First Girl Gone(41)

“Can I see Amber’s car?”

Zoe shook her head.

“They already towed it to the crime lab on the mainland.” She pulled a tablet out of her bag and handed it to Charlie. “But I have pictures.”

Charlie swiped through the photos of Amber’s car, an ice-blue Hyundai Elantra. There were several shots of the exterior of the car. It was in good condition—no dings or scrapes, recently washed. The next set of photos showed the interior of the car. Again, it was spotless. No dust or random bits of trash. An air freshener hung from the rearview mirror. Charlie brought the screen closer to her face and zoomed in on the photo.

“Is that a Little Mermaid air freshener?” Charlie asked, remembering Paul’s comment that Amber was a Disney fanatic.

Zoe leaned in to get a better view.

“Looks like it.”

Charlie continued flipping through the photos.

“What do you suppose that smells like?”

“Hmm…” Zoe considered it. “Seaweed and fish?”

Photos of the backseat showed an overnight bag and a basket of laundry, already neatly folded.

It was clear Amber had left the house in her own car, intending to drive back to East Lansing. What had happened after she left the house? Was she meeting someone at the park-and-ride? Or had she been taken somewhere along the route, and the kidnapper abandoned her car there?

Outside again, the next photo was a shot of the open trunk. There were a pair of boots, a snow brush, and a portable air compressor, still in the box.

Charlie went back to one of the first photos, a shot of the driver’s side door open.

“This is before anyone touched the car, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How tall is Amber?”

“Five foot six.”

“That’s about my height.” Charlie tapped the screen. “And the seat looks pretty far back to me.”

Squinting, Zoe studied the photo.

“It does,” Zoe agreed. “You think that means something?”

“Yeah, but it only really confirms the obvious.”

“What’s that?”

“That by the time the car was parked in the commuter lot, someone else was driving. Someone taller than Amber.”

“A man.”

“Most likely. And she was alone when she left the house, so that means she stopped somewhere between here and the park-and-ride. It’s the only explanation. Otherwise, how does someone else end up behind the wheel?” Charlie snapped her fingers. “What about the GPS on her car?”

“We checked it. The history shows her pretty much driving straight from the house to the lot, though she did stick to the back roads, for some reason.”

Charlie tried to make sense of that. Again, she wondered if Amber had been meeting someone at the park-and-ride. Her finger swiped over the screen, absently sifting through the photos again.

“How long until they process the fingerprints?”

“Few days. They got lots. And we already took prints from the whole family so we can rule them out.”

Finally, Charlie handed the tablet back to Zoe.

“Well, I’ll put together what I have on Kara Dawkins and send it over,” she said. “You’ll keep me updated on the official investigation?”

Zoe slid her coat back on and fastened the zipper.

“Where I can.”





Chapter Twenty-Nine





Charlie spent the rest of the morning digging through Amber Spadafore’s background. She also got in touch with one of the girls Amber had brunch with the morning she disappeared, who agreed to gather the rest of the crew together to meet with Charlie for a brief interview later in the day.

Around noon, Charlie took a break. She walked to Town Square Pizza and ordered two meatball subs. Since she had some time to kill before the interview with Amber’s friends, she figured she might as well take Frank lunch. He didn’t have chemo today, but he still had to eat.

When he answered the door, he was in his robe. It wasn’t like Frank to not get dressed in the morning. He was an early riser, a wake up at 6 a.m. ready to kick the day in the face kind of guy. Now that she considered it, Charlie wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him in pajamas. His face was puffy and gray, and his eyes looked bloodshot and yellow.

She forced herself to smile and held up the plastic bag printed with the Town Square Pizza logo.

“I brought lunch. Meatball subs.”

Frank winced.

“I’m not hungry just now,” he said. “You can just put mine in the fridge.”

She wanted to argue that it wouldn’t be good later, but she could tell he was feeling pretty miserable and didn’t want to push it. Doing as he asked, she put his sandwich in the fridge and left her own on the counter. She was starving, but the face Frank had made when she’d mentioned the subs made her think that just the sight and smell of her food might make him ill.

“There’s been a development in my missing girl case.”

Frank eased himself into his trusty chair, grimacing as he settled into the cushions.

“Oh yeah?”

“A second girl is missing.”

That got his attention. He sat up straighter and stared at her intently.

“See? This is what I was saying before. Here, the police have been dicking around for what, a week? Ignoring the fact that a young girl has disappeared. And now there’s another? Luckily, you’ve been out there, keeping the trail fresh.”