Look for Me

by Lisa Gardner

  “I thought the state didn’t allow more than four kids until recently?”

  “There have always been waivers for special circumstances. Now such waivers are simply more common.”

  “Does Mother Del have any kids of her own?”

  “No kids, never been married. She taught kindergarten before taking disability. Then she got into foster care, completing the training courses.”

  “She own that house?”

  “House was an inheritance from her own family three decades ago. On paper, she has a brother, but I haven’t located him yet. She is listed as the sole owner of the property.”

  “So she’s a professional foster care provider, so to speak. Takes in the kids, piles them up, cashes the checks.”

  “She makes sixty to seventy thousand a year, tax free,” Meekham agreed.

  “No mortgage on the house?”

  “No.”

  “So where does the money go? It’s not a huge amount for Boston, but with no mortgage, she should be doing pretty well. Based on what I saw, at least, she’s not spending the money on feeding the kids.”

  “She has a modest savings account. Buys a new van every five years. Property taxes are more substantial than you might think. Also, according to her credit card, she spends a lot of money at Walmart, ostensibly on baby supplies, kid clothes, et cetera. All in all, her financial records are clean. No large deposits, no large withdrawals.”

  D.D. frowned. That seemed to eliminate any chance of, say, a sex ring or child pornography, which would leave behind a trail of unexplained income.

  “I’m still working on tracking down any additional accounts,” Meekham said, as if reading her mind. “It’s possible she has offshore banking, Bitcoins, hell if I know. As I said, I’ve only had the case a matter of weeks.”

  “She might have other accounts under different names, aliases,” D.D. supplied.

  “Exactly.”

  “How about complaints against Mother Del?”

  “Plenty. But none that caused immediate concern. She’s been written up for overcrowding, received citations for lack of cleanliness. Several notes that the food, meals, barely meet minimum requirements. She’s been investigated twice after children in her care were taken to the emergency room. Nothing that ever rose to the level of inciting disciplinary action, however. To review her file, she’s not the best foster care provider in town. But she’s not the worst either, and in an overstretched system, someone like her can slide by.”

  “What were your next steps?”

  “I was trying to find the photos.”

  “Photos?” D.D. asked in surprise.

  “Umm . . .” She could hear the sound of a man digging through papers. “One thing my investigator did find, talking to the high school counselor Tricia Lobdell Cass: There was a rumor this past spring that a fellow student was bragging about having inappropriate photos of both Lola and Roxanna Baez. Interestingly enough, this boy had also been staying at Mother Del’s during the time they were there.”

  “Was his name Roberto?” D.D. asked with a sinking feeling.

  “Roberto Faillon. Yes. Now talk about a rap sheet. Kid already had a file a mile thick for petty theft, assault, disorderly conduct, vandalism, you name it. Regular hoodlum in the making. According to Ms. Lobdell Cass, there was some buzz at the end of the school year about these photos. You know how high schools can be. There are group texts where information can be disseminated. Social media accounts all the kids know about, where they can continue the day’s torture from the comfort of their own homes. The rumor was that Roberto posted an inappropriate photo of a seminude female classmate on some school loop for other students to see, but the quality of the image wasn’t good enough to make out the face of the girl. When the school got wind of it, the principal pulled Roberto into his office. But Roberto claimed innocence. The photo had already disappeared from the internet. Probably to be posted under a new social media account the very next day.”

  “Did the principal seize Roberto’s phone?”

  “I’m told the principal went through Roberto’s phone, with the boy’s permission. Couldn’t find anything. Gave it back.”

  “Which means nothing at all,” D.D. said. “Roberto could’ve uploaded the photos to the cloud to retrieve later, swapped out phones, a million other tricks.”

  “To look at Roberto’s file, I would assume he was well versed in tricks.”

  “So it’s possible he did have some photos, maybe taken while he and the girls were all together at Mother Del’s.” D.D. shook her head. The rumor mill could be harsh in high school. Lola and Roxy wouldn’t be the first two girls to find themselves victims of a shaming campaign, regardless of whether such photos even existed. No wonder Roxy was stressed out.

  And no wonder Lola had been driven to join a gang.

  “What happened next?” she asked, though she had a pretty good idea.

  “Roberto shot himself. Late May, early June? And all the rumors and innuendo died with him.”

  “The photos?” D.D. asked. “Someone must’ve ended up with his phone.”

  “Had the same thought myself. In fact, just put in a call to the local PD last week trying to find out if they seized his phone as part of processing the scene. According to the school counselor, the photos seemed to disappear with Roberto’s death. But if the images still exist somewhere, and they are from the girls’ time in foster care . . . Roxy was only eleven. Lola, eight. By definition, those photos would be child porn. Highly illegal, not to mention a very powerful tool in my client’s case.”

  “But you haven’t found the phone.”

  “It seems to have disappeared. Roberto had a girlfriend, Anya Seton. To date, she’s been less than cooperative with my investigator.”

  “I’ve met her,” D.D. volunteered. “‘Less than cooperative’ would be an understatement.” She chewed her lower lip. Kiko had returned, was actively nudging her hand. She’d forgotten about her throwing duties. D.D. got back to work.

  “Have you checked for other accounts in Roberto Faillon’s name? Say, on the cloud, or other imaging sites? I mean, if Roberto was threatening the girls with these pictures, or even just amusing himself by torturing them with the knowledge of their existence, he’d want to have the images backed up.”

  “I was working on it.”

  D.D. nodded. She’d get her computer techs on it, as well. Not to mention she was now remembering the lack of social media information on the computer in the girls’ bedroom. Neil had said there was no obvious trace of Instagram accounts, Snapchat, the like. Not to mention the browser history had recently been cleared.

  Had Roxy deleted all the online history and social media accounts? One more attempt to protect her sister from graphic images she was afraid might appear there? Or had Roxy received copies of the photos as some kind of ongoing threat and, after viewing them, tried to clear her computer’s hard drive?

  Except, of course, truly deleting a computer’s memory involved many more steps than most users were aware of. The information couldn’t simply be erased, but had to also be written over with new data, utilizing specialized software designed for just such purposes. Meaning, odds were, Boston PD’s computer geeks could rebuild anything Roxy had been trying to hide. D.D. would need to follow up with Phil after this.

  “Do you know who handled Roberto’s suicide?” she asked the lawyer.

  Meekham provided her with the name of the officer in charge from BPD’s Brighton field office.

  “Do you think Juanita had a case?” she asked him now.

  Silence, as the lawyer considered the question. “I think the more I asked questions,” he stated at last, “the less I understood the answers. When you’ve been in my business this long . . . that’s a pretty big red flag. Something happened. What, how bad, I’m still not sure. But there’s something hinky about the setup
at Mother Del’s. And definitely something was going on with this Roberto kid and the alleged photos. Enough curiosities, at least, that I had planned to keep on digging. For the record, Juanita couldn’t afford a retainer, meaning in a case like this, my compensation would come from the back end. So if the case did seem like an obvious dead end . . .”

  “You’d give up, move on.”

  “I wasn’t moving on.”

  “And if you did find some evidence of misconduct during the girls’ time in foster care?”

  “Two young girls abused while under state care in a licensed foster care home? We’re talking damages in the millions. Not to mention, given all the kids that have passed through Mother Del’s . . .”

  “You’d look for other victims. Potentially file a class action suit.”

  “Tens of millions. Motive enough for me to keep working,” Meekham assured her.

  “Motive enough,” D.D. replied, “for someone to silence the family once and for all.”

  Chapter 29

  I DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. The thing with trauma. Even after all these years, the nights were long and filled with too many shadows. I listened to Sarah toss and turn, mumble names of people who were most likely dead. I dreamed of Jacob. Forced myself back to wakefulness. Tried out some deep-breathing exercises, imagining a beam of golden light, breathing it in, feeling it spread to my calves, my knees, my hips.

  Lost it, relaunched it. Lost it again.

  I’d always sucked at mindfulness.

  Two A.M., I moved on to staring at the ceiling and reviewing what I knew about Roxanna Baez. By four A.M., I was convinced I needed to find the girl one way or another. By five A.M., I thought I’d figured out how.

  Geographic profiling. Her hideout had to be within walking distance of all our known targets: her house, the high school, the coffee shop, Mother Del’s. And not just because there was no way she’d boarded a bus or subway without someone spotting her, but because she was operating from a place of fear. What did you do when you were afraid? You went to ground. Somewhere in your comfort zone, where you knew your resources and had friends such as Mike Davis to assist.

  Roxy Baez had to be holed up somewhere in Brighton.

  At six, I took over Sarah’s laptop and started my search.

  First, a map of Brighton, which, according to Google, comprised only 2.78 square miles. I marked the four locations we knew Roxy Baez knew. That brought me to an area of approximately 1.2 square miles. Not a huge search zone in terms of size, but still formidable in terms of density. So many buildings and businesses, public and private. I tried a real estate search for available commercial spaces, thinking of her trick of hijacking the vacant office space across from the coffee shop. I got more than a dozen hits.

  I sat back, thought harder.

  If I were her, right now, what would I want most? Safety. Someplace where I could move around unnoticed. Given that, vacant commercial space might not be the best bet. What if someone nearby questioned why a lone female was going in and out of unoccupied rentals, or spotted a light on at night where no light should be?

  Best bet for hiding? That old adage, hide in plain sight. Someplace so busy, so public, you could come and go without attracting attention.

  Next order of business? Resources. Access to food and water. Who knew how long she might be holed up. If she’d followed my guidelines for her bugout bag, then she probably had a few protein bars and bottles of water, but a girl couldn’t survive on granola alone. She’d want someplace near a crowded café, maybe a twenty-four-hour mart, where she could stock up quickly and covertly.

  I returned my attention to the map. What had Sarah mentioned yesterday? She’d parted ways with Mike Davis when he’d started his work shift at Starbucks. If I were Roxy, I thought, I’d certainly think about swinging by my best friend’s job for snacks. An inconspicuous way to touch base, maybe get some quick intel, while also safely refueling. I marked the location of Mike’s job on the map, an X nearly midway between Mother Del’s and the high school. In other words, a neighborhood that would be well-known to Roxy.

  Other considerations for a teenage girl on the run? Change of appearance, or some kind of disguise. Given the Amber Alert, Roxy’s picture was literally everywhere. If she truly wanted to stay hidden, she’d need to take some basic steps. Scissors to cut her hair. Maybe hair dye, which would also require access to a bathroom. A wig? A hat? Sunglasses?

  Again, twenty-four hours later, not a single patrol officer had spotted her. Frankly, I wanted to find her simply to ask her how. Because right now, she was my star student and we’d only swapped a few posts on the group message board.

  Which brought me to something else. A niggling idea . . .

  I loaded up Sarah’s virtual memorial for the Boyd-Baez family. Overnight, it had taken on a life of its own. So many posts, a good number in Spanish. Family friends? Members of Lola’s gang? Their rivals?

  I started to pay attention to location, which many posts automatically revealed, depending on the user’s privacy settings. Then I studied the ones that didn’t. No way Roxy was using her cell phone. Police would’ve found her via the GPS locator the moment she turned it on. But it was possible she had a burner phone. Again, another recommended item in a bugout bag. And being that savvy, she would’ve adjusted all the settings to hide her location.

  But IP addresses, which were linked to all online activity, included some information that couldn’t be disguised. Basically, they functioned like a return address on an envelope, except the data included the internet access point used by the computing device to connect. Hence, spammers sent their e-mails pinging around the globe before arriving at the final location as a way to bury the original IP address under layers and layers of other network data. But the original was always there for the savvy geek to find.

  In this case, I doubted Roxy had the time, energy, or expertise to disguise her digital trail. Meaning that Sarah’s thought to identify repeat visits to the memorial page from public IP addresses was a great idea. In particular, I looked for visitors that didn’t post but just viewed the page again and again.

  I found dozens. Next, I plugged in the IP addresses and narrowed my list to online portals in Brighton. Following up on those locations, I found myself staring at an address I knew I knew.

  The café last night, Monet’s. The one with the cute waiter, where Anya had been eating with her theater friends. Someone had used their Wi-Fi connection to visit the virtual memorial. Many times. Including after D. D. Warren and I had run down Anya and grilled her on her relationship with Roxy.

  I stared at the map. Mother Del’s, the high school, Monet’s, the Boyd-Baez residence, Mike Davis’s job.

  Then I simply knew.

  Hide in plain sight.

  Roxy Baez was brilliant.

  Sarah had woken up. She now padded across the small space, stood behind me.

  “Are you still going to try to talk to the gangbangers today?” she asked me.

  “Absolutely.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to make them an offer they can’t refuse: Roxy Baez.”

  She stared at me.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I have a job for you, as well.”

  • • •

  WHAT DO YOU BRING TO meet with a bunch of female gang members best known for their love of knives? I debated the matter. A thin blade of my own? Sharpened chopsticks in my hair? My favorite lock picks?

  I didn’t do guns. Which was just as well, given Massachusetts’s tough firearms laws. So, best defense against a group of knife-wielding assailants? I was partial to a broom handle. Some kind of long stick. To do their dirty work, knife attackers had to get in close. Meaning something that extended your reach, kept them at bay, came in handy.

  I thought it might be a bit too conspicuous, however, to show up with a hiking stick. La
s Niñas Diablas might take that personally, and given that numbers wouldn’t be on my side, I didn’t want to start the conversation by pissing anyone off. In the end, I chose a long scarf. Something that appeared fashionable, but could also be used to whip around someone’s neck or tangle up knife-wielding hands.

  Then, I did something more questionable. I called up the guidance counselor, Ms. Lobdell Cass, and asked if I could take Roxy’s dogs for a walk. If these girls had really known Lola, then they’d probably met her dogs, Blaze and Rosie. And while they might not think twice about attacking a female opponent, I was betting they weren’t hardened enough to harm two elderly spaniels.

  Jacob wouldn’t have cared. He hated animals. Except for the gators, of course, which he promised to feed my body to on a weekly basis.

  And that was the difference, I told myself, as I stopped by Tricia Lobdell Cass’s house. Jacob was true evil. Compared to him, Las Niñas Diablas were simply a bunch of girls playing badass.

  Tricia answered the door after the first knock. I walked into her cheerful, plant-happy, blue-sofa space. Blaze and Rosie heaved to their feet, sniffed my hand, wagged their tails.

  “Any word?” the high school counselor asked me. She looked tired, dark smudges bruising her eyes. A long night from taking care of two unexpected canines? Or from worrying about what had happened to Roxy? How close did a guidance counselor get to her students anyway?

  I still thought she looked young for her job. Which was ironic, given she was probably only a few years older than me. But then, I never thought of myself as young. And I definitely couldn’t imagine working in a high school.

  “No new information on Roxy,” I said. “Dogs okay?”

  “They’ve been great. Shuffled around a bit, getting the lay of the land. Then both went straight to sleep. I think yesterday wore them out.”

  “You okay?”

  She shrugged. “I keep thinking . . . I should’ve done more. I knew Roxy was stressed out. I’d heard about the gang, some of the rumors involving her younger sister. I don’t know. I spoke to her mom when the girls first started at the school in December. Juanita seemed engaged, trying to do the best by her children. Honestly, I worried about Roxy, but I didn’t worry. Compared to some of my other kids, she seemed to have so many resources. A home, a family, even her dogs.”