He ended the call and looked at me. “I must have done something bad in a past life to deserve all this misery.”
Eighteen
The kid showed up in four minutes. Headlights splayed across the living room window. A second later, a truck door slammed, and two seconds after that, Sean Skilling came barreling into the house like a runaway train. But he put the brakes on the moment he saw me sitting with his parents in the living room. He looked like he was going to turn and run, but his father jumped to his feet and shouted, “Hold it right there, mister!”
Sean froze. But you could see it in his eyes, that he was still thinking of making a break for it.
“Get the hell in here,” Adam said, pointing to the living room. “Get the hell in here and sit the hell down.” He pointed to the chair he’d just vacated.
The kid moved cautiously, like he was expecting his father to attack him before he could sit, but he got to the chair without incident. Adam stayed on his feet, moving back and forth in front of his son in short steps, like a boxer warming up before the bell rings.
“What in the hell’s going on?” he asked.
Sean shot him a look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
That was probably true, to a point. He must have wondered whether I was here about Hanna, or Claire, or his friend punching me in the head. No doubt we’d get to all of it before the night was over, but clearly Adam Skilling wanted to address the third issue immediately.
His father said, “Who hit him? Who hit this man? I want a name!”
“I didn’t hit him. I didn’t lay a hand on him,” he said.
“But you saw him get hit, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know, maybe—”
“That’s a yes-or-no question. You saw him get hit, or you didn’t see him get hit. Which is it?”
“Adam—” his wife said tentatively.
“I’m talking here, Sheila. Yes or no?”
“Yeah, I saw him get hit. But it was dark.”
“Oh please,” Adam Skilling said. “Was it light enough for you to see him when the two of you ran off together? What if he’d been knocked unconscious? What if he’d had some kind of brain injury or something? You want to end up with a record? Is that what you want? So I’m gonna ask again, who hit—”
“Mr. Skilling,” I said firmly.
He whirled around, looked at me as though he’d forgotten I was there, even though his questions concerned me. “What?”
“We can get to who it was later,” I said.
“I’m trying to help, for Christ’s sake.”
“I know, and I appreciate it.” I turned to Sean, who looked slightly relieved. “In case you don’t remember, I’m Cal Weaver, and I’m a private investigator.”
“I know who you are.”
“I don’t think you understood what I was after when I saw you at Patchett’s. I’m looking for Claire, and I think Hanna can help me.”
“I don’t know where she is.” He looked at both his parents quickly. “Swear to God.”
“Why are you looking for Claire?” Sheila asked. “I don’t understand what’s happened with her. Is she missing?”
Sean looked down at the broadloom and shook his head. “Sort of.”
“What’s that mean? ‘Sort of’?” I asked.
“I mean, yeah, she’s gone away, but that doesn’t mean she’s missing. It just means she’s not around.”
“You know where she is?” I asked.
“I swear, I’ve got no fucking idea.”
Adam’s hand came out of nowhere and slapped the kid across the side of the head. “You watch your goddamn mouth.”
Sean winced but made an effort not to cry out. Maybe he was used to it.
“Does Hanna know where Claire is?” I asked.
Sean hesitated, bit his lower lip. “I don’t know. She might. She and Claire kind of cooked this thing up together.”
“Then we need to talk to Hanna.”
Sean said nothing.
“Where’s Hanna, Sean?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?” Sheila asked. “She’s practically attached to you. Did she go back to her parents’ house?”
“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”
Sadness washed over Sheila’s face. “Oh no, did you two break up?”
“That’d be the first bit of good news we’ve had around here in some time,” Adam said.
“No,” Sean said forcefully. “We didn’t break up.”
I was sensing something more urgent here than a teen romance in trouble. “Sean, did Hanna and Claire go off someplace together?”
“I don’t know. I’m starting to wonder. The thing is, I wasn’t at Patchett’s looking for Claire.”
“Don’t lie to us,” Adam said. “The man says he saw you there, and that when he tried to talk to you, somebody hit him in the head.”
“I was there, okay? I admit I was at Patchett’s. But I wasn’t looking for Claire.”
I nodded, suddenly getting it. “You were asking if anyone’s seen Hanna.”
He looked at me, his eyes starting to fill with tears. “I don’t know where she is. She’s not answering her phone. She’s ignoring all my texts.”
“Try her now,” I said.
“I tried her just a few—”
“Just try her and hand me the phone.”
He complied. After tapping Hanna’s name in his contact list he handed the phone over and I put it to my ear.
It rang eight times before it went to voice mail. “This is Hanna!” she said cheerfully. “Leave! A! Message!” I ended the call. So her phone was on.
“Does Hanna have one of those tracking apps on her phone?”
Sean shook his head. “No.”
“Still, the fact that the phone is on means we might be able to get in touch with the provider and figure out where it is.”
“Where she is,” he said.
“She could have lost her phone, forgotten it, even had it stolen,” I said. “Maybe that’s why she’s not answering.”
I returned his phone to him and said, “Do you know why I’m here, Sean?”
He gave me a “duh” look. “You told me, at Patchett’s, that you’re trying to find Claire.”
“That’s right. But do you know why it’s me, and not someone else?”
Sean puzzled over that one for a second. “I’m... not sure.”
“You know what Claire and Hanna were up to last night.”
Slowly he said, “Kind of.”
“Were you supposed to be Claire’s ride? Were you the one who was supposed to pick her up out in front of Patchett’s?”
It made sense to me. Clearly, Claire and Hanna had needed a third person for their stunt. Claire had been waiting for a ride that hadn’t showed. And since Hanna was in on it, it stood to reason her boyfriend might be as well. And Bert Sanders’ neighbor had said she’d seen Claire get picked up the night before in a vehicle that could have been Sean’s.
When the boy didn’t answer, I said, “When, exactly, did you last see Hanna?”
“Last night,” he said. “Around nine thirty or ten or something like that.”
“Where was that?”
“I... I dropped her off at Iggy’s.”
“Okay. Then what?”
“I was driving around, just, you know, driving.”
“You had some time to kill.”
“Kind of. But then I got stopped by the cops.”
“What?” his father said, taking on a will-this-never-end expression. “What for?”