by Tom Ryan
“I haven’t heard anything about insurance money,” I say to the woman.
“Quinlee Ellacott thinks it’s something to do with a gambling debt,” says the woman. “I watch her religiously. She’s a smart cookie, that one.”
“I’m sorry to rush you along,” says Brianna, “but there are a lot of people waiting to buy tickets.” She gives me a pointed look as the woman rummages in her purse to pull out a couple of bills. I make the exchange and then smile up at the next person in line.
“I’ve got it from here, Brianna,” I say. “You go do whatever else it is that you’re supposed to be doing.”
“Are you sure?” she asks dubiously. “You don’t need me to help you figure it out?”
“Like you said, it isn’t rocket science. I’ve got it under control.”
“Okay then,” she says. “I’ll come back after the game has started and we’ll sort out the float.”
She leaves and walks into the arena with an uncertain backward glance at me.
The raffle table is busy but not crazily so. It goes in fits and starts, so I have time to watch people coming into the arena. I know most of the faces from around town.
My biggest fear, that people will recognize me as the girl from the woods, doesn’t come to pass. For the people who do know me—friends of my parents, teachers, neighbors—it isn’t a novelty. For everyone else, I don’t think they recognize me. I remember that it’s been almost ten years, and I’m not the little girl from the newspapers anymore.
On the other hand, I can tell that there are a lot of hushed conversations going on. I keep overhearing snippets of conversations, people throwing around theories and speculating on what actually happened, but I can’t focus on any of them long enough to catch what people are saying. But I do pick up a lot of talk about Layla and the O’Donnells.
I freeze in the act of ripping off tickets as Sarah Cash and her parents stomp their feet as they come into the arena foyer. She’s laughing, and as she pushes back her hood and shakes out her hair, her eyes meet mine and her smile freezes, goes flat.
“Hello?” asks the woman in front of me, waving a twenty-dollar bill at me.
“Sorry,” I say, turning back to my customer. By the time I’ve pulled off the tickets and made change, Sarah and her parents have moved on, and I just catch a last glimpse of her coat as they disappear into the arena.
Through the heavy doors to the arena, I hear an announcement come over the loudspeaker, followed by some cheesy ’90s dance music, and I know that the game is about to start. There’s a flurry of activity in the foyer as people hurry to make it inside and grab seats, and the line disappears entirely.
I’m so deep into the act of counting money, writing down amounts on a piece of scrap paper, and organizing it into the proper slots in a small metal lockbox, that I don’t notice that the inner door has opened and closed again until a deep voice startles me out of my daze.
“Hello, Delia.” It’s Detective Avery, standing next in line, wearing a parka and stocking cap with jeans. He looks so different out of his typical detective’s outfit that it takes me a second to place him.
“Oh,” I say. “Hey there.”
“Everything going well with you?”
I nod. “Sure. Yeah, everything’s fine. Just helping out the student council.”
“I saw you when I came in earlier,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you, but I could tell you were busy.” His face is so serious that I worry he’s going to drop some new bomb.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “Certainly. I just wanted to see how you were doing. I’m sure that this whole episode has dragged up some bad memories for you.”
“They didn’t really need dragging up, if I’m being honest,” I tell him.
He nods and drops his gaze. He picks up the construction paper sign and examines it carefully, as if he’s deeply interested in the details of our 50/50 draw.
“I thought I should tell you, before the media finds out tomorrow, we’re going to change from a search to a recovery.”
It takes me a moment to catch his meaning.
“You mean you’re going to be looking for a body?”
He puts the sign back on the table and meets my gaze. He nods, his face grim.
“Yes. We don’t think that O’Donnell is keeping her alive anywhere. We’re pretty sure that if he’d hidden her, he’d have fessed up by now. Unfortunately, with the weather we’ve had, it’s going to be hard to know where to start. The snow has covered a lot of possible evidence.”
“So you still think he did it?” I ask.
He nods. “It’s clear at this point that he was responsible. He’s not talking, but his fingerprints are all over that room in the abandoned house, along with paper clippings that match the cutout letters on the kidnapper’s note. And…” He trails off, and I find myself gripping the edge of the table.
“And what?” I demand.
“We found hair that has been proven through DNA to match Layla’s.”
I feel sick and weak, like I might faint.
“I’m sorry, Delia,” says Avery. “I know this is all quite awful news to hear, but I wanted you to hear it from me before it goes public tomorrow. Of course it goes without saying that I’d appreciate it if you keep this under wraps. It’ll be common knowledge soon enough.”
“Thank you for telling me,” I manage to say, even though my throat is dry. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“At this point, our goal is to bring closure to the family,” he says. “It might not be the outcome we’ve all hoped for, but hopefully we’ll at least be able to give them that. It’s something that we weren’t able to give the Carmichaels.” He reaches across the table and puts a hand on my shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Or you, Delia. That isn’t lost on me.”
He turns to leave, letting in a blast of icy January air when he opens the door. I watch him through the window as he walks away through the blowing snow.
Brianna comes to find me as I’m finishing the count.
“You don’t have to stick around for the draw,” she says. She casts me a sideways look. “Unless, you want to? You’re welcome to come out onto the ice with us between periods.”
“No,” I say. “It’s okay. Thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” she says. I detect a tiny whiff of something surprising. Could it be disappointment?
“I’m not really a big fan of attention,” I explain.
“Fair enough.” She looks like she’s struggling with herself, deciding whether or not to say something, then something happens to her face, a guard coming down.
“I’m sure this whole thing has brought up a lot of bad memories,” she says. “The little girl who went missing.”
I’m so surprised that I don’t know how to respond, and when I don’t say anything, she gets defensive.
“I mean, I’m shaken up, and I wasn’t there when Sibyl went missing, but maybe I read it wrong. Maybe you don’t care.”
“Of course I care, Brianna,” I say. “I’m just a bit surprised that you do.”
“Why?” she asks, sounding pissed off. “Sibyl and I were friends too, you know. Good friends.”
“I know that,” I say. “I remember. But I’ve never spoken to you about her, never heard you talk about it at all.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Delia. We were kids when it happened, and anyway, you were basically off-limits afterward. We were all told to leave you alone, and then it’s not like you grew up into a warm, approachable person. When the hell would we have talked about it?”
I nod. She’s not wrong.
Something occurs to me. “What do you think happened?” I ask her.
She looks taken aback. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“With Sibby,” I say. “You must have thought about it.”
“God yes,” she says. “I thought about it forever. We were so young. Do you know, I overheard my parents refer to the kidnappers
as monsters, and I took it literally. I had nightmares for months.”
I just look at her, trying to absorb this new person I didn’t know existed.
She shrugs. “Maybe it was monsters. We’ll never know. Do you know what did strike me though, was when Burke’s uncle was first arrested, I remembered him right away. I remembered him from back then, when we were kids. He and his girlfriend, that pretty blond, they spent a lot of time with us for being a bunch of kids. When the Gerrard girl went missing, and they arrested Terry O’Donnell, I thought to myself, Well, obviously. I don’t know why. Isn’t that strange? I know he had nothing to do with Sibyl’s disappearance, but there’s just something about the way he was around back then, building that tree fort, always encouraging us to go play in the woods, that made him, like, the perfect suspect.”
“He had an airtight alibi,” I say. “They were with the O’Donnell kids at a movie.”
She nods. “Yeah, I know. I obviously extrapolated too much. But still…You know, I really feel bad for Burke.” My face must reveal skepticism because she goes on. “Seriously, I do. It must be awful to have everyone sticking their nose in his family’s business. How’s he doing anyway?”
This way of looking at things takes me by surprised, and it occurs to me for the first time that the thing I was most worried about—being exposed and presented to the world by Quinlee Ellacott—has actually ended up happening to Burke and his family instead. I’m so surprised at her perceptive take on the situation that I tell her the truth. “I don’t really know to be honest. He’s not really in touch.”
She sniffs, and her condescending poise returns as quickly as it disappeared. “He’s going to screw himself over if he doesn’t get past himself and start coming back to school.”
I shrug. “Not much I can do about that.”
“Anyway, I should get back in there,” she says. “Thanks again for helping out. I’ll see you at school.”
With a flounce of her ponytail, she turns and pushes through the heavy doors into the arena.
I walk over to look through the thick glass at the game going on. It seems like the entire town is in there, sitting together in the cold, rooting for the same thing.
Something Brianna said is clawing at the inside of my mind, trying to escape. I’m trying to put my finger on it when the door opens again, and Sarah steps out of the arena and into the lobby. She smiles uncertainly as she approaches.
“Hey,” she says. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” I say. “Although I’ve somehow been hypnotized into selling tickets.”
She laughs. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been meaning to talk to you, and there are always so many people around at school.”
“Listen,” I say. “I owe you an apology. I was—”
She holds up a hand to silence me. “Dee. Just let me finish, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. I mime zipping my lip.
“I just wanted to tell you that I totally understand how tough all this must be for you. After everything you’ve gone through, it must be like reliving it all over again. I know you need your space, and I respect that, but please remember that I’m here for you whenever you need someone to talk to.”
I smile at her. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. I promise I will want that. I just need a bit of time to work a few things out.”
“Take all the time you need,” she says. “I’ll be here.” She smiles again and slips back inside the arena.
28.
Transcript of RADIO SILENT
Episode 44 (Excerpt)
HOST (intro): I am the Seeker, and this is Radio Silent. I’ve been receiving emails from all over North America, asking me to inform our listeners about one case after another. I do my best, listeners. I try to keep on top of things, but as much as I’d like to, I can’t do every case.
I wish I could.
I’m going to return today to Houston, where Nia Williams and Vanessa Rodriguez are still missing.
There’ve been a few developments in the case since I last spoke to you. For one thing, the meetup that Carla and Danetta organized was extremely successful. I’ve been in touch with Carla, who tells me that almost three dozen people showed up, and they came with information.
RECORDING: (voice of Carla Garcia) There was a huge turnout, and we learned from a few regulars at Impact Café, along with a couple of other servers that worked with Vanessa, that Vanessa and Nia had struck up a friendship over the past few years. As far as we know, they didn’t socialize outside of the diner, but Nia always sat in Vanessa’s section, and during quieter late shifts, the two of them would often end up chatting for long stretches, with each other as well as with the other regulars around the place. It was kind of amazing, because we started to hear stories about how Vanessa and Nia were really friendly. I guess you’d call them friends. Then this guy got up and told us that he works at Impact Café, and he told us a story.
RECORDING: (voice of Bradley Plum) I’m a server at Impact and I worked a lot of the same shifts as Vanessa, and every once in a while, she’d have to deal with guys getting fresh with her or whatever. You work in enough restaurants and you start to see the kind of shit women put up with when they’re waiting tables. Anyway, there was this one man in particular who started coming in every few nights, and he liked to bug Vanessa. Sometimes she’d ask me to take his table so she wouldn’t have to deal with him. But one night, Nia happened to be in the restaurant, sitting at her normal booth, nursing a beer, and the guy started to harass Vanessa. I was caught up with a really big table on the other side of the restaurant, a bachelor party or something like that, and I didn’t have time to intervene, but by the time I had the chance, Nia was already on the case. (Laughter) She was being pretty funny, ridiculing the guy, and people at other tables were even getting involved, turning around and laughing. You could tell that the guy was pissed. He eventually got up, dropped his money on the table, and stormed out. We never saw the guy again.
RECORDING: (voice of Danetta Bryce) Bradley told this story, and it wasn’t anything too crazy. I mean, it’s not a really bizarre thing to learn that a waitress was harassed by a man she’s serving. We all live in the world, right? But the fact that both of them had this kind of encounter with some creep—it was unsettling to say the least. And then…well, we asked Bradley when all of this had happened.
HOST: As it happens, the encounter Bradley describes happened less than a week before Nia went missing.
RECORDING: (voice of Carla Garcia) It was like a bomb had been dropped into the middle of the room. Nobody spoke for a very, very long time. But we knew we had something.
HOST: What follows is a recording from a public press conference held yesterday by the Houston Police Department.
RECORDING: (voice of Detective Britta Wilkinson) Due to recent information that has been brought to our attention, the Houston Police Department has begun to investigate the possibility that the unsolved disappearances of Nia Williams and Vanessa Rodriguez could be connected. We want to be clear that, at this point, this is solely a theory, but we would like to bring to the public’s attention a composite sketch of a man believed to be a person of interest.
HOST: On our show page and social accounts, you’ll find a link to the sketch that a police sketch artist provided based on the description Bradley Plum provided and other details of the renewed investigation.
As always, we appeal to anyone in the Radio Silent community in and around Houston to pay close attention to this case, and please let us or the authorities know if you have any relevant information.
Is there something we can do to help?
Listen up.
Let’s try.
29.
After I’ve posted the episode, I sit back in my chair and crane my neck to look back at the window. It’s late, but I’m wide awake. There’s something about shifting attention onto this case that reminds me of why I wanted to do this in the first place. Maybe I can still do some good. M
aybe I don’t have to do it all alone.
I stretch my arms over my head, then lean back to the computer and open my browser. There are already a few new emails, and as I watch, the app refreshes and a new one pops into my inbox.
I think I know who you are, the subject line reads.
My first instinct is to jerk back and slam the laptop shut. Has Quinlee Ellacott found me? Is this the end of my anonymity forever? Reluctantly, I reach forward and snap the computer open again, clicking on the link. It isn’t Quinlee Ellacott’s address; it’s from what appears to be a burner Gmail account. I roll my chair forward and read the message.
I think I know who you are, but I’m not sure. I also think you know who I am, but I’m not sure. If you get this, turn off your light, wait ten seconds, and then turn it on again.
My hands are trembling, and my palms go dry, but I lean forward and reach out, fumbling for the chain on the light, catching it and dragging my fingers lightly down the tiny metal beads before pulling it down, turning the light off.
My heart is pounding as I pull back from my desk, sliding the chair back far enough that I can just see past the lower edge of my window down to the house across the street.
Ten, nine, eight…
I don’t want to give up my secret.
Seven, six, five…
But if this is what I think it is, it’s too much for me to handle alone. I need the help.
Four, three, two…
Even as I reach for the light, I’m standing up from my chair. I pull the dangling metal cord and the light turns back on. Then I walk to the window.
For a long moment I just stand there, exposed, visible and vulnerable, staring at the darkened house across the street. If she’s there, she can see me clearly, and for now, that’s all I want: for her to look up at me; I want her to see me in my tower. I want someone to know who I really am, and to watch me with that knowledge. I want it to be her.
When the light in her room comes on, my breath catches in my throat. Sarah stands across the street, her hand against her window, looking across at me.
