Not by Sight (14 page)

“You’re a trooper,” Savannah said. “If you change your mind about leaving early, let me know.”

“Thanks, but I’ll finish my shift.” Abby arranged the order on a tray and walked toward table two, her thoughts turning to Jay’s text message. What did he have to tell her that was urgent? He’d had all night to think about it. Maybe he had decided to help her find Ella.

Not that she knew where to start at this point. Whoever it was that didn’t want her to find Ella was watching. It would be impossible to ask around without him knowing about it. Her only hope of making sense of Ella’s situation was to figure out who the Oldham kid was and convince him to tell her. What were the odds of that happening?

Chapter 16

Abby drove Mama’s Odyssey up Summit Road, winding through the tall trees toward the top of Sure Foot Mountain. She slowed the car and pulled onto an unmarked road, rocking and rolling over the rugged dirt terrain for about fifty yards until the narrow road dead-ended at the edge of a clearing. Jay’s truck was nowhere in sight. She glanced at her watch. It was only eleven forty-five.

She rolled down the windows, comforted by the familiar sounds of Carolina chickadees flitting among the trees and a pileated woodpecker artfully drilling the side of the dead tree that marked the top of the slope.

Could the anonymous caller know she was here? Could he be watching? No one had followed her from Angel View. She rubbed her arms, which were suddenly like gooseflesh.

She checked her phone to be sure Jay hadn’t sent another text. He hadn’t.

A loud rustling noise caused her to freeze, her heart racing faster than the pair of rabbits that shot out of the brush and hopped down the grassy slope.

Come on, Jay. I feel exposed out here.

In the quiet that followed, she tried to relax. There was no place on Sure Foot Mountain where she felt safer than here at their secret place. She had rarely seen anyone else up here, other than occasional backpackers.

A crow began to caw, then several others joined in. What were they communicating? Abby rolled up her windows and locked the doors. She turned on the motor and let the cold air from the air conditioner blow on her face. How irrational was it to be afraid? The caller couldn’t be everywhere. And she hadn’t been out talking to anyone about Ella since his last call.

Lord, please protect me. I just want the truth of what happened to Daddy and Riley Jo. I know You hear me, and I believe You’ll answer.

Abby heard the sound of a motor. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw a cloud of brown dust and Jay’s white Ford truck approaching. She got out of the car and waved.

Jay pulled up next to the Odyssey and shut off the motor. In the next second she was at his driver’s side window.

“Eat before you come?” she said. “Urgent? I hope you didn’t get me out here to lecture me.”

Jay turned as he opened the window, revealing his uncombed hair and the bags under his bloodshot eyes. “Don’t worry, I didn’t. Let’s go sit under the oak tree.”

He got out of the car and started walking briskly down the slope, his shoes and legs splattered with dried mud, his back soaked with perspiration.

“Why are you such a mess?” Abby said.

“I didn’t have time to clean up.”

“From what?”

“I’ll explain in a minute.”

“Why won’t you look at me?” Abby said.

“Trust me, making eye contact with me is the least of your worries …”

Minutes later, Abby sat cross-legged, facing Jay under the giant oak tree on the slope.

“All right, talk to me,” she said. “Where have you been? You look like a bum.”

“I told you I didn’t have time to clean up.”

“Will you at least look at me?”

Jay shook his head. “What I have to say will be easier if I don’t.”

“Well, if this is my Dear John Letter,” Abby said, “just get it over with. I honestly thought we were better friends than that.”

“We are. That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is
this
? Get to the point.”

Jay held up his palm. “I will. Give me a minute. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“What is so hard?”

“I promise you, Abby, I never saw it coming. I …” Jay’s eyes glistened, and he seemed to choke on the words.

“Saw
what
coming?”

“Something happened,” he said. “I’ve never told anyone.”

Abby put her hands to her temples. “I’m so confused. Can you start at some kind of beginning so I can figure out what you’re talking about?”

“That’s just it. No one would ever figure it out. It’s the kind of thing you take to your grave.”

“Jay, stop it! I am freaking out here. You look like something the cat drug in, and you’re talking in circles. Have you been doing drugs or something?”

“I never connected the dots until yesterday,” he said. “But now it’s clear as anything. And I’m not sure what to do. I didn’t pick up on Ella’s picture. Or even the sketch. Until the voice …” Jay’s hands were shaking.

“The voice on the phone?” Abby said.

Jay nodded. “It’s him.”

“Who? You know him?”

“Yes. I mean no.” Jay exhaled. “I don’t know his name. But we’ve met.”

“When?”

“I debated half the night whether to say anything to you about this. It’ll cost us our friendship. I know that.”

“You don’t know that. I’m pretty loyal.”

“No one’s that loyal.”

“When did you meet the guy?” Abby said. “Are you sure it was him?”

“I’m sure. I’ll never forget his voice as long as I live.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Abby lifted his chin. “When did you meet him—where?”

“Across a meadow, at the edge of the woods—a few days after I turned twelve. My dad had given me a rifle that belonged to him and his dad before him. I was target practicing, trying to hit a plastic jug from a hundred yards. I kept missing and went to retrieve the milk jug and move it back to fifty yards. I … I heard this booming voice coming from the forest.”

“
His
voice?” Abby heard herself say.

Jay nodded. “He said something like, ‘That was some wild shootin’, boy.’ I saw a bearded man standing in the woods, holding a toddler—a girl. I was embarrassed that he had seen me miss my target. I told him I was pretty good shooting from fifty yards. I asked him his name and told him mine was Jimmy Dale Oldham, but that everyone called me J.D.”

Abby gasped. “You’re the Oldham kid?”

“Let me explain. That summer I’d started using my stepdad’s last name and my initials. I thought it was cool. But when I started middle school, they said I couldn’t legally use Oldham. So I went back to Rogers. And after I’d told the bearded guy I went by J.D., I thought it was smart to drop the D and go by Jay. I felt a lot safer being Jay Rogers, in case he ever told the sheriff what happened.”

“You’re not making sense. What happened? Who was this bearded man?”

Jay met her gaze. “He never told me his name. But the next thing I knew, he was dragging something out into the light, and I realized it was a person—a man. His chest was soaked with blood. The bearded man said that
I
killed him.”

“When you missed your target?”

“Yeah.” Jay paused to gather his composure. “I told him I didn’t mean to. He said the guy was just as dead anyway. And the law would expect me to pay for what I did. I remember telling him over and over it was an accident and that he was a witness and could tell the sheriff. But he said all he witnessed was a man get shot and knew nothing about the why or how of it. I could tell he wasn’t going to back my story. I was so scared I wet my pants. I’d heard of a kid who shot a man and was tried as an adult. They locked him up.”

“How’d you resolve it?” Abby said.

“I kept saying I didn’t mean any harm and would swear to it on the Bible, that he had to believe me. I said the dead man probably had a family, and we should tell someone. The bearded guy said he knew him. And he didn’t have any kin.” Jay wiped the tears off his face with his arm. “I thought I was going to jail, Abby. I thought my life was over. I thought my dad would disown me if he found out I’d killed someone—and with my birthday rifle that had been passed down for three generations.”

“So what happened?” Abby studied Jay’s face and saw that the agony was still fresh.

“Out of the blue, the bearded guy said, ‘Go on home, boy. What’s done is done. I’ll see to him.’ I asked what he was going to do. He said it wasn’t my concern.”

“Not your concern?” Abby said. “You had just killed a man!”

“He told me never to speak of it to anybody or he’d be forced to tell the sheriff what he knew, and they’d throw me in jail until I was an old man. He told me to keep my mouth shut and never go back there.”

“What did you do?”

“I took off running across that meadow and threw up when I got to the other side. I went home and never told a soul. Never went back. But the guilt’s eaten me up ever since.”

“Why did you decide to tell me now?” Abby said.

Jay’s face turned a funny shade of gray. He couldn’t seem to push the words out and then finally said, “Because I think the man I shot … was your father. And the little girl with him was Riley Jo. The timing fits—so do the facts.”

Abby felt dizzy. She leaned back on her hands, her palms pressed into the grass, her mind racing in reverse.

“I remember the little girl was whimpering,” Jay said. “And seemed really scared. It never occurred to me in a million years that the victim was her daddy and she didn’t know the bearded guy.”

“Did you see her face?”

Jay shrugged. “Honestly, I was so stunned I couldn’t tell you anything else about her.”

Abby took a deep breath and then another and couldn’t seem to get enough air. “What d-did the dead man look like? You’ve seen pictures of Daddy. Was it him?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to take a good look at his face. But it was mostly hidden by wildflowers.”

“What about the bearded man—can you describe him?”

“Yeah. He looks just like the sketch I drew of the man
you
saw. Certain things about him stood out. The beard for sure. Piercing eyes like an eagle’s. Denim overalls and no shirt. Hairy arms. Big biceps. I’m sure we saw the same man, Abby. There’s a good chance that Ella
is
Riley Jo. The question now is: what do we do about it?”

Chapter 17

Abby sat, staring at Beaver Lake, tears trickling down her cheeks, her temples pounding. She felt as if her bottom were cemented to the ground.

The thought that her father may have been accidentally killed by her now best friend, and his body “tended to” by a stranger, was shocking enough. But knowing that Riley Jo may have been taken by the same man who had made no effort to find out who she belonged to made her sick to her stomach. Why would he keep her and not contact the authorities?

“Abby, say
something
,” Jay said.

“Like what?”

“Say you hate me. Say you’re going to the sheriff. Say you want me to burn in hell! Anything is better than sitting here, watching you cry. I know I’ve caused you another heartbreak, and it’s cost me our friendship. But you deserve to know the truth. I wasn’t hiding it from you. I honestly didn’t connect the dots until the guy called and you put your cell phone on speaker.”

Abby felt as if her heart would burst wide open. She let more tears escape and finally looked over at Jay. “I don’t hate you. You were just a kid. The guy told you the man you shot had no kin.”

“I should’ve told my mom and stepdad what happened.”

“Of course you should’ve. But you were just a kid. You were terrified of going to jail. And of disappointing your father and losing what little relationship you had with him. That’s really heavy for a twelve-year-old to handle.”

Jay wiped his tears with the bottom of his T-shirt. “At that moment, I’d have given anything to bring the man back to life. But what was done was done. I just wanted to forget it happened—but I never have. I’m so sorry, Abby.”

“That’s two of us.” Abby hugged her knees tightly and rocked back and forth. “If we go to Sheriff Granger, what will he be able to do about any of it now? And if the man who has Ella gets the slightest hint that we’ve told the authorities, he might bolt, and I’ll never know if she’s my sister. Or he might come after me, and we’ll both be missing.”

“Not if I go after him first.”

“How?”

“The reason I’m muddy is I spent the morning searching the woods near the place where I shot your dad. I figured if the man is a local like the sales clerk at Murchison’s told you, then he’s probably living on Sure Foot Mountain.”

“He could be living anywhere,” Abby said. “What makes you think that?”

“Because there are folks in those woods who are totally self-sufficient. They don’t even send their kids to school. They live by their own laws and keep to themselves. That would be a perfect setting if he took Riley Jo. There would be no one to question whether she was his daughter.”

Abby looked up and studied Jay’s expression. “What makes you think you can find him?”

“Because I know my way around those woods. I know where the log cabins are. I’ll search the area and see if I spot Ella—or the guy.”