Run Away(39)

Yvonne texted:

Stabilizing, which doctor says is good. Moved to a private room.

Still in a coma. Sam and Anya with us.



“Just to make sure I’m following,” Elena Ramirez said, “your daughter is missing. Is that correct?”

Simon still had his eyes on the phone’s screen. “Yes.”

“Since when?”

There was nothing to gain by being coy. “Since her boyfriend was murdered.”

Elena Ramirez took her time, crossed her arms, thought it over.

Simon said, “Elena?”

“I’m looking for a missing person too.”

“Who?”

“A twenty-four-year-old male who disappeared from the Chicago area.”

Cornelius spoke for the first time since they sat down. “How long has he been missing?”

“Since last Thursday.”

Simon asked, “Who is it?”

“I can’t divulge the name.”

“For crying out loud, Elena, if your missing twenty-four-year-old is someone my daughter knows, maybe we can help.”

Elena Ramirez considered that for a moment. “His name is Henry Thorpe.”

Simon picked up his phone and started typing.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I don’t recognize the name. I’m checking with my son and other daughter. They’d have a better handle on Paige’s friends.”

“I don’t think Paige and Henry were friends.”

“So what is the connection between them?”

Elena Ramirez shrugged. “That’s part of why I’m here. To try to find out. Without going into full detail, it seems that not long before he vanished, Henry Thorpe was in touch with either your daughter or perhaps her boyfriend, Aaron Corval.”

“In touch how?”

She took out a small notepad, licked her fingers, started paging through it. “There was a phone call first. From your daughter’s phone to Henry’s. This was two weeks ago. Then there were texts for a while, followed by emails.”

“What did the texts and emails say?”

“I don’t know. The texts are on their phones, I guess. We can’t access them. The emails were all deleted. We can see some were sent, but nothing beyond that.”

“What makes you think these communications are important?”

“I don’t know that they are, Mr. Greene. This is what I do. When someone goes missing, I look for anomalies—something that doesn’t fit into their normal routine.”

“And these emails and texts—”

“Anomalies. Can you think of any reason Henry Thorpe, a twenty-four-year-old man from Chicago, would suddenly be in touch with your daughter or Aaron Corval?”

Simon didn’t really have to think about it long. “Does Henry Thorpe have a history of drug use?”

“Some.”

“It could be that.”

“Could be,” Elena said. “But you can buy drugs in Chicago.”

“Could be something more professional in that respect.”

“Could be. But I don’t think so, do you?”

“No,” Simon said. “And either way, my daughter and your client are both missing.”

“Yes.”

“So what can I do to help?” Simon asked.

“The first thing I asked myself was why the communications moved from texting by phone to emails via a computer.”

“And?”

“And how into drugs were they? Your daughter and her boyfriend.”

Simon saw no reason to lie. “Very.”

Cornelius snapped his fingers, getting it. “Paige probably sold her phone. To raise cash for a fix.” He turned to Simon. “Happens all the time down here.”

“That phone is no longer active,” Elena agreed, “so that would be my theory too.”

Simon wasn’t so sure. “So Paige moved from using a phone to using a computer?”

“Yes.”

“So where is the computer now?”

“Probably sold that too,” Cornelius said.

“That would be my guess,” Elena said. “She could have taken it with her when she vanished, I guess. Or the killer could have stolen it. But the key question is, How did she get the computer in the first place? She couldn’t have bought it, right?”

“Unlikely,” Simon said. “I mean, if she was selling her phone to buy drugs, why would she spend the money on a computer?”

“Which means she probably stole it.”

Simon just let that sit there. His daughter. Junkie. Selling her own stuff. Thief.

And what else?

“Are you good with computers, Mr. Greene?”

“Simon. And no.”

“If you know what you’re doing—like my tech guy, Lou—you can check an IP address,” Elena said. “Sometimes you can track the computer down to a town or a street or even an individual.”

“Was Lou able to figure out who owned her computer?”

“No,” Elena said, “but it came from Amherst, Massachusetts. More specifically, the campus of Amherst College. Doesn’t your son go there?”