Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  “What are you talking about?” Brooks Barbour lowered himself into a chair.

  Brolin took her time. She had a notepad in her hand. She flipped one page, then another. “I spoke with the bus driver.” Another page turned. She squinted. “One Vicki Bello. Said Skylar’s been on the bus only one day since the school year began. That was the first day of school.”

  “That can’t be right,” Hayley insisted. “Skylar was riding the bus this year. We made her. Because those girls were found in the woods just before school started. Brooks …” She looked beseechingly at her husband.

  “Are you telling us you really don’t know how your daughter gets home in the afternoons?” Brolin’s tone stayed accusing. “Or are you deliberately omitting information?”

  “Just exactly what are you trying to say?” Brolin was pushing Brooks’s buttons and we were all discovering he had a hair trigger. “Is this how your department treats victims, Sheriff? Because we’re not the bad guys. We’re the ones that called you to help us find our daughter!”

  “Was Skylar upset about anything this morning? Maybe you noticed something was bothering her recently?” I suggested, and kept my voice even, hoping some of the tension would dissipate.

  “So now you’re on the runaway thing again?” Mr. Barbour jumped up, his cheeks flushed. “What the hell is going on here? Get out there and find my daughter.”

  “We have an active and organized search going on right now, Mr. Barbour,” the sheriff assured him. “Patrol units are on it. They have Skylar’s description and all the information you’ve already supplied. We’ll get her photo out right away too. But we have to collect as much information from you as we can. Your cooperation will make this process go faster.”

  “The questions may be upsetting to you, Mr. Barbour,” Brolin added. “But it’s what we must do in order to help Skylar.” It was the first decent thing out of her mouth since we’d arrived. I was starting to hate her even more than I did yesterday. Meltzer told me at breakfast she was smart. I wasn’t getting that.

  “Mr. Barbour,” Meltzer said calmly. “If your daughter was upset about something, say, a boy, she might go to a friend, want to talk to someone. See where we’re going? Maybe just a new place to look.”

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Barbour answered impatiently. His fuse had been lit and he was having trouble putting it out. “We made a list already for the deputies. And Hayley talked to most of her friends. We’ve called everyone.”

  “We had a fight.” Mrs. Barbour admitted it so quietly I almost didn’t hear her.

  “Hayley,” her husband warned, but she kept going.

  “It was nothing.” She wouldn’t look at us. “I mean, she just turned thirteen. She wants to do things we don’t think she’s ready for.”

  “What things, exactly?” I asked, gently.

  “She wanted to ride with friends to a dance Saturday,” Hayley answered. “I don’t want her in a car with a bunch of teenagers. And she doesn’t want to be dropped off by her parents. It’s the kind of arguments we have now.”

  “Can’t you get an Amber Alert out or something?” Brooks asked.

  “Not until we’re certain Skylar has been abducted,” Major Brolin announced with characteristic sensitivity. She was mad at me and maybe at the sheriff and she was taking it out on the family of a missing girl.

  “Abducted?” Hayley gasped. Of all the ugly possibilities swirling in her brain, this one clearly hadn’t occured to her. Mr. Barbour paced to the end of his kitchen, rested hands on the sink, stared out the window at the darkness. Meltzer stirred. I wondered how long he was going to let Brolin hammer at them.

  “Mrs. Barbour,” Brolin continued, “do you know the whereabouts of your daughter?”

  “No,” Hayley answered with a frantic whimper.

  Brooks came back to the table fast. Rage seemed to be the only emotion he was good at. And he was really good at it. “Please fucking tell me you are not delaying looking for our daughter because we’re suspects. It’s bullshit about patrols, isn’t it? Goddamnit, what do you want us to do?”

  “Brooks,” his wife begged. “Please.” She looked at Brolin with wet eyes. “She just wasn’t here when I got home. Luke was crying. I told you. I knew she hadn’t been here to let him out. The door was locked. Skylar’s so bad at remembering to lock doors …” She faltered.

  “So you’re willing to take polygraph tests?” Brolin persisted. “Tonight?”

  “Jesus,” Mr. Barbour rasped. “Whatever. Right now. We’ll both fucking go right now if it means you start doing your jobs.”

  Meltzer had had enough. “Would you excuse us? Major Brolin, would you mind stepping outside with me?” He stood and so did Brolin. Meltzer looked down at Hayley Barbour, who was destroying another Kleenex with her fingers. “Every unit we have available is looking for Skylar right now. And if she’s not home soon, we will have feet on the ground checking every inch of this town. No bullshit. You have my word.”

  21

  Meltzer and Brolin left the kitchen. Raymond sat forward, clasped his big hands on the table. “I have a teenage boy,” he said. “I do the best I can. But sometimes our kids, they hide things from us. They want their own life. You can’t blame yourself for not knowing where they are every second.”

  Brooks Barbour drooped down into a chair. With Brolin out of the room, it no longer felt like a combat zone. Mrs. Barbour wrapped her hands around her mug. “Skylar complained about the bus,” Hayley said softly. “She had to ride the entire route before it dropped her off. Ninety minutes. She could walk home in fifteen. Brooks and I both work. I’m only able to pick her up at school once a week. We told her about those girls they found in the woods. We talked to her about stranger danger. She took it seriously. I know she did.”

  Detective Raymond used his phone to copy the photograph of Skylar, then tapped at it with beefy fingers. The photo would go to headquarters, and soon, I knew, every patrol on the street would have a picture of Skylar Barbour’s face. My phone vibrated and lit up a few seconds later. Raymond had copied me.

  “Did Skylar ever mention talking to anyone on the way home?” I asked.

  “No.” Hayley shook her head.

  “How about other family members? Grandparents, aunts, uncles? Does Skylar ever go anywhere else after school?”

  “No.” Again it was Hayley who answered. “To Pam’s house sometimes, but only with permission. We don’t have family here. We’ve only been here two years. Brooks was transferred. He’s in the hotel business.”

  “Did she have a favorite place?” I asked. “Some of the kids hang out around that Coke machine over on Main Street and the ice-cream shop.”

  “I don’t know.” Hayley’s voice was full of frustration and fear. She was starting to realize she really didn’t know what her child was doing. Her eyes met mine, wide and panicked as the unflinching tsunami of doubt rushed at her. “You think someone did something to her, that man who killed those girls.” It wasn’t a question.

  “If someone saw Skylar today, it might help us,” I said evenly. “That’s all.”

  She picked up the framed photograph of her daughter. A fingertip passed over the navy sweater, the collar of Skylar’s white shirt, then traced the young, pretty face. “I don’t know …”

  “I don’t know either,” Mr. Barbour said. Some of the red had washed out of his face. But his skin was splotchy. And he was thoroughly annoyed by our questions. “Again, we didn’t realize she wasn’t taking the bus.”

  “But she walked home from school last year, correct?” Raymond asked. “What was her routine then?”

  “Her friends would know,” Hayley answered as Luke’s attention shifted and Sheriff Meltzer walked back in. Brolin wasn’t with him. “Do we really need to come to the station tonight?” Hayley asked him. “I’d like to be here … in case Skylar comes home.” Luke whined, pushed his muzzle into her hand.

  “Of course not,” the sheriff said. “Wait for your daughter here. Try
not to worry. It’s still early. She could be at a movie or something.” He sat down next to her. Luke watched him; so did Brooks. Neither looked friendly.

  “Skylar would never do that without permission,” Brooks said, then threw up his arms. “Oh hell, what am I saying? I guess I don’t know what she’d do without permission, do I?” He rubbed his face like it itched. “It’s actually comforting to think she might have just said fuck the rules, fuck my parents, and she’s off somewhere with some boy I’d hate. That would actually be a relief.”

  “Well, the odds are on that kind of scenario,” Meltzer told them in a voice that made you believe him. “I wouldn’t worry too much.”

  “We’d like to have something of Skylar’s if you don’t mind,” Raymond said. “Her hairbrush, something like that. And an unwashed garment from the laundry basket.” He was trying to make it sound like a casual request, trying hard not to disturb the thin veneer of calm in the room. But the look the parents exchanged said they understood.

  “I’ll get them,” Brooks said.

  “Do you mind if I go with you?” I asked. “I’d like to see Skylar’s bedroom.”

  Mr. Barbour hesitated. “Show her, Brooks,” Mrs. Barbour told him. “They want to help.”

  I followed him through the family room to a carpeted hallway. A handmade sign on a door at the end of the hall read KNOCK!!! The three exclamation points were each a different bold color to reflect the gravity of her command. I imagined Skylar dressing for school with all the concerns of a kid of thirteen. She was mad at her mom. I was willing to bet that she would give up all her resentments, even that dance on Saturday they’d argued about, to be home again now.

  Brooks stopped at the bathroom door and flipped on the lights. He turned and looked at me. “If she walks in right now, we’re in deep shit. This is Skylar’s space.”

  “Ah,” I said, and smiled. “Privacy issues. I had them too.” I stood watching him from the hallway as he pulled a couple of drawers open. “I promise to take the blame if we get caught,” I said.

  He glanced up at me. And I saw it in his eyes. He knew Skylar wasn’t going to walk in. He yanked open another drawer. “Her hairbrush must be in her purse. Or in her bedroom.” He slammed the drawer shut.

  “No worries. We’ll find something. Hey, you look like you could use some fresh air.”

  He rubbed his face and eyes again, shook his head. “I’m okay.”

  “Is it all right if I check out her room now?”

  “Do what you need to do,” he said. “Her laundry basket is in the closet.”

  “Does Skylar keep a diary?” I asked.

  For about half a second, I thought he was going to smile. “She has a diary. Hayley read some of it last year. So Skylar bought one with a lock.”

  “I’d like your permission to take it with me,” I told him. “I’ll return it.”

  “Just don’t mention it. It will upset Hayley.”

  “Does she have a computer?”

  “The one in the den. There’s nothing personal on there except it’s logged in to her social media.” He started to walk away then turned back. “We should have never gotten her that damn iPhone. It was Hayley’s idea. As soon as we handed it to her, we forfeited the ability to fully monitor her. What if she met some creep online?”

  “You can’t blame yourself or your wife because your daughter isn’t home right now,” I said. “Give it a little time. She’ll get home.”

  “Alive?” he pressed. “Can you promise me that?”

  “That’s why we’re all here.” I met his furious gaze evenly. “To make sure Skylar gets home safely.”

  I watched him go back down the hall. Then I pulled on gloves. You don’t know where a case will lead. Or where you might find a crime scene. Being careful to not corrupt potential evidence along the way is always a good idea.

  I pushed open the closed door with the handwritten sign and stepped carefully over scattered clothing, books, and shoes. I wouldn’t need the laundry basket. There was a teen magazine on the bed table, a TV remote. The remains of a glass of juice sat on top of a chest of drawers next to a half-eaten toaster pastry. I stood there looking at it. It was past dinnertime now.

  A single shelf held up by L-brackets was loaded with books. I ran a gloved finger along the slick, unused spines of hardcovers—book-club editions of the classics. At the far end, the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games trilogy were well worn.

  There was a desk under the double windows, antique white like the bedroom suite. It was a simple writing desk with one center drawer. I pulled it open and exposed plastic heart-shaped paper clips, rubber bands, glue, scissors, pencils and erasers, a few pieces of copy paper, and a three-hole punch.

  I heard a voice from the hall. Raymond appeared in the doorway. He held up a plastic bag with a toothbrush. “Barbour told me he couldn’t find the hairbrush so I got this,” he said. I reached deep into the drawer and felt around. “Got the last location on her phone,” he said, and I stopped, looked up at him. “Maybe a sixteenth of a mile from the end of the driveway up Cottonwood Road. Near the walking path.”

  “So if she was abducted,” I said, keeping my voice low, “he parked on the road and waited for her to come off the trail. It makes sense. He’d want her near his vehicle. He wouldn’t want to overpower her in the woods and then have to drag her out.”

  Raymond checked the hallway, then stepped in and closed the door. His eyes swept over the mess that was Skylar’s bedroom and saw what mine had seen: a teenager’s room, not a crime scene. He picked a blouse off the floor and rolled it up. “Almost no traffic out here,” he remarked. “It’s mostly open land. This place and a few small farms farther down the road. That’s about it. Nobody woulda seen him.”

  “Precautionary acts like surveillance—learning routines, knowing where to wait, disabling GPS—it’s exactly the offender’s MO in acquiring the other victims,” I said, and ran my hand up under the desk along the bottom of the drawer. “You get her call log too?”

  “Yeah. And get this: Her last call was to the landline in this house.”

  I pulled the drawer all the way out. “Why would she do that? She knew her parents weren’t home. She would have called one of their cell phones.”

  “Million-dollar question right there,” he said.

  “Well, is there a message on voice mail here?”

  “Nothing. Looks like she hung up before the introduction finished playing.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said.

  “No shit. Maybe it was a butt dial.”

  “Anything else jump out on her call log?”

  “Haven’t had a hell of a lot of time with it yet.”

  “You get me a copy once you know the numbers?”

  “Sure thing,” Raymond said. “You find anything?”

  I peeled a piece of clear tape away from the drawer and held up the tiny aluminum key stuck to it. “Spare diary key. No diary yet.”

  “Those things have a two-dollar lock anyway,” Raymond said. “I used to pick them all the time in order to invade my kid’s privacy.”

  “Any guesses on where this kid hid her diary?”

  “My boy hides everything in the bathroom,” he said, opening the door. “Because he’s such a friggin’ genius.”

  “Want to have a look?” I picked up a silver cross that was lying on the chest of drawers. I slid open a drawer on a blue jewelry box that played a Disney theme song I recognized but couldn’t name. There were a couple of silver bracelets and a leather wristband. I heard cabinets opening in Skylar’s bathroom. I opened the second drawer and found birthday cards signed by Skylar’s grandparents. Each had a crisp new fifty-dollar bill inside.

  “Bingo,” Raymond said, and came around the door. The diary was pink. “ ‘Dreams, thoughts, and secrets,’ ” Raymond read the front, and held it up for me to see. A tiny pink padlock hung off the latch. “It was in an industrial-size tampon box.”

  “Well done,” I said.
I walked over to him and reached for the diary. He jerked it back. He had the reflexes of someone who’d been working twelve hours and started the day with a hangover. I was pretty sure I could take him. But I knew he’d resist more if I pushed for it. That’s the kind of sweetheart he was. “Might be something in here we need,” he said.

  “Personally, I’d rather read Cyndi Lauper’s memoir than stay up all night reading deep thoughts by a thirteen-year-old,” I told him. “But you have to hand it over, Detective. And you know the sheriff would agree that I’m the one who needs to read it first.”

  His eyes narrowed. “All right. Okay.” We both knew the sheriff would back me up. “But keep me informed. I am still officially the detective in charge of this investigation. And believe it or not, I give a shit.”

  I plucked the pink volume from his hand. “Thank you.”

  We walked out and I closed Skylar’s door. We followed the hall, crossed the den. In the kitchen, Hayley Barbour was writing something on a sheet of paper. Raymond and I sat down; the diary I’d wedged in the back of my waistband cut into me. Skylar’s rolled-up shirt was stuffed under Raymond’s big arm.

  “Mrs. Barbour is making a list of Skylar’s after-school activities as well as friends and passwords to social media accounts,” Meltzer told us.

  Her tears had started again, falling on the thin paper on the tabletop. She squeezed the pen so tight, her index finger was deep red at the tip. Meltzer did what Hayley’s shuttered-up husband seemed incapable of doing. He reached for her hand. It was a completely natural response, the desire to comfort. Luke let out another plaintive whine. “I’m going to use every resource we have to bring Skylar home,” Ken Meltzer promised her. He looked at Brooks but didn’t let go of Hayley’s hand. “If you need anything, if you think of anything, no matter how small, call one of us. Doesn’t matter what time.”

  We left cards with our private numbers on the table and walked through a hardwood foyer to the front door. I glanced into the living room, a long formal room, the kind families never use unless they have company. Then I stopped. Meltzer followed my eyes to a metal music stand with an open practice book. Advanced alto flute. Next to it a gunmetal-gray instrument case.