Im a single mom.
He nods. Not a judgmental nod, just noting another fact. Has the father been informed that shes missing?
There is no father, I tell him, a flush rising into my cheeks. Can we leave it at that?
For now, he says, conceding nothing. So. How do you make your living?
Weddings, I tell him. I design and make wedding gowns, bridal gowns, bridesmaids gowns. Or anyhow, thats how I got into the business. I still do custom gowns when requested, but mostly we work with a couple of different gown manufacturers. Small specialized factories. We do the fittings, they do the sewing.
He makes a note. So youre in sales.
I shrug. Bridal design, we like to say.
Dissatisfied customers?
It happens. But no one has been upset enough to take it out on my daughter.
Duly noted.
Youre sure about that? he asks without looking up from his notebook.
Last time it happened I refunded their deposit, simple. That was more than a year ago.
Mrs. Hampton-Barlow of the Sag Harbor Hampton-Barlows. The bridal gown arrived on time, but the bridesmaid gowns were lost in transit, and no time to make them again. We arranged for perfectly good store-bought versions. No fault of mine, but I couldnt really blame her for being upset. We parted with a formal apology on my part, and a promise to return her deposit, which I did. The Hampton-Barlows had their wedding and moved on. Me, too.
Okay, he says, ticking that off. Ever been involved in a lawsuit?
Small-claims court, does that count?
Depends on the circumstance.
Collecting an unpaid bill. The marriage was annulled and the couple walked away from their debt.
You never collected?
There was nothing left to collect. Thats what they told me.
And this was when?
Three or four years ago. Cost of doing business. Happens every now and then. You try to cover your outlay with the initial deposit. In that case, I got stuck on the wrong side of the estimate. My own fault, you might say. They upgraded an order, I failed to upgrade the deposit. Live and learn.
Uh-huh. Scribble, scribble. Personal animosities?
Excuse me?
Does anybody hate you, Mrs. Garner? Hate you enough to hurt your daughter?
What a question. And yet it has occurred to me, of course. Is there someone out there in the world who is angry enough at me to lure Kelly away? After a moment, I say, No one I can think of.
No personal vendettas? How about angry boyfriends? Stalkers?
Thats easy. No boyfriends, period. No stalkers that I know of.
Shanes eyebrows lift. Men always seem to think that any reasonably attractive single woman under the age of forty is being hounded by suitors. Guys with flowers constantly ringing the doorbell, begging to sweep you off your feet. If only.
Has Kelly complained of unwanted attention? he wants to know. Mentioned someone following her or watching her, or exhibiting menace?
No, I say with a quick head shake. But to be honest, over the last few hours Ive been thinking about that a lot. And Im not sure shed tell me. Yesterday Id have sworn on a Bible that Kel would share the important stuff, but today Im not so sure.
At that moment her computer chimes.
Shanes eyes snap to the screen. Beneath his trim, neatly cropped beard his lips turn up in a slight smile.
Bingo, he says.
14. Flygirl
My mother put up with a lot. It wasnt that I was a surly adolescent, not like Kelly, because my pathological shyness extended to the family. We had learned, Mom and I, never to raise our voices in the presence of my father. How to hide in plain sight. But I had my silent, secretive ways, and that probably bothered Mom more than surliness or back talk. What are you thinking? she would ask me, as if she really wanted to know, and I would never say, or mutter something and go hide in my room, or have long phone conversations with Fern where we said nothing much at great length.
Poor Mom. All she wanted were a few clues, a guidepost or two, and I couldnt or wouldnt oblige. Now I know my punishment for letting her down, all those years ago. Its right there on the computer screen: Kelly has a secret life. Or, more accurately, a life she has kept from me, and apparently from her friends as well.
Her user name is flygirl91. The number is, of course, the year of her birth and the flygirl, well, to this mothers ears it sounds slutty somehow. Wild and crazy, at the very least.
But she swore she didnt have a page on MySpace! I wail, staring in horror at all the messages and responses in the files she calls Facers and S-man.
She doesnt, Shane explains, manipulating the mouse as we scroll through the files. You dont have to post a Web page on MySpace to have access to the site. It appears Kelly logged in as a member but never set up an accessible Web site. She seems to have been deeply involved in searching categories for particular types of individuals.
Oh my God, I say, hand to my mouth. She was trolling.
Shane chuckles and shakes his head. I believe its called browsing, Mrs. Garner. Simply a way to search through the millions of entries for someone you might find interesting. The folks on MySpace often affiliate themselves with groups or common interests. Just like people tend to do in real life.
The Facers file contains dozens of images of young men, mostly posing with their computers or leaning against their cars. One has his shirt off, showing tattoos on his arms and chest. Another, his new nipple ring. There are several motorcycles and a hang glider proudly displayed by boys who look ready to die at a moments notice. All of it heart attack material for the mother of a teenage girl.
This is interesting, Shane says, clicking on the photo of the kid with the nipple ring.
It must have hurt, I say, wincing at the very thought.
No, I mean whats missing. Your daughter saved this image, but theres no indication she ever messaged this particular individual.
Thank God for that.
Its true for most of these images, Shane says, making eye contact. She was culling pictures but not necessarily making herself known to the subjects.
But what does it mean? I ask.
Shane shrugs. Hard to say. Might just means she liked the pictures. Maybe because they fit her definition of a Facer, whatever that is. Kind of a wise guy, out-there type, maybe? Any thoughts? Have you heard her use the word?
Im not sure. Maybe. The cool words change from day to day, you know?
We can Google it later, if it seems to be pertinent. Right now Ill concentrate on the file contents.
Shane scrolls through my daughters secret life, or her fantasy life, all of it reduced to thumb-size snapshots. Im standing over his broad shoulders, close enough to smell his deodorantkind of a pine scentaware that under normal circumstances this level of intimacy with a stranger would be, for me, uncomfortable. But these are not normal circumstances. Far from it.
You think thats how she met this Seth person? I ask Because she saw his picturehis Faceron the Web site?
Yet to be determined, says Shane, manipulating the keyboard with all ten fingers, a level of typing skill never mastered by yours truly.
Yet to be determined, says Shane, manipulating the keyboard with all ten fingers, a level of typing skill never mastered by yours truly.
Ah, he says, as another folder opens. Here we go. This is linked to a message Kelly mass-mailed to forty-six recipients.
He deftly places the e-mail in the center of the screen, enlarges the font so we can both read.
Young, aspiring pilot looking for flight instruction. Willing to help with cleaning, maintenance of aircraft. Ready to learn.
Im too stunned to speak.
You notice she doesnt mention her age or gender, other than to say young.
I never knew. Never had any idea.
That she wants to learn how to fly?
Any of it. Willing to help with cleaning? I cant even get her to vacuum the hallway! She takes care of her own room, thats it.
Ready to learn. The question is, and it breaks my heart to think it, was she ready to learn more than flying? Was this her very clever way to make herself interesting to grown men?
Four, Shane announces.
Four?
Responses to that particular e-mail.
The first response comes up with a snapshot of a guy who has to be in his thirties. Deep in his thirties, with crinkled eyes and a jaunty handlebar mustache. Wearing a distressed-leather flight jacket as he poses in the open cockpit of an old-fashioned airplane. Two wings, like Snoopy used to fly.
Thats a Waco, says Shane. Famous stunt biplane. Big bucks.
Stunt plane? You mean like loop-de-loops?
Yup, says Shane. If you like flying upside down, Waco will provide.
I almost say, Ill kill her, then bite my tongue. The guy may have a leather jacket and a big mustache, but hes not the young man from her photo collection.
As it happens, the second response is from our mystery boy. Theres no photo, and not much of a message, just a succinct more details, please, but it does include a name, Seth Manning, and his e-mail address, s-man@flightlink.net.
This is dated six weeks ago, Shane notes.
S-Man, I say. The folder. Can you open it?
Already there.
The S-Man folder contains over a hundred e-mails, messages from S-Man and responses from flygirl91.
She didnt have to mention gender, I point out. Flygirl kind of gives it away.
Good point. If you dont mind, Id like to print these out, Shane suggests. Itll be faster and easier than opening each e-mail.
Maybe hes not that comfortable having me hover over his shoulder. Fine. Whatever, Kellys printer starts spitting out pages at a rate of twenty per minute. I sit on the edge of her bed, devouring her correspondence with Mr. Seth Manning, flight instructor and seducer of teen girls. Or maybe not. From the tone, right from the beginning, my darling daughter seems to be the aggressor.
What have u got 2 lose? Flygirl will make it worth yr while.
Hw old r u? Dont lie.
Will b 18, all legal and tender, on 4th of July.
Two lies, actually. Her sixteenth birthday was in May, a few weeks before flygirl started trolling for flyboys. By the time Shane hands me the next batch of pages, Im feeling physically ill. Partly its residual guilt, for violating her privacy, but mostly whats making me ill is righteous, motherly anger. How dare she take such outrageous risks with her life and well-being! Theres scarcely a broadcast of the local evening news that doesnt include mention of Internet predators. Its not like Kelly didnt know the danger. She just didnt care. Or worseand this might be whats really making me sickdanger is precisely what shes looking for.
All legal and tender.
Cool, oily sweat suddenly pours from my scalp into my eyes, and I barely make it to the bathroom before heaving. On my knees, gagging, emptying my stomach.
Shane makes me sit on the closed toilet as he applies a cold cloth to my forehead. Guess I was wrong about the toast, huh?
Dummy.
Well, its not the first time Ive been dumb, he says kindly, wringing the cloth out.
No, me. Im the dummy. Should have known. Should have been checking her e-mail.
Here, hold this, he says, pressing the cold cloth to my forehead. Gets a dry towel, pats the moisture from my neck. You couldnt check her e-mail, remember? And if you could, shed have found another way. Your daughter is obviously a very willful young woman.
Obviously.
He folds the towel, slips it back on the rack. Most of the men I know, theyd drop it on the floor, because thats where used towels go. Not Randall Shane. Hes different. Been in my house for an hour or so and I know that much.
You feeling better? he asks, standing tall, very tall. Good. I just got a hit on Seth Manning.
A hit?
His address. I know where he lives.
15. Seven Finds A Wall
Time is squishy. Sometimes the seconds tick by in a reasonable, almost ordinary way, and Kelly counts her heartbeats, the pulse in her neck. One, two three, and so on. The highest she gets is seventy-six and then the overwhelming darkness seems to bend around her, a kind of dim gravity, and the clock in her head stops ticking and gets all squishy.
No other way to describe it. Squishy.
Because she cant measure the passage of time, Kelly has no idea how long it takes for the paralysis to dissipate. All she knows is that at some point she can wiggle her toes, raise her languid arms and let them droop across her chest like melted bones. Could be hours, days, eternity.
Thoughts slowly surface out of the inky black, like a die rising inside a Magic 8-Ball. The usual 8-Ball answers, too: Outlook not so good. Ask again later.
She manages to place her tingling palms on the floor, detects the familiar roughness of concrete. Not bare ground, concrete.
Is it night outside, is that why the darkness is so absolute?
Wait, how does she know shes inside rather than outside?
Sluggish thoughts, and then she knows the answer. Because it feels inside. The closed silence, the still air, a kind of muffled feeling. Definitely in, not out. Enclosed.
On impulse she flails, looking for a wall. Wanting to find an edge, a shape to the world.
Nothing.
Youre a baby, she thinks. Lying on the floor like a baby, flailing around. Get up. Do something. Learn something. Find a way back to the world.
It takes forever, and she has to endure a violent swirl of dizziness, but Kelly eventually turns over, manages to get on her hands and knees. Huffing the thick air because the effort makes her feel faint.
Hot, stuffy. Wherever she is, that place cant be very large. The darkness is close, pressing. Slowly, very slowly, she crawls, struggling to keep her balance. Not wanting to fall over like some cheesy mechanical baby toy. Boink, I fall down, Mommy!
Counting as she crawls. One two three, four five six.
Seven finds a wall. A very solid wall. Slippery smooth surface. Steel, like the cafeteria counters in school.
Now were getting somewhere, she thinks, and the thought becomes a giggle. Now were getting somewhere? As if! Hilarious. Ironic. Whatever.
Keep going. Orient yourself. You wanted to learn to fly, flygirl? Seths first flight lesson pours into her brain, and it helps, hearing his gentle confident voice.