Page 133 of Hometown Girl

“It smelled like springtime. Hay and dirt and maybe an animal or two.” The loft had been off-limits, but Drew was old enough. He’d been on dozens of ladders.

Beth watched, eyes intent. Safe.

“I heard her come in. She’d been yelling my name.” He smiled at the memory. “I hid from her in the place I knew she’d be too scared to look. She hated that loft.” His smile faded. “But after a few seconds, I could tell something was wrong. I heard someone else in the barn. I knew right away she was in trouble.”

Her quiet expression urged him to go on.

“I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t smart or strong enough to help her.”

He hurried through the rest—coming down off the ladder, feeling the crack of metal on his skull, getting knocked out. Then, waking up to voices and stitches and questions from the police. “Everyone was convinced that, because I’d been in the barn, I’d seen his face. I was the only one who could help find Jess.” His eyes clouded then.

Beth reached across the table and covered his hands with hers. “That’s a lot of pressure for a little boy.”

He pushed his fist into his eyes and forced himself to hold it together. “The trouble was, I didn’t remember seeing anyone, but for days, cops were out here, pacing the floor, setting up interviews with therapists. One of them even tried to hypnotize me.” Drew only just remembered that.

“The worst part was knowing that I was letting my own parents down. And Mr.and Mrs.Pendergast.”

“Why didn’t you say anything—when you first got here?”

“I was such a coward, Beth.” Drew pulled his hands back into his lap and stood. “I should’ve come back years ago. Harold called me every year begging me not to give up trying, but I didn’t want to relive any of it.” He stood at the sink and stared out the window across the cornfield. How could there be so much peace here, in a place of so much tragedy? “It was selfish of me not to do that for him. For Jess.”

“It was wrong of them to put all that pressure on you,” Beth said. “Even adults wouldn’t be able to process what you saw. Did anyone tell you it wasn’t your fault?”

Her words stopped his breath for a split second.

She came up behind him, wrapped her arms around his chest and laid her head on his back. They stood like that for several seconds until finally the weight of his burden began to fall away.

He turned around and pulled her close, letting his chin rest gently on top of her head. He inhaled her, charmed by her sweet vanilla scent.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“It’s okay. I know it wasn’t easy.”

No. It wasn’t. And yet, he felt a sense of relief having gotten it all out. He inched away and studied her face. “There’s something else.”

“There is?”

“The day you found the room in the closet.”

Beth nodded, pulling just out of his grasp.

“I remembered something. A song came on the radio outside, and it was like I was there. I was ten years old again.”

Drew recounted the man in the stable. He’d seen him. He remembered him, but he didn’t recognize him. “What if this is the man who took Jess? What if Harold was right, and I’ve had the answer all along?”

She shook her head. “Don’t do that to yourself. You remember now.”

“I need you to help me with something.”

She raised her eyebrow. “Anything.”

Drew picked up her notebook and handed it to her. “I need you to sketch his face.”

Beth took the notebook, and for a second, she looked like she didn’t recognize it, didn’t know what to do with it. “You want me to draw the man in your mind?”

“That’s why I went to Bishop. To see if they had someone who could sketch it for me.”

Beth frowned. “I don’t think they do.”

---