Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(72)

“Surviving can be like that,” Sarah said neutrally.

We both nodded.

“According to Mike Davis, the gang also wanted Roxy.” I stared at Sarah. “I can’t see that as being a good fit. Lola was the wild child. Roxy’s serious. She would’ve seen the long-term problems with gang affiliation. Plus, I can’t see her being comfortable with entertaining various Diablos.”

“Having Lola would give the gang some leverage over Roxy,” Sarah said, “but I don’t know. To read the posts on the virtual memorial, Las Ni?as Diablas are angered by Lola’s death. They’re not taking credit; they see it as an attack against them.”

“By the fiend group?”

“Malvadas.”

I frowned, considering. “Could it be that simple? Lola joined a gang and the whole family was killed as retaliation in some kind of turf war?”

“To answer that, we’d have to ask the gang.”

I arched a brow.

Sarah quickly shook her head. “You don’t get it. The girls are more violent than the men. Not to mention Hispanic gangs are big on heritage. They have no interest in talking to two gringas. They’ll slash our throats first, then ask why we dropped by.”

“We need incentive. Some reason for them to listen to us.”

“You’re crazy.”

“A highly desirable trait in the vigilante business.”

Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think I can . . .”

I held up a hand. “It’s okay. You’re already doing plenty. I appreciate it.”

She nodded, but still appeared troubled. “There are some hits from public IP addresses,” she said. “Remember why I originally set up the web page?”

“To see if Roxy would visit from an internet café or the like, and we could trace her back to that location.”

“Right now, I’m not seeing one address repeat. So while there are people logging in from, say, the library, et cetera, there’s not a dominant visitor who stands out—visiting over and over again, spending lots of time clicking around on the site, that sort of thing.”

“Roxy’s had a long day,” I said. “If I were her, I’d be hunkered down, getting some sleep.”

For the first time, Sarah smiled. “No, if you were her, you’d be hunkered down, figuring out where to strike next.”

I thought immediately of Hector Alvalos. Had Roxy been the one to shoot at him? And how did he fit into this mess? Because Sarah was right; if I were Roxy and I perceived Hector to be the threat in all of this, I’d definitely be planning my next move against him.

“What do you think of Mike Davis?” I asked, as Sarah had been following the kid for most of the day.

“I don’t think he knows where she is,” Sarah said.

“What makes you say that?”

“He . . . hung out. Most of the afternoon, he went to various locations. You know, the park to see you, then the school grounds, then a local café. He had no real direction or purpose. I had a feeling he was picking spots in the hope that Roxy might come to him, that sort of thing. Versus him knowing how to find her.”

“Or he’s very cautious.”

Sarah gave me a look. “She’s his friend. Her entire family has just been killed and she’s chosen to run from the police. Implying she’s either guilty or still terrified of something.”

“Still terrified.”

“My vote, too. And probably Mike Davis’s, as well. Which means I’m sure he’d rather be doing something tangible—I don’t know, providing cash, food, something. Instead, he spent three hours standing around the school’s athletic fields. Doubt that’s his first choice for how to pass an afternoon.”

“We’ll need to follow up with him tomorrow.”

“You mean you want me to return to recon. While you go talk to a bunch of homicidal, knife-happy chicas.”

“When you put it like that, it does sound like a good day.”

“How far are you going to take this?” Sarah asked me abruptly.

“Take what?”

“This.” Sarah waved her hand in the air. “This whole survivor thing. You’ve taken me under your wing. You’ve reached out to lots of us. And you’re teaching us self-defense, and how to manage our anxieties and how to return to the land of the living. But what about you, Flora? What about you?”

“I’m in the land of the living. Spent the whole day working productively with the police to help locate a missing teen.”

“And tomorrow you’ll walk straight into the middle of a violent gang. Is that living, Flora? Because it sounds more like a death wish to me.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I want to return to college,” Sarah said softly. “I’ve been thinking about it lately. I want to finish my degree. I want to get a real job—”

I flinched slightly.

“—and maybe even . . .” She shrugged, looked up. “I think more and more of falling in love. Getting married. Having kids. Of living the life I used to dream of. Before.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I told her quietly.

“But you don’t think that way. You’ve been on the other side for years and years. But you’ve never gone back to college. You don’t talk of a future. There’s always just this: the business of survival.”