Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(12)

Despite that, she didn’t appear to lack confidence. It was a strange mix.

“No.” She didn’t expand on her answer, so he waited her out to see if she’d add more.

It took a minute, but she did. “We don’t really hang out with the same crowd. They were cheerleaders. They spent a lot of time with the hockey team.” Another of those shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m on the debate team.” She smirked and he guessed she was trying to say Adrienne and Carrie weren’t debate team material. Zach always listened to his gut, though, and there was something she wasn’t saying.

“How about a boyfriend? Did you see her around campus with any particular guy?”

That got a response. She looked away.

“Liz? What is it?” Zach heard Shauna ask behind him. She was taking the gentle cop role, offering to be Liz’s friend. “It’s really important that you tell us anything you know, but nothing you say has to leave this room for now. We can keep it between us.”

Liz looked at Mrs. Davis, who’d taken the seat next to her, and Zach wasn’t so sure the counselor’s presence was making this better. They didn’t have a choice, though. The school would probably fight them if they tried to interview her alone. They had to let her stay. “Adrienne and Carrie, well, that whole group really, they aren’t exclusive.”

“Do you mean that they were sleeping around?” Shauna asked carefully, and Zach was glad not to have to ask the question. He knew if he turned around he’d find Ronan busy taking notes with a bland look on his face. His partner was dammed good at pretending nothing fazed him, but in reality, the man was probably wishing he could slink out of the room.

Liz just shrugged.

“Liz?” Shauna spoke again as Zach looked away himself. It would probably have been better all together if he and Ronan left the room, but he clamped his mouth shut and tried to make the girl as comfortable as she could be with four adults grilling her in a small room.

It was several minutes before she spoke. “The hockey team has a, um, scoring system. I don’t even know if Carrie and the other girls know it. I heard the guys talking about it once.”

“Where was this?” Shauna asked.

“My house backs up to Sawyer’s house. His parents built him this clubhouse at the back of their property. It runs right up against the woods that divide our land.” She spoke as though they owned some kind of estate, but Zach realized that might be true. They probably did live on estates.

Shauna’s brow creased. “Like a treehouse?”

The duh look was back from Liz. “No. Like an actual house. I mean, there aren’t bedrooms. Just a rec room and stuff, a pool table, TV. There’s a bathroom and a little kitchen area. The guys hang out there. I think Sawyer even crashes out there sometimes instead of staying at his house.”

Mrs. Davies looked almost pained. “Jonathan’s parents can be a bit, uh . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, as if she didn’t know what word might properly describe them.

“Jonathan?” Shauna asked.

“The kids call him Sawyer. Jonathan Michael Sawyer. He’s the captain of the hockey team,” Mrs. Davis clarified.

“So, you heard the guys talking about their scoring system in the clubhouse one day? Are you friends with Sawyer?” Shauna asked Liz.

Liz rolled her eyes. “No. I’m not friends with the hockey team. But I was down that way in my yard one day and I heard the guys talking about it. They post scores for each of the girls or something in a Facebook group. That’s all I know.”

Zach made a mental note to tell his brother to check Naomi’s social media accounts to be damned sure she wasn’t involved in any sexual scorecard groups. But how the hell would they know if boys in her school were posting scores for her? The thought of it had his jaw clenching and he mentally began counting in his head. Maybe if he counted to five hundred, he could calm the anger ripping through him.

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Chapter Seven





“Are you shitting me?”

Shauna didn’t blame Zach for the response. She was thinking the same thing as Stephanie Kass, head of New Haven Police Departments computer forensics team, spoke.

“Yup. It’s pretty common, sadly.” Stephanie turned in her chair to face them. “There are codes that seem to be pretty steady across most schools. Let’s see,” she said as she looked up and began ticking off abbreviations, “CBF for Can’t Be Fucked.”

Zach let out a low growl.

Stephanie and Shauna gave him a look, but Stephanie kept going. “The number eight is for oral sex, 2C is Quick to Cum.”

Zach took out his phone and started texting and Shauna finally did the math. His niece would be seventeen or eighteen and finishing up high school. Holy hell, this case had to be hard on him in more ways than one. Sure, listening to the sexual escapades of teenagers would get him cranked like no other conversation, but she thought back to the crime scene of Adrienne Edwards. Jesus, that had to be a major kick to the gut to him looking at that girl and what had been done to her.

Shauna didn’t know how the detectives who had kids did their jobs. It was hard enough for her some days, but if she had to picture her own child or a niece or nephew in place of some of the victims they saw—that would add a whole new level to a case.