by Tom Ryan
“Oh, no way,” I manage to say. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he says. “The Gerrards moved into your old place just a couple of months ago. They’ve got a cool little girl named Layla.”
Mrs. Gerrard is still looking at me as if she’s trying to figure something out. “Are you a Price?” she asks.
“Uh, no,” I say. “Skinner. The Prices bought the house from us.”
“I see,” she says. I can see the wheels spinning as she realizes who I am, and I brace myself for the inevitable questions, but instead she just purses her lips into a somewhat unconvincing smile. “Well, I have to grab some milk,” she says. “Nice meeting you. See you later, Burke.”
Burke pays for his chips and I follow him outside.
“Hey, look,” he says. “There’s Layla over there.” He points to a car parked by one of the gas tanks, and sure enough, there’s a girl sitting in the backseat, waving at him.
Before I can ask him not to, he’s striding to the car.
“Hey, Layla!” he says. She rolls her window down and smiles at him. She’s a small girl, tiny in fact, with a serious look on her face.
“Hi, Burke,” she says.
“This is my friend Dee,” he says, pointing at me. “Guess what? She used to live in your house. I think your bedroom used to be her bedroom. Pretty cool, hey?”
She regards me curiously. “You lived in my house? When you were my age?”
“That depends,” I say. “How old are you?”
“I’m eleven.”
“I was a bit younger than you, then,” I say. “We moved out when I was eight.”
“Why?” she asks.
Her question throws me. It’s not like I feel that it’s actually a secret or anything, but I’ve never put it in words for anyone before.
“My dad and mom wanted a bigger house,” I say. “We still live in town.”
“My mom doesn’t like our new house,” says Layla, matter-of-factly. “She says it isn’t our forever house. She says we’ll move somewhere nicer someday. When we can afford it.”
“What about your dad?” asks Burke.
“He likes it, I think?” the little girl says, and then she twists her face into a knot, thinking about the question seriously. “Actually, I don’t know if he likes it. He didn’t say. I guess I should ask him.”
“Cute kid,” I say to Burke, as we’re walking away.
“Yeah,” he says. “My mom babysits her sometimes. She’s real smart.”
We reach the corner and I turn to glance back at the car. From the window, Layla Gerrard is still staring at us. When she sees me looking back at her, she raises a hand in a calm, simple wave.
As I wave back, I register with some surprise that I feel vaguely unsettled. It’s been ten years since Sibby disappeared, but the memories of that day keep finding new ways to haunt me.
8.
My house is really loud when we get home. Music is blasting through the main hallway, screeching guitar and pounding discordant drums.
“What the hell is your dad listening to?” asks Burke as we kick off our boots.
“I don’t know,” I say, pushing through the glass porch door into the hallway. A song comes to an abrupt, screeching halt, and I yell into the house. “Hello?”
“I’m in here!” my father calls back.
Burke follows me down the hallway, munching from his giant bag of chips. I walk into the kitchen, Burke hanging back in the doorway, as another song kicks into high gear.
My father is dancing around the island, furiously chopping something. He’s wearing a track suit, royal blue with stripes up the sides of the legs.
“Hey!” he calls over the music.
“What the hell are you listening to?” I yell.
“It’s Soundgarden!” he calls back. “Amazing, hey?”
I walk to the stereo and turn down the volume. “What is going on?” I ask. “What are you wearing?”
He looks down at himself, then looks back up, laughing.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “I almost forgot. I was telling Jaron and Pickle about the time my buddies and I drove all night to see them in concert, then back again so we could make it for an exam. Made me dig out my old CDs from the attic, and I found this tracksuit. Man I miss the ’90s.”
“Jaron and Pickle?” asks Burke.
“They’re Dad’s midlife crisis friends,” I explain.
“Oh, hey, Burke!” says my dad excitedly. “I didn’t notice you there!” He comes around the counter and gives Burke a friendly man hug from the side. If an adult did that to me, I’d spontaneously combust, but Burke takes it in stride.
“How’s it going, Mr. Skinner?” he asks.
“Doing great, my man,” says Dad. He looks down at Burke’s open bag of chips. “Can I have some of those?”
“Uh, sure,” says Burke, holding out the bag. Dad takes a big handful and shoves them into his mouth, then turns to look at me, a goofy smile on his face. “She’s funny,” he says through a mouthful of chips, pointing at me. “It can’t be a midlife crisis if I’m not middle-aged.”
“You’re forty-seven,” I say. “Average life expectancy for males is about 77, which means you’re well over the hump. If that’s not middle-aged, I don’t know what is.”
He stops chewing and stares at me with wide eyes.
“Oh my god,” he says, through a mouthful of chips, “you’re right.”
I lean in closer and stare at his face. He shifts his gaze, but not before I notice that his eyes are glazed over, slightly bloodshot.
“Are you stoned?” I ask incredulously.
There’s a long, awkward pause. Dad swallows loudly. “Please don’t tell your mother,” he whispers.
“Something’s burning,” says Burke.
We turn to see a plume of smoke rising from a pot on the stove, just as the fire alarm goes off. Dad rushes across the kitchen and grabs the pot, throwing it in the sink and turning on the water. I hurry to open the windows, and Burke stands in the middle of the chaos, taking it all in and methodically working through his chips.
“Amazing,” he says.
“It just kind of happened,” my dad tries to explain as he drags a stepladder against the wall and climbs up to pull the battery out of the alarm. “Pickle’s brother gave him some homegrown stuff, so after coffee, we went out behind the alley and smoked. It was just a little bit!”
“Did they have their kids there?” I ask, horrified.
“No!” he says. “They were all at some playgroup thing or something.”
I look at the pile of chopped potatoes on the counter, and he follows my gaze.
“I wanted poutine,” he says sheepishly.
“Amazing,” says Burke again.
“You are ridiculous,” I tell Dad. I turn to Burke. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”
“But I want poutine,” says Burke.
I narrow my eyes at him and he follows me out of the kitchen. When we get to my room, Burke collapses onto my bed in a fit of laughter. “I can’t believe your dad is totally baked!” he chokes out as he pulls out his phone.
I turn on my computer, ignoring him and wondering what I did to deserve this insanity.
I open the Radio Silent email account and begin scrolling. A lot of messages are reactions to last night’s episode, but a few of the subject lines read MISSING, which is how I tell people to get my attention if they want to suggest a case.
I begin skimming through them, but nothing I read seems like a good fit for the podcast. One guy clearly needs to accept that his wife wants a divorce, considering she packed a bag, told him she was leaving, and now won’t answer his texts or calls. Another lady wants help tracking down her mother’s kid sister, who ran away from home back in the ’60s. I work through several others, but none of them feels right.
I’m about to give up and call it a day when another email catches my attention. I squint at the sender’s address: [email protected]. The subject line reads “Interview?”
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“What the…” I mutter as I open the message.
Dear Radio Silent—
My name is Quinlee Ellacott, and I am the chief crime correspondent for BNN, an online news outlet that seeks to “send the truth wherever you are.” I have followed your podcast with great interest and would be very interested in securing an interview with “the Seeker” as you cryptically refer to yourself.
I think the role that the Seeker has played in shedding light on missing persons cases is fascinating and important, and I’d love your take on it. I’d also like to discuss your place in the investigative landscape in more depth. Our audience wants to know: Who is the Seeker?
You refer to the amateur sleuths who help you as “laptop detectives,” and in several cases, it seems as if this digital investigative work has paid off. This raises the question: Is it reasonable for Radio Silent to step in where traditional law enforcement has failed? If so, doesn’t the public deserve to know more?
We think it’s a bit ironic, and an exciting slant to the story, that the host of the most popular podcast devoted to uncovering people wants to remain anonymous. I’m sure you’ll understand when we attempt to find you in that very same spirit. You’ve laid out a very exciting challenge for us!
You might find it easier to just cooperate with us from the beginning. Please reach out to me at your convenience, and we can discuss terms of a possible interview.
Regards,
Quinlee J. Ellacott
For a moment, I almost forget to breathe. Quinlee Ellacott is the aggressive, take-no-prisoners chief crime correspondent for Breaking News Network. BNN doesn’t broadcast traditionally; they’re a completely online outfit, with an agenda to “tell the truth, even when it isn’t pretty.” They’re also huge, with an enormous following online, and Quinlee Ellacott is their most well-known reporter. Her specialty is scandalous crimes with lots of dramatic twists and turns, and she never misses an opportunity to insert herself in the story.
In other words, she’s everything I try not to be.
I read the email one more time. I think the role that the Seeker has played in shedding light on missing person’s cases is fascinating and important… What does this mean? Are people starting to pay attention? Not just to the podcast, but to me?
“No way,” I say, pushing the laptop away from me.
“What’s up?” asks Burke, paying attention for real this time.
“Quinlee Ellacott wants to talk to me.”
“You mean that reporter chick from the internet?”
I nod. “BNN. She wants to figure out who I am. Or who the Seeker is, anyway.”
I twist the laptop so he can lean in to read it. He skims through it, then waves his hand dismissively. “Same old, same old,” he says. “She won’t figure out shit.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask, starting to panic. “She said she’s been following the podcast with interest. She said the public deserves to know more! What if she starts digging around?”
He lifts his chin toward the laptop. “May I?”
I slide my seat out of the way. “Be my guest.”
He sits down and starts opening up browser tabs. Using jargon that I only barely understand, he rapidly explains what it is that makes my system so secure.
“Basically,” he concludes, “nobody is going to find you unless you want them to find you. Someone would have to be outside your bedroom window, actually watching you record, for you to be found out. So unless you’re worried about Spider-Man climbing up the side of your house and spilling the beans on Radio Silent, you’re cool. I promise.”
“Okay,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I’m sorry I keep asking you this. I know it must be annoying.”
He waves me off. “Your secret identity is between you, me, and the walls.” He stands up from the chair. “Anyway, I’d better get home. My mom wants us all home for dinner. Maybe I’ll see if your dad wants to grab a toke with me on the back deck before I head out.”
“Not funny, Burke,” I say, forgetting about the email for a second to spin around in my chair and glare at him.
“I kid, I kid,” he says, showing me his palms. “Another secret that’s safe with me. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”
He disappears down the steps, and I sink back into my chair. Burke has managed to calm me down, but a seed of worry has been planted in my mind, and I know it’s not going to just disappear that easily.
I didn’t start Radio Silent to bring myself attention. I started it for the opposite reason, to bring attention to cases and people who deserved it. To draw my own obsessive attention away from the mystery that’s haunted me for more than half my life.
It’s never been about me. It’s about the people who need finding.
9.
After Burke leaves, I turn back to my laptop and delete the email from Quinlee Ellacott, then set a block so her future emails will be deleted automatically. I’m about to shut my laptop and head back downstairs to give my father a hard time when a new email, subject line MISSING, appears in my inbox. I open it.
Dear Seeker,
I am writing from Houston. My friend Vanessa Rodriguez has been missing for almost a week. She didn’t show up for work six days ago, which is extremely unusual for her. Because of an unusual series of events, nobody—not her boyfriend, her family, or any of her friends—realized she was missing for almost two days. We have reported her disappearance to the police, but although they tell us they are looking into her whereabouts, we are worried that they aren’t taking Vanessa’s disappearance seriously. My sister is a big fan of your podcast and suggested that I reach out to you. Since we have no idea what else to do, here I am.
We are very worried about Vanessa and hope you will consider featuring her on your podcast. Maybe someone out there knows something.
Thank you,
Carla Garcia
I reread the email, and a feeling I’ve come to recognize builds inside me: this is a case worth exploring. I quickly respond, asking if I can ask her a few follow-up questions. She replies almost right away, and we move to an online chat to continue our discussion. We go back and forth for almost an hour as she fills me in on the details of Vanessa’s disappearance. I’m soon convinced that this is a good case to cover on the podcast, and she’s agreed to do some legwork to help me, such as recording some quick interviews to include on the show and getting me a copy of the police report.
By the time we sign off, I’m charged with the electric thrill that always comes from deciding on a new case. I’m ready to tell this story, and if I do a good enough job, maybe the LDA will kick into overdrive and we’ll find Vanessa, or at least some closure for her loved ones. I know what it’s like to be in their shoes, and as long as this trail is still hot, I’m determined to do my best to help them follow it.
Once again, Radio Silent calms my anxiety and helps me focus on what’s important—what I can do—and as long as I’m hidden from Quinlee Ellacott by voice filters and firewalls, I don’t have to worry about becoming the story myself.
Unfortunately, it isn’t long before a wrench is tossed in my plans. When I wake up and reach for my phone first thing the next morning, it’s literally hot, thanks to a twitter feed that is completely on fire with so many mentions I can barely get a handle on them. It’s normal for a successfully solved case to churn up a bunch of fresh activity on my accounts, but this is beyond anything I’ve experienced.
I get to school a bit early and head straight to my first period classroom so I can have a few quiet minutes to dig around on my feeds.
There’s no way that @RadioSilentPodcast isn’t being bank-rolled by some big enterprise, says one tweet. I think we should channel the LDA and figure out where we can find them? says another. There are dozens and dozens of cryptic tweets like this, and the clincher: If anyone can figure out who she is, @QuinleeEllacott can.
My blood goes cold, and I click through to @Quinlee-Ellacott’s feed. Sure enough, pinned at the top
is a brand-new message.
Do you know who is behind @RadioSilentPodcast? Help me and the @BNN team figure it out. Time to start our own online investigation!
“Oh for the love of—”
“What’s happening?” asks Burke, sliding into the desk next to me.
I show him my phone. He reads it and, to my immense irritation, laughs.
“She sure is stone cold,” he says.
I grab my phone back and stare at him like he has two heads. “This is a disaster. People want to know who I am, and now Quinlee Ellacott is trying to weasel her way into my business.”
“Dee,” says Burke reassuringly, “you have nothing to worry about. This isn’t the first time that you’ve been asked for more information.”
“Yeah, but it’s the first time an investigative journalist has been on the case too. What if she starts digging? What if she makes a connection between me and Sibby?”
“How would she?” he asks. “Besides, what’s the big deal if she does?”
I just shake my head. It’s easy for Burke to say. He isn’t trying to keep himself a secret.
He goes on. “I really don’t get it, Dee. I mean, you have a successful podcast. Your ratings are big and getting bigger. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but isn’t it a good thing that you’re starting to get attention?”
“No,” I say louder than I intend, bringing a few glances from the people in the hallway. I drop my voice and lean closer. “I wanted to stay anonymous. I did this because I thought, stupidly, it was a way to give back.”
“You are giving back,” he says. “And I think you’re crazy not to let yourself get acknowledged for it. But don’t worry, Dee. I give you my honest, most sincere promise.” He stops and puts his hand on his heart. “You are one hundred percent incognito. Your voice is disguised, your upload location is secure and encrypted, and nobody, not even Quinlee Ellacott and her crackerjack investigative team, is going to figure out who you are.”
I smile, realizing that I’m being kind of ridiculous. “Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
