Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(56)

This caught my attention. I studied Sarah so intently she flushed, smacked her gum. “I mean, think about it. A kid like that? In the world of high school bullying, he basically has a target painted on his back. Roxy might be a ‘serious student.’ But I’ve met her in person. She could do better.”

“I get the impression he helped her and Lola out in foster care. Maybe hanging with him now is her way of returning the favor.”

“Then loyal and nurturing,” Sarah said.

“You don’t think she harmed her family.”

“Girl I met was too strung out to be that cold-blooded. If I’d heard she’d shot someone in self-defense, sure. But eliminate her entire family? Then head out to walk the dogs? No way.”

“The police need to speak with her,” I said softly.

“I haven’t heard from her,” Sarah said flatly in response to my unasked question. “Which, in the beginning, made sense. She’d need to get out of Dodge before she’d feel safe enough to call. But now I’m getting nervous. I feel like if she did have the opportunity to reach out . . . Well, we’re the ones most likely to believe her story, right? If she can’t confide in us, then who?”

I nodded. I’d begun wondering the same thing myself. Especially given the time. Nearly five P.M., the working hours of the day done, and still no word from her.

Sarah held up her phone. “I’m not just goofing off,” she said.

I squinted my eyes, peered at the screen. “It’s a memorial,” I said, looking at the collage of photos.

“Yeah. I found a Facebook page for Roxanna’s mother. Had a lot of family photos. So I set up a website in memory of the Baez family. Posted the photos, little comments I found online. A virtual memorial.”

I waited. Sarah had come far in the past year. From a ragged survivor barricaded in her studio apartment to this.

“We can track IP addresses. See which ones visit the page again and again.”

“Lots of people revisit memorials.”

“Yeah, but Roxanna’s on the run, right? No computer or phone.”

“I’m not sure. But if she does have a phone, the police will find her the moment she fires it up.”

“Which everyone knows, right? So if she wants news—and the girl has gotta be desperate for news—she’ll need to access a public computer. You know, hit the library, a cyber café, something like that.”

I nodded, getting it. “So we can check for a repeating IP address from a public location. Look for her there.”

“If we want to get really fancy, we can even look for patterns. Does the IP address hit the memorial address every hour on the hour, that sort of thing. Which would tell us when to visit the public location.”

“Very clever.”

“I know.”

“You’re doing a great job.”

“I know.” She smacked her gum. Blew another bubble. When she glanced at me, however, her eyes were sad. “I really want to help her, Flora. I’m the one who made contact. I’m the one who brought her to the group. And now I can’t help but feel this is all my fault.”

? ? ?

A WOMAN APPROACHED MIKE DAVIS. Definitely not a student. Sarah and I had been talking and didn’t see where she’d come from. But she was older, curly salt-and-pepper hair, wardrobe by Chico’s—brown slacks, deep green sweater, light brown quilted jacket topped with green-and-gold silk scarf. A little high-end for athletic fields.

A teacher? An administrator of some sort? She stopped directly in front of Mike. He was doing his bounce-bounce thing, but as she spoke, he stilled.

Slowly, he removed one earbud. Studied the woman. Then spoke. Whatever he said made her cock her head to the side. Tried again. He shook his head.

Something about the exchange bothered me. Then I got it. She was the older, more authoritative figure. And yet, to go by body language, she wasn’t talking down to the high schooler. She was pleading with him.

Whatever she wanted, he wasn’t giving it up. Back to bounce bounce bounce. From this distance I couldn’t see him well enough to know for sure, but I imagined his fingertips drumming against the top of his leg.

After another minute or two, the older woman stepped back. She looked around, studying the sea of teens. Given the hour, school sports seemed to be winding down, more and more kids breaking away from their assorted groups and heading off the grounds. Sarah already had her hand on the car door. It was time.

“Want me to continue following him?” she asked.

“If you think you can.”

“I can.”

“All right.” I watched the line the older woman followed off the school grounds. Then I headed in that direction, keeping my target in sight.

? ? ?

THE WOMAN HAD PARKED ONE block over. She had just reached her vehicle, her hand on the door of a red Subaru, when I caught up. She turned sharply, met me head-on.

“Yes?” she said, voice crisp, eyes direct.

I couldn’t help myself. I fell back a step, felt my fingers automatically beginning to fidget. She had to be a teacher because I immediately felt like I was back in school.

“Umm . . . I’m a friend of Roxanna Baez.”

She stared at me. “What kind of friend? You’re too old to be a student.”