?”

  “The cops say this guy William Rose is claiming he’s innocent, that he didn’t hurt anyone, including Ursula’s mom.”

  “No surprise, I guess,” Jared said.

  “There could be a trial,” Bobby said. “That would be shitty for my mom.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Your mom too.”

  Bobby left the square, heading west. No music played, and he seemed to be driving faster than the speed limit.

  “Do you need to call your friend?” Jared asked.

  “She keeps calling me. I turned the phone off.”

  Jared went ahead and asked the question on his mind, the one that had driven him to leave his warm bed when he was dead-dog tired and trudge over to Bobby’s house in the late-winter cold.

  Jared said, “Your dad, the night he was killed . . . you know, Natalie was in the house. She heard it happen. She heard them arguing and then fighting.”

  Bobby’s lips were pressed tight. He stared straight ahead.

  “You see, Natalie swears she heard your name come up. And Ursula’s. During the argument. She told this to me and then to the police. Maybe she misunderstood, but I was just wondering if you thought that was possible.”

  Bobby didn’t answer right away. They were out near the old state road, the one people used to take to Lexington before the interstate went in, leaving this one kind of forgotten. They came to a four-way stop, and Bobby let the car sit there, the heater humming softly, the engine a low purr.

  “They talked about that, huh?” he asked.

  “Yes. I heard them.”

  “And Natalie told the police this?” Bobby asked.

  “She did. She told them a lot of stuff, but that’s the part I noticed. I kind of figured they’d be talking to you and Ursula soon.”

  “They did talk to me,” Bobby said. “This morning. But they didn’t push too hard. I told them it kind of made sense my dad might say my name to someone who wanted to kill him. Right?”

  “And Ursula’s name?” Jared asked.

  “I don’t know if they talked to her yet.”

  “What does it mean, Bobby?” Jared asked.

  “I think I have to show you something.”

  “Do you know why your dad and William Rose mentioned you?” Jared asked. “Or did Natalie hear them wrong?”

  “I could drive away,” Bobby said. “Put this thing in drive and just go. I could take you with me, if you wanted. We could get away from it all.”

  Jared felt confused. “And go where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “What about your family?” Jared asked. “You said your mom, your sister—”

  “Yeah. Them. Everyone.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Things never really end, do they? Even if you run away.”

  “Not really.”

  Bobby turned the car around. They headed back toward town, retracing the route they’d just taken.

  C
HAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  Ian walked into the living room after calling the police. He had reported Ursula missing, a possible runaway. He couldn’t give them a motive or explain anything, but he asked that they inform Naomi Poole.

  Then he sat down and looked to Jenna.

  A few long moments passed, and then Ian slipped back into the guise of the rational, detached businessman.

  “I want to find her first,” he said. “I don’t want my daughter just pursued and questioned by the police. You understand wanting to protect your child, don’t you? She hasn’t done anything wrong. Not that we know of.”

  Jenna’s heart beat a bass drum rhythm while she studied Ian’s face. “You should stay here. She might come home. You should be here.”

  “No. I can’t do nothing.”

  “I’ll go drive around and look for her. I’ll look in the park.”

  “Let’s go look for her together,” Ian said. “You and me. We can drive around. The police can call me if they need me. Poole or whoever. We have our phones.”

  He sounded so reasonable, so believable, that Jenna found herself nodding before he was even finished.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Let’s go look for her.”

  • • •

  Jared recognized the alley they drove down. Bobby moved the car slowly, his forehead creased with concentration. It had only been the previous night Jared was there, moving through the party in search of Ursula.

  Kirk Embry’s house.

  Jared saw the gate he’d come through at the back of the property, the tall privacy fence that protected the pool. Bobby opened his door and climbed out without saying anything, so Jared followed him.

  The back gate hung open. Bobby strolled through and when Jared entered the pool area, he saw a few scattered Solo cups and empty beer bottles. A discarded UK sweatshirt lay next to the thick tarp covering the pool, and Jared wondered how Mike had fared at the party.

  Bobby walked over to the side of the pool and crouched down next to one of the thick cords that held the tarp in place. He started unwinding the knot, looking like a deckhand preparing a ship to sail. He sprang a few of the cords loose near the deep end, never once looking up at Jared.