Samantha Sanderson Without a Trace

by Robin Caroll

  “Lana!” Sam really liked her friend, but sometimes Lana got off on a side street during a conversation. This was just a prime example.

  “Sorry. Anyway, while we were waiting, I overheard Mrs. Trees talking to Mrs. Darrington in the little office right next to the sick room.”

  Sam nodded, knowing the space well. She had stood there to eavesdrop herself a time or two.

  “So Mrs. Trees tells Mrs. Darrington that the police got a lead from two students. The same lead from both of them, so the police are pretty positive it’s legitimate.”

  So that must mean two index cards had the same info.

  “Mrs. Trees told Mrs. Darrington to call Darby French’s parent or guardian and tell them the deputies need to question their daughter.” Lana grabbed the last one of Makayla’s fruit snacks and popped it into her mouth. “Mrs. Trees told Mrs. Darrington to tell them to please come to the school immediately.”

  Darby French . . . Darby French. Name didn’t ring a bell with Sam.

  “And then the fax came through, so I had to give it to Mrs. Darrington and then she printed me my pass, so I don’t know anything more.”

  “Who is Darby French?” Sam asked.

  Lana and Felicia both shook their heads.

  “I don’t know, either,” Makayla said.

  “Well, her initials are certainly not J.T.,” Sam said.

  The bell rang and they all got up from the table. Sam linked her arm through Makayla’s. “You know, you could look for information on Darby French while you’re searching for the mysterious J.T. when you’re doing counselor’s aide today.”

  Makayla grunted. “Nope, you aren’t tricking me into really getting into trouble by getting into the system for not one, but two searches.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Mac.” Sam tossed her trash into the can. She could whine all she wanted, but she recognized that look on her best friend’s face—she wasn’t going to do any searches. Sam was going to have to figure it out on her own.

  “No. And why does everybody always eat my lunch?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sam chewed the inside of her bottom lip as she sat down at one of the class computer stations. Since Makayla wouldn’t tap into the guidance counselor’s computer, Sam had to figure out who Darby and J.T. were. Since she had little chance of hacking into the student database, and she wasn’t going to chance getting busted by trying and failing, she figured her best option at this point was to learn as much about Tam as she could.

  While she didn’t have a lot of ideas on how to go about that, she did have one, and she just so happened to be her own best resource on that avenue. As one of the returning EAST students who had participated in various training workshops at the EAST conference last year, and as a trainer for the new EAST facilitators in the district over the summer, Sam was one of the administrators in the system. She had full access to go into every student’s project and view the files. Sometimes, Mrs. Shine even asked her to check some of the other classes’ project progress.

  Tam had EAST for sixth period. Maybe for his project, he had a partner who would turn out to know who the mysterious J.T. or Darby was. Sam could definitely check and see if there was any connection to anyone like that.

  She glanced up over the computer monitor to Mrs. Shine’s desk—the teacher had her nose buried in her laptop. Not that the teacher would fault Sam for looking. Besides, Sam was Mrs. Shine’s favorite student, you could ask anyone. But still. Sam felt a little like a snoop, but if she could find out something that could lead her to her missing friend . . . she swallowed, opened the network, then connected to the EASTSERVER. She scrolled through the list of student users until she found Tam’s name.

  After checking to make sure Mrs. Shine was still engrossed at her desk, Sam opened Tam’s files. She clicked on the one titled “Pictures” only to find it empty. Same with “Research” and “Overview.” Every single file under Tam’s project was blank. Even his reports file was empty. There was no way Mrs. Shine would allow anybody to go this far along in the semester without turning in at least a couple of project reports.

  Sam closed the program and restarted it, then accessed Tam’s files again. Empty. It made no sense. What had happened to all his documents? Pictures? Research?

  She maneuvered into Mrs. Shine’s documents. The teacher might be less understanding if she caught Sam going through her files. Sam glanced at her desk. One of the eighth graders had a book laid out in front of Mrs. Shine and pointed, the two in deep conversation. No time like the present.

  Sam scrolled through the teacher’s documents. She’d sorted by class period. Sam opened the sixth period folder, then scrolled down to Tam’s name and clicked on that folder. There was only one document inside and it was titled: Project Details. Sam opened the pdf and began reading the brief overview.

  Awareness of possible danger is critical to the safety of children. Awareness of physical surroundings, potentially suspect people, and Internet safety measures should all be integral teachings to children who use the Internet. The Arkansas board of education requires students to take a variety of standardized tests, yet for something as critical as child safety and online child safety, there are no requirements. This project will prove the need for mandatory safety education for all students of upper elementary schools. Recommended in-class workshops such as the NetSmartz® and KidSmartz workshops, offered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. These workshops serve as educational programs, teaching children about online safety as well as educating families about abduction prevention and child empowerment to practice safer behaviors. These programs offer free, age-appropriate resources including videos, games, presentations, and classroom lessons to help children learn how to protect themselves and their friends online.

  Sam caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she read bullet points of facts that were apparently part of the presentation of his research.

  • Approximately eight hundred thousand children under the age of eighteen were reported missing. Of that, more than two hundred thousand were abducted by family members.

  • Ninety-three percent of teens ages twelve to seventeen use the Internet. Eighty percent use it over three times a week.

  • The first three hours are the most critical when trying to locate a missing child.

  • The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 205,550 missing children since it was founded in 1984.

  • Their recovery rate for missing children is currently ninety-seven percent.

  “Sam, could you come help Joy with the Blender software, please?” Mrs. Shine jerked Sam’s focus away from the computer screen.

  “Uh, y-yes, ma’am.” Sam quickly closed all the folders and files, backed out of everything, then stood and headed to the teacher’s desk.

  “I’m having a hard time getting the graphic to actually move,” Joy, the eighth grader, told Sam as she led her to the computer she’d been working on.

  Sam helped Joy figure out the animation problem easily enough and wanted to go back into Mrs. Shine’s file and read the rest about Tam’s project. She hadn’t even found out if he had a partner. Epic failure.

  “Hey, Sam?”

  She looked up and smiled at Marcus Robertson. He was in eighth grade and the school paper’s photographer. He stood in front of her desk and motioned to the chair beside her. “Mind if I sit and talk with you for a minute?”

  “Of course not.” He’d always been really nice to Sam, but he didn’t exactly seek her out like this very often.

  He sat down, then pushed the chair back a little bit. “Have you heard anything new about Tam?”

  She had, but it was all unofficial at this point, and she was pretty sure she’d get in hot water if she told everybody about the note before the deputy could do anything with it. “They haven’t said anything that you’ve heard, have they?” Sam despised someone answering her question with a question, but sometimes .
. . well, sometimes it was just the best way to reply. “I’m really worried about him.”

  “Me, too. I saw you taking up the index cards. Do you know what they’re specifically looking for?”

  Every warning bell echoed in Sam’s head. “How do you know they were looking for something specific?” Even she didn’t know that.

  “Uh. Well. The way they were . . . uh . . . asking. And . . . uh, talking.” Marcus blushed a little.

  “You should probably tell me what you’re trying to hide, because you aren’t doing such a great job.”

  His cheeks turned pinker. “Look, it’s probably nothing . . .”

  What was it with people? “Marcus!” she hissed, fighting against screaming out loud at him. Frustration swiped at her chest like BabyKitty sharpening her claws.

  “Okay, okay. It’s just that Tam was supposed to meet a friend of ours yesterday morning but she was late meeting him, so now . . . well, she’s worried that maybe he went to look for her and something happened to him.”

  Sam was pretty sure her heart just skipped a beat. “Where was he supposed to meet her?”

  Marcus looked at his feet. “Around the side of the school.”

  “For what?”

  He snagged her gaze and slowly gave a single shoulder shrug. “He’s been helping her with pre-AP Algebra. Like tutoring.”

  Yeah, Sam could so see Tam helping someone with math—he was good at it and he was sweet enough to help anyone who asked. But . . . “Around the side of the building? Before school?” That she couldn’t quite see Tam doing. As his mom had told the deputy, Tam was too much of a rule follower.

  Marcus shook his head. “From what she told me, they usually studied together during activity period in the library.”

  That made sense. “Why were they meeting in a different place and time than usual?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you ask her?” Sam curled her hands into tight balls. How could people expect to learn something and not ask any questions? That drove her up the wall.

  He shook his head again. “She’s really freaked out about him being missing.”

  Duh! “Aren’t we all?” Sam swallowed back the sarcasm.

  “Yeah, but she’s scared because they told her the police want to talk to her and have called her mom to come up. She’s terrified they’re going to haul her downtown or something. I told her that was crazy.” He gave Sam a weak smile. “That is crazy, isn’t it? I mean, I know your dad’s a cop and all, so I thought maybe you might have an idea what the protocol is.”

  “Your friend is Darby French?”

  Marcus nodded. “How’d you know?”

  Again, time to answer a question with a question. “How do you know Darby?”

  “We have history together.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You don’t think they’ll make her go to the police station or something, do you? I mean, they wouldn’t do that to kids, right?”

  “I don’t know. This is the sheriff’s case, not the city police like where my dad works.” Sam let out a long breath. “I posted the article yesterday afternoon about Tam missing. Didn’t Darby see that? Or didn’t she wonder when he wasn’t at school? Why didn’t she come forward?” Sam didn’t know the girl, but her story sounded a little fishy.

  “I asked her why she didn’t tell anyone she was supposed to meet Tam in the morning, especially when everyone said he’d gone missing before school.”

  “What’d she say?” Sam pinched her lips together and breathed slowly through her nose.

  “She said that she couldn’t tell anybody why she was late. When she got here, the tardy bell had already rung. She had to get an unexcused pass, and worried Tam would be upset with her for not making their meeting. But when she got to their math class and he wasn’t there, she figured he was sick or had a doctor’s appointment or something since he was rarely absent.”

  Very true. Sam couldn’t recall one day he’d missed this year.

  “Darby said she didn’t know anything was wrong until she read your article online yesterday afternoon. She freaked because she thinks maybe Tam got worried when she didn’t show and went looking for her or something and then something happened to him.” Marcus glanced over his shoulder toward Mrs. Shine for a minute, then back at Sam. “That’s silly, right?”

  Sam didn’t know, but she could see that Tam could have gone looking for her. If he thought she’d be there and she didn’t show, he would have gotten worried. Yeah, Tam was like that. “Where would he have gone to look for her? Wouldn’t the logical place be the cafeteria, to see if she forgot or something?” That’s what she would do.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense.” Marcus shook his head. “But now she’s freaking out.”

  “I don’t know why she didn’t say anything to anybody last night when she found out he was missing. That’s important information.” Could be important to the case. “I’m not sure, but I think that’s like tampering with a police investigation or something.” She was pretty sure she’d heard her father say something like that before.

  Marcus’s eyes widened. “That’s what she’s really freaking out about, but she says she can’t tell anybody why she was so late for school. She told me that she was sworn to secrecy.”

  “What does that mean?” Sam didn’t like this, not one bit. It sounded like Darby knew something more. What kind of person was she?

  “I don’t know. She said her parents were going to be furious.”

  “Students, save your work and log off the computers. The bell’s about to ring,” Mrs. Shine announced.

  “Look, if you see Darby later today, try to get her to tell you why she was late.” Sam shut down the computer.

  “I doubt I’ll see her. She was called out of class to the office last period. I’m sure because her parents were here.”

  Sam frowned. “Well, I saw that the deputy’s car was gone before I came into EAST, so if the police are going to question her, they’re doing it somewhere besides school.” How disappointing. How was she supposed to figure out what was going on?

  “Man, just what she was scared of.” He stood and pushed his chair under the table. “It’s gonna be okay, right?”

  “I don’t know, Marcus.” She had to figure out a way to find out what Darby told the police. “If she doesn’t come back to school, maybe you should call her and see how it went.” She didn’t add—And get the information about why they were meeting and why she was late and why she couldn’t tell anyone but she thought it.

  “Yeah, I guess I’ll have to do that.”

  The bell rang. Sam squeezed Marcus’s upper arm. “It’ll all work out, Marcus.”

  “I hope so.”

  “See you in last period,” Sam said as she grabbed her folder and smiled at Mrs. Shine before heading to her locker.

  “Hey, Sam,” Grace Brannon greeted her in the breezeway of the seventh grade ramp.

  “Hi, Grace.”

  “What’s the latest on Tam?”

  Sam supposed everyone assumed she knew all the latest information because she posted the news articles on the school’s blog, which reminded her that she needed to update the site during seventh period with notes regarding the assembly. “They haven’t said anything new that I know of.” Sam quickly switched out her folders and notebooks.

  “It’s sad. I checked Tam’s Twitter account this morning and it’s so strange not to see a recent post from him. He usually makes some type of have a great day comment every morning on his accounts.”

  “Yeah, I know.” But Sam’s mind was going in a different direction. Maybe, just maybe, Tam was friends with J.T. on Facebook or Twitter. Since Makyala wasn’t interested in searching the student database for somebody, this could be a way for her to look. Even if it was creeping.

  “I heard they’re pretty sure he ran away from home.” Grace shut her locker and faced Sam. “I wouldn’t ever suspect him of that, but I guess it’s true that you really don’t know people
.”

  Sam shut her locker as well. “I don’t believe he ran away. That’s just not Tam. He’s too . . . too . . . responsible to run away. Everything he does serves a good purpose. I just can’t accept him running away because his dad told him no.”

  “Then why are the police treating it like that?”

  “I don’t really know. Dad says there are usually things the police know that aren’t public knowledge.” Oh, how many times had he told Sam that?

  “I suppose.” Grace started to take a step away, then turned back to Sam. “Are you praying for him?”

  That stopped Sam cold. Grace had mentioned before that her family wasn’t Christian, but Sam hadn’t stopped mentioning church or inviting Grace to some of her youth group events. They’d had a couple of conversations regarding faith and God. “Yes. Yes, I am praying for him. That he’s safe and will be home soon.”

  “You aren’t asking God why Tam’s missing?”

  Sam shook her head. “No. Why he’s missing isn’t as important right now as him being safe and coming home soon.”

  Grace nodded, then turned away and disappeared into the throng of other kids.

  She should probably go after her and explain a little more, but the bell rang, and Sam ran inside her class, whispering a prayer for God to show her ways to share her faith.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sam popped her knuckles and leaned back against her headboard. She tugged the laptop on top of her throw pillow on her lap. “I still can’t believe you refused to help me.”

  “I didn’t refuse to help,” Makayla replied from the desk in Sam’s room. “I refused to hack into the school’s database for you, which is a smart move.”

  “You wouldn’t have had to hack. You’re a counselor’s aide, so you have access to Mrs. Creegle’s computer.”

  “Sam! That’s wrong.”