Chapter Twenty
Evenings at Fairwind Farm were too quiet. Drew had spent the last three weeks surrounded by people—volunteers, and now his crew of guys—but when the sun went down and the place was covered in moonlight, that’s when his mind played tricks on him.
That’s when the real nightmares started.
He’d cleaned the old farmhouse, repaired broken doors and cabinets. Two nights ago, he’d fixed the downstairs toilet, and next week, he’d paint the walls, then refinish the floors.
Now, with another day waning, he used the old hand-pump well behind the farmhouse to clean up. Beth stood off in the distance, watering the seeds she’d planted in the raised beds.
She wore cutoff shorts, a white tank top and a button-down shirt tied in a knot at the side. And that goofy-looking garden hat she’d found in the house. He couldn’t decide if she looked ridiculous or adorable.
He’d seen the magazine clippings in Beth’s notebook on the table when his mind had been especially anxious. He’d needed a project, so he’d built the beds. He hadn’t expected they would make her so happy.
After seeing the way her face lit up, he wanted to figure out a way to do it again.
How long had it been since he’d made another person happy?
Still, he found it nearly impossible to talk to her about anything other than planting seeds or repairing barns. He wanted to, though, for maybe the first time in his life.
Oh, he’d had plenty of girlfriends, but he always broke things off before they could become too serious. He’d never wanted to talk about himself the way a woman always seemed to want a man to.
But there was something different about Beth. He wanted to know her. Was it because he had the impression that maybe she was hiding something too? She was hard to know, which made her all the more intriguing.
She was all business. Very professional. But he didn’t care about any of that—he wanted to figure out who she was. He knew that wasn’t going to happen, though, so he settled instead for making her happy from a distance.
It didn’t take much. A new mailbox. A vase of freshly cut lilacs on the kitchen table where she worked. And maybe next week he’d have time to work on a chicken coop.
Anything to make her smile.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d convince himself that making her happy around Fairwind Farm was the same as making her happy in her life.
It wasn’t. And he’d be smart to remember that.
What was it about her that made him want to be known?
She glanced up and found him staring. He was caught, but he couldn’t look away—not yet. He just wanted to see that smile dance around in her eyes. To think—even for a misguided second—that he’d somehow caused something so pure and beautiful? It was enough to keep him going for another week.
Her face softened and she waved, smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
What would she say if she found out the truth about him? That he was a coward—a disappointment?
Being “known” was out of the question, and he’d accepted that a long time ago. So he’d have to be content making her happy from the sidelines. That’s what was best, for both of them.
As the sun disappeared behind the cornfields in the west, Drew made his way out to the barn he’d discovered the week before. He had to hand it to Birdie—she might be old, but she was stealthy. Even though he knew she was there, he’d seen her only when he’d gone looking for her.
And he’d gone looking for her more than once, drawn back to her, to the possibility that something she said or did would provide the answers he’d been searching for.
He walked inside the barn and called out, though he had a feeling she’d seen him coming from her window.
“I haven’t had this much company in years,” she said without looking at him.
“Am I bothering you?” He stopped halfway up the stairs.
“Are you kidding me? Half the town has decided I’m a tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatic, and the other half just doesn’t like me. I could use a friend.” She eyed him from behind her easel. “Something tells me you could too.”
“Nah, friends are overrated.” He climbed the rest of the stairs and sat down on a too-soft purple velvet sofa.
She shoved the jar of bubblegum at him. “Here.”
To be polite, he took a piece and unwrapped it, then popped it in his mouth. While he didn’t consider Birdie a friend, it was nice to have a conversation with someone who actually knew who he was.
“Have you told the blonde the truth yet?”
He met her eyes but didn’t respond.
“I see.” Birdie took the pair of reading glasses that hung by a chain around her neck and propped them up on her nose, squinting at something on her easel. “What are you waiting for?”
The taste of bubblegum exploded in his mouth. “I don’t want her to know about any of this.”
“Why in heavens not? Maybe she can help you.”
Drew blew a bubble, let it pop, feeling like a ten-year-old again. Some vague part of him remembered sitting in here with Birdie and Jess. “What’s she going to do, crawl inside my head and figure out what’s broken?”
Birdie plunked her paintbrush in the water jar. “Did you ever think maybe you didn’t see the man? Maybe you don’t have a single answer locked inside your mind.”
Drew shook his head. “There’s something there. I can feel it.”
“Why? Because some adults told you there was.”
He didn’t want to talk about this.
“Maybe the adults got it wrong, kiddo. And telling that pretty girl the truth isn’t going to run her off.”
“I lied to her, Birdie.” He couldn’t tell Beth the truth now. They’d been working together for three weeks—he’d missed his window. Besides, he didn’t want people knowing he was the reason Jess’s case had gone cold. What would they think of him then?
She took the glasses off and stood, still behind the easel. “Well, then unlie to her.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s not that simple.”
“That girl cares about you. She’s not going to hold it against you that this terrible thing happened to you when you were ten years old.”
He spit the gum into the garbage can. You could only chew Bazooka Joe for so long. “How do you know she cares about me?”
And why did his pulse race at the thought?
Birdie sat back down on her stool. “A woman knows.”
“She just needs me to get the farm ready.”
“Keep telling yourself that, sonny.”
Birdie was obviously seeing things that weren’t there. She glared at him. “I think you need to realize you didn’t do anything wrong here.”
The words hung there, thick and heavy, the way dense fog hung over the meadow in the cool mornings.
“You were as much a victim as Jess was. And shame on those adults for not making sure you realized that.”
“I’m not a victim.” He stood.
She walked over to him, standing at least a foot shorter, and stuck her bony finger into his chest. “You were just a boy. You shouldn’t have had to carry the weight of any of that. And you’re still carrying it—I can see it on your face. I could see it the first day you walked in here.”
“I’m fine, Birdie.”
“Then why did you come back?”
He swallowed the lump that had formed at the back of his throat. It caught him off guard, this rare, unwanted emotion that proved she was right.
“I’m here to restore an old farm,” he said.
“Oh, honey,” she whispered, taking a step back, obviously aware of his pain.
“I have to go.” He started down the stairs. “I’ll see you later.”
She didn’t respond, and he didn’t look up at the window as he walked through the yard toward the farmhouse. Instead, he wrestled with the pain that jabbed at the back of his mind, begging for his attention.
As he approached the house, the windows on the second level caught his attention. For three weeks now, he’d slept on the couch in the living room, memories flooding his mind. But he’d never stepped foot on the second floor.
He hadn’t been ready for what he might find up there.
Remnants of Jess.
Their second-to-last summer at Fairwind. He’d been nine and complained the entire drive. He hadn’t wanted to spend a whole month on a stupid farm with no one to play with but some dumb girl.
But Jess had surprised him. She wasn’t like the girls he knew back home. She’d grown fearless. She’d jump into the creek fully clothed if it meant catching a frog. She’d pick up garter snakes by their heads and fling them out into the cornfield. She’d ride the horses and complain when her dad wouldn’t let her go faster.
He’d been so intrigued by her. Maybe even smitten, as much as a nine-year-old could be.
They’d become friends that summer. Good friends. And the next year, he couldn’t wait to get back to the farm. They fell back into their comfortable friendship almost immediately, but only a few short weeks later, Fairwind was filled with police officers and search and rescue teams. And people ordering him to remember.
“You must’ve seen something out there, son,” one cop had said. “Nobody can hurt you now. We need you to be brave and tell us what you saw.”
He’d searched his mind for something—anything—that would help them find Jess. His own parents begged him to remember something. A sound. A smell. A face. But he came up empty.
His silence had made them think he was traumatized or hiding something. Their constant prodding had made him question himself. So here he was, trying to do what he should’ve done all those years ago. Trying to remember. He awoke in the middle of every night disoriented and drenched in sweat, having relived another nightmare that refused to tell the whole story.
Drew moved quickly through the kitchen and living room, straight to the stairs before he lost his nerve. Night had fallen, and he knew he couldn’t wake up panicked one more time.
Desperation propelled him up the stairs, light from the moon filtering in from the window in the hallway above him. When he reached the top, he stopped and drew in a deep breath.
He noticed the door to Jess’s bedroom was partially open, and a picture formed in his mind. On the rainy days, they’d sprawl out on her floor looking at her bug collection. She’d speak with such excitement, showing him the new bugs she’d found down by the creek. Jess had found each one in her encyclopedia, labeling them one at a time.
He squirmed over the assortment of dead insects, but Jess was downright thrilled by them. She loved learning new things. She’d always had such a sense of wonder about her. Some people probably thought she was weird, but Drew liked her for it.
He moved in silence past her room, careful not to glance inside. What if it looked exactly the same? Or worse, what if the Pendergasts had changed everything—wiped away every shred of evidence she’d ever existed?
He wasn’t ready to find out.
Instead, he moved into the master bedroom and flipped on the light. It looked just as he’d remembered it. The only time he’d been in here was during a rainy-day game of hide-and-seek. He’d found Jess underneath the sleigh bed, which had felt so monstrous when he was little.
“Found you!” He’d tugged at her foot underneath the bed frame.
“Only because I didn’t hide in my best spot.” She scooted out from her hiding place and sat cross-legged in front of him.
“Where’s your best spot?”
“It’s a secret,” she whispered.
“Show me.”
She got up and checked the hallway, he assumed for their parents. When the coast was clear, she motioned for him to follow her.
He did as he was told, but when she led him to her parents’ walk-in closet, he let out a groan. “A closet isn’t a great hiding place.”
She pushed the clothes out of the way and revealed a small door hidden at the back of the closet.
“Whoa.”
“Told ya.” She slid the door open and led him inside. “It’s a secret room. Isn’t it cool? When I grow up and live here, I’m going to make this my dream room.”
“What would you do with a dream room?”
“I’d dream, you dork.” She had laughed then. “We should get out of here. My parents don’t like it when I play in here.”
He’d looked around and seen nothing important, only boxes, but he’d done as he was told. If Jess’s parents hadn’t wanted them in their secret storage room, he wouldn’t argue.
Now, standing just outside the closet, he wondered if the room was still full of boxes. He knew Harold had obsessed over Jess’s case. There was no sign of that obsession anywhere else in the house, but Drew had a strong suspicion he’d kept it all behind this door.
He switched on the closet light and pushed a hanging row of women’s clothes off to one side, searching for the door Jess had shown him all those years ago.
He found it and slid it open. Inside, a light bulb hung from the ceiling. He pulled the string, and the bulb cast dim yellow light on a wide-planked table built into the wall. Above it, newspaper clippings, articles and random notes were pinned up in haphazard fashion. He recognized so many of the headlines. He’d clipped most of them himself. Unlike Harold, though, he hadn’t put them on display. Instead, he’d shoved them inside a notebook, which he’d stuffed underneath his mattress, then tried to forget about.
He’d done a good job for the most part, especially once Harold’s notes had stopped coming.
But that notebook had found its way to Fairwind with him. He hid it underneath the seat in his truck, not ready to face the fact that maybe this case had the power to unravel him the way it had unraveled Harold.
What if the two of them weren’t all that different, both one newspaper clipping away from crazy?
On the wall, he saw his own name scribbled on a piece of paper, circled with a question mark beside it. Drew took the pin out of the paper, wadded it up and stuffed it in his pocket. Then, he surveyed the board, begging a God he hadn’t talked to in years to give him the miracle of a memory.
But nothing came.
He read familiar headlines on yellowed newsprint, reliving the dreadful days following Jess’s disappearance. He hadn’t been able to speak since he’d woken up on the ground in that barn, bleeding and disoriented. But he could hear the conversation in the next room.
When Drew hadn’t been able to provide them with a single clue, one of the officers coldly suggested, “Maybe the kid was in on it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” someone else said. “He’s a kid.”
“With a huge gash on the back of his head,” said another. “What do you think, he somehow sliced his own head open with a shovel?”
There was a pause before the first officer spoke again. “Maybe he agreed to lure the girl into the barn. Maybe he didn’t know it would get out of hand.”
“That’s insane,” his mother said. “Drew would never, ever do anything to hurt Jess or anyone else.”
Another pause.
“Sonya, you can’t believe this.” His mom sounded afraid. Drew remembered because he wasn’t used to hearing fear in his mother’s voice. “You know Drew.”
“Of course not,” Jess’s mom said. “Of course he wouldn’t.”
The next morning, his parents packed up their things and left Fairwind Farm.
He didn’t say a word the whole way home. So began his pattern of speaking only when he had something to say. And that wasn’t very often. Regret twisted its way into his belly. They had all been counting on him, and he’d let them down.
Harold and Sonya Pendergast had died without an ounce of closure—no closer to finding out what had happened to their daughter than the day she’d gone missing. What made Drew think he was entitled to something they’d never had? He’d been running from that day since he was ten years old; like a soldier gone AWOL, he’d abandoned his post.
And he hated himself for it.
He sat at the little table in the hidden room, poring over the clippings, rereading every article and Harold’s handwritten notes in the margins. He picked up a small photo of Jess, running his finger over the frozen image of her face. She’d tucked a flower behind her ear, and her smile was so full of life. What kind of dreams would she have whispered in the quiet of this room?
“I let you down, Jess,” he said quietly. “I won’t do that again.”
She hadn’t gotten to see a single one of her dreams come true, and someone should pay for that. He should make sure someone paid for that. If it meant spending every night in the little room and every day reliving her disappearance from the old barn, then so be it. Otherwise, it wasn’t right that he was here, playing house in the very place Jess should be living. He didn’t get to think about his future—it wasn’t fair to her.
It had to stop. He had to remember so he could move on with his life. And while he knew he’d never forgive himself, it was time to take action.
He wouldn’t be a coward anymore.