Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (25 page)

“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.”