“He say what she wants?” I asked.
“She wants to talk. To you and me both.”
Curious.
Twenty-five minutes later, we walked into our office. No one was in the lobby, so we made our way toward the back, where we heard laughter coming from the office of Kenny Hale-our technology guru. I followed Toni into Kenny’s office. He was at his desk with Kelli sitting across from him.
“Hey, guys,” Kenny said when we entered.
“’Sup?” I said, looking from Kenny to Kelli. “Hey, Kelli.”
Kelli and Toni look the same but different. Bear with me-I haven’t lost my mind here. Toni’s tall-a solid five foot eight. Kelli’s a touch shorter-maybe five seven or so. Both girls have striking figures-something they inherited from their mom, I suppose (although I’m not sure I’m supposed to have noticed that). Both have thick, dark hair, although Kelli’s is long with no bangs and more of a brunette color, while Toni’s is more mid-length with long bangs and almost black. The biggest, most noticeable difference, though, is not their height or their hair, but their eyes. Toni’s eyes are a brilliant blue-the color of the Hope Diamond. Kelli’s are a deep emerald green. Both are beautiful. So, like I said-the girls look the same but definitely different.
“Hi, Danny,” she said. She turned to Toni. “Hey, sis.”
Toni walked over to Kelli. “Hi, sweetie,” she said, leaning forward and hugging her sister. She straightened up and eyed Kenny warily. “I see you’ve met Kenny.” Kelli probably missed the look. I didn’t.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’ve just been talking.”
Kenny’s a young guy-he just turned twenty-six a couple of months ago. He’s maybe five eight and a buck fifty soaking wet. He’s got an unruly mop of dark hair that he pushes over to one side. In fact, he looks just like what he is-the quintessential computer geek. When it comes to anything to do with computers, Kenny’s the real deal. He’s got aptitude and native talent that’s off the charts. He grew up with computers in ground zero of the computer world: Redmond, Washington. I’m not certain, but I’d be willing to bet his first toy was a laptop. Knowing Kenny, he probably took it apart, tricked it out some way, and then put it back together. He’s got to be one of the most brilliant PC dudes in the Pacific Northwest. His consulting services are in high demand-I’m sure he makes at least as much moonlighting for the big tech companies around here as he does from his Logan PI paycheck. Still, lucky for us, he likes the excitement of detective work. I say “lucky for us” because computer skills are a near prerequisite for PI firms these days.
Despite the fact that he’s no physical specimen, Kenny is surprisingly successful with the ladies. I have a theory about this. I think that like a lot of nerdy guys, he was probably teased in high school by the jocks and shunned by their pretty cheerleader girlfriends. Back then, geeks were people to be, if not outright, scorned, at least avoided. Now, seven or eight years down the road, presto-chango! Role reversal! Now the smart-guy propeller-heads like Kenny have all the money and run around in their Porsche Cayenne Turbos. Now it’s their turn to date the pretty girls while the majority of high school jocks (meaning all those who didn’t get Division I scholarships) work low-paying, manual labor jobs (if they can still find them). Kenny was simply playing his new role for all he was worth. It’s just a theory. Anyway, I like him. He’s a good guy with a good heart.
Toni feels the same way, but to her, Kenny’s a target she can’t resist for some good-natured teasing. She teases him about his hair, his height, his weight, even his girlfriends. And he gives as good as he gets. He teases her about her hair, her height, her tattoos, and-until recently-her lack of boyfriends. Normally, there’s a good-natured banter between the two of them. Today, though, Toni’s little sister was here to talk about something, and no doubt, Toni wondered if Kenny had tried to put some kind of move on Kelli while they’d been waiting for us. I doubted this-Kenny goes out with younger women to be sure, but even Kenny has a lower age limit, which seems to be twenty-one or so. But what the hell. Toni’s the big sister, and it’s her job to be protective-thus, the stink eye. It continued, even as I led Kelli out of Kenny’s office to our conference room.
Kenny noticed. “What?” he mouthed silently, holding up his hands.
Toni glared at him for a second, then she turned and followed us. Message sent.
“So,” I said, when we entered the conference room. “Long time no see, Kelli. I haven’t seen you since your birthday.”
“I know,” she said. She looked at Toni then back at me. “You guys had just started going out. I’m so happy for both of you.”
Toni smiled. “Thanks, sis. We’re happy, too.”
“And now it’s time for graduation,” I said. “You all ready to go?”
“Sure am,” she said.
“You feel happy or sad?” I asked.
“Happy. Definitely happy.”
I smiled. “That’s good. What’re you going to do?”
“I’m going to U-Dub,” she said. “I start in the fall. I’ve already been admitted.”
“Cool!” I said. “Outstanding! Do you know what you want to study yet?”
“Yep. I’m thinking LSJ-same as you guys.” The University of Washington offers a four-year bachelor’s degree in something they call Law, Societies, and Justice. Basically, it’s a fancy name for a criminal justice degree. Toni and I met in early 2007 when we were seniors in the LSJ program. I was still in the army, finishing my last year as a CID special agent. It’s a good education if you want to make law enforcement your career.
“LSJ-that’s cool,” I said. “Are you thinking about police work?”
“Pre-law,” Kelli said. “I want to be a DA.”
I smiled. “Excellent. Somebody to put the bad guys away. You’ll make a great DA. Runs in your family, I think.”
Toni smiled.
“Yeah, I think so, too,” Kelli said.
“Well, that’s good,” I said. I leaned back in my chair. “So what brings you here today?”
Her mood sobered quickly. Where she’d been happy and smiling a moment before, she suddenly turned somber.
“I have a friend,” she said. “I think she’s in trouble.”
Toni eyed her suspiciously, not certain if Kelli was referring to herself when she said “a friend” and, if she was, trying to determine what she meant by “in trouble.” Pregnant maybe? Big sister switching back into protective mode, I suppose.
“What kind of trouble,” Toni said.
“I think my friend Isabel’s been kidnapped,” Kelli said.
Whoa! That came out of left field! Toni and I both looked at Kelli as we scrambled to catch up mentally. “What do you mean, you think she’s been kidnapped?” Toni said.
“Hold up for a second,” I said, raising my hand. “Don’t answer that just yet.” Both girls looked at me. “Since the conversation’s headed this direction, let me grab a couple of notepads, so we can take notes and do this the right way.”
Toni looked at me for a second, and then she said, “Good idea.”
I took a couple of steno pads from the credenza behind the conference room table. While I was up, I grabbed three bottles of water.
“Kelli, why don’t you start from the very beginning,” I said as I sat back down. “Go slow. Give us plenty of details. Everything you can remember.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Start by giving us Isabel’s personal data. What’s her full name?” I asked.
“Isabel Delgado.”
“Do you know if she has a middle name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Address?”
“She lives at 4268 192nd Street in Lynnwood.”
“Just around the corner from us?” Toni asked. Toni grew up in a home on 189th Street in Lynnwood-the same home where Kelli still lived with their mother.
“Yeah,” Kelli said. “Isabel is in chorus with me. I got to know her last year. She’s just a sophomore now, but I used to d
rive her to school since we live so close to each other.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
“She just turned sixteen last month,” Kelli said. “On May seventh.”
“Physical description?”
“She’s Hispanic. A little shorter than me, with long, straight, dark hair,” Kelli said.
“Her eyes?”
“I think they’re black.”
“What’s her build? Is she heavy or thin?”
“She’s medium-maybe a little bit thin,” Kelli said. “But she has a really good figure.”
I wrote the information down.
“So what’s happened?” I asked, looking up. “Why do you say you think she’s been kidnapped?”
Kelli looked down at the table and gathered her thoughts. Then she looked up at me. She pushed her long hair back away from her face.
“Isabel’s had it hard,” she started. Toni and I both looked at her. I suppose the questions must have been obvious in our faces.
“At home, I mean.” That made it a little clearer.
“She’s had it hard?” I asked. “Is she being abused?” I didn’t want to come off as insensitive, but I usually find it helpful to move right to the heart of the issue-eliminate ambiguities.
Kelli nodded. “She was,” she said softly.
“Sexually?”
Kelli nodded. “Yeah.”
“You said ‘she was,’” Toni said. “And now?”
“She ran away on her sixteenth birthday,” Kelli said. “She called me once and texted me a few times, but now I haven’t heard from her in more than a week. I think something’s happened.”
I looked at her, then said, “Isabel ran away to escape abuse at home; while she was gone, she contacted you, and now she’s gone silent?”
“Yeah. Nothing since her last text.”
I wrote a couple of notes on my pad and then looked back up at her. “Let’s break this into stages, okay? First, let’s talk about Isabel’s home life. Let me ask you a few questions to help fill us in.”
“Alright,” she said.
“Let’s start by getting right to the point. Do you know who abused her?”
“Yeah. She said it was her stepfather,” Kelli said.
“Do you know his name?”
“Mm-hm. It’s Tracey.”
“Last name?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I know Isabel kept her father’s name. Her stepfather’s is different.”
“That’s alright,” Toni said. “We can look it up. Did you ever meet this guy?”
Kelli nodded. “Yeah, a few times.”
“Tell us about him,” Toni said.
“I’d say he’s older-probably in his forties,” Kelli said. “He’s a mechanic, I think. He mostly wears a uniform. He’s always dirty and grungy.”
“Where have you seen him?” Toni asked.
“At Isabel’s house. Sometimes, I’d drop Isabel off from school late-say four o’clock or so. Izzy’s mom goes to work in the afternoons and sometimes her stepfather would already be home.”
“He works days then?” I asked. “And her mom works nights?”
“Yeah. I think her stepfather must get off in the late afternoon.”
“What’s he like?” I asked.
“He creeped me out,” Kelli said. She shuddered as she said it.
“How so?”
“The way he used to look at me,” she said. “He basically drooled.” She shuddered again. “Just the thought of him gives me the creeps.”
“Did he ever say anything? Ever try anything?” Toni asked.
“He never tried anything with me,” Kelli said. “But he used to say I was pretty. Once he even said I had a pretty figure.”
“Really? He said that?” I turned to Toni. “That’s a pretty inappropriate thing to say to a minor.”
Toni was not happy. “Yeah, you think?”
Kelli continued. “I know. I got to the point where I would just drop Izzy off at the curb. I couldn’t stand going in.” She stared at the wall for a second, then tears welled up in her eyes. “Izzy didn’t have a choice, though. Maybe if I’d have done something, she wouldn’t have had it so bad.”
I looked at her and shook my head. “Done what? What could you have done? Don’t second-guess yourself like that. Hell, if I did that, I’d be a wreck. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t even know anything was happening. And if what Isabel said is true, the only one who did anything wrong was her stepfather. Don’t forget that, alright?”
“Besides,” Toni said. “Look at it. Now that you’ve discovered a problem, what are you doing? You’re trying to get help-just like you should. Danny’s right. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Kelli sniffed. “I guess,” she said.
Toni handed her a tissue from the box on the credenza.
“You ready to keep going?” Toni asked
“Yeah,” Kelli said.
“You said you’ve known her since last year?” Toni asked.
“Yes,” Kelli said. “When she was a freshman.”
“Did you ever see anything with her-any sort of sign that she might have been in some sort of trouble?”
She shook her head. “Other than her creep-job stepfather, no.”
“No bruises-no cuts-nothing like that?”
She shook her head again. “No, nothing. Not that I ever saw, anyway.”
We paused, and then I said, “Did you guys hang out other than at school?”
“Yeah, sometimes. We’d go to the mall sometimes.”
“Alderwood Mall?”
“Yeah. It’s right by our house.”
“Anything else?”
“We went to the movies a few times, too.”
“When did she tell you about what happened at her house? About her stepfather?”
Kelli sniffled. “Not until after she left.”
Toni and I both scribbled on our notepads. After a few seconds, Toni said, “Tell us about Isabel leaving home.”
“Okay. I called her on her birthday, but she didn’t answer, so I sent her a text. She called me back later the same day. She was like ‘Kelli-I ran away.’”
“And then she told you what happened?”
Kelli nodded. She started to cry again. “She said it was because her stepfather raped her,” she said.
“She said that?” I asked. “In those words?”
Kelli’s face was red with anguish. “Yes,” she said. Toni got up and put her arm around her sister as Kelli sobbed quietly into her tissue.
A couple of minute later, she composed herself and continued. “She said she wasn’t going to put up with him anymore, so she ran away. I offered to come and pick her up, but she wouldn’t tell me where she was-at least not then. I think she was afraid that if I knew, I might rat her out accidentally. I told her she could come stay with us, but she said that she didn’t want us to get in trouble. She thought that her mom or her stepfather would come over looking for her. She made me promise not to say anything to anybody.”
“Did they?” I asked. “Did her parents come looking for her?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“So she’s been gone a month, and they haven’t even come looking? Do you think that her mom or her stepfather would have come to ask you if you knew anything?” Toni asked.
“Sure,” Kelli said. “They know about me. They know Izzy and I are good friends.”
“What happened next?” I asked.
Kelli opened her purse and pulled out her phone. She opened the text message window.
“A couple of days after she called, she sends me a text.” She handed me the phone. Toni leaned over, and we both read it.
Isabel Delgado 5/9/12 7:32 PM
Met a cool girl named Crystal at the mall. Staying with her and her boyfriend Donnie for now. IOK.:^) LYLAS
“I don’t know much about texting. IOK stands for ‘I’m okay’?” I asked.
“Yes,” Toni said.
“How about LYLAS?”
That one stumped Toni. Kelli said, “It means ‘Love you like a sister.’” She sniffed and wiped her nose. “Now scroll down,” she said. I did. The next message was one day later.
Isabel Delgado 5/10/12 4:56 PM
Went shopping for clothes-Crystal loaned me $$. Looking good!:^) LYLAS
“Again,” she said. “A week later.”
I scrolled down again.
Isabel Delgado 5/18/12 11:24 PM
Kicking it with Donnie’s friend Mikey. He’s the bomb, and we’re into each other.:^) LYLAS
“And then the last one,” she said. “A week ago.”
I scrolled down again.
Isabel Delgado 5/28/ 12 5:17 PM
Kelli-2G2BT.:(LYLAS
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“2G2BT? It means ‘too good to be true.’”
“Too good to be true and a little frowny-face thing,” I said. “I wonder what she meant by that?”
“Something must have happened,” Toni said. “Something she didn’t like, by the sound of it.”
“Seems that way,” I said. I thought for a second. “It’s amazing how four little text messages can tell a story like that.” I punched the intercom button and called Kenny into the conference room. When he arrived, I asked Kelli, “Do you mind if I get Kenny to pull copies of your text messages off your phone?”
“No,” she said. “That’d be okay.”
“And can you give us Isabel’s cell phone number?”
“Yeah,” she said. She read the number off, and all three of us wrote it down.
Kenny left with the phone. I turned to Toni. “What do you think?”
She thought for a second and then said, “Sounds like we need to find Isabel.”
I nodded. “I agree,” I said. “The sooner, the better.”
Kelli smiled, tears flowing again. “Thanks, you guys. Thank you so much.”
I smiled at her. “We’ll find her.” I thought for a second. “But if we do,” I said, “where will we take her? We can’t very well take her back to her home.”
“First things first,” Toni said. “Let’s focus on finding her for now. Then we’ll worry about where to take her.”
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