She shook her head. “It’s not your fault,” she said after a few seconds. “It’s nobody’s fault.” She paused and then added, “Well, maybe it’s Kelli’s fault. This is a world-class dumbass thing for her to do. She didn’t like what she overheard, so she got pissed and decided to go do it herself.” She paused and then added, “She’s a little hothead. Always has been.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know that now we’re going to have to go find her before she gets herself in any trouble,” I said.
Toni nodded.
I looked at her. “We will find her. You know that, right?”
Toni thought for a second, then she nodded. “I know.”
“It’s what we do, right?”
She nodded again. “Right.”
“Good.” I thought for a second and then said, “How’s your mom?”
Toni pursed her lips, then looked up at the ceiling. She said nothing. I could tell she was trying hard to keep her emotions in check. She can be hard as a diamond in tough situations, but she’s always had a soft spot for her mom-and for her little sister. When her father died sixteen years ago, Toni appointed herself as the family’s designated protector. She takes her job seriously. She fought hard and brought her emotions under control, and then she looked back at me. “Mom sounded alright. Worried, but okay.”
“She’s home, right?”
Toni nodded.
“Why don’t we drive up and talk to her as soon as we’re through here?”
Toni nodded again. “Good.”
I smiled at her. “We’ll find Kelli,” I said, trying hard to be reassuring.
She smiled back. “I know.”
I nodded, and then I turned to the others. “Alright guys, seems as though Kelli’s just changed our agenda for us.”
“Quite a trump card,” Richard said.
“You got that right,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “So, let’s think. Kelli’s searching for Isabel. We’re searching for Isabel. And now, we’re searching for Kelli.”
“What’s Kelli’s likely strategy?” Richard asked. “If we can figure out how she intends to go about looking for Isabel, maybe we can put ourselves on her path and find her that way.”
“It would be better to find her before she gets there,” I said.
“I agree,” Richard said. “The two of them together-that might complicate things.”
“Sounds like she might try going undercover,” Doc said. “If that’s what she heard you guys talking about.”
Confident as I was that we could find her, the notion of Kelli going undercover was still pretty frightening. That meant that she could soon be rubbing shoulders with some pretty nasty folks-people like Donnie Martin and Crystal Wallace. I didn’t know Kelli that well, but she is Toni’s sister-she’s bound to be pretty tough. She’d certainly need to be if she was going to play the undercover game with these people.
“That’s exactly what she’ll try and do,” Toni said suddenly.
I looked at her. “How? How will she go about it? How will she go under? She doesn’t have any of our information-names, addresses, cars-that kind of stuff.”
Toni shrugged. “She doesn’t need it,” she said. “That’s not the way she’d go about it, anyway. She doesn’t have a clue about investigative work.”
“Then what?”
“She’s just going to follow Isabel’s tracks.”
I thought for a second. “You mean the mall?”
Toni nodded. “Exactly. She’s going fishing, and she’s making herself the bait.”
The Jeep’s tires thumped as we crossed the expansion joints on the I-5 bridge over Lake Union. Toni and I were headed northbound, on our way up to Lynnwood to talk to her mom. From there, we were going to start our search for Kelli at the Alderwood Mall.
“Do you think we should just go straight to the mall?” Toni asked.
I changed lanes to avoid a slow-moving delivery truck. “Your choice,” I said. “But remember, we don’t even have a decent picture of Kelli with us. That picture of her with Isabel is probably not good enough. We wouldn’t have anything to show around.”
“That’s right,” Toni said, nodding slowly. “We need to go to mom’s first. I can use her PC to print off a couple of photos to take with us.”
“Remember to send one to Kenny, too,” I said.
She nodded. “Right.”
Before we left, I thought about a strategy and decided that it would probably be best to just keep working on the Isabel-hunt plans we’d mapped out before Kelli went missing. In other words, I had Kenny download the photos of the inside of the boys’ house off my phone and put them with the photos of the big house. While we were gone, he’d enhance and study them, looking for any kind of clues that might show up.
I called Nancy as we drove and let her know what was happening.
“The Lynnwood PD might be willing to take a missing person report-but then again, maybe not,” Nancy said. “Kelli’s an adult. She’s free to come and go as she chooses, you know.”
“Understood.”
“Without any indication that she’s in imminent danger-especially since she left a note saying she was leaving of her own free will-the police might not even take a report at all.”
“I know,” I said.
“One thing I can do,” she added, “I know a couple of detectives up there. If you’d like, I can put in a call-ask them to take special care of this.”
“That would be fantastic,” I said. “We’d definitely appreciate it.”
“I’d really like to be able to do something more about Kelli, but you know I can’t, right?”
“I know,” I said. “I didn’t expect anything. Just putting in a good word for us would be fantastic. Mostly, though, I just wanted to keep you posted on the status of our investigation. This definitely adds a new dimension.”
“It sure does,” Nancy said. “Do you have a picture?”
“We’re on our way to get one now.”
“Good. Send me a copy when you get it. We can at least keep our eyes open.”
“Thanks, Nancy.”
I hung up and drove for a few minutes, going over the possibilities. Then I turned to Toni. She was staring straight ahead, completely lost in thought.
“Let me ask you a question,” I said.
She turned to me. “Go ahead.”
“You’re thinking Kelli’s going to try to get herself picked up by Crystal and Donnie Martin, right?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t know Kelli all that well. How capable is she? How tough is she? Is she like a momma’s girl?”
She gave a quick laugh. “The opposite,” Toni said. “She has a nasty temper. She’s been in two or three fights at school-fistfights. She actually got suspended from school twice last year. The second time, Mom had to go talk the principal into letting her go back to school.”
I smiled. “Guess it runs in the family,” I said quietly.
“What’s that?” she said.
“No offense, but she sounds a little like you.”
“I figured you’d say that,” she said. She pushed her hair back off her face-a somewhat futile effort considering the wind whipping around inside the drafty Jeep. “But I suppose that’s right. We’re a lot alike.”
“She sounds like she can take care of herself, though,” I said. “That’s good.”
“Put it to you this way. There were several times when she was growing up that we-either me or Mom or sometimes both-had to go bail Kelli out of trouble. But never because anyone was picking on her, or taking advantage of her, or anything like that. I think everyone knew better than to do that.”
I smiled. “Like I said-sounds like someone else I know.” I reached over and took her hand.
Julia Blair is a very striking woman, make no mistake about it-classically beautiful in a foreign-movie-star kind of way. It’s impossible to miss the connection between her and Toni. Both are on the tall side; both have thick, dark
hair; both are trim with amazing figures. Julia is forty-eight years old-manages a restaurant not far from the house. She has quite a story. She’d been a stay-at-home mom until her husband-Toni and Kelli’s father-died in an automobile accident in 1996. Julia hadn’t worked since Toni’d been born eleven years prior to that, but with the death of her husband, she had no choice. She got a job as a waitress in a nearby restaurant. The owners were impressed by her work ethic and the way she took care of her two girls at the same time. They’d been tolerant and flexible when it came to Julia’s schedule. Now, twelve years later, Julia’s in the process of buying out those same owners (who have retired and moved to Florida, leaving Julia as general manager of the place). The Blair women-Julia, Toni, and Kelli-none of them sit back and watch life go by. They jump right in.
“I’m confident that we’ll find her,” I said to Julia as we sat in her living room. Toni was in the study (used to be her old bedroom before she got her own apartment) printing off a couple of photos. “It’s what we do, and we’re good at it.”
Julia had a very concerned look in her eyes. She nodded. “Tell me truthfully,” she said, “are the people she’s trying to locate-are they dangerous people?”
I looked at her for a moment, and then I nodded. “They are,” I said. “I won’t lie to you. That’s the bad news. The good news, though, is that if Kelli’s doing what we think she is, then she’s got some time before she’s in any real danger-maybe a week or two. We’ll find her long before that.”
She nodded. “Do you think I should I call the police?”
“Yes-but Toni and I have a friend in the Seattle Police Department who knows some people up here. She’s going to put in a good word for us. We should have better instructions-who to call, that sort of thing-by later this afternoon.”
She nodded. “Good. Thank you, Danny.”
I smiled. “I’m just sorry you’re having to go through this,” I said. “I know how hard it is to sit back and worry about someone when you don’t have any decent information about what’s going on.” Actually, I was very familiar with the feeling-just having gone through a similar situation when Toni’d been abducted three months ago. Basically, it sucked. “But remember, Kelli’s a bright, resourceful girl. And Toni tells me she’s tough.”
Julia smiled. “That she is.”
“She’ll be okay,” I said, just as Toni walked into the living room. “Got ’em?” I asked.
She showed me three photos that she’d printed. “Perfect,” I said. “Just what we need. Did you remember to send one to Kenny?”
She gave me the "raised eyebrow" look.
“Sorry,” I said, holding up my hand. “Just thought I’d double-check.”
“I sent them to him and to Nancy and to me and you, too. We’re good,” she said. She turned to Julia. “Mom, we’re going to run on up to the mall and start looking. We’ll call you when we hear from the police about the missing person report. If we can give them the report, we will. But we’ll let you know one way or another.”
Julia nodded. Toni walked over to her, and they hugged. While they were embracing, Julia looked over Toni’s shoulder and said, “Find her, Danny.”
I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry,” I said as I nodded. “We will.”
Chapter 21
It had been sunny earlier in the morning, but now the clouds were rolling in. Soon it would begin to rain. I have friends in other states that were in the middle of heat waves, but here it was in the mid-sixties. I don’t envy them.
I was driving north on Thirty-Sixth Avenue toward the Alderwood Mall. The mall is almost exactly one mile from Julia’s house, so it wouldn’t take long.
“Your mom going to be okay?” I asked.
Toni nodded. “I think so. She’s pretty tough.”
“She’s an impressive lady,” I said. “It’s pretty easy to see where you and Kelli get your gumption.”
She smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “I suppose.”
A few seconds later, I said, “Why do you suppose Kelli didn’t drive?”
Toni shrugged. “Because she hoped to get picked up,” she answered. “She didn’t want her truck sitting vulnerable-like in the mall’s parking lot for a couple of days while she was gone.” She paused. “She loves her truck. She’d rather walk a mile than have it broken into.”
A few minutes later, I pulled into the mall’s main entrance off 184th Street.
The entrance was about a hundred yards long, then it forked left and right. “Which way?” I asked. “Got any ideas?”
Toni leaned forward and looked left, then right. “Let’s just drive around the whole place first.”
I turned left to circle the mall clockwise. “Where do kids hang out at malls?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, as she scanned the stores. “It’s been a while for me. Maybe the food court?”
That made sense. “Where’s the food court at this place?” I asked.
“I don’t know that either. We’ll probably need to park and find a directory. But let’s keep going around once before we stop.”
The mall is good-sized for northwest Washington, which probably means it’s average size for most other places. The perimeter road is square-shaped, maybe one-quarter mile in each direction. We entered at the top of the square-due north.
At the bottom of the square, we passed a movie theater and a couple of stand-alone restaurants. The sign read “Terraces.”
“This might be it,” I said. “There sure are a lot of kids around here. But I don’t see any kind of food court.”
“It’s summertime. There’s going to be lots of kids at the movie theater. But if we’re looking for the food court, it’s not going to be outside,” Toni said. “It’ll be inside, out of the weather. Let’s just finish the circle, and then we’ll go inside at the main entrance and look for a directory.”
“What makes you think the movie theater isn’t where Kelli would have gone?”
“Think about it,” she said. “Kelli’s following Isabel, right?” Before I could answer, she continued. “Isabel was looking for something-or someone. That’s why she came here. Isabel got picked up on or just right after her birthday-May seventh. School was still in session then. So-”
“So there wouldn’t have been any kids at the movie theater except for at night.”
“Right,” she said. “And even then, it would have been pretty light on a weekday night.”
“And May seventh was-”
“A Monday. A school day and a school night. I think that it would have been relatively quiet at the theater then, and relatively busier inside at the food court.”
I thought about this for a few seconds. “Well, I wouldn’t want to stake my life on that theory, but it’s better than anything I’ve got.”
“So let’s keep going,” she said. “If it’s not busy inside, we’ll come back out here.”
I finished driving the perimeter and found a parking space no more than a couple hundred yards away from the main entrance. We hiked on inside a few seconds before the rain started falling. Just inside was a large directory. I scanned it and located the food court.
“I was right,” I said. “It’s in the back in the place called the Terraces.”
“Inside,” Toni said.
“Leave the Jeep and walk there?” I asked.
“Yeah.” We had started walking toward the mall’s main entrance when Toni said, “Wait a second.” I turned to her, but she was already walking toward a group of girls. I followed.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I ask you guys a question?”
They nodded.
“We’re new to the area, and we’re supposed to meet my little sister here. But she didn’t say where. Do you girls have any idea where kids-about your age-would hang out?”
“Probably the food court,” one of the girls said. “There’s lots of kids there.”
Toni smiled. “Thanks.”
She turned to
me. “Sounds like we’re on the right track,” she said.
We walked down the main corridor, hung a right at Macy’s, and then turned left to reach the Terraces Food Court. It was a very large, open area, with ceilings probably thirty feet tall. A long double row of skylights allowed natural daylight to flood the huge area. It was about as close to being an outdoor area as you could get and still make it work in the rainy Northwest. Two-dozen food vendors occupied spaces that ringed the perimeter of the court. There must have been a couple hundred tables in the center.
Impressive as that was, though, the most impressive thing by far were the number of people. It was twelve thirty-lunchtime. It was as if every middle school and high school in the northern King County area had decided to hold class in the food court, and school had just let out for lunch. It was a huge party. There were hundreds of kids: kids talking, kids laughing, kids eating, kids standing around. There were at least a half-dozen security guards, stationed at strategic points around the area. They seemed to simply watch the action around them. Perhaps they were under orders to leave the kids alone as long as the kids behaved themselves-which they all seemed to be doing. It was a happy, peaceful, end-of-the-school-year party. And maybe, somewhere, Kelli was in there.
“Wow,” I said.
Toni nodded. “We’d probably best split up,” she said.
“Are we just looking? Or are we talking?” I asked.
“I think both now,” she said. “Use Kelli’s photo if you want, but let’s not show any photos of Crystal yet. Let’s do them one at a time.”
I pulled out my phone and organized my pictures. I had several photos now of people connected to this case, starting, of course, with the picture of Isabel that we’d taken from her bedroom. Now, I also had a good close-up of Kelli that Toni’d e-mailed me a few minutes earlier. I also had a decent close-up of Crystal and another one of Donnie Martin and DeMichael Hollins-all taken during our stakeout at the big house.
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