Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (26 page)

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.

Skylar Barbour played flute in the school band, Brooks Barbour told us in the foyer,
while sobs from the kitchen came down behind us like hard fists. She had band practice
once a week. It was the day she was out of school late enough for Hayley to pick her
up on her way home from work.

I checked the time. Ten p.m. Seven hours since Skylar stepped on a walking trail and
disappeared into the woods.

22

We stood by our cars in the Barbours’ driveway, Raymond, Meltzer, and I. Brolin’s
Crown Vic was gone. We didn’t ask where she had gone. We didn’t have to. Brolin had
acted like an ass and Meltzer had given her a time-out.

“Hayley said Luke was going nuts when she got home,” I told them. “Maybe the dog heard
something. GPS went out up there on the road. Stands to reason that’s our crime scene.”

“If there is a crime scene,” Raymond pointed out.

I shook my head. “The runaway theory really doesn’t play for me. No clothes or other
personal items are missing, except a hairbrush she probably carries with her every
day. There’s cash in her jewelry box. We found her diary. She’d never leave that for
her parents to find. Add to that the locked door Skylar never remembers, Luke’s behavior,
the fact that we have witnesses who saw her step onto the path for home. She hadn’t
talked about having plans. She hadn’t seemed troubled or preoccupied. Something bad
happened after she stepped into those woods.” I wished I had talked to Skylar’s friends
myself. Because if Brolin had come down like the hammer she was, the girls might have
retreated, withheld the way kids do when they think they’re in trouble. I thought
about the three girls I’d talked to earlier, Melinda’s closest friends. Something
about that conversation was still bugging me.

“Maybe Barbour got carried away,” Meltzer suggested. “The man is obviously a pressure
cooker.”

I nodded. “The only thing completely implausible at this point is that this girl killed
her phone and ran away from home.”

“Brooks Barbour is tripping my switches,” Raymond said. “Seems like the kind of guy
who could lose his shit. We’ll check his alibi in the morning, talk with his employer.”

“Get their phone records,” Meltzer told him. “Let’s make sure they’ve been calling
Skylar’s number and the provider like they said. And schedule polygraphs for first
thing tomorrow. Right now, let’s get some deputies. We’ll come in from the park side
of that trail. Rob, you start on this end of the woods. Keye, you take the road. And
Rob—get that shirt wrapped up. Keep her scent fresh. We may have to get some dogs
out here. Dark night.”

As if on cue we all looked up at the sky. No moon. We followed the sheriff up the
driveway and onto Cottonwood Road. Raymond pulled to the side. I parked behind him.
Meltzer kept going. I took a super-bright LED flashlight from the glove compartment
and felt under the seat for my Glock. It was in the safe at the hotel, I remembered.
I hadn’t taken it to dinner with the sheriff.

Raymond got out, looked back at me. “Happy hunting,” he said, and clicked on his flashlight
and headed into the woods.

I opened the back door of my car, tucked Skylar’s diary into my scene case, got out
a fresh package of gloves, and stretched them on. A tight glove on a hot night in
Georgia is no fun. They don’t breathe. It’s uncomfortable. I stood there for a second
getting my bearings in the starless night, then began crisscrossing the wide, rocky
road. Out here away from the city and traffic all I could hear was the swampy buzz
of insects and night birds rustling the leaves. I saw Raymond’s flashlight weaving
side to side as he stepped in the tree line on a beaten-earth path and began his search.
What we found tonight and where we found it would speak volumes about what had happened
to Skylar Barbour. And how it had happened. Every chilling, screaming detail. Brooks
Barbour said she’d carried a purse. Had it been dumped in a struggle? Had someone
tossed it aside and left us with prints, trace evidence, DNA?

There was a ditch on the right edge of the road. I followed it, slowly sweeping my
light around the area, then crossed the road again, taking short steps, trying to
illuminate as much ground as I could. It wasn’t enough. A flashlight didn’t have a
chance against a country night. I went back to my car, turned it around. My headlights
lit up the road. And I was looking at Brooks Barbour and Luke. My breath caught. I
threw the car in park and got out. “Mr. Barbour, what can I do for you?”

“I saw your light from the house. If you think she’s out here somewhere, I want to
help.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I get it. I’m a suspect. You think I’ll mess with evidence or something but—”

I interrupted him. “This area has to be protected until it can be thoroughly searched.
Please leave now.”

“Look,” Barbour insisted. “I’m not the most demonstrative guy in the world. I admit
it. But I love my daughter. I would never hurt her.”

“You’ll have a chance to say whatever you need to say in the morning at your interview
and polygraphs. I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“You haven’t met Skylar.” He wasn’t leaving. “If you had, you’d remember her smile,
her great big wide smile …” His voice trailed off. I waited. It was the first time
I’d heard emotion from him that hadn’t instantly turned to anger. “We won’t survive
this, me and Hayley. Our marriage, I mean. Skylar’s our glue. And now we’re in that
house together. And I realize I can’t even stand to look at her without our daughter
in the room.”

“Go home, Mr. Barbour,” I said. “Be kind to your wife. And wait.”

“At least take Luke,” he said. “He’s Skylar’s dog. He can help.”

I wasn’t sure if Luke would like that idea, but it sounded good to me. I held my hand
out. Barbour dropped the leash. Luke came forward, sniffed my fingers, then leaned
against my leg—the big dog hug. I rubbed his shoulders and back. He sat down next
to me. “Good boy,” I told him as Barbour’s footsteps crunched away from me. Luke made
no move to follow him.

I watched until he was a dim shadow in the light from my headlights,
then picked up Luke’s leash. “He’s not the most touchy-feely guy, is he, fella?” Luke
looked up at me. “I guess it’s just you and me.” He stood up with a dog’s intuition.
He knew he had a job to do.

We started to walk, Luke putting his nose alternately in the air to catch a scent
too faint for a human’s blunt senses, then to the road as he led me until my headlights
were too far away to provide enough light and I had to switch on the flashlight again.

The dog’s pace suddenly picked up. He was pulling me and he was strong. I was trying
hard not to slide on gravel. He stopped, made a few circles in the middle of the road,
whined, then strained his leash and tugged me toward the ditch. I felt that rush every
investigator gets when they know something’s about to happen, something hidden is
about to be revealed—excitement tinged with dread and fear.

Luke pulled me to the edge of the ditch. I made him sit while I swept my light over
tangled grass. The ditch was dry from weeks without rain, and the sandy bottom was
smooth from the runoff of storms past. I caught a glimpse of something in clumps of
weeds on the side of the bank. “Stay, Luke,” I commanded. He shifted nervously on
his haunches but obeyed while I climbed down awkwardly into the ditch and pushed through
a mound of broad-leaved weeds with gloved hands. I felt it, and then went in for a
closer view with my flashlight, carefully separating the grass. A pink case with a
bitten apple on the back that said
OTTERBOX
. My light picked up something glistening on the case, a tiny smudge. I said a silent
prayer for ridge detail, pulled out my phone, snapped a picture, then called Ken Meltzer.

“I found something,” I told him. “It fits the description of the case on Skylar’s
phone. We need lights out here, Ken. Before whatever else we have is lost or contaminated.
Can you send Raymond back with evidence tags and bags? I don’t want to move until
we can collect the evidence and mark this spot. And I need to turn off my headlights
before my battery dies.”

I knelt next to Luke, put my arm around him. I heard his tail thumping against the
road. That’s the thing about dogs. They have this beautiful way of experiencing joy
on even the darkest days.

Ten minutes later, I saw a light bobbing through the woods. Raymond went to his car
first, then walked over to mine and cut the lights. “What’s he doing here?” Raymond
eyed Luke cautiously.

“Long story,” I replied.

“I don’t like dogs,” he grouched. “Sheriff said you found something.”

I shone my light on the spikey grass and weeds. Raymond stepped down into the trench
and leaned in with his light. “Well, look at that,” he murmured.

“I thought it would be better if you bagged it in case evidence is challenged later.”

“Good thinking,” Raymond said.

“There’s something in the road too. Luke smelled something.”

Raymond snapped a couple of pictures, then zip-tied a manila tag to the spot where
the phone case had lain and climbed back out with the phone case in an evidence bag.
We stood there, Luke leaning against my leg, panting, Raymond and I staring down into
the ditch.

“I was thinking about the evidence in the Melinda Cochran case,” I told him.

“Yeah,” Raymond answered. “That’s right. A phone. The battery was gone. No prints
on the pieces we found. It was busted up in the middle of the road.”

We exchanged a look. I put Luke on my left and let him lead the way. He did, his nose
to the ground. He found a spot just left of the center of the road and began working
in circles. Raymond and I swept our flashlights around the area.

“I’ve got something,” I said after a few minutes. My light swept over a crushed glass
screen, tiny dusty shards. My heart sank. It had been an iPhone. We’d probably run
over it ourselves.

I took a picture, and Raymond pulled an ink pen from his pocket, squatted next to
the flattened phone, used the pen to flip it over. Glass fell out of the shattered
frame onto the road. Raymond looked up at me.

“No battery,” he said.

23

The floodlights arrived, clusters of them mounted on tall tripods and set up on the
road like a movie crew was at work. Meltzer’s team moved carefully around the taped-off
spot we’d determined was our crime scene, the point where I knew Skylar Barbour had
lost control of her young life. A generator rumbled. A dozen deputies and a K-9 unit
had been briefed before they spread out over the area. Temporary road posts were set
up so scene tape could be attached and a perimeter could be built. The road had been
blocked and closed. Raymond had taken photographs and left markers where he’d bagged
evidence. He now paced slowly inside the big square, eyes on the ground. A crime-scene
technician had taken charge of the evidence he’d bagged, marked and organized and
stored it, then knelt on the road collecting samples from dirt and glass. I stood
watching her, Luke at my side.