Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(100)

“Any luck?” she asked.

She stood across from the kitchen table. A small, square barrier between her and me. I felt that prickle of hyperawareness again. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. The kitchen had a rear door leading to the outside. The glass pane at the top allowed light, but afforded only a small view of the yard.

I moved closer to the dogs, where I could keep my gaze on the back door to my right and the kitchen entrance to my left.

“I got shot at,” I said, glancing at the counselor to gauge her reaction. She had long dark hair. I wondered why I’d never considered that before.

She flinched. Genuine surprise? Or a spike of anxiety?

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. Las Ni?as Diablas are fine, too. A little pissed. Not too cooperative with the police, mostly because I’m sure they plan on hunting down the gunwoman and extracting their own brand of retribution. Nervous?” I asked.

“What?”

“You seem nervous.”

“A family I know was murdered. One of my students is missing. This entire neighborhood suddenly seems to have turned into the Wild West. Of course I’m rattled.”

“You’re not rattled. You’re nervous.”

A flicker of movement to my right. A bird swooping by the window.

I placed both my hands on the wooden back of the closest kitchen chair. A chair can be a marvelous tool for offense and defense. Like a lion trainer facing down a roaring charge, or a brawler taking out an opponent in a bar.

“He threatened me,” she said suddenly.

I stilled, gaze ping-ponging between both entrances, exits. “Who?”

“Roberto. The day the principal called him into his office regarding the inappropriate photo. As guidance counselor, I talked to Roberto first. He was all attitude, nothing to say. In the end, we were both just sitting there, waiting for the principal, when I got a call on my personal cell. I opened up my lower desk drawer to fetch it from my purse. I happened to look up just in time to see Roberto fiddling with his cell phone. He slid something into his palm. I couldn’t see what.

“I demanded for him to show me his phone. He smiled. Snapped the back on, held it out. The phone fired up, but I knew he’d done something to it. Why else had he removed the back? I told him that was it. Fess up now, show me what he’d pocketed, or I’d call the school security officer to pat him down.”

I nodded. Movement out the rear door again. A tree branch moving in the wind? Except what wind? It had been calm just moments ago. I tightened my grip on the chair.

“Roberto got up. He placed both hands on my desk and, staring down at me, he stated, very calmly, my address. What time I got home from work. The color of my bedroom walls.”

This news caught my attention. I momentarily stopped peering out the back door, glancing at the counselor instead. No doubt about it. She was pale and shaky, with a sheen of tears in her eyes.

“He said maybe he was an even better photographer than I realized. And a pretty young counselor like me . . . He insinuated—” She took a deep breath, soldiered on. “He insinuated the demand for such a photo around the high school would be very high. And he hated to disappoint his audience.”

“He intimidated you. Bullied you into submission.” Just like he had everyone at Mother Del’s.

Tricia nodded once, wiped at her eyes. Took another settling breath.

“I’m twenty-seven,” she whispered. “This is my first job as a guidance counselor. I was warned in training to expect some harassment from male students. Comes with the territory. You have to stay in control. Remember you are an authority figure. But the way Roberto spoke . . .

“He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t acting out. He was serious. And so confident as he rattled off my personal information. I couldn’t act. I couldn’t move. Then there was a knock on my door. The principal was ready to see him.

“Roberto walked out. I just sat there. I never moved. I never called for the security guard. Later, when the principal said he’d found nothing on Roberto’s phone, I didn’t know what to say. Not without confessing that I’d let a student get the best of me.”

“You covered for him,” I said coldly.

“Kind of.”

“There’s no ‘kind of.’ He probably replaced the SIM card on his phone. Meaning the principal basically saw a brand-new cell, devoid of all content. Roberto had publicly shamed one of your students. He’d posted child porn on a student-frequented social media site. And you helped him get away with it.”

“But I wasn’t done yet!”

I arched a brow.

“Seriously! I knew I screwed up. But I was working on it. Roberto was definitely a threat and he needed to be stopped. We can seize cell phones in the classroom. Anyone caught actively texting during class violates school rules and automatically loses their phone for the rest of the day. I put out an alert to Roberto’s teachers. If we could surprise him, snatch the phone without him having time to prepare . . .”

“What happened?”

“He died.” She said it so flatly it took me a moment to process. “This was late May. We had only a few more weeks to grab the phone before the school year ended. I didn’t think it would take that long, except clearly the visit with the principal had made Roberto more careful. I still figured he’d forget sooner or later. Teens are such phone addicts. But then . . . Roberto committed suicide. It was over, just like that.”