Wherever She Goes(30)

I snatch up the phone, only to see a private number. I pull over and let it ring to voice mail. Then I retrieve the message.

“Ms. Finch? It’s Laila Jackson from the Oxford PD. Please call me back.” She rhymes off a number.

I sit there, holding the phone. If it were Officer Cooper, I’d be hitting those digits as fast as I could, certain he was calling to say they’d finally realized I was right—their dead woman had a son, who is now missing.

But it’s his partner, the woman who really doesn’t like me, which means this almost certainly isn’t a you-were-right call. Still, I cling to that hope and replay it a couple of times, as I listen to her tone. It’s crisp, sharp even. Laila Jackson does not sound like a woman calling to tell me she’s made a horrible mistake.

She knows I’m the one who left that anonymous tip about Kim. I’m sure of it. I was careful. I found a pay phone, which isn’t easy to do these days. I made sure it wasn’t near my home or work. I left nothing that could identify me. I even pitched my voice lower, and there’d been enough traffic in the background to add to the distortion.

It doesn’t matter. A woman called in that tip, and Jackson is convinced I’m an attention-seeker. She’ll know it was me.

Does that mean they’re ignoring the tip? Has she said “Oh, I know who that is” and told the department she’ll handle it?

Just ignore her. She’s a bit of a nutjob.

My fingers hover over the keys. I need to set her straight. I need to make sure the police investigate. Finding this boy isn’t my job, damn it. I’m not that person anymore. Not someone who puts her own safety in danger, breaking laws to help strangers. Certainly not someone who’ll endanger her daughter to do that.

I need the police to pay attention.

Which means I need more evidence. If Jackson has convinced the police to ignore me, I have to dig deeper. I need Kim’s real identity, and then I need to send it to someone they’ll listen to.

Paul.

My gut rejects that the moment I think of it. Paul isn’t exactly my ally here. Yet as angry as I am with him, I still trust him to do the right thing.

Without Charlotte coming over, I have all of tomorrow to track Kim down online. Find her name. Talk to Paul Sunday morning. Prove that I’m not losing my mind and ask him to take my information to the police.

“Here’s her real name. The dead woman’s. The boy’s mother.”

“Her real . . . ? The police don’t even have this, Bree. How did you find it?”

Cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I have a goal.



Paul phones at eight the next morning. He leaves a message not unlike Jackson’s—call me back. Nothing more. I consider doing that, just as I considered answering when I saw his number. What if he’s changed his mind, and he wants to bring Charlotte over?

Then he’d say so in his message. He doesn’t, which means I cannot afford to place that call. I’m afraid he’s found an excuse to keep Charlotte all weekend. He won’t leave that on a message. And if I don’t return his call, then he has to carry through on his promise to drop her off in the morning.

Last night, before I left the storage locker, I’d taken some money. This morning, I drive back to Chicago and pay cash for a better laptop. Then I plot out a map of coffee shops, all within walking distance of each other. Each of these shops offers free Wi-Fi, and that’s the attraction, far more than the fancy drinks.

I still get one of those drinks at each shop. An overpriced coffee and a pastry, which buys me ninety minutes in a Saturday-busy café. That’s how long I figure it’ll take before anyone realizes I’m camped out in the corner. I could probably go longer—I’m a thirty-year-old white woman on a new Apple laptop, hardly attention-getting—but I want to play it safe.

Step one: analyze the call logs from Kim’s phone. There’s the number that’s no longer in service. That’s important. I know it is. Same as the one that goes unanswered. Judging from the time stamp, that’s the call that came in while we were in the park. I don’t start there, though. I need more data.

I pull the call logs for the past month. One entry stands out. Every week, like clockwork, Kim calls a number with an area code I don’t recognize. I look it up. South Dakota. It’s a landline number, and when I do a reverse check, it’s registered to a Thom Milano. I consider my options, and as tempted as I am to go deep, I know I don’t have to here. With an uncommon name like that, hacking probably isn’t required.

I head over to Facebook. I have a name. I have a vicinity. Two minutes later, I have a personal page. Thom Milano, thirty-five, married, two kids. Owns a construction company, which sets off alarm bells—construction is a good cover for illegitimate business interests. But a quick search reveals that it’s just a small, local company. Milano and his crew build homes in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

He’s posted a few photo updates this week—his daughter at her softball game, his men working on a house, a candid shot of his wife laughing at home. That’s where I stop. I’m looking for signs that Milano is Brandon’s father, and instead I get a picture of Ellie Milano . . . who is the spitting image of Kim Lyons.

On closer inspection, I realize that’s not actually true. Ellie is older, close to my age, and she’s heavier than Kim, but in a healthy way, with no sign of a hard-spent youth. In this picture, I see Kim a decade from now. If she kept her life on track. If she’d settled into the kind of life I had once. Healthy, happy, and carefree.