Taylor nodded and pulled her phone out, opening a new document. She added items to the list, things they needed to do to get to the bottom of the history behind the Smiths and their pact with the creature living at the orchard for over a century.
Five
Detective Tom Bartlett sat in the living room and felt like he was in a time warp. The couch cushions were woven together, a thick material he hadn’t seen since he was a kid in his grandma’s basement. The coffee table was old, scratches lined its wax-covered top, and his cup of coffee steamed from its resting place on a coaster.
“So she went to her room to do school work, and you didn’t see her again?” Tom asked for the third time.
Carol Tremblay was shaking, and Tom hadn’t seen her eyes dry in the half hour he’d been there. She had a constant supply of tissues being pulled, then tucked into her long sweater sleeves. It reminded him of a sad magician.
Ben answered the question. “That’s what we said.”
“Do you usually check on her? Say goodnight? Things like that?” Tom asked, his pen hovering over his notepad. So far, he had some chicken scratches, but mostly he was doodling their house’s exterior.
Carol seemed guilty now, and Tom leaned forward, wondering if they had something important to say finally. “She’s thirteen. And she can be a little… abrupt. We’ve been giving her more space. She’s found some new friends, though, and that seems to have lifted her spirits somewhat.”
“Friends. Can you tell me who these friends are?” Tom asked, ready to document something real on his pad.
Ben spoke now. “Haven’t met them, but I do remember her telling me a name.”
Tom tapped his notepad with the tip of his pen, small dots formed in a bunch.
“Abigail. The friend’s name is Abigail,” Ben said, and Tom felt sorry for the man. He was fifty, bald, and well on his way to an early heart attack. And now his daughter was missing.
“Only a first name? Nothing else?” Tom pressed.
“That’s it. It’s Friday, so school’s on right now. Maybe they can find her if you need to speak with her,” Carol said, and Tom knew he’d do just that. There was a chance Brittany had been speaking with some boys, maybe older boys, maybe even men. If someone would know about that, it would be the girl’s closest friends.
“What happened to her, Detective?” Carol asked, tears flowing once again.
Tom stood up, thinking about the pants in the garbage, and the matching shoe found in the mud a half mile from her house. It didn’t add up. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
He left the grieving parents behind and headed toward Red Creek’s one and only school.
_______________
“Which one was your dad’s?” Brent asked as he slowed the car.
“This one,” Taylor said, pointing across the street at the dilapidated home. She only briefly recalled being there as her dad and Uncle Darrel finished packing it up, before they left Red Creek for good. It had been so full of her grandma’s things. Taylor had taken a teddy bear from the piles and kept it in her closet at the Manhattan townhouse.
“It looks… vacant.” Brent was right. The windows were boarded up; a sun-bleached For Sale sign swung in the wind.
“What happened to it?” she asked herself, and got out of the car.
She heard Brent say something as she shut the door, and Taylor crossed the street, heading for the yard. She glanced over to see Brent park the car and run over to her side.
“I don’t think you’re going to get any answers here,” he said, and she knew he was right. But maybe one of the neighbors knew something.
She walked up the driveway and made for the front door. All accessible windows were covered with planks of wood or plywood, looking long abandoned and likely bank-owned. Taylor pulled the screen door open and tried the door, finding it locked.
“Let’s check the other one,” she said.
Brent didn’t argue, and they meandered around the old stucco-covered house, entering the back yard. It was a mess: thatches of tall dead grass jutted out from the still frozen snow-covered corner, where the sun didn’t hit.
The rear windows were covered just like the front of the house, and Taylor tested the door, surprised to find it unlocked. It looked like the door jamb had been pried open at some point, the lock unable to fully latch.
“Wait. Someone broke in. They could still be inside,” Brent warned.
“Probably some local kids being stupid. I doubt anyone would be in there,” Taylor said.
“Wait here.” Brent was running through the mud now, and Taylor watched as he narrowly avoided slipping on his way to a shed at the edge of the yard. Seconds later, he was marching with an old wooden baseball bat in his hand. Taylor wondered if it had been her dad’s at one point.
She pushed the door open, and it creaked in response. Her heart rate sped up as her foot entered the house. What did she hope to accomplish coming here? It wasn’t going to help her investigation, but she was drawn here for some reason. Her grandma had changed the day her dad was taken so long ago, and she couldn’t ask the woman any longer. She’d died seven years ago, after spending five years in Greenbriar with dementia.
Brent reached forward and set a hand on her shoulder, stepping around her, the bat raised up, ready to strike.
Taylor scanned the room and found the place was pretty much empty. A few beer cans littered the floor, stains on the beige carpet in the living room. The kitchen was stripped of the appliances, and she could see rat droppings on the yellowed linoleum. She wasn’t sure why she’d come here.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s lived here in a while,” Brent said, lowering his weapon. “Did you say this missing
