The Running Girls(14)

Laurie pulled on some gloves. “Do you happen to know the password?”

“Grace hates it but we insist on it. I never look, you understand, but anyway . . .” Sandra said, her thoughts drifting away.

Sandra wrote the password down and Laurie entered it and was a little surprised when it worked, half expecting that Grace had been paying lip service to her mother. Within minutes she’d located the app that recorded the runs and clicked on the entry for last night. She stole a glance at Sandra as she radioed in her results to Remi. Sandra was staring blankly at the screen, trying to make sense of the route planner that showed Grace leaving the house, running toward the seawall, past the pleasure beach and back east up 25th Street where, at the corner of Sealy Avenue, the route had seemingly ended.





Chapter Seven


A light breeze had picked up and Laurie felt a little underdressed in her thin cotton jacket as she pulled up on the corner of 25th Street and Sealy Avenue, where Grace’s route had abruptly stopped last night. Both the girl’s watch and her phone were offline, their latest known location somewhere within a fifty-yard radius of where Laurie was standing beneath the shadow of a palm tree.

The app managing Grace’s route had been paused when she’d reached this spot, having run the five and a half miles in under forty minutes. Laurie used the same app to measure her runs and would occasionally pause workouts if she had to stretch or stop for another reason. As she looked around at the patch of grass with its cluster of palm trees, and the gray buildings on the other side of the road, a number of scenarios came to mind: Grace stopping to speak to someone she knew, then someone she didn’t know. An image of Grace pulling up in pain, another of her stopping to stretch, another to check her watch, which had run out of power. Each was as plausible as the next. The truth she’d shared with Remi on the way over was that chances were high Grace had bumped into a friend, had turned off her phone and watch to avoid detection, and was probably somewhere sleeping off a hangover.

“No CCTV cameras in this vicinity?” she asked Remi.

“No. If we follow Grace’s route, the last cameras were the traffic cams back at the seawall. We’re trying to get access to them now.”

Laurie had studied the girl’s training routes on the way over, and never before had Grace taken this turn inland. It was this anomaly that was maintaining Laurie’s interest. If Grace hadn’t gone up 25th Street, then Laurie wouldn’t have escalated the case. As it was, she was invested enough to begin a full investigation and called Lieutenant Filmore with her decision before heading back to the Harrington household.

A young woman Laurie recognized from a photograph on Grace’s laptop greeted her at the front door. “You must be Tilly?” she said.

An oversized hoodie went to the girl’s knees, her bare legs giving the impression she had nothing on beneath. She was shorter than Grace, her squat, tough body shape reminding Laurie of the way she’d looked after Milly’s birth.

Tilly frowned, tilting her head. “How do you know that?”

“Detective Laurie Campbell. Can I come in?”

Tilly opened the door for her, silent as if still in a state of shock. From another room came the sound of people arguing. “Glen is back,” said the girl, sheepish as she led Laurie through the lobby area.

“Mr. Harrington?” said Laurie.

Tilly sucked in her cheeks as the noise level rose. “Just got back from Houston. He’s worried, obviously.”

Laurie wasted no time heading to the kitchen area, where the Harringtons were in heated debate. The last words she heard before both fell into silence were from Sandra: “Maybe if you didn’t spend every single minute of your life away from your family, you would know a bit more about what was going on,” she said, her face reddening as she saw Laurie arrive, Tilly on her heels.

“Detective Campbell, I didn’t know you were back. This is my husband, Glen Harrington.”

“Mr. Harrington, Laurie Campbell.”

Mr. Harrington smiled, the gesture well practiced. He was a handsome man, six-two, short brown hair, and green eyes. He was a little too good-looking for Laurie’s taste, too picture perfect, and the way he smiled instinctively put her on the defensive. “You can call me Glen. Where are we, Detective?”

Laurie ushered the pair to the kitchen table. “Tilly, please join us as well,” she said, Glen’s smile fading as his hand drifted toward, but didn’t quite touch, his wife’s.

Laurie explained what she had discovered about Grace’s running pattern, and how the signal for the run had stopped at Sealy Avenue.

“You don’t let her run there in the dark?” said Glen, turning to Sandra.

“I wasn’t aware she went that way, no,” said Sandra, struggling to keep her temper. “Tilly,” she said, softening her tone, “did you know Grace took that route?”

“No, I . . . no, I had no idea,” said Tilly, glancing at Laurie with wide eyes.

“According to her records,” Laurie said, “it’s the first time Grace ever went that way. At least, in the last six months. Can you think of any reason she would change routes?”

Glen Harrington planted his elbows on the kitchen table. “I was under the impression that she changed her routes on a daily basis.”

“And how in the hell would you know that?” said Sandra, scratching her nose as if she’d smelled something distasteful.