“Any number of possibilities spring to mind,” I said. “We’re going to need to pay them a visit at their current site. Preferably a surprise visit, if you catch my drift.”
“I catch it,” he said. “Do you think they’re involved with Brittany’s disappearance, or just doing something illegal on the side and nervous about the extra attention from the cops?”
“It could be either,” I said. “Or it could be both. Especially if Brittany found out about whatever it is that they’re doing.”
“I’m curious about the father,” he said.
“Brown said they interviewed him by phone,” I said. “He claims he’ll be here by Monday.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Harper.
“I’m more curious about this Pete Moss,” I said. “So-called.”
“Should we go over it now?”
“I guess. I was hoping to get my beer first.”
I’d no sooner spoken the words when the server appeared and dropped our initial order onto the table. Harper ordered enchiladas.
“And for you?” she asked me.
“Dos tacos and a shot of Patron,” I said.
“I’m guessing you anticipate this is going to be bad,” said Harper.
“And you don’t?”
“No, I do,” he said. “They usually are.”
jaggedhorse13: hi how are you
hottt$h!t: who dis
jaggedhorse13: this is Pete
hottt$h!t: who is Pete
jaggedhorse13: you know me
hottt$h!t: no, I don’t
hottt$h!t: Pete what
jaggedhorse13: moss
hottt$h!t: what kind of name is that
jaggedhorse13: family name
hottt$h!t: whose family
jaggedhorse13: you know
hottt$h!t: I don’t
jaggedhorse13: you do
hottt$h!t: are you a predator
jaggedhorse13: why are you talking to me if you think that I’m a predator?
hottt$h!t: I don’t know you. what do you want?
jaggedhorse13: I want to get to know you
hottt$h!t: creepy
jaggedhorse13: I’ve seen you at school
jaggedhorse13: but I’m shy
hottt$h!t: if ur too shy to talk to me irl why should I talk to u
hottt$h!t: r u fat
jaggedhorse13: no
jaggedhorse13: that’s a little shallow, don’t you think?
hottt$h!t: it’s not
hottt$h!t: I don’t like fatties, and I bet you don’t either
hottt$h!t: hypocrite.
jaggedhorse13: okay. point taken. what do you like?
hottt$h!t: ur definitely a predator for sure.
At this point, she had cut the conversation short. Their second conversation was longer.
jaggedhorse13: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I promise that I’m not a predator.
hottt$h!t: That sounds like something a predator would say
jaggedhorse13: I’m really not. just someone who wants to get to know you better
jaggedhorse13: and too shy to talk to you at school
hottt$h!t: what school
jaggedhorse13: huh?
hottt$h!t: what school do you go to
jaggedhorse13: magnolia
jaggedhorse13: just like you
hottt$h!t: who did you have for geometry?
jaggedhorse13: I’m in algebra
jaggedhorse13: mrs. wetzel
hottt$h!t: you could have googled that too
hottt$h!t: alrite predator: final question
hottt$h!t: what are ur social meds
hottt$h!t: that I can look up immediately
hottt$h!t: if not you are DEFINITELY A PREDATOR AND I AM BLOCKING YOU FOREVER
Pete Moss sent her a link that led to a YouTube video of a boy talking about video games. He had a channel devoted to it and had been active for over a year. It was the kind of kid a fifteen-year-old girl would find attractive.
“He could have taken this from anyone,” I said. “She’s so shrewd, why would she bite?”
“Now he has a face,” said Harper. “Someone real to project a one-sided dialogue on. A fantasy. A daydream. Something you can hang your hat on.”
“You sound like Daniel Hayes, with your clichés. Okay, let’s say this works: he catfishes her using the profile of a boy about her age. One he’s checked to make sure goes to her school. All she would have to do is approach him to know it’s fake. I have a hard time believing that any tech-savvy kid, who has been saturated with these platforms since birth is going to fall for this.”
“Unless she was too shy to approach a boy she liked in the real world. Unless she was lonely or unhappy in her life, and she desperately needed to believe in something outside of it,” said Harper.
I thought of the Hayes house. I thought of Cynthia Hayes. I flipped over the next page.
hottt$h!t: I watched your vids
jaggedhorse13: what did you think
hottt$h!t: they were ok
jaggedhorse13: just ok
jaggedhorse13: ?
hottt$h!t: I mean they were pretty standard
hottt$h!t: the fortnite ones were cool
jaggedhorse13: everyone likes those
jaggedhorse13: what do you like to do
hottt$h!t: I’m the captain of the dance team at my school
hottt$h!t: I started it
jaggedhorse13: I know that dummy
jaggedhorse13: I go to ur school remember
hottt$h!t: oh yeah
hottt$h!t: that was actually a test
hottt$h!t: you passed
jaggedhorse13: uh-huh
jaggedhorse13: lucky me
hottt$h!t: how come you never talked to me, you seem ok looking enough
jaggedhorse13: wow thanks
jaggedhorse13: I don’t hang with 10th graders
hottt$h!t: why r u talking to me then?!
jaggedhorse13: so my friends don’t find out
jaggedhorse13: better not tell
jaggedhorse13: don’t come up to me at school, either
hottt$h!t: maybe I just won’t talk to you then
jaggedhorse13: oh yeah you will
hottt$h!t: how do u know?!
jaggedhorse13: cause you liked my videos.
It went on this way, for pages and pages. He said very little about himself, but within a matter of a few conversations, Brittany confessed everything from her resentment of her family to the way she secretly felt about her friends to her own inexperience.
jaggedhorse13: do you like your family
hottt$h!t: not really
jaggedhorse13: why not
hottt$h!t: bc they don’t like me
jaggedhorse13: how do you know
hottt$h!t: the way my mom looks at me
jaggedhorse13: wut about ur dad
hottt$h!t: he doesn’t
hottt$h!t: look at me
hottt$h!t: he’s my stepdad
hottt$h!t: not here
hottt$h!t: I wish I could go live with him
jaggedhorse13: ya but then I wouldn’t see u at school anymore
hottt$h!t: so
hottt$h!t: you don’t even talk to me anyway
jaggedhorse13: yeah
jaggedhorse13: but I want to
jaggedhorse13: do u like ur friends
hottt$h!t: sometimes
hottt$h!t: I like dana
hottt$h!t: even tho she’s weak
hottt$h!t: jaggedhorse13: hahaha wut do u mean
hottt$h!t: she just goes along with whatever I say
hottt$h!t: I think she’s afraid of me
jaggedhorse13: why
jaggedhorse13: are you scary
hottt$h!t: I guess so
hottt$h!t: crystals scarier
jaggedhorse13: whys she scary
&nb
sp; hottt$h!t: she just is
hottt$h!t: she’s mean
hottt$h!t: even my mom is afraid of her
hottt$h!t: I guess that’s why my mom doesn’t like her
jaggedhorse13: ive seen that girl
jaggedhorse13: she’s trash
jaggedhorse13: river trash
jaggedhorse13: I bet her house is on stilts
hottt$h!t: so? she’s cool
hottt$h!t: what do u know about it anyway
jaggedhorse13: I’m all-seeing and powerful. I know all and see all before it even happens
hottt$h!t: yeah sure
hottt$h!t: whatever
jaggedhorse13: so do u have a boyfriend
hottt$h!t: none of ur business
jaggedhorse13: why because u don’t
jaggedhorse13: or bc u do
hottt$h!t: im not telling
jaggedhorse13: I can easily find out
hottt$h!t: u wouldn’t know
jaggedhorse13: do u wish I was ur boyfriend
hottt$h!t: no
hottt$h!t: maybe
hottt$h!t: sometimes
jaggedhorse13: I wish u were my gf
hottt$h!t: really
jaggedhorse13: yeah
jaggedhorse13: really
hottt$h!t: r u ever going to talk to me at school
jaggedhorse13: yeah
jaggedhorse13: I think we should meet up first
jaggedhorse13: so I can make sure ur gf material bwahaha
hottt$h!t: im not allowed to date
jaggedhorse13: wut r u amish or somethin
hottt$h!t: no
hottt$h!t: you’ve obviously never met my mother
jaggedhorse13: ok
jaggedhorse13: so don’t tell her
hottt$h!t:?
jaggedhorse13: sneak out
hottt$h!t: when
jaggedhorse13: soon
I put the last page to the side, sickened. It was unsettling enough to imagine even another teenager talking to her this way—let alone an adult pretending to be one. How easily he was able to turn her inside out like a sock. He sounded enough like an obnoxious high school boy to convince a young girl, but I didn’t buy it. I could tell Harper didn’t, either.
“What do you think?” He looked at me somberly.
“Honestly?” I looked out over the river. “I’m going to need something stronger than a Corona after this.”
We went to the pub in the basement of the coffee shop. It was starting to fill up with regulars. We got a few curious looks when we walked in, but for the most part, everyone seemed more preoccupied with their drinks than us. I ordered a Moscow Mule. Harper stuck with beer.
“Brick oven pizza tonight,” the bartender said. “You guys interested?”
I thought of the tequila, beer, chips, and salsa uneasily coexisting in my stomach, like neighbors who disliked each other. I shook my head.
“I’ll order one,” said Harper. He filled out the little white form with the pen on the bar.
“You’re a bottomless pit,” I observed.
“You’ll be glad I got it later,” he said, handing the slip off to the bartender. “The question is,” he said, then glanced around the stone walls of the basement and stopped. Thinking better of it, he slid from the stool and threaded his way through the bar patrons toward the door. I followed.
The patio was mostly empty. The temperature had dropped significantly since the sunset. We made our way to the back of the patio overlooking the river and sat beneath a heat lamp.
“What’s the question?” I asked.
“The question is,” he said, “did she know this person? Was this someone in her life who decided to masquerade as a boy she might like, or was this a total stranger? It’s highly likely that the person who was messaging Brittany online is the person who took her. It’s also entirely possible that it was someone else. Or even someone in her life who pretended to be a catfish before taking her, knowing that it would throw us off the trail.”
A burst of loud, raucous laughter erupted from across the patio. A group of men—dressed like they’d been at work all day—made their way through the wooden door of the basement bar out to the patio carrying a pitcher and several glasses. Oil and gas men. I thought I recognized one of them from our lunchtime investigation at the Dairy Bar.
“Locals?” asked Harper.
“Out-of-towners,” I said. “Not unlike us.” Most of them were transients, as evidenced by the license plates on their pick-up trucks and Jeeps out front. The oil and gas men clustered around a table at the other end of the patio from us.
“Has it always been like this?”
“It’s a more recent development,” I said. “Things were bad when the mines started losing money and closing down. I want to say this is good for people, but obviously, a lot of the money is going out of state. So I get why residents are leasing their land out. I’m sure there are also those renting out their homes or space in their homes, to the people who are here for work. They’re probably seeing a little bit of money coming in from that. It’s also possible there’s an uneasy tension between the locals and the oil and gas people. It’s something to keep an eye on.”
“Harper!” The bartender called across the patio.
Harper brightened. “Oh, good! My pizza is ready.”
I got up. “I’ll get it. I have to use the bathroom, anyway.”
The bar was now more crowded than it was when we had arrived. It looked like it was mostly locals inside, hunters in camo and older retirees. By now, everyone who had started at happy hour was sufficiently buzzed enough to pay me no mind as I threaded my way through the crowd.
I went to the bar after a brief wait in line for the bathroom. “Harper?” I asked.
“Got it right here, hon.” The bartender lifted the box from behind the bar and passed it over a line of empty beer bottles into my waiting hands.
“Thank you.” I held the pizza aloft as I attempted to wade my way back through the small, tightly packed space.
“Pete!” The bartender called. “I have an order for Pete here!”
I froze. I could see the top of a baseball cap thread through the throng at the opposite end of the bar. A hand reached out for a pizza and held it aloft. I changed direction and tried to reach the opposite corner where the other end of the bar and the brick oven were stationed. But by the time I reached it, the wooden door that led outside was swinging shut.
Sweating now in my long overcoat, I pushed my way through the crowd. The cold air hit my warm face as I opened the door. I didn’t notice. I dropped the pizza onto the closest table and looked around: first at the table of oil and gas men with their backs to me, then at Harper, who was looking at me intently as if he’d already discerned that I’d seen something—or someone.
I ran to the gate, just as it swung shut. I pushed through it and ran over the slick cobblestone walkway to the sidewalk out front. All I saw was a set of tail lights pulling away from the pub, flashing red in the dark.
I squinted through the fine mist that fell from the sky. I could just make out the Louisiana plate on a black F-150. As I stood on the sidewalk and helplessly watched, the tail lights—along with the owner of the truck—disappeared into the darkness and vanished from sight.
7
A Thousand Lightning Rods
I told Harper what I’d heard in the bar and about the license plate.
“Could be a coincidence,” he said. “But I don’t believe in coincidences. Not in our line of work.”
He had dropped me off in the back of the hotel, right in front of the door outside the hallway where my room was. I expected to be more tired from the day’s events and activities—we crossed state lines twice and talked to four people connected with Brittany’s disappearance, and that wasn’t even counting the briefing by Agent Brown at the CARD headquarters—but instead, I was wired.
I should have realized as much. It was always like this at the beginning of a case, no matter how bleak or
macabre. The more I learned and discovered, the more I felt like my senses had been electrified, as if I had a thousand little lightning rods all over my body.
I paced around the room. I was still slightly buzzed from the drinks at both the pub and Dos Hermanos, but I had mostly sobered up after eating several slices of Harper’s brick oven pizza. He was right; I was grateful he had ordered it. His foresight was impeccable.
My thoughts circled back again first to our meeting with Mrs. Hayes—Brittany’s obvious unhappiness, even before we saw the conversations that described as much. The elusive and (seemingly) clueless Daniel Hayes and his evasive business partner. The man at the pub with the same handle as the one we were looking for as a person of interest in Brittany’s disappearance.
There was a knock on the door. I jumped about ten feet, from the end of one double bed to the next. I went over to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Harper.
“I had a theory you couldn’t sleep, either,” he said, holding up a six-pack.
While I normally wouldn’t drink like this on a case—let alone the first day—there’d be no sleeping tonight otherwise. I nodded at him and then put my coat and boots back on. We went out back to the bench where we first met and sat across from the river, sharing the cold silence.
Harper was the first to speak. “There’s something strange about this one,” he said. “I mean, there’s something odd about all of them: the deviance that would lead anyone to harm a child. But this, in particular, is nagging at me. It would be easy to assume that her father came up here and took her, but something is telling me that it’s not that simple.”
“I’ve had that feeling before.” A tugboat slowly chugged its way down the river before us. I watched its gradual process, likening it to the unraveling of a case in my wired and overstimulated mind. “On my last case.”
“The Black Widow?”
“There was just something so insidious about it,” I said. “This feeling I had that no matter what I did, the answers always remained just out of my reach.”
“Insidious,” said Harper. “That’s a good word. Of all the people we’ve talked to, I feel like not one of them really cares about that girl. At least, not as much as they care about themselves. Her mother treats her like a vanity project; her stepdad has no idea what’s going on. If I were Brittany, I’d have wanted to run away, too.”