“Do you know where Dani is?” Denise asked.
Perry glanced at the time on the digital clock above his TV on the cable box. Six thirty. “What time is she supposed to be home?”
“We’re all supposed to be home by five, Uncle Perry.” Denise used her exceptionally sweet voice. “I’m worried. You don’t think she’s dead in a ditch somewhere, do you?”
“I’ll be sure and check all the ditches.” He lifted his cell phone from the coffee table when it beeped and glanced to see who else was calling. “She’s calling me now, sweetheart,” he told her, putting his finger over the button on his Bluetooth to accept the call. “So you can quit worrying over the safety of your sister.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Is that lady coming to dinner tomorrow night?”
“Yup. I’ll talk to you soon.” He got Denise off the phone, knowing she would go about her business satisfied she’d gotten her sister in trouble. For Denise, that would make it a good night, managing to get one of her sisters punished for something. “Where are you?” he demanded, using his deep baritone when he answered the phone for his niece.
“With friends,” Dani said, not sounding worried about the time, or anything else for that matter.
“Where are you?”
“Kylie can’t make it to dinner tomorrow night,” Dani said, sounding winded and ignoring his question.
Perry straightened on the couch, lifting the remote off his chest and dropping it on the coffee table. “Oh? Why not?”
“She just can’t. I’m not her babysitter. I didn’t ask.” Her defensive tone was enough for Perry to know he was barely getting a fraction of the story.
“I’m sure if she can’t make it, she will call and let me know.” He was actually pretty positive she wouldn’t do that, since she didn’t know his cell phone number. And he didn’t know hers.
“She can’t because you never gave her your number, so she said to tell you. I’ve got to go. I guess don’t worry about coming over tomorrow night.”
“Wait a minute.” He smelled a rat. “Why aren’t you home?” He decided switching subjects would make her talk more. Sometimes gathering any information, trivial or otherwise, out of Dani was harder than pulling teeth. “I do believe your mother’s made it clear that you’re to be home at five every day.”
“I know, but I was busy working on homework with friends.” The standard answer that Dani used and believed firmly would keep her out of any trouble. “Have a good evening, Uncle Perry.”
“Is Kylie with you now?” He wasn’t going to let Dani go that easily. Something was up between her and Kylie. But even if he didn’t get answers on that one, his niece was supposed to be home and wouldn’t escape from him before he knew where she was.
“We just left her. Walking is good for you, you know.”
“Where are you, Dani?”
Apparently she decided it was in her best interest to start answering her uncle’s questions. The deep, tortured sigh on the other end of the phone defined her reluctant acceptance of that fact.
“Downtown, okay? I’m sorry it got so late. But I was with Kylie. Mom won’t mind.”
“Your uncle might, though. What were you doing with Kylie?”
“We were at the Java Cup. That’s when she said she can’t make it tomorrow night. I think she mentioned having a date, or something.”
A piercing sense of aggravation shot through him from his niece’s callous comment. More so, hearing Kylie possibly had a date, in spite of the fact that something told him Dani made it up, didn’t sit well with him at all. He wasn’t into casual sex. Fucking Kylie when he was pretty sure she’d tried meeting another man the night before might not have been the smartest move he’d made in his life. There was something about her, though, something that tripped emotions inside him he usually managed to keep at bay when around any other lady.
Figuring out what Dani was up to might take hours. He opted for the easier task of learning what Kylie was up to.
“Here is what you’re going to do,” he said slowly. “You’re going to turn around and go back to Kylie and you’re going to have her call me.”
“I can’t, Uncle Perry. She’s already left.”
“Do you have her cell phone number?”
There was silence for only a moment. “Yeah.” She sounded as if it bothered her to relinquish that information.
Perry didn’t care. “Give it to me.” He stood, headed into his den, and then wrote the number down when Dani gave it to him. “I’m calling your mother. You’ll be home in ten minutes, or else.”
“Fine,” she said, again sighing so heavily it was as though he tortured her. “Talk to you later,” she added, and then hung up.
Before he could dial his sister, his cell rang again. Megan was calling him. “Hello,” he said.
“Perry, have you heard from Dani?” Megan sounded worried.
“Just hung up the phone with her. She’ll be home in ten minutes. Everything okay?”
“Oh, good. And everything’s fine,” she said, her tone implying just the opposite. “What time will you and Kylie be here tomorrow night?”
“Since you already told me to have her over there by six thirty, why don’t we discuss what has you upset?”
It amazed him when she sighed how much it sounded like Dani’s sigh.
“I know younger brothers are supposed to be annoying,” she began, her usual chipper tone returning. “But annoying and protective make for a bad mix sometimes, you know?”
“I’m sure. What’s up?” He hated how hard Megan worked when she had to come home and jump into raising and dealing with teenagers. Megan was the most impressive woman he’d ever known in his life, but he hated how she fought him when he tried shouldering some of the concerns and worries that went along with bringing up her daughters.
“I don’t know if anything is up, Perry. And I won’t know until Dani gets home. You’re not going to start yelling at her until I have the facts straight, and then I get to yell first.”
He knew something was up when Dani told him Kylie wouldn’t be coming to dinner tomorrow night. Call it a gut instinct, but Kylie wouldn’t have canceled. Not only did she want to know the girls better, for whatever reason he still needed to find out, but beyond that, there was a level of interest there. He might not be an expert on relationships, but he recognized the attraction between them. No matter if she tried meeting another guy. Kylie was interested in him.
Perry heaved out a loud sigh. Not only did he have absolutely no interest in a serious relationship, but he couldn’t flatter himself into thinking that after knowing him barely a week Kylie would want to set up housekeeping. At the same time, though, it would surprise him if she came up with a lame excuse to get out of going to dinner. If it weren’t because of him, she wanted to spend time with his nieces. She had a paper to write, and he had all the research she could ask for in his nieces.
“Is something wrong?” Megan asked.
“Nothing. What do you know?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral. He got a lot further with Megan when he kept his cool.
“Hearsay,” she snapped. Denise said something in the background and Megan snapped at her, too, telling her to go unload the dishwasher and quit eavesdropping.
Denise announced in the background that if it weren’t for her eavesdropping they wouldn’t know right now that Dani was about ready to go do something stupid enough to get herself killed.
“What did Denise tell you?”
“Apparently she overheard Dani on her phone talking to one of her girlfriends about meeting a boy she’s been talking to on the Internet.”
“What?” Perry turned around quickly in his living room, the sudden urge to destroy something, pick something up and hurl it, or better yet send his fist crashing through anything hit him hard enough that it made him dizzy. “How long have you known this?”
“Since I got home. And I’m dealing with it,” she said, using her “I’m the mother” voice on him. “I will not have you reaming her out before I know completely what is going on.”
“I can tell you what’s going on!” he yelled, his voice bouncing off the walls. “Girls her age are disappearing! I helped peel a teenage girl off the asphalt the other day, beaten damn near beyond recognition, and dead, because of some online stalker.”
“Which is why you are not going to talk to Dani about this,” Megan yelled right back at him. “You’re jaded, Perry. There’s no way you can’t be with what you do for a living. Dani isn’t stupid. I will take care of this.”
“She’s more than stupid if she’s considering meeting someone off the Internet.”
“I said I’ll take care of this.”
“What are you going to do?”
Megan didn’t say anything for a minute, proof enough that she didn’t know what to do about it. He needed to talk to Dani; the sooner the better.
“I’m going to find out the truth of the matter first.” Her tone turned cold. “And then I’ll handle it. In fact, she just came home. I’ll see you and your lady friend tomorrow night.”
Megan hung up on him. She never hung up on him. Perry turned, fisting his hands with enough pressure that he felt the pain in his palms from his fingertips. It didn’t help his anger subside. Megan had the power to push him out of his nieces’ lives. They were her daughters. But damn it to hell and back, he wouldn’t stand around and watch if Dani were about to do something so idiotic it could risk her life.
Stalking into his kitchen, he grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and returned to his couch and the remote. The beer wouldn’t help. Maybe something harder, with a fierce bite, might numb his aggravation and outrage.
“Goddamn it,” he grumbled, sinking into his couch but unable to get comfortable. Tilting the chilled bottle, he poured half the brew down his throat. He needed to call Kylie and figure out what the hell was going on with her supposedly backing out of dinner tomorrow night. The sooner he had answers the better. More than likely, Dani would tell Megan the same thing she told him; if anything, his niece would use the topic as a shield against her mother to prevent getting yelled at for talking to boys online that she didn’t know.
Megan was one hell of a mother. He’d be the first to admit it. But his nieces were all sharp as tacks. Dani could take Megan on, tell her what she wanted to hear, and have her off her back in a matter of minutes. Perry would bet his paycheck on it.
“It won’t be as easy convincing me of your innocence, young lady,” he said out loud, and downed more of his beer.
His cell phone started ringing and he glanced around, then realized he’d left it in his den when he jotted down Kylie’s number. Once again removing the remote from his belly and pushing himself to his feet, Perry made it to his phone before the caller went to voice mail.
“Flynn here,” he said after noticing the caller was Dispatch.
“Flynn, I thought you might want a heads-up.” Cliff Miller didn’t usually work the night shift, but he spoke quickly, sounding pumped up and riding high on adrenaline, caffeine, or both. “Another teenager has just been reported missing. Her parents are at the station now. Their daughter, Rita Simoli, never came home and didn’t show up for her after-school job.”
“Is anyone doing a report?” Perry hurried to his bedroom and quickly stripped out of his sweats and got back into the jeans he had worn that day. Missing persons reports weren’t filled out until 24 hours had passed. Most cops hesitated in doing even that when it was a teenager.
“One of the clerks is talking to them, but Rad mentioned you were on the Olivia Brown case.”
“I’ll be there in ten. Keep the parents there.”
Barely ten minutes later Perry hurried into the station, nodding when Cliff gestured with his head in the direction of the administrative desks lined in rows in the middle of the station. He pushed the code into the panel alongside the door and shoved it open the moment it buzzed.
Cheryl Parker glanced up at him and looked noticeably relieved when he approached her desk. “Perry, this is Polly and Ricardo Simoli, parents of Rita Simoli.” She picked up several pieces of paper and tapped them against her desk, organizing them, and then handed them over to him. “I’ve taken their personal information but…” She broke off, shooting a side-glance at the Simolis’.
Ricardo stood and then put his hand on his wife’s shoulder when she slowly rose to her feet as well. “You’re going to fill out a missing persons report,” Ricardo Simoli didn’t make it a question.
“You’re going to find our daughter?” Polly asked, her eyes swollen and stained from running mascara.
“Yup,” he said, knowing from years on the force that parents asked the impossible questions first and telling them he didn’t have a clue whether he could find their child or not wasn’t an effective way to begin interrogation. “Thanks, Cheryl,” he said, glancing at her long enough to catch her smile and wink, and then turned his focus on the distraught couple.
“Let me know if there’s anything else you need,” Cheryl offered, never missing a chance to throw shameless suggestive comments in his direction no matter the seriousness of the moment.
He didn’t bother answering but gestured for the Simolis to come with him. “I’ll need you to help me get a feel of where to start looking,” he said quietly. “Do either of you need anything to drink?”
“No, we need our daughter,” Ricardo said crossly.
“We’ll get her,” Perry said without bothering to make eye contact. “Have a seat,” he said, moving around his desk in the “pit” and making a mental note of who all was in the building. Other than Dispatch and a couple administrative people, Franco helped himself to coffee and gave Perry and the Simolis a curious stare before taking his time returning to his desk. If Franco was going to rat him out for filling out a missing person’s report before the 24 hours was up, he could just go to hell. Perry turned his attention to Ricardo and Polly. “Let’s see what we have here.”
“Our daughter didn’t show up for work. She’s never missed a day on the job since she started.”
“At…” Perry glanced at the notes Cheryl had taken, hand written in neat block letters. “At Simoli’s Restaurant.” It dawned on him then why their name sounded familiar. They either owned or worked at a family restaurant that was fairly successful, with an unbeatable reputation for incredible Italian food.
“We let her start working there when she turned sixteen. Our daughter is seventeen now and not once has she missed a day on the job. None of our children are slackers,” Polly said, straightening. “Something terrible has happened to our Rita.”
“Let me ask you this,” Perry said, agreeing with Mrs. Simoli but not seeing the point in saying so. “Does your daughter spend a lot of time on the computer?”
“What kind of question is that?” Ricardo snapped. “All of us do. Part of Rita’s job is entering tickets on the computer.”
“I meant chatting, online chatting. Does she do a lot of that?”
Ricardo looked at his wife, who returned a concerned expression. She focused on Perry first, her expression sadder than it had been a moment before. “There was a time, not too long ago, when she appeared obsessed with talking to this boy on the computer. It wasn’t natural, or proper. Her father and I put an end to it.”
“Do you know who she was chatting with? The boy’s name?”
“Peter, Peter Rangari. We didn’t know his family, and he wasn’t from Mission Hills. There are good boys here from very successful families, plenty for our Rita to choose from.” Polly straightened, tilting her head slightly while pressing her lips together in a very determined-looking expression. “Why do you ask us this?”
“Peter Rangari,” Perry repeated, writing the name down. “I need as many current pictures of your daughter that you can provide, and also, with your permission, I need to look at the computer your daughter used to do her online chatting.”
“Our daughter obeys us.” Ricardo pushed his chair back and stood, then took his wife’s arm and encouraged her to her feet. “Don’t even think she would go behind our backs and meet a boy we demanded she sever all communication with. If you want to send a team over to our home, we’ll cooperate. But you’d better come up with a better lead than that, or I’ll insist another cop be given our daughter’s case, one who knows what the hell he is doing.”
A couple hours later, Perry walked out of the Simolis’ house, a nice two-story country home with a large landscaped yard, his mood more sour than it had been all day.
“Peter is hitting hard,” Carl said, scowling when he reached for the passenger door.
Perry looked at him over the top of the car. “She’d been talking to him for months, too. We’ve got the printed chats, but I think we need to subpoena their hard drive.”
“Going to have to. Mr. Simoli didn’t like us even going through the computer.” Carl slipped into the passenger seat next to Perry. “More than likely he was scared we’d stumble onto all of his souped-up accounting.”
Perry snorted, not giving a damn how the man ran his restaurant. “You’d think he’d be more cooperative in finding his daughter.”
“At least we know where she went to meet him.”
“And we’re heading there now.” Although arriving at the health-food grocery store where apparently Rita went on a regular basis to pick up vegetables for her family’s restaurant hours after she met Peter wouldn’t find them shit, and Perry knew it.
Kylie squatted in the dark, frowning at the asphalt in the parking lot as she glanced around at her quiet surroundings. Peaceful and serene, in the wake of a terrible crime. Another teenage girl had been yanked out of her world, taken from the safe and happy life she’d known for seventeen years. It wasn’t right that she would be exposed to the nightmares that would follow her abduction. Kylie’s heart hurt as anger and frustration bit at her, making the chill in the night air feel more like poison than cooling relief.
Cars drove up and down the main street, even at this hour. She looked in the direction of the intersection and her heart skipped a beat when she saw a city police car. She couldn’t risk being seen at a crime scene, even if the police hadn’t designated the place as such. When Paul called her, informing her about Rita Simoli, Kylie knew her time was limited before Perry showed up here.
Kylie straightened, not sure what she expected to find here. But a teenage girl had disappeared, possibly where Kylie stood right now, and it always helped her to physically witness where a crime took place. She bet Perry would feel the same way. Which was why she kept one eye on the road and all passing cars.
She looked across the empty parking lot, at the community grocery store and its dark windows. Ads covered the windows promoting healthy food and organic items for sale. Kylie walked toward the closed grocery store, hitting the wide sidewalk that ran along the building. There was a roof over the sidewalk, and signs on poles announcing no skate-boarding allowed.
Kylie started down the sidewalk, her shoes clicking against the paved walk and echoing from the roof over her. There were two vending machines, one offering the standard assortments of soda pops, the next offering an array of juices and bottled water. After that there was a newspaper machine, which displayed today’s paper. She glanced at the machine, wondering when a newspaper boy would stop and refill it. Next was a pay phone.
“Interesting,” Kylie whispered, staring at the pay phone and the cord that hung from the receiver. It had been cut. Where it should attach to the phone it now hung to the ground, the receiver resting in its holder, but if it was lifted she could actually walk away with it. She wondered when it had been cut.
Walking up to it, instead of lifting the receiver she bent and studied the end of the cord. “Clean cut,” she said to herself. If it was yanked out of the phone, someone with some strength did the job.
Looking past the phone toward the next pole that didn’t have a sign on it, she noticed something else. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small, flat, little camera. It was a good thing this baby took outstanding pictures in the dark. She snapped several pictures of the sabotaged pay phone and then moved closer to the pole.
It was painted bright red, as were all of the poles. She reached for the pole but instead of touching it stretched her fingers and moved them mere centimeters over the pole where it appeared there were several scratches in the paint.
“As if someone held on to the pole with enough strength that their fingernails dug into the paint.” She took pictures of the scratch marks embedded in the paint. “And what do we have here?”
Kylie looked at the curb, then knelt at the edge of the sidewalk. On the other side of the pole was a shoe. She touched her fingertips to the lady’s plain brown flat-heeled shoe. It wasn’t damp, implying it hadn’t been here long. After snapping several pictures of the shoe, moving into the lot and facing the pole and pay phone and shoe on the ground, and taking more pictures, she then pulled out her cell phone.
“Paul, we’ve got quite a bit of evidence here,” she said when he answered.
“What do you got?” It sounded as though there might be laser beams firing in the background and she pictured him sitting in front of his computer, challenging someone’s high score or defending his own.
“There’s a broken pay phone, indication of scratches on the pole at the edge of the sidewalk next to it, and a shoe. I have pictures of all of it. But if I bag the evidence, we’re going to have to go live about being on this case.”
“I’d say that’s already happening with John talking to the media,” Paul pointed out.
“He’s doing what?” Kylie ran her fingers through her hair, shaking her head in growing aggravation.
“They’re going public with this one. John and the Chief are meeting with reporters and the Simolis’ now.”
She wasn’t surprised, especially with Paul having told her the Simolis’ were a prominent family in the community. They were used to a high-profile life and probably would have gone public without the law if they hadn’t agreed. “It would have been nice to have a bit more time.”
“Want me to send out a forensics team?”
“Yup. The police will probably be here soon and I’d just as soon get a good sweep of the scene before they mess with it.”
“Sending them out now.” The sounds of explosions and continual laser fire never stopped. “Rita Simoli was talking to a guy named Peter on her family’s computer. Your cop, Mr. Flynn, just left there a bit ago and reported in to his Chief. We got the information a few minutes before you called. You need to narrow in on this guy and set up another meeting.”
“I’m working on it.” She grabbed the evidence bag out of her trunk, then locked her car, which she’d parked on the side street on the back side of the store, and sprinted across the parking lot. “So far we keep missing each other with instant messages, but I’ll see if I can lure him out later tonight. If I can, that means he’s either disposed of Rita or locked her up somewhere so he can focus on his next prey.”
“If the Web site is connected to him, he’s locking them up and not killing them.” Paul grunted. “At least not right away.”
“We also need to consider the possibility that Peter could be more than one person.” Her insides churned at the thought of these teenagers being locked up like animals and tortured. “How soon before Forensics is here?”
“You should have a couple agents there in a few minutes. I suggest you take off.”
She tried not to breathe too heavily into the phone after running from her car back to the sidewalk. But pulling on gloves and then sliding the shoe into the ziplock bag, she sealed it and grabbed the receiver from the pay phone, sliding it into another evidence bag. “I’m bringing the shoe and receiver in; then I’ll see if I can get Peter on the horn and arrange for a meet.”
Kylie headed down the sidewalk toward the back of the building when she glanced at the entrance to the parking lot from the main road. A tan sedan, similar in make and model to the ones parked at the FBI field office, pulled into the parking lot. It parked at the end of the sidewalk, but the driver kept the motor running. One of them saluted her when two men got out of the car. She recognized the special agents from when she was down at the office, but didn’t know their names.
“I’ve got confirmation your team has arrived,” Paul said in her ear as one guy walked to her and the other popped his trunk.
“That’s a ten four,” she told him. “I’ll brief these two and talk to you soon.”
“Roger that.”
Kylie walked the two men through the crime scene and helped rope off the scene with yellow tape. A news van entered the parking lot and two other cars, one unmarked and one city police, followed.
“Crap, the circus has arrived.”
“You’re going to blow your cover,” one of the guys warned her.
“Nope.” Kylie hated leaving the scene but trusted the two men to do their job. “Time to get out of Dodge.”
“You’d better fly,” the guy closest to her said, grinning.
“I’m on it, Batman.” She bolted down the length of the building, pretty sure no one saw her.
An hour later they had confirmation that the shoe belonged to Rita Simoli and her frantic parents once again turned to the press, offering a large reward for the safe return of their daughter. There were fresh prints on the receiver that matched prints on the pole that had been scratched, but Rita had never been printed. There was no way to make a positive ID other than using the assumption they were hers based on the shoe. Kylie managed to escape the cameras and snuck back to her house unnoticed.
After adjusting the volume on her TV so she could hear the news, she settled in the middle bedroom, keeping an eye on her monitors as well as focusing on her buddy list. Anticipation riddled her insides, like the feeling she got when a case was about to explode wide open. In spite of suspecting she was on to the right guy after learning that Rita spoke to Peter with the same screen name, Kylie guessed her stomach tied in knots for several reasons.
She didn’t doubt Perry would be pissed when he learned she hit his crime scene and tagged it before he could, even though he wouldn’t know she was the agent who reported to the scene. That wasn’t the only reason trepidation ran hot and heavy through her veins.
Dani was speaking with Peter, too. Even though she had told Kylie another girl would meet him this Friday night, that didn’t ease Kylie’s nerves any. There would be another meet and she knew when. If only she knew where. Somehow she needed to learn where Peter was meeting Lanie Swanson, Peter, or Petrie, wouldn’t tell Dani and even if he did, getting Dani to tell Kylie would be harder than pulling teeth. She’d feel a hell of a lot better if she knew without any doubt Dani wasn’t going to meet him.
Kylie continually glanced at the monitors. Something told her Perry would be by tonight, and just thinking about him showing up at her home made her insides swell with expectation. He wouldn’t be the only one wound up from working a case. Although she couldn’t share with him anything she’d found out or learned, she could show him what to do with all that energy that needed an outlet.
Heading over to the Facebook profile she’d created, she began searching, going from profile to profile, reading every line and checking out pictures and comments posted to each profile. It sickened her how openly teenagers discussed their social lives on one another’s profiles, making it so easy to get to know them if anyone wished to take the time and sift through the millions of profiles on the site to find the ones of interest.
She stumbled onto Dani’s Facebook profile after finding a profile for the Mission High School drama department. Although Dani’s profile said she was ninety-seven years old and lived in Lebanon, there were quite a few references to other kids, and after Kylie checked out each profile she realized who some of them were.
The sound of someone signing on startled her. She was so engaged in what she was doing that she’d even drowned out the TV from the other room. Immediately a chat box popped up in front of the Web site she’d been scrutinizing.
Where were you earlier tonight? I’ve been bored all evening and no one was online.
Convenient opening line. And an obvious guilty conscience. Peter probably just finished dealing with Rita. There wasn’t any reason he should suspect her. Apparently, he felt a need to put in writing he never left the house due to some warped line of thinking that somehow that proved his innocence.
Sorry. I had homework, she typed, and flipped his box behind the Web site to search and see if she could find Rita’s profile. She didn’t, but there were links on all of the pages she went to for Dani’s and some of the other profiles connecting them to a Facebook profile.
Are you done with it now? Talk to me, Kayla. I really need a good friend.
I’m right here. Is something wrong?
Yeah, there is something wrong. It’s my birthday and my parents are leaving town.
She didn’t get the connection but knew he was plotting a good three or four messages ahead of her. Kylie minimized the Web site behind her so she could focus better on the conversation without distractions.
It’s your birthday? she asked, deciding she’d approach the comment about his parents being out of town next. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind where he was heading with that one. And from what she’d learned about teenage girls since she started this case, any of them would be sharp enough to guess why he would bring that up.
Not today-Thursday. But both of my parents are going to be out of town on business. I don’t get a birthday party.
If they’re going out of town, you can have a bash. She cringed after sending it, praying her choice of words didn’t sound too square for a teenage girl.
Call me a nerd if you want, but they would kill me if I had a party while they were gone. And well, it’s not right.
What the hell was his motivation? Maybe he wanted her feeling sorry for him and agreeing to meet him. Or possibly he believed if he portrayed himself as a compassionate soul, she would like him even more and be more likely to do whatever he suggested.
Then it hit her, and without commenting on what he said, she pulled up the Facebook Web site and quickly went to her own profile. She read what she’d written about herself.
It was right there in front of her, on display for all to read: I want someone not afraid to do the right thing even when peer pressure pushes for him to do something else. Show me you stand out in a crowd, honest to a fault and not afraid what your friends might say, and I will go anywhere with you.
“Two points, motherfucker,” she mumbled.
He chimed again. She’d waited too long to respond. Hey, nerds need love, too.
LOL. Are you going to have a birthday party when they come home? Will I get an invite?
I’ll have a party when they get back. But nothing at all is going to happen on the day of my birthday. I’m sure this has never happened to you. You don’t understand how sad that makes me.
She understood more than she would tell him. Her fifteenth birthday had gone by unnoticed. It was such a devastating experience she remembered it today as if it were yesterday. Her sister was gone, raped and murdered, which raped and murdered their family, too. Nothing was the same after that. Something as trivial as Kylie’s birthday couldn’t be dealt with after losing Karen.
Kylie never told her parents they forgot. Even today, when bridges with her mom and dad finally were being mended, Kylie couldn’t bring it up to them. There wasn’t any point in opening old wounds.
That would suck, she typed, and hesitated, wanting to say just the right thing without sounding too obvious, so he would suggest another meeting. Maybe you could ask your parents if you could get together with a few special friends.
You’re a special friend to me.
Good. I feel the same way about you.
If my parents say it’s okay, you’ll see me on my birthday. He didn’t make it a question.
“Okay,” Kylie said out loud as she typed the one word and clicked “send.”
Good. Plan on seeing me Thursday. Tell your parents you’ll be at a birthday party for a couple hours. And thank you. You’re going to make this birthday one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
Kylie was sure it would be a day both of them would remember for the rest of their lives. At the same time, she noted that Peter just gave himself a couple-hour time frame, which she bet he did with every girl he snatched. And with a couple-hour run time, it made it damn hard for the law to chase him down. Hard, but not impossible.
“This all ends Thursday,” she vowed to herself. If she could get Peter to capture her, there would be no worries about Dani, or any other girl, meeting him Friday.