“No, Maya, it’s not your fault the kids are missing. We’re not exactly sure why they’re missing. But if someone took them, it’s the fault of whoever took them,” Tori corrects gently.
Maya looks up at Mindy. “Are those kids dead because of me?”
Mindy shakes her head. “None of this is because of you and as far as I can tell, no one is dead — yet.” She turns to me. “Time is of the essence. You need help — someone who can think like the bad guys. I think you need Tobias Payne. Tell Tristan you need him here yesterday.”
“Okay, I’ll jot down his name and I’ll give Tristan a call and tell them what you said,” I reply as I pat my pockets looking for my ever-present notebook.
Tori taps me on the shoulder. “I don’t think you’ll need to do that. Tristan is standing right over there.”
“Oh, okay,” I respond, feeling unsure about what I should do next. This was intended to be a grand date, aimed at forgetting all of our problems. I’m not supposed to be working, but as a cop, I’m never really truly off duty. My mind is always spinning and working on my cases, whether I want to be or not.
Tori must sense my indecision. “Go. Your first priority is those kids. We can have a perfect date another time. We have to save those kids. Who knows what’s happening to them and their families are waiting for them.”
Mindy sighs. “Sometimes, I hate my gift. Especially when I know it will completely disrupt people’s lives.”
“Mindy, you can’t think that way. You gave us a lead we didn’t have, and we were totally out of leads. If it turns out to be right, you might’ve saved at least four lives, if not more. It sounds like whoever this is may have been casting a far wider net than we ever anticipated. There could be dozens and dozens of children missing that law enforcement hasn’t been aware of before.”
Tori removes her dangling earrings and sticks them in her purse. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She glances over at Mindy. “I hope you understand that suddenly I’m not very hungry. I have other priorities. We have to get our heads around the scope of this case and how the information you just gave us fits into what we already know.”
“Tori, I know you’re hungry. I heard your stomach growl,” Mindy discloses pointedly. “I’ll ask the kitchen to box up your dinners so you can take them with you to wherever you’re planning to work.”
Impulsively, Tori stands up and gives Mindy a hug. “Thank you for what you do, it can’t be easy.”
“If it saves those kids, it’s worth it. By the way, hang in there. I know it’s hard to do the right thing. Just remember people who do things for political recognition and ill-gotten financial gain are like a flash in the pan. Their true colors will bleed through and their allies will be exposed. Stay true to yourself.”
Mindy’s words bring tears to Tori’s eyes. In a voice choked with emotions, she says, “Thank you for the reminder.”
“Remember, Cody is on your team even when his job makes it seem like he’s not. Balance is the key. I’m sorry to cut this short, but you guys need to go.”
CHAPTER TEN
TORI
I’M USED TO CODY EXUDING nothing but quiet confidence. However, as we wait in the terminal at Jacksonville International Airport for Toby Payne to arrive, he’s a nervous wreck. His knee is bouncing a million miles an hour as he consults the reference pictures of the missing teenagers and surfs through hundreds of pages of YouTube sites looking for matches.
I slide a fresh cup of coffee in front of him as I cautiously ask, “Don’t you have a computer forensic team at your disposal to do that kind of thing?”
Cody looks up at me with a slightly dazed expression as he struggles to focus his tired eyes. “Technically, yes. However, they’re incredibly backed up. Even if I sent this to them as a priority, it would still take them weeks to get to it. We don't have weeks to find these kids, we have hours.”
I pull my iPad out of my purse and sit on the stool across from Cody. “Okay, I understand. Two pairs of eyes are better than one. Tell me how you’re approaching this. YouTube is a wasteland of random information.”
“Remember a couple of weeks ago when I went back and re-interviewed the families? I was looking for connections between the kids. So, I asked about social media and whether they had any hobbies. For example, DeAndre is involved in the skateboarding community, so I’m searching YouTube channels about boarding to see if he pops up there.”
“Wow! Makes sense, but so daunting. There has to be a better approach.”
“I think that’s why Mindy suggested we bring in Toby Payne. He is supposed to be a phenom on the computer. His specialty is programming and social media. As a teenager, he spent several years as a missing child. He knows how the predators work. Hopefully, he can give us some insight into that too.”
I pick up a piece of paper off of the stack he is working on. “Okay, I guess I’ll work on Tallulah Johnson. She is strikingly beautiful. She should be easy to spot if we’re lucky.”
Cody nods. “Tallulah’s passion is theater and journalism. She already has a scholarship to go to college. She’s done some on-camera work for a local cable station. Her mom said she used to sing in the church choir all the time. So, you might find some music videos out there or maybe some student interviews.”
I look at the clock on my iPad. “When is Toby’s plane due in?”
Cody glances at his military type watch. “It should be anytime now.”
“Good … as far as I’m concerned, help can’t arrive fast enough.”
Toby puts his luggage in my mom’s room. It’s not really my mom’s room anymore. I just call it that because old habits are hard to break.
I’ve made the decision with the doctors to place my mom in specialized care where they can better handle her dementia and the problems caused by her broken hip. It was sad and difficult, but probably the best decision for everyone. Bonni Jeanne found a different client to work with and she is much more at peace. She is taking care of a quadriplegic student and attends classes with him during the day, but still lives with me at night to save on living costs. I’m more than okay with our new arrangement. Bonni Jeanne has become like family.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. It’s Tristan’s habit to put us up in luxury hotels. But after all the time I spent on the run as a teenager, I can’t stand staying in them, even very nice ones. This means the world to me.”
“It’s not a problem. I have this nice old house and lots of space. Thank you for coming all the way across the United States to help Cody with his case.”
“Everyone deserves to be found. It’s as simple as that.”
“I agree —”
I’m cut off by the sound of the doorbell.
“Oh, that’s Cody. Come with me, we’ll get set up in the dining room. I added power strips, so we can plug in all the computer equipment there.”
“Perfect. I brought a bunch. If you work with Tristan much, you know he likes to deck us out.”
I rush to the door and greet Cody with a brief hug. “I really like Toby. He’s such a serious young man. I have a hunch he totally knows his stuff,” I whispered in Cody’s ear as we walked toward the dining room.
When Cody sees what Toby is setting up, he laughs out loud. “I can see you have a lot in common with your brother Jameson. I worked with him a time or two before he moved to Oregon. He has a passion for gadgets too.”
Toby grins widely, in the first genuine smile I’ve seen from him since we met yesterday. “There is good reason I idolize my big brother. Who do you think taught me everything I know?”
Cody adds a laptop to the mix. “I borrowed this from the department. It has all the files and information we’ve got on each case. I have permission from the department to share this information with you because you work for Identity Bank and we contract with your company.”
Toby looks at me and blushes. “What about her?” Obviously, he’s heard the rumors.
Cody smiles slyly. “Funny
thing about that — my captain gave me permission to hire as much temporary help as I need to process this case and expedite things. He said I have permission to hire anybody I wish to handle the clerical end of things as long as they could pass the department criminal background check. So, I used your company to run a check on Tori. Just as I expected, her record is clean as a whistle.”
He turns and hands me a contract. “Victoria Clarkson, I am hereby offering you a position as a project assistant on this investigation. You’ll be doing clerical tasks and research as well as other tasks as assigned. The pay is nominal, but the reward is potentially great if we locate the missing children. Do you accept?”
“Normally, I would be concerned this would mess up my attempts to go after my employer for wrongful termination, but at this moment, my concern for the missing teens takes precedence.” I take the paper from him and sign it.
“Wow, you didn’t even take time to read it,” Toby observes. “For all you know, he could be signing you up for a lifetime of indentured servitude.”
I stand on my tiptoes and brush a kiss across Cody’s cheek. “Nope, not this guy. He’s honorable. I trust him to look out for my best interests.”
“I knew there was a reason I hired you,” Cody answers with a wink.
I blush before I put a collage of all four pictures of the kids up on my big screen TV above the dining room table and turn to Toby. “What do you need from us? How can we best help you do your job?”
“I reviewed the notes you sent — thanks for that, by the way. I’m not sure I understand your process. Are you trying to match the teen’s faces by reviewing social media sites by hand?” Toby asks incredulously.
“We are. Our computer forensics lab has a case backlog several months long. We figured doing something was better than doing nothing,” Cody answers with a grimace.
“Oh man … I wish you would’ve called Tristan in on this sooner. A few years ago, he developed software to match faces. He uses it to help prevent identity theft and catfishing. It would be ideal for filtering through YouTube videos and social media sites to help find your missing kids.”
“How precise do the search parameters need to be? We haven’t quite nailed down everyone’s hobbies the perpetrator might have targeted. Will that make the search more difficult?” I ask.
“Yes and no. I mean the computer doesn’t actually care about the parameters when it’s searching through pictures. It’s a matter of volume. The more pictures it looks at, the longer the comparisons will take — but, it doesn’t make it more difficult. It just makes it more time-consuming.”
“How much more time consuming?” Cody presses. “Mindy made it sound like speed was critical.”
“This is impossible for me to determine. I don’t know how good your information is or how specific your searches might be. I know nothing about your Internet connection. It could be eight hours or it could be a day and a half.”
“Since we live so close to the university, they came through a few years ago and put fiber-optic lines in. My Internet service is quite fast here. I upgraded to the fastest service available when I was practicing law. I tend to be a little inpatient when I’m doing case research.”
“Okay, that’ll help.” Toby says as he rapidly types information into his computer. “Hopefully, the wide searches won’t add too much time. Who knows, we could luck out and hit pay dirt right up front.”
I watch him type for a few minutes. It’s awe-inspiring. I thought my paralegals type quickly, but they have nothing on him. Eventually, my curiosity gets the best of me and when his fingers leave the keyboard, I ask, “Are you going to run the searches simultaneously?”
“Eventually,” Toby says with a nod. “There’s a chance these kids are being held together. So, they might be featured in the same pictures. However, I want to search for the child who has been missing the longest first. Then, as I get a chance to, we’ll add the next longest missing child and so on until we have them all in the system.”
A shiver travels up my spine as I realize how cavalier our conversation must seem as we are casually discussing the fate of four terrified children. “Do you really think whoever has them is holding them together?”
“At this point, your guess is as good as mine. One of the reasons it took people so long to find me is that people expected my kidnapper to behave in a logical manner. Everything about her was illogical. She would do things which were completely baffling. Some of them were to elude capture — I’ll give you that. But most of the things she did were just because she was totally crazy and had more than a few screws loose. We can think we understand what this person might do and try to make a move or two ahead of him, but there are no guarantees our guesses will be right.”
“How do you suggest we focus our search, if we can’t do it based on common sense?” Cory asks, His voice rising with frustration.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying throw logic out the window. I’m just cautioning against relying on it too much,” Toby explains. “You don’t want to exclude the randomness of illogical people. So, I would put as much information about each victim as we possibly can but I would also broaden the search out to include all YouTube videos and other social media sites. I’ll focus on the sites which mirror YouTube but don’t exactly follow the rules.”
I sigh. “Geez, as if finding four needles in the haystack of all social media isn’t complicated enough, now we’ve got to be worried about imposter sites too?”
“Yeah, it’s part of what makes my job a challenge.”
“In this case, I wish you didn’t have a job at all, but since you do, I wish it wasn’t quite so challenging.”
“You and me both. I wish we lived in a world where no one ever needed to be found,” Toby says wistfully. “But, since there are still people missing, we need to get to work.”
“Sounds good. I am ready to have something concrete to do. I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels,” Cody admits. “Tell us what to do — we are at your disposal.”
“I’ve modified the user interface to Tristan’s program for our purposes. I’ve created a template to ensure that we build a complete profile on each missing teenager. I replicated the form on Google forms so each of you can use it. When you’ve finished entering the information on the case assigned to you, you can forward the information to me and I will run it through Tristan’s program.”
“Should we do this in any order?” I ask as I gather up the files.
“Which teen has been missing the longest?” Toby asks.
“Isadora López, age fifteen has been missing since New Year’s Day. She was supposed to meet some friends to play soccer, and she never showed.”
“I won’t ask you if she had problems with her family or her boyfriend. It was questions like that which led people to draw all sorts of wrong conclusions about my family and my case,” Toby has to stop and draw in a deep breath before he continues. “The police thought they knew what was happening to me — when in actuality, they had no clue. They thought they knew what I was all about based on my age and what they thought was going on in my family. They couldn’t have been more wrong if they tried. So, we’re not going to make any of those guesses about these kids. Chances are if we did, they would be wrong.”
“I’m so sorry. I feel like I need to apologize for my whole profession. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut of what we’ve always done. We believe it should be done that way, whether or not it works. I know I’ll never look at a case the same way again now that I’ve heard it from your perspective,” I reply as my voice breaks. I pause to take a drink of my coffee and collect my emotions. I glance over at Cody and he seems as shaken as me.
“Toby, after all this is done and we find this group of missing kids and lock up those responsible, I want you to help me revamp the way we do things in our department. I handle training rookies. I don’t want to merely train them to do it how it’s always been done. I want to train my officers to find the missing people in the
least amount of time possible. I think you can help me do that.”
“I’d be honored to turn my nightmare into a positive for other people.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CODY
I TRY TO DISGUISE A yawn as I drive up to the prosecutor’s office. Toby, Tori and I didn’t finish inputting information into the computer until very early this morning. Breaking down the lives of four vibrant teenagers to bits and bytes the computer understands is painstaking business.
I thought I understood Toby’s story from all the news accounts and what little I had heard from Jameson and Tristan. I was wrong. Last night, over the course of several hours, as we dissected the lives of four seemingly unrelated teenagers and discussed how a predator might approach them, shards of Toby’s story began to emerge — stories of how he went from an innocent, talented gaming phenom to a hostage who flew under everyone’s radar for years. He told stories of how he was initially fooled into thinking his predator was his friend, only to find out she was anything but. He shared how he learned to fend for himself after his captor became addicted to drugs and completely mentally unstable.
Honestly, I don’t know how a teenage boy takes a fun habit like playing on computers and turns it into a way to support himself and his kidnapper while still staying hidden from the world because he believed his kidnapper would kill his family if he said anything. It must’ve been horrific. I can’t help but wonder if the missing kids are facing similar challenges.
Every second which ticks by feels like an eternity. After I pull into the parking lot of the government building, I check my phone for what seems like the hundredth time. I curse under my breath when I don’t see a new message from Toby. I barely refrain from sending him another message when I reread the last message from him. “I can’t make the computers process any faster. It is what it is. I’ll let you know what I find as soon as I have a result. Chill. Don’t you have other things to do more productive than watching your phone?”
Love and Injustice Page 8
