Deadline Man

She turns and looks me over uneasily. Her movements are of a bird about to take flight. And I am not the columnist in the suit and tie. I’m not even what Amber may have promised her. I’m just a guy in jeans and a leather jacket, topped by a ball cap. Stubble is coming in on my face, per Amber’s orders. On the other hand, I look like every third guy walking down a street in the Northwest. I introduce myself to Megan Nyberg’s older sister.

“Are you with the FBI?,” she demands. “I want to see your identification.”

“Let’s sit down.”

I sit on the cool concrete. She takes a step back.

“Agent Burke asked me to meet you. Let me see your identification.”

I knew this was coming, but I hoped it wouldn’t come so soon. So I tell her who I am and hand her a business card.

It’s a lousy handoff. The card flutters to the sidewalk and she’s already running away. I chase her, giving her a safe distance but keeping up. I call her name.

“I’m working with Amber Burke. It’s okay for you to talk to me.”

She turns on me and stands with her fists clenched. “You people in the media will stop at nothing! You think she’s already dead. You just want to see our tears!”

I want to say, I’m not in the media—I’m in the press. It would make no difference to her. So I just let her rage. I get it. We’re eight feet apart but at least she’s stopped and is interacting with me.

“I wish there were a different way,” I say in as soft a voice as the city noise will allow. “I respect your privacy. I only want to find your sister and we’re running out of time.” She stares at me. “I’m just a business columnist. I’m not a police reporter. I just want to help find your sister.”

I’m also lying. I want to find Megan, but I also want the story. Those are the breaks. Tori turns away, crumples onto the damp grass, and sits with her knees folded, arms around them, rocking back and forth. “Why can’t you people just leave us alone.”

I let her sit like that for a few moments and then gently sit next to her. It makes my knees hurt. For a long time neither of us talks. She’s not an exact copy of her sister. Her hair is parted on the side and wavy, shoulder length. She’s tan, with her skin young enough to take the exposure and still look perfect. Her eyes are big, brown, and knowing.

***

“The police and the FBI want to make this somehow Megan’s fault. They want to make her some kind of junkie or slut. Why did she drop out? Why did she move to Seattle and live with her boyfriend? As if I know! As if any of us knows! I’m sure their badgering caused Ryan’s suicide just as much as you people did.”

She looks at me as if I have running sores. Yet she sits next to me and vents. “When mom couldn’t reach Megan, she knew something was wrong. Ryan didn’t know where she was, either. You know what the police did? Nothing. Just another runaway. We’d have to wait. If dad didn’t know the deputy mayor, who knows how long we would have had to wait before the police took this seriously.”

I ask her when Megan disappeared. October 1st—one month ago. About the same time Heather Brady was last heard from.

“The truth is,” Tori says, “I’m three years older and Megan and I are very different. She’s dreamy and curious about the world. But mom and dad never pushed her. When she dropped out of high school and moved to Seattle, I wasn’t surprised. I knew she’d have an adventure and then get on with life.” Her voice sounded suddenly raw.

I let the silence envelop us before I speak. “But you didn’t personally talk to the police, right?”

She nods. There was no reason. The parents had handled it. And although Tori came home on weekends, they all thought it would be good if she stayed in school and tried to carry on normally. Nobody in the media feeding frenzy even knew she was here.

“There are some things sisters tell each other.”

She looks at me sharply. I keep my voice soothing.

“Like new friends she had made?” I added, “New friends she and Ryan made.” I don’t want to hit the “sister is a slut” nerve and cause her to walk away. “Anyone named Heather?”

She nods. “She told me about a girl named Heather. She was from Texas, I think.”

She pushes her hair out of her face and stares up at the buildings. “I’m so worried about her,” she says. “We would talk occasionally, but we were drifting apart. She thought I was judgmental because I disapproved of some of what she was doing.”

Now I want to back off. We’re making progress, but I don’t want to push it too hard. I will ask about her life, about Megan as a young girl—softball stuff. Cool the interview down. I don’t want things to get so intense she runs away. Maybe find some common ground between a mongrel like me and a pretty girl from Mercer Island money. Then I can ask if Megan talked about any threats, any stalkers. My body language says I have all the time in the world and there’s nothing on my mind but her. My face says, talk to me.

She watches me, then stares at nothing, eyes straight ahead as two cops ride slowly by on bicycles. They don’t even look at us.

Tori throws the softball herself. “Why are you a business writer?” She looks at me curiously, like an exotic creature in a zoo. I start talking about wanting to hold power accountable, and how much m

ore power is concentrated in business than in the government, but when all the youth drains out of her face, I shut up.

“That’s not what I mean,” Tori says. “You said you wrote about business. The FBI agent sent you.” She screws up her face in thought, looks past me. “You’re not telling me everything.”