Look for Me

by Lisa Gardner

  “According to the rumor mill.”

  “State bureaucrats don’t usually go around killing off potential lawsuits,” Alex said.

  “No, but the people who risked being exposed in such a lawsuit might not be so squeamish about it. We visited the foster care home, Mother Del’s, today. That place gave me the heebie-jeebies. What if it is a front for some kind of child sex ring? Now, there would be plenty of people with motive to keep things quiet.”

  “We won’t be seeing you tomorrow,” Alex said.

  “No, I’m sorry.” D.D. looked down. Kiko was licking her fingers where she’d been holding the treat. The dog’s touch was very gentle. D.D. stroked her ears again. Earned a tentative tail wag.

  “Somehow, I doubt Jack will miss me,” she said ruefully, admiring the latest member of their family.

  “But he will always love you. And, most likely, send you dozens of photos before the day is done.”

  D.D. smiled. “That would be nice.”

  “Do you have any sense of how this is going to play out?” Alex asked. “How long can one teenager remain missing in a city with eyes and ears everywhere?”

  D.D. shook her head. “Honestly, with this girl? This case? I have no idea what’s gonna happen next.”

  Chapter 26

  I RETURNED TO SARAH’S APARTMENT shortly after midnight. I’d breezed by the hospital to learn that Hector Alvalos was still there, asleep, in stable condition. I’d also counted a number of uniformed patrol officers, clearly keeping an eye out. I was tempted to nod to each and every one of them, investigator to investigator. But I didn’t know if my new role as CI actually garnered me any respect from other cops.

  Next I returned to the coffee shop where the shooting had taken place, then headed to the empty office space across the street. Doubling back was a time-honored technique used by many a prey to avoid the hunt. But the space was dark and empty. No sign of Roxanna Baez anywhere.

  There was only one other place I could think of to check for the missing teen. Not the smartest choice, but then, sometimes you just couldn’t help yourself.

  I walked to Roxy Baez’s home.

  The sidewalk in front of the house was empty of people, but a memorial had been started on the fence line. One of those spontaneous collections of flowers, candles, stuffed animals, often left in the wake of a tragedy. I spied a soccer ball, some toy cars, several handwritten notes: You are forever in our hearts, et cetera, et cetera. Then, tucked in the corner, nearly lost under a bouquet of carnations, a glass bottle. Tequila. Never opened.

  I hunched down, inspected it closer.

  Who’d left a bottle of booze at a memorial for a murdered alcoholic? An old drinking buddy? One of Juanita Baez’s AA friends?

  What did it mean anyway? One last toast to a fallen comrade? Or drunks got what they deserved?

  I looked up and down the street. But this time of night, all the houses were quiet. Nothing stirred.

  I wondered if Roxanna Baez had stopped by. If grief had driven her to this scene. If she’d stood here, wondering about her family’s last moments. Was she grateful that she’d been out walking the dogs? Or was she sorry she’d been gone? Because if she’d been in the home, maybe she would’ve been able to stop the shooter? Or at least join her family’s fate?

  I didn’t know. The girl had only become part of our group recently, and all of us still had more questions than answers. Such was the nature of survivors. We doled out our stories slowly, over time. Even for ourselves, some experiences were too much to be shared all at once.

  With the streets quiet and my only good ideas exhausted, I headed to Sarah’s apartment. I half expected to walk through the door and find Roxy, but no, there was only Sarah, sitting at the tiny table, typing briskly on her laptop.

  “Mike Davis?” I asked. Sarah and I rarely bothered with small talk.

  “Followed him to Starbucks. When he didn’t come outside again, I thought I’d lost him. But it turns out he works there as a barista. I left him foaming his hundredth latte. No way I can hang out for an entire shift without him wising up.”

  I nodded, pulled out the chair across from her. “I walked by Roxy’s house. Neighbors have started a memorial at the fence line. Someone left a bottle of cheap tequila. Who leaves booze for a dead alcoholic?”

  “Edgy choice,” Sarah said, still typing away.

  “Exactly my thought. So who has cause to be mad at Juanita Baez?”

  “Clearly, someone who was impacted by her drinking.”

  “You mean other than her kids, who were taken away and stuck in foster care because their mom couldn’t get her act together?”

  “I’d be pissed about that,” Sarah agreed. “But what are the odds of Roxy having the time to buy a bottle of tequila and then sneak back to the one place in the city with the highest concentration of cops looking for her and get away with it?”

  “Juanita Baez was asking questions about the time Roxy and Lola spent at foster care. Maybe those questions were raising hackles. I got to talk to another one of their fellow foster mates tonight. Her name is Anya and let’s just say she’s not the happiest girl in town.”

  “She’s from the same place Mike Davis lives?”

  “Yep. The infamous Mother Del’s.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Apparently just the kind of loving environment to drive Lola Baez to join a gang and seek revenge on the head bully, the recently deceased Roberto.”

  “Lola Baez was part of a gang?”

  “Hispanic girl gang. Las Niñas Diablas.” I paused. “Could they have been the ones to leave the tequila? Toast to a fallen comrade?” I shook my head. There were still too many things I didn’t know.

  Sarah was staring at me. “That would explain all the posts in Spanish.”

  “Posts?”

  “The virtual memorial I created, remember? So we could track visiting IP addresses.”

  Of course. Sarah angled her laptop toward me. I eyed the screen, which seemed to be an endless scroll of posts.

  “Very active,” Sarah confirmed. “Some seem to be strangers, drawn to the tragedy of a family being gunned down. But also some of the coworkers from Juanita’s hospital, contractors, clients who worked with the guy Charlie. Some of Manny’s classmates, a couple of teachers. But then, all this stuff in Spanish. I’ve been running them through Google Translate.”

  “What do they talk about?”

  “Revenge.”

  I paused, studied the screen. “As in they got revenge? That’s why they shot Lola? Or they now want revenge?”

  “As in they’re now seeking it. Against”—Sarah had to click over to a new screen—“Las Malvadas. Which loosely translates to the Fiends.”

  “So we have the Devil Girls versus the Fiends?”

  “Sounds better in Spanish.”

  I frowned, tapped the table. “What do we know about either gang?”

  “Umm, working on that. Gangs seem to operate on a feeder system. You know, first you’re a Cub Scout, then a Boy Scout? Well, thirteen-year-olds start out as, say, Devil Girls, earning their stripes before joining the higher-ranking organization, Las Diablas, which is the female counterpart to Los Diablos.”

  “How do you earn your stripes?” I asked, though I had a feeling I already knew.

  “Sex and violence. Mostly on behalf of the parent organizations, so to speak. In general, it sounds like the female gang members exist to, um, service the men—”

  “Even the thirteen-year-olds?”

  “Yep. Which can lead to some drama. He’s mine. No, he’s mine. It sounds like feuding is actively encouraged, and if you need to take a knife to your rival to claim your man once and for all, that’s not a bad thing. But the gangs are also actively involved in the drug trade. So battle stripes also include working a territory, defending a territory, seizing
new territory, et cetera.”

  “And by territory, I’m guessing you mean middle schools, playgrounds, neighborhood parks?”

  “You would make an excellent gang member,” Sarah assured me.

  “Until it was time to put out and I cut off his penis instead.”

  “That might lead to some issues.”

  “What do the gang members get out of this? A feeling of belonging? Security? Because that seemed to be what Lola was looking for.”

  “Exactly. Gangs exist here for the same reason they exist anywhere. Lots of lost kids living in poverty. Making it on your own equals loneliness, if not homelessness. Pledge loyalty to the local gang, however, and boom, instant family.”

  “Lola had a family,” I said softly.

  Sarah looked at me. “Roxy was scared. From the time I met her, she was clearly terrified. Meaning whatever the threat was . . .”

  “Family wouldn’t be enough to save them.” I nodded slowly. “Lola was beautiful. She came from a household with a history of addiction and wasn’t considered terribly stable herself. For her, maybe gang life seemed an exciting choice.”

  “From what I’ve read, she’d be a natural. Beautiful, dramatic, quick to fight back.”

  “In return, maybe they helped her with her project, kill her former nemesis Roberto.”

  “The bully from foster care?”

  “His girlfriend, Anya, swears Roberto loved her too much to commit suicide. Not to mention they had this whole plan to escape Brighton and make it big in New York. Therefore, his death had to be Lola’s doing. Her homey friends shot Roberto, drove him to shoot himself, something like that. Also, to hear Anya talk, Lola and Roxy weren’t exactly helpless victims at Mother Del’s. They learned to give as good as they got.”

  “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 Niñas 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.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you want to live happily ever after?”

  “I’m not sure I know what that is.”

  “Husband? Kids?”

  “I can’t imagine ever trusting a man that much. I can’t imagine small life-forms depending on me that much.”

  Sarah nodded thoughtfully. “Survivor’s guilt?” she asked me.

  “Probably.”

  “You saved that college student. You’re working on saving me. And now Roxy. Will that make a difference?”

  I had to smile. “Sarah, I never want to trivialize what you went through, but in the end, you had one really bad night—”

  “Whereas you had four hundred and seventy-two really bad days?”

  “Something like that. Do you like our gr
oup?” I asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Does it help?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then I’m happy this is what I do. It’s enough. For now.”

  “Really? Then what’s with your left hand?”

  I tucked it against my side reflexively, as if steeling for a blow. “Just a sparring injury—”

  “Don’t lie. Don’t tell me the truth if you’re not ready to tell me the truth, but don’t lie. You’re all I’ve got, Flora. You lie to me . . .”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Like you said. Four hundred and seventy-two really bad days. I get that.”

  I stared down at my left hand. The white bandage spotted red. And I felt ashamed. Genuinely ashamed. But not enough to talk.

  After more than a year with Jacob, maybe I simply didn’t have that much shame left.

  “Crash here?” Sarah was asking. “I don’t feel like being alone tonight.”

  “Sure,” I said, willing myself not to pick at the bandage anymore.

  Sarah closed up her computer. We’d done this drill before, especially in the beginning when her nightmares had been at their worst. She got out the extra blankets and pillow. We took turns brushing our teeth in the tiny bathroom. Pajamas for her, oversized T-shirt for me. I crashed on the sofa. Sarah tucked in to her single bed.

  In the dark, I could feel the bandage on my left hand again. And just beneath the surface, a wooden splinter, embedded deep.

  So much time in the beginning. Alone in a coffin-sized box. Where I stabbed my fingers into the crudely bored air holes, and played with the slivers in my fingertips simply to have something to do.

  Pain then, sharp and grounding.

  Pain now, exquisite and familiar.

  The ways I have healed. The ways I’m still broken.

  I wondered where Roxy Baez was right now. Was she sleeping, collapsed from an exhausting day? Or even now plotting her next steps?

  But when I finally fell asleep, I didn’t dream of Roxy. As I still did too often, I dreamed of Jacob Ness. He was smiling as he closed his clawlike fingers around my shoulders. Then reached down and slowly lifted up my bandaged hand.