Read The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines for Free Online Page B

waited. They wondered when they would hear Skylar’s ornery laugh. See her mischievous smile. They barely noticed the endless parade of friends and relatives that weekend. Through it all, every time someone knocked, every time the door opened, Dave would think,
God! It’s her. It’s her. It’s her
.
    But it never was.

Chapter 8
Rumor and Silence
    From the moment they knew Skylar was gone, the nearby sound of police sirens set Mary and Dave’s nerves on edge. Was an officer coming to tell them Skylar was home? Or were the sirens conveying something worse?
    Actually, the shrill sounds had nothing to do with Skylar. One fire whistle that ripped through the night, waking them up, went off because a couch was in flames. Another West Virginia University student igniting another couch. As one popular T-shirt said, “WVU: Where greatness is learned and couches are burned.”
    Skylar had planned to attend WVU, Morgantown’s great equalizer. Although many residents, like Mary and Dave, didn’t have college degrees, many others jumped at the chance for their child to receive an education and have a better life. West Virginia PROMISE scholarships provided free tuition for hard workers and overachievers like Skylar. The money helped them cross the line from blue-collar to white-collar status.
    The population of greater Morgantown swells to almost 100,000 when class is in session, but shrinks by half when students leave in the summer months. The town is well-to-do, but with coal mining on the wane in the outlying communities—with names like Core, Osage, and Blacksville—life can be hard. The university boasts faculty and students from around the world, a diverse population that the families who have lived in these mountains for generations mostly succeed in ignoring. The two cultures mix to some degree, but they often clash at the two largest high schools, Morgantown High and University High, where the children of university folks go to school with the children of townspeople.
    Early on, before most adults even knew there was a missing girl named Skylar, the UHS students were abuzz with speculation. While Mary and Dave and their immediate circle worried and searched around the clock, most of Morgantown remained in the dark.
    Not so the town’s teenagers. In fact, those teens were coming to conclusions that the adult world wouldn’t reach for months.
    ***
    Those first few days were filled with worry, which seemed to have little effect on two people: Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf. This was odd, given that they had been Skylar’s very best friends. In fact, UHS students said the trio had been inseparable in their freshman and sophomore years. Where you saw one, you usually saw all three.
    The cliquish trio always turned heads when they passed other students in the University High School hallways. Slender and sharp-tongued, Shelia had been popular at her old school, Clay-Battelle. But at UHS, Shelia was an unknown. Except for Skylar, all of her childhood friends lived in Blacksville. When Shelia didn’t become popular at UHS, she used her budding sexuality to make friends and influence people. Shelia was the least liked of the three.
    Everyone who heard Rachel sing assumed she would end up on Broadway. Rachel was known for being a songbird, and for landing lead roles in the school’s drama productions. Rachel was the most talented of the three. Unlike Shelia, Rachel was surrounded by her childhood friends, many of whom also came from Saint Francis. Unlike Skylar, Rachel had money, her parents considered more white-collar than blue-collar workers. That distinction automatically made Rachel the most popular of the three.
    Finally, there was the five-foot-two blossoming environmentalist and champion of the underdog. The girl who smiled all the time, aced every exam, did her friends’ homework, and insisted she was going to law school. That, of course, was Skylar. A likable honors student, she was the smartest of the three.
    During