Bring Her Home

by David Bell

  “Didn’t that teacher or counselor say she was worried about Summer running away?”

  “Counselor. Yes. She said Summer was talking about Julia a few weeks ago. And she was agitated about something.”

  “What?”

  “I told you I don’t know.”

  “Okay, okay. Where do you want to go now? To the park where they’re searching? To . . . I don’t know. The school? Where?”

  Bill stared out the window as they started driving. He flipped through everything in his mind as they passed the other cars, the minivans and sedans, the delivery trucks. The normal business of a normal winter day for everyone but him. What could Summer have been thinking about?

  Julia’s birthday, maybe. Bill scanned through the dates, forward and back. Nothing had happened. And then—

  “Oh, God,” he said, lifting his hand to his forehead.

  “What?”

  “That’s it.” He turned to Paige. “That’s it. Not Julia’s birthday. Summer’s. Next month she turns sixteen.”

  “And?”

  “She and Julia talked about going on a trip. A spring break trip for her sixteenth birthday. For both of their birthdays. Just the two of them. Just the girls. Summer is turning sixteen next month. That’s when they were going on the trip.”

  “Where were they going?” she asked.

  “Nowhere. That’s just it. They never planned it. Julia died. But they would have been planning it or getting ready for it now.” He let out a groan of frustration. “I blew it. A while back I thought about planning something, a replacement for what she could have done with Julia. But I never followed through. I’m so stupid. She needed me to do that.”

  “And they never said where they wanted to go?” Paige asked.

  “It was just fantasy. Hawaii. Paris. We couldn’t afford that. But they could have gone somewhere, even just down to Nashville or something. Damn it. I blew it.”

  “Okay, maybe she was thinking of the trip.”

  “She was.” He dug in his pocket for his phone. “I have to tell Hawkins. They can start searching in Europe. And I can tell him about Clinton being at the hospital.”

  “Do you want to go to the station?” Paige asked.

  “Take me home,” he said while Hawkins’s line rang.

  “Home? You just said you didn’t want to go there.”

  “I do now. I want to talk to Adam.”

  When they arrived, Bill jumped out of the car and started toward Adam’s house. Hawkins had listened calmly while Bill told him about Summer and Julia’s planned trip. He told Bill he’d note it, but without a realistic destination in mind, how could they begin to use the information?

  “Her computer,” Bill said. “Maybe she searched for something.”

  “We’ll check, Bill. Summer was curious. She looked at everything on there, but we’ll look.”

  Then he told Hawkins about Clinton being at the hospital, about the security guard escorting him out. “What do you think he was doing there?” Bill asked.

  Hawkins took a moment to answer. “I have no idea, but I don’t like it.”

  “Exactly. Such an entitled little shit. Probably came here just to try to look like a decent guy.”

  “Let me call the head of security there right now. He’s a former cop.”

  Bill hung up as he walked. The grass was springy and damp, the trees still bare. Adam kept a large compost pile, something he tended obsessively, churning the rich loam with a shovel or pitchfork on an almost-daily basis. Bill hated yard work and looked forward to winter only because it meant he didn’t have to cut the grass for five months.

  He walked around the stone fire pit and stepped onto the small back deck attached to Adam’s house, knocking lightly on the door. A dog a couple of blocks away kept up an insistent barking, an unsuccessful attempt to let someone know he existed and needed attention. He thought of the body under that sheet at the hospital. How many unknown people were there in the country? Forgotten children or friends, discarded like unclaimed freight. And then he wondered if at that very moment Summer was on a similar slab in an unfamiliar city, her body tagged and ready to be put away until Bill could be found.

  He shivered and brought his fingers together under his chin, tightening the opening of his coat. Adam still hadn’t appeared, so Bill knocked again, hoping Adam wasn’t asleep, taking a midday nap. Or in the bathroom. But before too long he saw Adam’s figure emerge from the darkness inside the house and approach the back door, his face somewhat perplexed at seeing Bill there.

  “Hey, man,” Adam said as he pulled the door open.

  “Hey.”

  Adam wore his usual nonwork clothes: jeans, work boots, flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up past the elbows. He offered Bill a tentative half smile, his face surprised and expectant. He didn’t make any other gesture—no handshake or support.

  But why would he? Had Hawkins even announced the news yet?

  “Is this a bad time?” Bill asked.

  Adam remained in the doorway, not moving aside to let Bill in. “No, I was just packing. I guess I didn’t hear you knock right away.”

  “That’s okay. I should have called.” Bill tried to see around Adam to get a sense of how much progress he had made on the move, but Adam’s solid body filled the door frame. “Have you heard the news about Summer?”

  Adam’s eyebrows knitted together. “What news? What happened?”

  Bill found it hard to believe anybody didn’t know. But life went on around them. Everybody’s lives went on. “I guess they’re just announcing it now.”

  “Bill, what is it?” he asked, taking a step closer.

  “Right.” Bill swallowed, feeling a little strange making such an odd pronouncement to his friend. He flexed his hand, saw that his fingers were swollen. He could see that girl under the sheet, the lonely unidentified girl. The words stuck in Bill’s throat. “Well, that girl they buried, the one we thought was Summer—she’s not. I mean, she’s not Summer.”

  Adam cocked his head but didn’t say anything.

  “It’s a different girl,” Bill said, trying to explain, to fill the silence with something that made sense, even though none of it did. “They don’t know where Summer is. If she’s alive or dead or who knows what. She’s been gone eight days. Eight. She could be . . . Those boys or some maniac . . . I don’t know what to think. She could be dead. Missing. Maybe she ran away somewhere. She might have wanted to just get away, to go somewhere different.”

  Concern deepened on Adam’s face, as well as a touch of disbelief. He tilted his head again, moving it back into its normal position and staring at Bill as he processed the information. “You’re kidding,” he said, his voice sharp in the quiet afternoon.

  “No, I’m not. Fuck, would I kid about this?”

  Adam reached up and scratched behind his ear, his head moving back and forth underneath his big hand. But he didn’t say anything else. His eyes looked glassy, distant, as though the news had knocked him into stunned silence.

  “I don’t know what to say, Bill. I just don’t. . . .”

  “I need your help,” Bill said. “Come out with me. Help me look. Help me do something. She’s out there. Alive. Maybe. I don’t know.” He wiped his nose with his left hand. “Adam, I just want to find her. Damn it, you’re the only one I can really get to help me with this.”

  “Slow down, Bill. Easy.”

  “Easy? No, not easy. Shit, she’s out there. Look, you spend time outdoors. You know the woods. The parks, the campgrounds, the trails. You go out there all the time. You know out-of-the-way spots in the county. Help me look. Just—let’s do something. Anything. We can find her. Let’s get in our cars and drive down the highway. Maybe she’s hitching somewhere. Or maybe she’s in a motel or a shelter.”

  “You need to let the cops do these things,” Adam said.
“They don’t want us blundering in their way. Besides, this is a big county. It’s needle-in-a-haystack time out there. Come on.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Sit? Scratch my ass? Eat dinner and stare at the TV like all the other idiots in the world?”

  “Come inside, okay?” Adam said. He stepped back and pushed the door open. “Let’s talk. It’s cold out here. You’re cold. You’re kind of a wreck.”

  “I can’t stop, Adam. I can’t take time to talk.”

  The usual brightness returned to Adam’s face, like a switch had been flipped, animating him from the inside. “Come in,” he said, moving farther back. “Of course we can talk. I was going to come over and tell you something once you were home. Something I think you’re going to want to hear. Just listen a minute, and then we’ll go from there.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Bill expected to find a house in chaos, but there was little evidence that Adam was about to move to Oklahoma. A few boxes were stacked in one corner, and a roll of packing tape sat on the kitchen counter, but the house was Spartan to begin with, light on wall hangings and decor, the furniture minimal and unmatched. The most personal details were some shot glasses and two baseball trophies on a shelf near the kitchen. Exactly what Bill expected a divorced guy’s house to look like.

  Bill sat on the couch while Adam went out to the kitchen. He reached into a cabinet and brought down a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and then two glasses. He carried them over, set them on the coffee table, and poured Bill and himself a generous shot.

  But neither of them reached for the glasses.

  Adam sat with his hands on his knees and said, “So, what are they doing now? The cops?”

  “Full-court press to find her,” Bill said. He wanted to sound hopeful, to inject some positivity into his voice, but he lacked the energy. “Alive or dead, I guess.” Bill let his weight settle into the couch, like sinking into quicksand. “I don’t know what to think. I’m scared. I should be relieved. She could be alive instead of beaten to a pulp or dead and gone. But I’ve been getting jerked around like a fish on a line. I feel worse, Adam. My daughter may not be dead, but I feel more twisted up.”

  Adam lifted one of the glasses and leaned forward, presenting it to Bill.

  “Thanks. I need this today.” Bill slammed the shot, a trickle of it running out the side of his mouth and onto his cheek. He wiped it off with his sleeve while Adam drank his down. “That’s good.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” Adam said. “If my son . . . If anything ever . . .”

  Bill took a moment to place his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes with his palms. He rubbed until he saw red starbursts on the insides of his eyelids, and then he brought his hands down and looked at Adam. He held his slightly swollen right hand in the air. “Look at that,” he said.

  Adam examined the hand. “What happened?”

  “I punched a window at the morgue. Hard. I saw that girl’s body, the other one, the one they haven’t identified.” Bill burped. Some of the whiskey came up, a bitter taste he swallowed. “Someone could be torturing her, doing the worst to her. Or . . .”

  “Let me get you some ice for that,” Adam said. He went out to the kitchen again, and Bill heard the rattling of the cubes. Adam came back with a plastic bag full of ice, which he handed over to Bill, who gently placed it against the back of his right hand. He winced.

  “Or she’s . . . I don’t know. What do you have to tell me?” Bill asked.

  Adam shifted his head a little, as though the collar of his shirt fit too tight. “To be honest, I have to come clean with you about something. You may not like it very much. In fact, I guess I realize how stupid it was in retrospect.” Adam’s voice sounded softer. It steadily lost its usual heartiness as he spoke, as if his confidence was draining out of him. “But those boys from the high school, the ones they suspect, are having a press conference this afternoon. Jillian told me.”

  “They are? To say what?”

  “I assume they’re going to say they’re innocent of anything that happened to Summer or Haley.”

  “And this other girl,” Bill said. “The one who died.”

  Adam nodded. “But these kids . . . My name might come up in connection with all of it if they get pressed. And the cops might ask you about it, so I’m just going to tell you.”

  Bill’s mind flipped through possibilities, but he couldn’t imagine a scenario that seemed logical or plausible. So he just waited for Adam to go on, even though his friend seemed more nervous, more uncertain than Bill had ever seen him.

  Adam cleared his throat. “I told you how I know Jillian. And how we’ve become friends—just friends—over the past year or so.”

  “Sure.”

  “And that Teena was looking up to me a little as well.”

  “You told me. What did you find out?”

  “Well, look, Teena came to my house a few months ago. I didn’t even know she knew where I lived. I didn’t know the girl that well then. I would say hello to her when I went to their house, but she never really talked to me.”

  “Why did she come over here?” Bill asked.

  “Pretty typical stuff.” He smiled a little, a boys-will-be-boys gleam in his eye. “Kids. She wanted me to buy alcohol for her and her friends.”

  “And you did?” Bill asked, trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

  Adam started scratching behind his ear again. “You remember what it was like to be a teenager and to just be looking for something to do. I figured those kids were going to find alcohol someway, and Teena promised me none of them were going to drive, so there wasn’t that danger.” He shrugged. “She and I went to a convenience store, the one over on High Street, and she sat in the car while I went in and bought them a twelve-pack. Then I drove her to her friend’s house.”

  “Who was the friend?” Bill asked.

  “I’m pretty sure it was Clinton Fields. She didn’t tell me his name, and I didn’t ask. But when that girl had to be taken out of his house in an ambulance, I recognized the house and the street.” He reached out and poured another shot for himself but didn’t drink it. “And the thing is, Bill, Summer was there. I saw her when I dropped Teena off.”

  Bill’s hands started to tremble. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “The same reason I bought the beer in the first place.” He sounded calm, matter-of-fact. “It’s tough being a kid, and I didn’t want to be the one to rain on their parade. They were having a good time, but they weren’t hurting anything.”

  “But they were. Clearly. Look what happened. Just today he was slinking around the hospital, going up to the floor—”

  “I agree, Bill. It looks bad for those boys. One of them has proven to be violent. A troublemaker. Hell, somebody ought to teach them a lesson. I wish we could.”

  “Forget that. You’re supposed to be my friend.” Bill hated the cloying sound of his voice, the wheedling tone he couldn’t control as his anger rose. “That means you’re supposed to look out for my daughter as well. Did you tell the police about this?”

  Adam took a long time to answer. “I did. Yesterday. I called the detective in charge of the case, Hawkins, and I explained the whole thing. I even offered to go down and talk in person, but he said it wasn’t necessary.”

  “Why did you wait so long?” Bill asked.

  “I’d kind of forgotten about it until I saw that news story,” he said. “And it didn’t seem terribly relevant. Kids drink. It’s no big deal.”

  “Are they charging you?”

  “You mean for buying the beer?” Adam looked surprised by the question. “No, I think they have bigger items on their menu right now. Look, Bill, I realize I messed up. I betrayed your trust, even. I was just . . . You know, I didn’t know all of this would end up happening.”

  “When was this?” Bill asked. />
  Adam shook his head. “I’m not sure. It was in the fall.” He shook his head again. “I did it one other time for Teena. Bought her beer. That was later, in the winter, because I remember it was cold out. Maybe in December.”

  “Again?” Bill fidgeted. He wanted to get up. He needed to move around, but he stayed in place. “The same house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Summer there?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see any other kids.”

  Bill reached over and took the bottle, pouring himself a shot and drinking it down in one continuous motion. He hoped for some form of instant oblivion, something that would help him acquire a distance from everything going on right before him. But he felt nothing. It was as if he’d slammed a glass of amber-colored water.

  “Everybody seems to know my daughter better than I do,” he said.

  “Kids keep secrets, Bill. It’s what teenagers do.”

  “Gee, thanks. I didn’t know that.”

  Adam let out a long sigh. “Bill, you need to be a little understanding about what it’s like to be young. Teenagers kind of require that.”

  Bill stood up and started for the door. “This from a guy who barely sees his kid.”

  Adam’s face went blank, a cold mask. “Yeah, nice shot. Easy too,” Adam said as Bill reached the door. “Julia agreed with me. She saw it coming with you and Summer.”

  Bill froze. He turned around and looked back across the room to where Adam sat with his untouched second shot before him.

  “Julia?” he asked. “You’re invoking Julia?”

  Adam shook his head, his face still expressionless. “Forget I said it.”

  “I won’t. In fact, I need to know something.” Bill saw his chance to push Adam further. “Something I’ve been meaning to ask you for the last year, and now seems like the perfect time.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Bill came a few steps back into the room. He’d never taken his coat off, and he felt heat building up inside and under the wool. The two shots he’d slammed back swirled in his head, making it feel full of air.