Oblivion (3 page)

“Just what I said, Kid. I’m staying. So go make nice with Miller.”

“But you gave up the scholarship, Jace? You can’t do that! Coach Dawes really went all out to get that for you.”

Jace looked away, feeling the guilt to know the football coach he loved like a Father had yet to know of his plans. If he left, his brother and sister would be wards of the state of Montana. How could he be that selfish? He couldn’t. Coach Dawes was the least of it. Thinking of Lindsay made his heart ache. Letting her go felt like his heart was being slowly yanked out.

“I’m not leaving you two. We’ll make do, always have.”

Chapter Two

Dougie eyed his older brother in anguish, knowing he gave up his whole football career for them. He felt anger course through him. He wanted to go to Hooligan’s where their father was working on getting drunk and bash him upside his head. Jace didn’t deserve this.

Dougie got out of the truck and walked into the Sheriff’s office where Mr. Miller waited, feeling the weight of the world on his small shoulders. He looked back before going in, watching to see Jace waited there for him. He didn’t worry. The hour he met his counselor; his brother would sit patiently for him. He would be there when he got out.

~ ~ ~

Lindsay frowned when it went on three in the afternoon and Jace still hadn’t called. Neither of them had cell phones. It was frustrating to wait for the call when they got back to the farm. By five, she was working on getting really angry.

She had to meet her dad for dinner at six at Reddy’s diner to beg money for the final deposit on her class pictures. She didn’t have time to wait on Jace. As she was leaving, a sense of foreboding was dismissed. Jace was dependable to a fault. He said he would call her after dropping Dougie at probation. That was hours ago. Where was he?

~ ~ ~

Jack sat with him all day. Dougie looked sick to think Jace left him. When he came out an hour after his appointment, the pickup was gone. That was nearly eight hours ago. Miller bought him a Happy Meal and let him hang out in his office while he waited.

“How bout I run you out to the farm and see if he just forgot?” Jack asked, glancing at his watch again and frowning. “I don’t mind.”

Dougie fumed. “My brother’s coming.”

“Son, your brother must have gotten distracted. It happens.”

“Not to Jace. He wouldn’t leave me.”

“We have to go and pick up Sara too. The Alton’s said he hasn’t been by there. Mrs. Alton got off work at three. Your sister hasn’t heard from him.”

Dougie didn’t want to leave the last place he saw his brother. He knew something was wrong the minute he walked outside the sheriff’s office and Jace wasn’t there. He let Miller feel like a big shot by giving him and his sister a ride anyway.  His young face was tight with worry. The feeling something was wrong stayed with him long after Mr. Miller saw him and his sister home.

~ ~ ~

Bill Morgan had premature grey that looked suspiciously green from the agents he now used to cover it. He got up from the booth and smiled at his daughter. The only thing she could do is endure the brief hug he gave her. He looked good and appeared fit. Margene was good for him in that way.

“I ordered for you, honey. I got your favorite chicken fried steak and fries,” he was saying as he sat and glanced at his new hi-tech cell phone, smiling at a text he received from his girlfriend.

Lindsay was disgusted at his words. That hadn’t been her favorite here since she was twelve. Her father paid scant attention to her the next few minutes as he painstakingly sent a message back.

“I need to pay off my class pictures, Dad,” she said directly. “There’s a hundred dollar balance and Mom doesn’t have it.”

He was smiling as he got another alert, not appearing to have heard her. She was worried about Jace and wanted to get this over with so she could go look for him. The urge to snatch the phone and chuck it against the wall was refrained. She needed the money.

“Dad? Can you do that later?”

Bill Morgan smiled guiltily and put the phone in his pocket. “Margene wants to go to Helena tonight. What did you say, honey?”

“My class pictures have to be picked up,” she said in a controlled tone. “I need the money.”

“Hundred bucks, huh? Whoa, that much? I’m a little short this week, kiddo. How soon do you have to pick them up?”

Lindsay was annoyed. Obviously he had the money to take Margene out partying in Helena but he didn’t have the money for his kid’s senior pictures. The desire to get up and storm out of there was overwhelming. She ate her pride and forced a smile.

“Dad, it’s a month overdue already. It’s the middle of March. I have to get my announcements out in two weeks.”

She watched as he reached into his wallet and was disgusted to see the wad of money he had. He counted out a hundred and handed it to her grudgingly. She took it and decided she wasn’t waiting for the chicken fried steak.

“I can’t stay to eat. Just box it up and take it home,” she said as she stood. “Mom needs the car and I gotta get back.”

He was already reaching for his phone by then and didn’t seem to notice. She stood there a half second longer to see he was punching keys into his phone. She left the diner and was in a foul mood.

To be fair, he had never been the most doting father. He paid the bills and had an excuse to be gone during their childhood when he took over the family business after her grandfather died.

It really wasn’t a surprise to know he was sneaking around with Margene Prescott.

Her parents married out of high school when Deborah got pregnant with Lance. Her older brother told her about it years ago. He overheard one of their many arguments. Had they been more careful; the two would have never worked as a couple. Her father was too needy and narcissistic; her mother too controlling and cold. They stayed together for over twenty years. Lindsay wondered if Margene was the first girlfriend her father had in that time. It didn’t matter.

It was like she didn’t belong in his life anymore. Now she knew why Lance left. He’d always been close to their Father. He took it all very personally. She smirked as she got into the station wagon to go find Jace. Her father would be shocked to know Margene knew Lance very well.

Her twenty-three year old brother was running around with Margene the whole time she was seeing their father. It was too much for Lance to endure. He left rather than deal with it. Lance swore her to secrecy. It pleased her just to know the reason Margene seemed to go out of her way to keep him away from his kids. It was obvious she worried they would tell.

As Jace would say; it would all come out in the wash. A firm believer of karma; he predicted this situation of his own years ago when they huddled in the fort he built in the woods. He said he would get stuck raising his brother and sister. A more optimistic Lindsay told him all would work out then. The Lindsay today waited for the other ball to drop.

Jace would have walked through fire to call her. He knew she hardly slept last night after their fight. He would never have tortured her like this by not calling first thing. Anyone who knew Jace knew that. He was always thinking of other people’s feelings first. Something kept him from making that call.

She worried it all the way out to the Turner farm. She turned on the rutted drive and grimaced to feel the shocks absorb the impact. The farmhouse hadn’t seen paint in decades. The barns and out buildings were leaning and near to collapsing. A tractor sat rusted in the center of a field in the distance. The place looked like a junkyard now.

Everett liked to drag home worthless non-working items like washers, dryers, and even old toilets. The yard was littered with them. She felt sorry for Jace, knowing even if he got guardianship of his siblings, he would still have to deal with Everett. His father wasn’t going anywhere, not when there was a drink in it for him.

She loved Jace and thought he was perfect. He was his father’s worst enabler. He paid his father to stay away so the kids wouldn’t be subjected to a drunk. As it was, Evie stayed with a bar fly named Addie Panks in town. He never saw his kids much but was happy to show up at his son’s job to demand his half of the welfare check each month. Jace was happy to give it to him just to keep him out of their hair.

A light was on in the living room. Sara and Dougie ran out on the rickety porch when they saw her headlights. It was getting dark. She was worried sick to see their expressions, mirroring her own. Something was very wrong.

Dougie ran out to the car, Sara on his heels. “Hurry Lindsay, we gotta go back into town. Jace is missing.”

“What do you mean he’s missing? Slow down, Dougie. Tell me what happened.”

He looked miserable. “I came out from talking to Mr. Miller and he was gone. I waited all day for him and he never came back. Mr. Miller brought us home.”

“Get in,” she said without hesitation. No, that wasn’t Jace at all. Dougie was like his own kid. He’d never leave him anywhere, or Sara. The girl’s brown eyes were filled with worry. Lindsay watched her in the rearview.

“Did he say he had to run any errands after he dropped you off, Sara?”

“No, he said he and Dougie were going to hang out at Cam’s for awhile, until I got done sitting for Mrs. Alton. He didn’t want to waste the gas going home and coming back for me.”

“So he has to be in town,” Lindsay said and fought a wave of panic so the kids didn’t see it. She knew how much they relied on Jace. He was like their parent. “There has to be an explanation. Let’s just go to Cam’s and see if he’s there.”

Lindsay drove back to town and discovered Cam wasn’t home.  She chewed her lip and wondered if the kids were hungry. She only needed forty dollars for her pictures, reasoning the other sixty was child support. The kids had to eat.

“Let’s stop and get you guys something to eat first and we can finish looking.”

“Lindsay, something is wrong,” Sara wailed and tears filled her eyes. “I feel it. Something happened to Jace.”

“Shut up!” Dougie snarled and turned on his sister. “He’d kick the crap out of anybody!”

“Enough, you two,” Lindsay said firmly. “Quit fighting. We’re gonna go grab a pizza at the bowling alley and put our heads together. For all we know; he’ll find us.”

The two kids sat tensely in the backseat. Lindsay could see Dougie was near tears. She felt badly now for expecting Jace to be so selfish and leave them. Seeing how shaken they were reminded her of how much they loved their brother.  

That bond was a source of anxiety for her this last year. A small part of her wanted him all to herself. Without thinking of these two kids at all; she forced him to choose.

~ ~ ~

Sara and Dougie ate dutifully. She could see they were worried sick about Jace. She ran out of ideas where to look for him. Cam walked in with two other guys on the football team. He smiled and waved at her, coming over immediately to snatch a slice of pizza off the table.

“You still mad at me, Lindsay?” the handsome young blond boy asked as he ate the pizza, straddling a chair. “I thought you knew he wasn’t going. Jace chewed my ass this morning when I saw him.”

Lindsay stiffened. “What do you mean? I thought you went to Helena? That’s what your mom said.”

“Nah, my dad dropped me in town when I ran into Jace.”

“What time was this?”

“It was before ten. He was waiting for Dougie. I had him run me out to Marnie’s house.”

Lindsay made a face. She barely tolerated Marnie Slade and only because her and Jace were childhood friends. The girl lived on the wrong side of the tracks, wore way too much eyeliner, and seemed to hate Lindsay’s guts.

“He’s missing, Cam. He never got back to pick up Dougie.”

Cam’s eyes widened. “He was on his way to pick up Dougie when he left me. Marnie wasn’t home so I hung out on her porch.”

“He never got back there. Mr. Miller took Dougie and Sara home.”

“Did you go tell Sheriff Wilson?”

“I wanted to look for him first. We had a fight. He had a lot on his mind.”

Cam looked a bit worried and glanced at Dougie and Sara. “He wouldn’t blow off the kids, Lindsay.”

“I’m going to talk to the sheriff. I’m worried sick.”

Cam’s friends came back and they also snatched a piece of pizza, acknowledging her with slight leers. She ignored them, her expression tense.

“It’s after eight, Cam. Where could he be?”

Jace’s best friend told the guys to go on ahead of him to a party and offered to help her look. She was relieved, knowing Cam knew where Jace hung out if anyone did.

“What about the kids, Lindsay?” Cam said when the pair left to use the restroom.

“They can stay with me tonight. We have a pullout bed. I don’t know what else to do. If I call Miller, he’ll call the state.”

“Old man Turner is passed out in Hooligan’s. We just finished a game of pool over there. We need to find Jace fast. They find out he’s MIA; they’ll take the kids.”

Lindsay drove and they must have gone up and down every street in town looking for him. Finally, she dropped Cam at his car and the kids at her apartment. Then she went to the police station.

Sheriff Wilson was nearly sixty and ready to leave for the night when she arrived. He seemed unimpressed with what she told him.

“Lindsay, he isn’t officially a missing person until tomorrow morning,” he informed her as he locked up for the night, leaving a dispatcher inside and a young deputy.

“You know Jace, Sheriff. He’d never leave Sara and Dougie like this.”

The old man frowned. He knew how devoted Little Bend’s best hope was to his younger siblings. He sighed and opened the door back up, gesturing for her to come with him.

“Dan, the Turner boy went missing,” the sheriff told his deputy. “Take a statement from Lindsay and see if Bob will keep an eye out for the truck.”

Lindsay was relieved. Bob was on patrol and Dan minded the store while their aged sheriff went home to sleep. Little Bend never saw more than shoplifters, speeders, and the occasional fender bender.

Dan Dooley was in his mid-twenties, sandy-haired, and a few years older than Lance. Lindsay didn’t like him and never had. Rumor had it he was seeing Marnie behind Cam’s back.