Jim Hopper POV:
I was having a horrible fucking week.
Hawkins was normally boring.
Painfully boring.
The kind of town where the most exciting thing I had to deal with as Chief of Police was a bunch of drunk teenagers stealing garden gnomes or someone calling the station because their chicken had gone missing.
Honestly, I preferred the chicken.
A missing kid was a whole different story.
It was starting to remind me a little too much of my days as an NYPD detective, and those weren't exactly memories I'd been hoping to revisit anytime soon.
Still, I'd dealt with enough missing-person cases to know that the explanation was usually a lot less dramatic than everyone feared.
Will Byers was twelve.
Maybe he'd run away.
Maybe he'd gone to his father's place.
Maybe he'd gotten pissed off about something and decided to disappear for a while without thinking about what that would do to his mother.
Kids did stupid shit.
And parents panicked.
Joyce Byers certainly had.
She was convinced something horrible had happened to her son.
I wasn't.
At least, not at first.
Then we found the bike.
Will's bike.
Abandoned near the forest without any sign of the kid who'd been riding it.
That bothered me.
A kid running away was one thing.
A kid abandoning his bike in the middle of nowhere and disappearing into the woods was another.
It didn't mean Joyce was right.
There were still plenty of perfectly normal explanations.
At least, that was what I kept telling myself.
But I'd spent enough years as a detective to recognise that feeling in my gut when something about a case wasn't adding up.
And the longer Will Byers stayed missing, the harder that feeling was becoming to ignore.
Still, there was only so much I could do.
We had people searching the woods. Officers checking roads. Volunteers covering as much of Hawkins as possible. We'd contacted Will's father and were following every lead we had.
Now I just needed one of them to actually lead somewhere.
I rubbed a hand over my face and leaned back in my chair.
Honestly, this week couldn't get much worse.
Someone knocked on my office door.
I looked up.
Callahan was standing there.
"Chief?"
"What?"
"You need to take this."
"I'm busy."
"Yeah, I think you're gonna want to take this one."
Something in his voice made me look at him properly.
He wasn't smiling.
That was never a good sign.
I sighed and pushed myself out of the chair.
"Who is it?"
Callahan covered the receiver with his hand.
"Charles Sinclair."
Sinclair.
I knew that name.
Lucas and Erica Sinclair.
Two of the kids I'd spoken to yesterday about Will. His friends.
Great.
Anything involving one of Will Byers's friends was probably not something I wanted added to my morning.
"What does he want?"
Callahan hesitated.
"Something about his daughter."
My mind went straight to the little girl from yesterday.
Erica.
Smart kid.
Mouthy, too.
She'd asked more questions about the search than any ten-year-old had any business asking. Where we were looking. How far we'd searched. What areas we were covering.
I'd practically had to order the whole group to go home and stay out of it.
Apparently, that order hadn't worked particularly well.
I dropped into my chair just as the phone on my desk started ringing.
Callahan had transferred the call and was already heading back out of my office.
I picked up the receiver.
"Hawkins Police Department. Chief Hopper speaking."
The voice on the other end came immediately.
"Chief, my daughter is missing."
I stopped.
Fuck.
"Erica?"
"Yes."
The word came out strained.
Of course it was.
Honestly, I really needed to stop thinking this week couldn't get worse.
Two missing children within forty-eight hours.
In Hawkins, of all fucking places.
"Okay. Tell me what happened."
"We woke up this morning and she was gone."
His voice caught slightly on the last word.
I grabbed a pen and pulled a notepad towards me.
"When was the last time you saw Erica?"
"Yesterday morning. At breakfast."
My pen paused.
"You haven't seen your daughter since yesterday morning?"
"I—" He stopped. "No. I left for work after breakfast. But my wife saw her later. In the afternoon."
I started writing again.
"What time?"
"I don't know exactly."
There was a frustrated breath on the other end.
"Jesus, I don't know. After Sue got home."
"And Lucas?"
"School."
I frowned.
"Yesterday?"
"Yeah. After you spoke to them."
I remembered that.
Mike Wheeler.
Dustin Henderson.
Lucas and Erica Sinclair.
Four kids sitting across from me while I tried to make it very clear that searching for their missing friend was a job for the adults.
Apparently I'd seriously underestimated at least one of them.
"Lucas saw her after our conversation?"
"Briefly. He said she stormed out of school so fast he barely had time to react."
My pen stopped.
"Stormed out?"
"Yeah."
"Where did she go?"
"We don't know."
His answer came faster this time.
"I have asked him. I have asked Sue. Neither of them knows."
"She skipped school?"
"The rest of the day."
Well.
That was interesting.
"Did you know she'd skipped?"
"Not until later."
The guilt in his voice answered the question almost as clearly as the words.
I leaned back in my chair.
So Erica had heard that her friend was missing, questioned me about the search, stormed out of school immediately afterwards and skipped the rest of the day.
"What happened when your wife saw her?"
"She'd already come home by the time Sue got there. Erica told her she needed some time alone to process everything that was happening."
"Did she say where she'd been?"
"No."
"Did your wife ask?"
"She thought Erica was upset about Will."
He went quiet for a second.
"We all did."
Reasonable enough.
"What time did Erica get home?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"No one was home when she arrived."
His voice tightened.
"I should've been. One of us should've—"
"Mr Sinclair."
He stopped.
"We'll get to that. Right now, I need you to tell me everything you know. The sooner I know what happened, the sooner we can find your daughter."
A shaky breath came through the receiver.
"Right. Okay."
"So you don't actually know when she came back."
"No."
I wrote that down.
That left me with a nice empty stretch of time between Erica leaving school and Sue finding her at home.
And absolutely no idea what she'd been doing during it.
"What did she do after talking to your wife?"
"Went to her room."
"And that's the last time anyone saw her?"
"As far as I know."
That gave me a much bigger window than I would've liked.
"What happened this morning?"
"My wife found a letter outside our bedroom."
My pen stopped again.
"A letter?"
"From Erica."
Okay.
That changed things.
A kid leaving voluntarily was considerably better than some of the alternatives currently running through my head.
It still wasn't good.
Especially when the kid was ten fucking years old.
"What does it say?"
Silence.
Then I heard paper moving on the other end.
For a few seconds, Charles didn't answer.
"Mr Sinclair?"
"She says she went looking for Will."
I stared at my notes.
"She what?"
"She went looking for Will."
His voice cracked this time.
"Yeah, I heard you. I'm just trying to understand why your ten-year-old daughter thought that was a good idea."
"You and me both."
There wasn't any humour in it.
Fair enough.
"Read it to me."
Another pause.
"The whole thing?"
"The whole thing."
The paper rustled again.
Charles took a breath.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter.
"Okay. Just... give me a second."
He cleared his throat.
"'Mom, Dad, Lucas. Don't hate me when you read this, and please try not to panic.'"
I leaned back in my chair.
Strong start.
"'Mom, I'm sorry, but I lied. I can't just sit here and do nothing. I need to go and try to find Will.'"
"Lied?"
"That's what it says."
"What did she lie about?"
"I don't know. Probably whatever she told Sue yesterday."
"Put your wife on."
There was muffled conversation.
A few seconds later, a woman answered.
"Chief?"
"Mrs Sinclair."
"Have you found her?"
"Not yet. I need to understand what happened yesterday first."
"Okay."
"Erica says in the letter that she lied to you. Any idea what she meant?"
Silence.
Then Sue let out a shaky breath.
"Yes."
"What did she lie about?"
"Yesterday afternoon. When I got home, she was already there."
"What happened?"
"I asked her why she wasn't at school. She told me she needed some time alone to process everything that was happening. That she was upset about Will."
"Anything else?"
"I was worried about her. About both of them. So I made her promise me she wouldn't do anything stupid. That she wouldn't try to go looking for Will."
I stopped writing for a second.
"And she promised?"
"Yes." Sue's voice had gone quieter. "She promised me that she and Lucas would go to school, come straight home afterwards and stay safe."
There was another pause.
"She looked me right in the eye and promised me."
Her voice cracked.
"What kind of mother am I? I should've known something was wrong. I should've realised she was lying to me."
"Mrs Sinclair—"
"I should've noticed."
I rubbed a hand over my face.
Crying parents weren't exactly my area of expertise.
"You couldn't have known."
It wasn't much, but it was all I had.
"What time was this?"
"I don't know exactly. Sometime after I got home."
"Did she tell you where she'd been before that?"
"No. I thought she just needed some time alone."
"All right."
"Did she seem different at all? Nervous? Distracted?"
"Upset and anxious. I thought it was because of Will."
"And you believed her."
It came out more accusing than I'd intended.
Sue immediately went defensive.
"Her friend was missing, Chief. She was upset. Of course I believed her."
"All right."
"I thought she needed space."
"I'm not blaming you."
"Well, it sounds like you are."
"I'm trying to figure out what your daughter did yesterday."
Silence.
"Anything else you remember? Doesn't matter how small."
"No. I... I don't think so."
"Did she have anything with her?"
"I don't remember."
"Anything unusual in her room? Bags missing? Clothes?"
"We haven't checked. Not properly."
"That's fine. Don't start moving things around now."
Another pause.
"We panicked earlier," Sue admitted quietly. "We searched everywhere for her. Her room too. I think we just... wanted to believe she was hiding in there."
I closed my eyes.
Of course they had.
Couldn't exactly blame them. Their daughter was missing. No parent was going to stop and worry about preserving a scene before tearing the house apart looking for their kid.
Didn't make my job any easier, though.
If Erica had left anything behind that could tell me where she'd gone, there was no telling what had already been moved, touched or overlooked.
Whatever scene I'd had to work with was contaminated now.
Great.
"All right. From this point on, don't touch anything else in her room. I'll take a look when I get there."
"Chief..."
Her voice had changed.
"Yeah?"
"Please find her."
I closed my eyes for a second.
Erica was ten.
Not much older than my own daughter had been when...
I swallowed hard.
There were some promises you couldn't make. I couldn't tell this woman I'd bring her daughter home safe. I'd learned a long time ago that wanting something badly enough didn't mean you could make it happen.
But I could promise one thing.
I would give this everything I had.
Every lead. Every hour. Whatever it took.
"We'll do everything we can."
And I meant every fucking word.
"Can you put your husband back on? I need him to finish reading the letter."
"All right."
I heard the receiver move away from her.
Muffled voices followed.
I glanced down at my notes.
So she'd stormed out of school after talking to me, disappeared for hours, then come home and promised her mother she wouldn't go looking for Will.
And now she was admitting she'd lied.
Whatever Erica had been doing during those missing hours, I was starting to think it had a hell of a lot more to do with Will than she'd told anyone.
A second later, Charles came back on.
"Chief?"
"Yeah. I'm here. Keep reading."
Charles continued.
"'I know the police and the search parties are already looking all over Hawkins, and I know one more person searching the same places they've already searched isn't going to make much of a difference.'"
I stared at the words I'd written.
Yesterday, that kid had asked about volunteers.
Search boundaries.
Where we were looking.
At the time, I'd thought she was just worried about her friend.
Now I was beginning to wonder exactly how much information she'd been trying to get out of me.
Charles kept reading.
"'The police officer said they think it's possible Will might have gone to see his dad in Indianapolis, so that's one place I'm going to try.'"
Fuck.
That one was on me.
I'd given them that possibility.
At the time, it had been one of the most obvious explanations.
Lonnie Byers lived in Indianapolis.
A kid disappeared, you checked family. Friends. Anywhere he might've gone voluntarily.
I hadn't expected a ten-year-old girl to hear that and decide to personally check Indianapolis.
"Keep going."
"'There's somewhere else I want to check too. Will mentioned to me once that there was a singer he really liked who was going to be doing a show a few states away. He wanted to go, but he didn't want to ask his mom because it was too expensive. The show is in a couple of days, so I want to check there too.'"
"Stop."
Charles sighed.
"What?"
"Does Lucas know anything about that?"
"The concert?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know."
"Ask him."
I heard Charles call his son.
A moment later, another voice came through faintly.
"What?"
"Lucas, did Will ever tell you about some singer he wanted to see?"
"What singer?"
"The one Erica mentioned. There's supposed to be a concert somewhere."
"I don't know."
"Did Will ever talk about going to one?"
"No."
Charles returned.
"He doesn't know anything about it."
"Okay."
That didn't necessarily mean anything.
Kids didn't tell all their friends everything.
Still.
I underlined it.
"Keep going."
"'I know it's a shot in the dark. That's why I'm going myself instead of telling the police. If I'm wrong and Will isn't there, I don't want them wasting time and people checking something that might lead nowhere when they could still be looking for him.'"
I stared at the phone.
Ten.
The kid was fucking ten.
And somehow she'd put more thought into allocating police resources than half the adults who called my station.
I wasn't sure whether to be impressed or pissed off.
Mostly pissed off.
"'Maybe he went to Indianapolis, maybe he tried to get to the show, or maybe I'm completely wrong about both and something happened to him. But I can't just sit here doing nothing when there's even a tiny chance I might find him.'"
Charles stopped.
"There's more."
"Go ahead."
"'Please try not to worry too much. I have a plan, and I have a safe ride with a relative of someone I know.'"
I straightened.
"Stop."
"Again?"
"Yeah. Again."
I put the pen down.
"Who?"
"We don't know."
"Relative of who?"
"We don't know."
"Male? Female?"
"She doesn't say."
"Adult?"
"I assume so."
"Don't assume."
Charles went quiet.
"Does Erica know anybody old enough to drive?"
"Not that I know of."
"Friends with older siblings?"
"Probably. I don't know every person she talks to."
"Family friends?"
"Nobody who'd take my daughter across state lines without telling us."
That was probably true.
"Neighbours?"
"I don't know."
"Teachers?"
"Chief, if I knew who she left with, I would've already called them!"
"I know."
I rubbed a hand over my face.
This was the part I didn't like.
A child sneaking out to look for her missing friend was stupid.
A child sneaking out and getting into a car with an unidentified person was something else entirely.
"Anything else?"
Charles resumed.
"'I know you're going to be angry. You can ground me for the rest of my life when I get back if you want.'"
His voice faltered slightly.
"'Just please trust me.'"
A pause.
"'I'll be careful. I promise I'll come home.'"
Another.
"'I'll be gone for a week at most.'"
Charles stopped.
For several seconds, all I could hear was his breathing.
Then he finished.
"'I love you guys. Erica.'"
Silence.
I looked down at everything I'd written.
Indianapolis.
Unknown concert.
Unknown driver.
Missing for potentially most of the night.
And a carefully written letter designed to convince everyone she knew exactly what she was doing.
There was just one problem.
She was ten.
"How did she get out of the house?"
"We think through her bedroom window."
"Think?"
"The door was locked."
I frowned.
"From the inside?"
"I don't know."
"What happened?"
"We knocked. Called her name. She wouldn't answer. I had to break the door open."
"And she wasn't inside."
"No."
"You searched?"
"Everywhere."
"Window?"
"Open."
I sat forward.
"Was it open when you entered?"
"Yes."
"Anything outside?"
"A rope ladder."
I stopped.
"A rope ladder?"
"Lucas found it hanging from the window."
Well.
Apparently Erica Sinclair didn't half-ass anything.
"Was that ladder normally there?"
"No."
"Do you recognise it?"
"No."
"So she either bought it, made it or got it from somebody."
"I guess."
Another thing to figure out.
"Don't touch it."
"What?"
"The ladder. The window. Anything around them."
"We already searched her room."
"That's fine. Just don't move anything else."
There was a pause.
"Do you think someone took her?"
I looked down at the letter again.
The evidence pointed in the opposite direction.
She'd planned where she was supposedly going.
She'd arranged transportation.
She'd left a letter.
She'd apparently prepared a way out of her bedroom without anyone noticing.
Everything suggested Erica Sinclair had left that house willingly.
But then again, everything about Will Byers should've had a simple explanation too.
Then we'd found his bike.
"I'm saying I don't know yet."
"That's not very reassuring."
"It's not supposed to be. It's the truth."
Silence.
"I think Erica left your house willingly," I continued. "But she's ten years old, she's supposedly travelling with someone you don't know, and nobody can account for where she was for part of yesterday. I'm not assuming anything until I've seen the room myself."
"Okay."
"Is everyone still at the house?"
"Yes."
"Keep them there."
"We're not going anywhere."
"Good."
I started gathering my notes.
"I'll come over. I want the original letter, and I want to talk to Lucas and your wife."
"Chief?"
I stopped.
"Yeah?"
"You're going to find her, right?"
I paused.
"I can't promise you that."
Silence.
"But we're doing everything we can to bring her home."
Charles's voice was shaky when he finally answered.
"O-Okay."
The line went dead.
I slowly lowered the phone.
Callahan was watching me.
"So?"
I stood and grabbed my jacket.
"Apparently Erica Sinclair decided she wasn't impressed with how we were handling the investigation."
"What?"
"She went looking for Byers herself."
Callahan stared at me.
"She's ten."
"Yeah."
"How the hell is a ten-year-old going to Indianapolis?"
"Supposedly somebody's driving her."
"Who?"
"No idea."
He stared at me.
I stared back.
"Yeah. That's the problem."
I headed towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Sinclair house."
Callahan glanced towards the mountain of work already waiting for us.
"What about Byers?"
"What about him?"
"We're already stretched thin."
I stopped with my hand on the door.
That was exactly what Erica had been counting on.
She'd even said it in the fucking letter.
If she was wrong, she didn't want us wasting time looking for her when we could be looking for Will.
Smart.
Thoughtful.
Completely fucking unacceptable.
"Keep everyone on the Byers search. Erica went looking for him. If we find Byers, there's a good chance he'll know where she is."
"And Sinclair?"
"I'll handle it for now."
Callahan nodded.
I pushed through the door.
Yesterday, I had one missing kid.
Now I have two.
And somehow, I had the uncomfortable feeling they weren't two separate problems.