Stan, with the help of his colleagues at SAPD, had identified the two dead girls. One sixteen, the other seventeen. The blonde and younger of the two attended a public high school in Medina County. The older girl was enrolled in a private school in San Marcos. As of now, no one knew if they had been friends or had ever crossed paths, or how they had ended up in a San Antonio church that was also considered a historic landmark. And most importantly, law enforcement officials had yet to find any evidence that narrowed the suspect pool to a workable number.
“We still have hope the ME’s report will give us something to go on,” Stan had told me on the phone just before I’d hopped out of my car at the Romero household.
I leaned against the brick wall, relieving some of the stress on my wound. “Weren’t they supposed to meet us here ten minutes ago?”
Cristina nodded and smiled and kept texting. Did she even hear me?
“How long has it been since you punched the doorbell?” She mumbled something, and I snatched the phone out of her hands.
“Hey, that’s mine,” she said, instantly sounding like she was five and someone had just taken her Legos.
“Just looking for a response.” I handed it back.
“Yes, and five minutes ago?”
I turned my head. “Huh?”
“You think I wasn’t listening. Yes, they were supposed to meet us here ten minutes ago. And I last punched the doorbell five minutes ago.” She looked at her phone again. “Check that. Six minutes ago.”
Just then, the front door opened, and Consuela appeared out of the darkness. Her face was so puffy I could barely make out her brown eyes.
17
I shot a glance at Cristina, then turned back to Consuela. She had two creases swooping across her face. “We didn’t see you come home,” I said.
“I…I fell asleep. I came home early from work, and I got online and continued reaching out to people, trying to see if anyone had any information about Mia.” She pushed a lock of hair out of her face, but it didn’t come close to reining in all of her crazy hair. “No one had any information, and I got upset, found it hard to breathe. So I took a pain pill.” She turned and mumbled something, pointing inside.
“Is this a bad time?”
“No…no.” She turned around so quickly she had to grab hold of the door to keep from falling. “Finding Mia is the priority, no matter how I feel.” She pressed her fingers into the corners of her eyes. “Please, please come in.”
We padded into the small foyer and paused a moment. The home was sparsely decorated, but with all the necessities. A plaid-covered couch and chair took up most of the space in a small living area. The kitchen was compact, with a basic fridge, a toaster, yellow counters, and a small dining table. One hallway went off to the right.
“I’ll fix some coffee to help me wake up.”
She walked three steps and grabbed hold of the couch, then wobbled a bit as she made it to the counter in the kitchen. She looked like a toddler learning how to walk. Cristina gave me one of those doubtful looks, as if she wondered if Consuela had taken more than just a pain pill.
“Can I make either of you a cup?” Consuela said from the kitchen.
“We’re good,” I said.
“Raul should be home shortly. Trying to fit in work at the same time we’re searching for Mia has been trying on both of us.”
“I wish it was different, Consuela. I’m sorry you’re not comfortable in going to the police. Any chance of you and Raul reconsidering?”
She turned for a moment. “I don’t think so. Raul isn’t very trusting right now. We’ve heard so many stories of good, hard-working friends being picked up at their work, like a construction site, and being carted off, sent back across the border, separated from their families. We can’t take that chance.”
I planned to make another attempt at convincing Raul to go to the police once he got home, although he seemed more paranoid than Consuela.
As she made her coffee, we moved into the kitchen area. The unpainted and unfinished wooden table was covered with flyers of Mia. Since this was still a grassroots effort, I wondered how they were managing the information that was coming in. “When we spoke earlier this morning, you said you and Raul had received somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty calls.”
“Twenty-two as of this morning at seven. Now…” She sipped her coffee and shuffled to her right, ran a finger down a legal pad. “Now, we’re up to twenty-seven.”
“How does that work?” Cristina asked, dropping her phone hand to her side. I wondered why she didn’t put the damn thing away. It seemed like she valued that phone more than anything in her life. I knew it was a connection to her friends, but still… What about her music? She used to be into playing her guitar, performing at small venues. Maybe that was a trend that had come and gone.
“How does what work?” Consuela asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“So the number on the flyer is your home number. But how do you know when someone calls if you’re not here?”
“We have an answering machine. I dropped by in between two of the homes I clean and checked messages. Raul isn’t allowed to leave his work. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best we can do.”
“Hmm.” Cristina walked over and picked up the home phone. “Maybe I can make this work a little more efficiently for you. Can I take a look at your cell phone?” Consuela grabbed her purse off a kitchen chair, pulled out her phone, and handed it to Cristina, who quickly went to work.
Consuela shuffled closer to me, downing the coffee in quick order. She seemed more lucid. “You said earlier that you had information about these two other crimes, the one at Mia’s school and the one at the church. Two girls were actually…?” She looked off, took a hard swallow.
I gave her the limited information I had. “But the SAPD is still hoping the full report from the medical examiner will turn up a solid lead.” What I didn’t share was that I’d spent a good portion of the day studying up on Satanism. There had been no evidence at the church that connected the murdered girls to anything related to devil worshipping. But I couldn’t get past how similar the two crime scenes were, as well as the fact that both crimes occurred during the same basic window of time.
A thought hit me. Was there a chance that the same person could have committed both crimes? On some levels, the premise didn’t work. One had created a makeshift altar, sacrificed animals, and purposely left a symbol that emphatically connected the killings to Satanism. The double homicide at the church didn’t go there. Still, though, could someone be playing games, maybe just to keep investigators guessing? Possible, but the more I thought about the idea of one person committing both crimes, it seemed like a stretch.
Maybe the perpetrators knew each other. Or maybe they’re rivals. That theory held my thoughts for an extra moment. I’d originally believed that the perps who sacrificed the animals at the field house were high school kids. It was still possible, of course. At the same time, how many adults and teens interacted online through video games? It wasn’t my scene, but I knew online gaming was practically an obsession. “What are you thinking about?” Consuela said, shaking me out of my daze.
“A few things. Nothing solid.”
She then asked about what I’d witnessed at the high school. As I updated her, I realized we’d yet to hear back from Principal Peterson on the video footage. I would contact him or Stan right after we left the Romeros’ home.
“Killing animals, devil worshipping symbols. I’m not naïve. I know this kind of thing happens, but here, at Mia’s high school? If she wasn’t missing, I’d still be upset.” She glanced down at the flyers, then shifted her eyes back to me. “Do you think Mia’s disappearance is somehow connected to the sacrifices at the high school?”
“I’ve wondered the same thing. But it’s just a guess right now.” I explained how the principal was looking through the video footage.
“What the hell is taking him so long?”
“I can’t argue that. I’ll be making some calls after we leave here.”
As she poured herself another cup of coffee, I sent a text to Stan asking if he’d received feedback from Principal Peterson yet.
“Well, I know your time is valuable,” Consuela said. “I know you want to take a look around Mia’s room. Let me take you there.”
I waved my hand to get Cristina’s attention. She was still fiddling with the two phones, but looked up and said, “I’ll be right behind you.”
Consuela led the way down the hall. It was dark. The light bulb on the side of the wall was either not working or just not on. The carpet under my shoes was frayed, and I saw at least a couple of holes in the wall along our path. Just before the end of the hallway, there was a closed door with a poster of a motorcycle on it. I pointed at the room.
“That’s Daniel’s room.” She sighed, placed her hand on the door. “We’ve yet to go through his things. Every time we think about it, we delay it a little longer. And now…” She flipped around to the last door on the left. “Mia.” That was all she said. Nothing else was needed. Her torment was obvious, like a thousand-pound weight.
She pushed open Mia’s door. My eyes did a double take. Her room was full of color. Pinks and purples mostly. My eyes were drawn to a shelf full of trophies and medals. Photographs attached with a string were affixed to the wall above her bed, strung at least fifteen feet. I moved closer. “This is Mia,” I said just above a whisper.
“And her friends, yes.” She paused a moment. “She’s so unique. Most girls have the same group of friends throughout high school. Mia doesn’t. I mean, she’s friendly with everyone, but her core friends have changed over time. I guess it just shows how confident she is.”
Cristina ambled into the room. “Nice setup,” she said, nodding. Then she handed Consuela her phone. “Every time you get a call on your home line, it will call your cell phone.” She then explained to Consuela how to add Raul’s phone to the group.
“Thank you, Cristina. This is very helpful.”
“Sure thing. I also set up a group text with you, Raul, me, and Ivy. If you get any clues that you think are valid, just fire off a text to us, and then we’ll contact the person who gave you the tip.”
“Wonderful.” She took in a deep breath, but one that had little energy to it. “I’ll leave both of you in here to look around. Nothing is off limits. I’m going to jump on my computer and see if anyone has offered further information online.”
She disappeared, and I went back to the pictures on the wall, shuffling across the room. “Interesting.”
“What?” Cristina asked, moving up next to me.
“So this is basically a chronology of friends and events of Mia’s life in high school. But I don’t see a single picture of a guy. Which means no pictures of her boyfriend.”
I looked at Cristina, who was back on her phone, texting and grinning.
“This is kind of important, you know,” I said to get her attention. She kept her head down, her thumbs peppering her phone screen. “We could learn something here. Maybe we already have.”
She finally lifted her eyes. “I see two options. Either Mia was lying about having a boyfriend, or they had one ugly breakup.”
18
Now that I finally had Cristina’s attention—or rather, she had mine—I tested each theory. “Okay, so let’s suppose she was lying about having a boyfriend.”
Cristina held up her phone hand. “Let’s remember, the only people who confirmed she had a boyfriend were her parents.”
“True,” I said, tapping my finger against my chin. “That’s something we should be able to verify if we can talk to any of her classmates.” I lifted both eyebrows.
“You want me to do that?”
“I guess I could go to the principal and ask if he could bring a few of her friends to the office and I could quiz them there.”
“I thought you said that guy was kind of a prick.”
“Not kind of. He just is.”
She smirked. “You do something like that, and word will get out all over the school that you’re snooping. You’ll either start getting the fringe offering up crazy conspiracy theories, or people will just go mute. If there’s anything going on that’s connected to Mia’s disappearance, then we might never find out. Not quickly anyway. And doesn’t Stan always say that the longer someone is missing, the chances at finding them alive drop like a dead weight?”
I glanced at the door. “Keep it down, will you? And tell me you didn’t purposely try to use that distasteful pun.”
She shrugged. “I’m a teenager. Sometimes I say shit I don’t mean. What can I say?”
I arched a single eyebrow.
“At least I admit it when I screw up.”
“Okay, so it sounds like you’re actually agreeing that you’re the best person to reach out and try to locate a friend of Mia’s. Someone that Consuela and Raul may not know.”
She swiveled her phone between her finger and thumb. I kept thinking it would slip out of her hand and drop to the floor. She seemed unfazed by the potential risk of ruining an expensive gadget. “I’ve already been asking around…in a casual way, where no one would notice.”
“Any leads?”
“Nope.”
“Any weird rumors about whether she left on her own, or if someone took her?”
“Nope.”
“Have you interacted with anyone who claimed to know her?”
“Uh…maybe.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “And when were you going to tell me about this connection?”
She mimicked my folded-arms act. So sassy. “The minute I verify this person actually knows Mia.”
I gestured toward the phone. “What are you waiting on? Verify away.”
“Look, Ivy, I know we just said that time is uber important, but I can’t walk in and start swinging a baseball bat…virtually, of course.”
“Yeah, I get it. How long do you think it will take you?”
“Well, this one person I met in a chat room last night…she doesn’t use her real name, of course. Her online name is NSBitch.”
“I’m sure her parents are proud,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“I’m sure her parents have no clue she uses that name. And we want to make sure she doesn’t think I’m affiliated with anyone of that type.”
I turned my head.
“You know, old parent types, like you.”
I shook off her categorization. “NS. Wonder what that’s all about.”
“Probably her initials.”
“I bet we could get a school directory without too much effort. Maybe we could ask Stan to do a favor for us. I don’t know. He’s pretty damn busy with that double homicide investigation.”
Cristina shook her head. “Doesn’t she know,” she said, pointing a finger down the hall, “that they’re making it ten times more difficult by not going to the cops?”
“They’re afraid, Cristina. And as much as I’d like to convince them, I don’t think they’re going to change their minds.”
“All they have to do is file a missing-persons report, or whatever you want to call it.”
I held out my hands to signal for her to take it down a notch. “We’re lucky that Stan is helping us out. And now that there’s been a crime committed on school grounds, he has another reason to be there.”
Cristina began to look around the room, opening Mia’s desk drawer, searching through books on her bookcase. I fired off another text to Stan, asking if he could pick up a school directory the next time he was at the school.
Before I’d even put my phone away, I received a response.
Not much time to focus on school crime. Taking late jog, then going to ME’s office to review final report. He expedited the request.
I curled my lip, assessing the good news/bad news. Good to see at least some progress and focus on the murders of the girls at the church. But the animal sacrifice and Mia’s disappearanc
e seemed to be taking a back seat.
I thought about another avenue and thumbed a quick text back to Stan. But before I hit send, I paused. What if he didn’t agree with my idea, for whatever reason? Then I would have used my best card—maybe my only card. I deleted the text. “Better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission,” I whispered aloud.
“Where did that come from?” Cristina asked, as she thumbed through a book.
“Nowhere.”
“I like it. I might have to use that sometime with ECHO business.”
I silently cursed myself as I made my way over to Mia’s nightstand. It wasn’t full of disorganized junk. She had a basic clock radio, a couple of bracelets, three hair barrettes—yellow, pink, and purple—and a stack of index cards. I picked them up and read the first one. “Big Rules for Basketball” was the title at the top. There were six so-named rules under the title, finishing with “Keep butt down on defense—don’t take the fakes.”
Sounded like she really knew the game, which made sense if she was the captain of the team. I moved on to the second index card. “Big Rules for Physics” was the title of this one. Sifting through the remaining cards, I found similar Big Rules for not only every class, but every important topic a teenage girl might have in her life: Big Rules for Being a Leader, Big Rules for National Honor Society, Big Rules for Staying Positive.
This girl was amazing. It was like I’d stumbled upon a cheat sheet on how a teenage girl should approach life. I found two more cards. Big Rules for SAT. It had only one rule and it was written in all caps—STUDY LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO COLLEGE.
“Check this out, Cristina,” I said, holding up the card so she could see it. She’d just opened the top drawer to Mia’s dresser.
She turned in my direction. “I can’t see it.”
“It says, STUDY LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO COLLEGE.”
“I can’t hear you.”
She was bullshitting me. It was difficult enough to get her back into high school. Asking her to think about college, apparently, was like asking her when she planned to travel to Mars.
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 59