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.”