by Tom Ryan
For a moment that stretches out forever, we stay like that, watching one another. So much closer than I ever thought I’d get to Sarah, to anyone, but still divided by a gulf of ice, air, and darkness. Then Sarah smiles and turns away from the window. A moment later, her light goes off again.
Shaking, I sit back at my computer, skimming my thumb across the trackpad, and the screen pops back into life. I notice right away that there’s a new message in my inbox, freshly arrived.
Meet me at my car, says the subject line.
My path through the house is enchanted, every step on every floorboard light enough to keep the creaks from calling out, every shadow melting onto me, helping me escape in darkness and unbothered peace. In the main hallway, I stop and slip into my boots, then slide into my coat, wincing at the rustling slide of polyester, although there’s no way that anyone upstairs will hear me at this point. Before I let myself out onto the front porch, I glance back down the dark hallway, to where the kitchen is basking in the soft blue glow of moonlight.
I let myself out, locking the door behind me, and then skimming down the veranda steps, running across the front yard, across the sidewalk, across the street, and then, without stopping, into Sarah’s car.
It’s snowing, thick, feathery flakes drifting around me as I open the door and slide inside. She’s sitting there, staring across at me as I get in. Her face is blank, expressionless, and I wonder if somehow there’s been a misunderstanding, but then she’s hurling across at me, and before I know how this has happened, our faces connect.
I’ve kissed only one girl before. At camp when I was thirteen. A dare, really. Her dare. A moment late at night when everyone seemed to think it made the utmost sense to send the girl toward me, the girl most likely to be queer. It was short, uncomfortable, and I felt awkward and exposed afterward.
This is different. There’s no confusion or self-doubt. The awkward wondering that characterized my previous attempt is gone. The flush of wanting spreads over me and wipes away all my feelings of anxiety.
She’s smaller than I am, a tightly wound package of muscle and limbs. Our mouths probe at one another, softly chewing and sucking at bottom lips, breathing past one another’s tongues. A rush of blood shuttles past my ears. One of her hands clasps the back of my head, and I feel my hat come off, the cold air rushing over my head, making me feel like I’m sinking.
She pulls away, and we stare at each other wide-eyed, breathless. I press my hands into my lap, willing them to stop shaking.
“I wish we could sneak inside, into your room,” she says.
I smile and reach over to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear, underneath her beanie. “We’d never make it to the attic,” I say. “I can navigate the creaky steps, but you’d never make it. We’d end up waking up the whole house.”
She turns and looks at her own house. “We’ll have to go into mine, then,” she says.
“What about your parents?”
She smiles, her eyes bright. “It’ll be fine. They sleep like the dead.”
I smile back. It all seems so obvious now, unquestionable. How could I have ever thought I wanted space from her?
“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s do it.”
She opens the driver’s side door and steps out, and I slide across the bench seat, following her. She shuts the door, a dull metallic crunch, but the sound is absorbed and muffled by the falling snow. We both stifle laughter as we tiptoe through the snow to her back door.
As she digs inside her slippery nylon coat for her key, I turn and scan the silence of the street before settling on my house, the tower, my bedroom window. For so many years, I’ve been sitting up there, staring down at the street, wondering who might come into sight, the things I might see if I put my face up to the glass at the right moment. Now I’m the one out here, in full sight of the half-moon eye at the top of the house.
Nobody watching me.
Inside the house, we step out of our boots, slide out of our coats, move through the mudroom into the dark main space of the house. We’re in a kitchen, dimly lit by a light in the vent hood. Sarah takes me by the hand and pulls me through the dining room, into a hallway lined with soft, plush carpet, and we tiptoe up the stairs and across an upper landing. At the door to her bedroom, she stops and points across the landing at a door, partially ajar, the red glow of an alarm clock telling me that it’s 3:03 in the morning.
My parents, she mouths, and I nod to let her know that I understand.
With a soft click, she opens the door and we slip inside.
The room is small and warm. Posters neatly line the walls. The Misfits, The Runaways, My Chemical Romance, vintage punk, colorful gig posters.
Like a detail in a dream that tells you things aren’t really happening the way you think they are, the bed is covered with an old-fashioned quilt, the kind you’d find in your grandmother’s linen closet.
Sarah lets go my hand and turns to face me, dropping back to sit on the bed as she does.
“Come sit with me,” she says.
I don’t need to be asked twice. I take a seat next to her, and she leans forward, pressing her forehead against mine.
“I’ve been wondering if something like this would happen,” she whispers, and then she pulls me down onto the bed.
The part that makes me the happiest is lying there, not thinking about the things that usually fill my mind, make me tight with anxiety.
“So tell me about the podcast,” she says, turning sideways to face me, the back of her hand brushing absently along the outer edge of my hip.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“How did it all happen?” she asks.
I close my eyes, thinking about how to answer. It’s a simple question, but none of this is a simple thing.
“Basically, I needed somewhere to talk things over,” I said. “To feel like I’d done something, after years of feeling like I’d done nothing. Accomplished nothing. Or no, not nothing, but the wrong thing. I’d made everything worse when I could have made it better.”
“You didn’t—” she begins, but I smile and hold a finger up to her lips.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I know I wasn’t responsible, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty. You know?”
She nods. “Sure.”
“I was having trouble sleeping back then,” I say. “So I woke up one night and decided to try doing something. I couldn’t save Sibby, but I could do my best to maybe save someone else. Or at least get other people to help.”
“So you started a podcast.”
I laugh. “It sounds so crazy, but yeah, basically I did. It was small for like two months, and then it took off.”
“The babysitter who took those kids?” she asks.
“Yeah. It was kind of crazy. It happened super quickly, and then all of a sudden, I’d actually done something, just like I wanted to.”
“That’s when I heard about you,” she says. “People on my Twitter were all going nuts about it.”
I nod. “It got big quick,” I say. “A lot bigger than I ever expected it too.”
She smiles and reaches over to run her hands through my hair. “It should have gone big,” she says. “It’s amazing. You’re really talented, Dee.”
The compliment makes me feel both thrilled and uncomfortable at the same time. “I do my best,” I say. “Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. The hard part is figuring out what cases to cover. There are so many of them, more than you’d ever expect, and I want to make sure I pick cases that are worth the effort, that are worth the time people put into them.”
“Not like Danny Lurlee,” she says.
“You listened to those?” I ask.
She nods. “What a dick.”
Danny Lurlee is a guy in Kansas who staged a violent abduction in his trailer, complete with his own blood, and faked his own disappearance, all so he could get away from his family and some debt and start fresh. I covered it on the show for three episodes befor
e the LDA came up with evidence that led to his arrest as he tried to cross the border into Mexico.
“Guys like him are the exact opposite of why I started the podcast,” I say. “I was furious, felt like I’d been taken advantage of. But I learned my lesson. I make sure to focus on people who deserve the attention.”
“Like those women in Texas,” she says.
“Yeah. It makes me feel good to know that I’m helping people who need it, especially since I wasn’t able to help when Sibby was taken.” I turn away, avoiding her eyes. “But now something’s happened.”
I feel her shift on the bed, sitting up to rest back on her elbows. “What happened?”
“I got an email,” I tell her. “From someone who thinks they saw Sibby.”
“What?” She sits up the rest of the way, and I turn to see her staring down at me, her face wide and surprised.
I nod, and a warm rush of relief works its way through me as I realize how happy I am to have someone to talk to about this.
I pull up the email on my phone and read it to her. When I’m done, she flips over onto her back and stares up at the ceiling, thinking.
“So what do you think?” she asks.
“It’s got to be some crank,” I say. “Some weirdo who thinks they’re helping by putting a random, useless theory into the world.”
“Why would anyone think that was helpful?” she asks me.
“I can’t figure it out,” I tell her.
“What do your instincts tell you?” she asks.
“I’m not sure my instincts are much use,” I tell her.
“Bullshit. You’ve been doing so much good work, all because your gut told you to. Do you think this is the real deal?”
I hesitate. Sarah sits patiently, waiting for a response. Absentmindedly, I reach out and stroke the back of her hand. “I think there’s something to this,” I say. “I think that this person knows something.”
She grips my fingers and holds my hand in place. “Well, then, you have to do something,” she says. “If something is telling you that Sibby is still alive, you have to do something.”
“Like what?” I ask. “There’s no way to trace the email, and it’s not like I’m going to go and reveal everything to the cops. I mean, if there was something there that they could act on, maybe I’d have to, or at least I could just send them an anonymous note the way I always do, but there isn’t anything. I need something more concrete.”
“Well,” says Sarah, “maybe it’s time we started digging a bit deeper.”
“How?” I ask.
“You’re the one with the world famous true crime podcast,” she says. “You tell me.”
I think about it for a minute. “I spoke to Sibby’s family,” I say. “Her sister told me that her mom was really suspicious of someone in particular.”
“Really? Who?”
“Burke’s uncle Terry had a girlfriend with him that summer,” I say. “Sandy. She was young and pretty, and I think we all kind of had crushes on her. And then Brianna…”
“Brianna?” asks Sarah, surprised. “I thought you hated her.”
“I don’t hate her,” I say. “It’s more complicated than that. She was one of Sibby’s best friends when we were younger. She mentioned that she remembered being around that summer, and that Terry and his girlfriend were there too much. It all reminded me of something Terry said when he and I and Burke were in the woods together during the search party. He sounded guilty about Sibby’s disappearance. He said that if he hadn’t built the treehouse, it never would have happened.”
“You think he might have had something to do with it after all?” she asks.
I shake my head. “There’s no way he could have been involved. They weren’t around that day. There’s proof of that. And the two cases are a bit similar on the surface, but when you start to examine them, they’re actually really different. Besides, the guy’s a bit of a loser, but I can’t picture him kidnapping a kid and killing her.”
“So why bother tracking down his ex-girlfriend?” asks Sarah.
I think about it. “I’m just not convinced. Something in my gut is saying that I’m missing something. That there are pieces missing.”
“Well, in that case,” she says, “I think you should follow your instincts. You’re closer to that case than anyone. Go find this woman and see what she has to say.”
I think about this. “How?”
Sarah gives me an incredulous look. “Come on, Dee, hasn’t the Laptop Detective Agency taught you anything?”
30.
Sure enough, Sandy, or Sandra as she’s now known, isn’t that hard to track down. After just a few minutes on Burke’s mom’s Facebook account, we’re able to find an old photo of Terry and Sandy. Sandy’s name is grayed out, indicating she’s deleted her account, but her last name is still there—Willis. A bit of surfing later and we’ve found her.
Two days later, we’re in the city, standing in front of a row of suburban townhouses that curves around a cul-de-sac, the kind that look like they were built in the eighties and never changed since. Every single one looks the same: like a shoebox standing on end, with a triangle sliced off the upper edge, dark smoky windows, a covered entryway notched into the side.
“You should go first,” says Sarah as we stand uncertainly at the end of the little walkway. “You’ve got the connection.”
It was Sarah’s idea to hunt down Terry O’Donnell’s ex-girlfriend Sandy, to see if she believes that he kidnapped Layla, and whether she might have some insight into what happened to turn him into a kidnapper. To find out more about what she remembers from the time that Sibby was taken.
I reluctantly cross the front yard, stepping on the round concrete pads that are set into it like lily pads, and walk up two steps to the front doorway. There’s a Christmas wreath on the door, even though it’s almost February. It’s one of the overtly religious ones, with a cross attached to the ribbon.
As I press the doorbell, it occurs to me that I’ve never been in front of a mystery like this one. I’ve always been hidden behind the shadow of my microphone, orchestrating other people as they make inquiries. My heart beats extremely fast as I wait for someone to answer, telling me that I’m not cut out for this.
“There doesn’t seem to be anyone home,” I say, turning to leave.
“You only just rang it,” says Sarah. She reaches around me and raps loudly on the glass window in the upper edge of the door, then steps back behind me again, shoving her mittens into her pockets.
A few seconds go by and nothing happens.
“Seriously, Sarah,” I say. “I don’t think this—”
The door opens inward all of a sudden, and I jump slightly.
“You look surprised,” says the woman behind the door. “Didn’t you just knock?”
I nod. “Yes, sorry,” I say. “I just didn’t think there was anyone home.”
“Well, here I am,” she says. “Can I help you?”
The woman is nothing like the Sandy I remember, who was trim and pretty, dressed in form-fitting T-shirts and cool jeans, occasionally dresses. Her hair was cut just above the shoulder with a slight wave in it.
This woman is much more conservatively dressed, with a thick cable-knit sweater over a long, floor-length skirt. Her hair is cut into a sensible bob, and she’s not wearing any makeup. Around her neck is a thin gold chain with a cross on it. But I can tell right away that it’s her. The big blue eyes staring at me as she waits for me to speak, bring me back a decade, to when I was just a little girl, and she was the most glamorous person I’d ever met.
“You probably don’t remember me,” I say. “I’m Dee—Delia Skinner. I was—am—friends with Burke O’Donnell. You used to go out with his uncle Terry.”
Her face goes pale, and she puts a hand to her throat. Her mouth opens slightly, and she stares at me, blinking slowly.
“My goodness,” she says finally. “You’ve grown up, Delia.”
“Yeah. I guess
that’s true,” I say. I turn to Sarah. “Um, this is my friend Sarah.”
Sarah holds up a hand and gives a little wave, and Sandy nods slightly, acknowledging. We stand there for a moment, and I don’t know what to say next, when Sandy manages to choke out a little laugh.
“Come in, girls,” she says. “It’s cold outside.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
We follow her into a small entryway, beige tiles and a boot mat underneath a small round mirror that’s hung between two religious cross-stitches.
“Let me take your coats,” she says, and we dutifully pull them off and hand them to her so she can hang them over the back of a chair. We kick off our boots and follow her into her house. The tile in the threshold makes way for a thick beige carpet that seems to run throughout the house, up the stairs, into the dining area, and beyond, to the small living room, divided from the little kitchenette by a shelf full of knickknacks.
“Come in,” she says, leading us to the living room. “Have a seat. Can I offer you anything? I have herbal tea. No coffee, I’m afraid. I avoid anything caffeinated.”
“I’d take a glass of water, please,” I say.
She glances at Sarah, who nods. “That’d be great, thanks.”
She moves off into the kitchen, and we perch on the edge of the sofa. It’s deep, with a feminine curve of carved wood along the back, and a pattern of pale blue stripes and yellow roses.
As we hear the cupboard opening and water running, I look around the room. A bookcase in the corner is mostly stocked with small ceramic angels, but one shelf is lined with neatly arranged books. A Bible, some religious self-help texts. No novels or anything really interesting to be seen. There doesn’t seem to be a TV of any kind.
A wooden cross is hung prominently on one of the soft pink walls, surrounded by a small collection of neatly framed prints, mostly religious scenes and Bible quotes written in calligraphy.
Super religious, mouths Sarah.
“No kidding,” I whisper back as Sandy returns to the living room with two tumblers of ice water.
“Thanks,” we echo, as she hands them to us and sits, smiling and once again unruffled, in a prim armchair on the other side of the room.
