Look for Me

by Lisa Gardner

  She hadn’t been fond of my approach then. When I decided to personally get involved with the case of a missing college student, she’d been equally unhappy with me. And yet, in a dark, boarded-up house, when I found myself cornered and armed with nothing but a piece of glass and a plastic straw, D. D. Warren was the one who saved the day.

  D.D. was tough. I respected that about her. And I’d found the missing girl, which I liked to think D.D. respected about me.

  Still, I’d taken pains for this afternoon’s meeting. Given the media frenzy following the Stacey Summers case, I’d become more recognizable on the streets of Boston. People seemed drawn to survivors. We were at once heroic and accessible. Neighbors worth admiring, but also good for whispering about behind our backs. Hence, the continued pressure to write about my ordeal with Jacob. People wanted to know, whether I wanted them to know or not.

  After talking to Sarah, I’d started listening to the police scanners. Didn’t take me long to hear the news that the family’s two dogs had been located at a coffee shop in Brighton.

  Of course D.D. would want to check out the dogs in person. Which made this the perfect place to meet.

  For the occasion, I wore an oversized navy blue windbreaker that added bulk to my undersized frame. It also helped disguise my various instruments of self-defense—plastic lock picks, a Leatherman multipurpose tool, my custom mini pepper spray, and a combat pen that had more uses than you might think. I also wore two paracord survival bracelets. One bracelet included a compass, the other a whistle and flint fire starter. Amazing what you could find on the internet these days. Especially given that the corded bracelets were currently popular with kids and available anyplace and everyplace in Boston.

  For the finishing touch, I’d pulled a blue Patriots cap low over my dirty-blond hair. Given this was Tom Brady country, it would’ve been more conspicuous to walk around in public without one.

  Now, D.D. and her fellow detective came to a halt in front of me. D.D. wore dark dress jeans, currently covered in dog hair, and a caramel-colored leather jacket. I liked the jacket, but respected the dog-haired jeans—a detective not afraid to get dirty.

  She glanced around—like me, aware of the public location, the potential for prying eyes. Her job made her a media target. My past made me a media darling. Spotted together, we were an ambitious reporter’s wet dream.

  “Don’t suppose you’re just in the area?” D.D. said. The other detective peeled off, approaching the uniform guarding the two dogs and murmuring something low in the officer’s ear.

  “Are those her dogs?” I asked. Stupid question, but I had to start somewhere.

  “Whose dogs?”

  I flashed her an impatient look. “Roxy’s.”

  D.D. turned and started walking, heading up the block. I fell in step beside her. As we passed the dogs, her colleague—Phil, I think was his name—also joined our procession.

  “I told the officer to stay with the dogs for another hour,” Phil murmured to D.D. “Hopefully we’ll hear from Hector by then. If not . . .”

  “Are the dogs going to be all right?” I asked sharply. With the family dead, Roxanna missing . . . I hadn’t even thought about the spaniels.

  D.D. shook her head. “Talk first,” she ordered, never breaking stride. “After that, we’ll see if I’m in a sharing sort of mood.”

  I took a deep breath in, let it out. All right. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I’ve never met her,” I said. “At least not in person.”

  “Not helping.”

  “I have a group.” I shrugged, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I’m not the only survivor in Boston.”

  D.D. glanced at me. “Okay.”

  “After the Stacey Summers case, I was in the spotlight for a bit.”

  “Okay.”

  “Which brought out future husbands, TV producers, and all the other assorted fruits and nuts.”

  “When I said start talking, I meant about something relevant to the case.”

  “I also started receiving letters from other survivors. Women—and men—with stories of their own. Considering how I’d helped rescue Stacey, they wondered if my approach—”

  “Chasing predators, endangering yourself and others?” D.D. interjected coolly.

  “—might work for them. So . . . I started holding meetings.”

  D.D. stopped. Caught midstep, I stumbled slightly, had to catch myself. Phil, on the other hand, paused easily, expression unconcerned, as D.D. squared off against me in the middle of the crowded block. “You started holding meetings? As in, like, you’re a leader? Peter Pan with your own group of Lost Boys? Or Robin Hood with his merry band of thieves?”

  “Or a support group, where we try to figure out this whole business of living in the real world again.”

  D.D. stared at me. Crystalline blue eyes. I remembered that about her. An uncompromising face to go with an uncompromising woman. She was too thin, like me. All hard angles and planes. But with her short blond curls and penetrating blue eyes, she could be beautiful if she wanted to be. Except I don’t think she wanted to be. Strength mattered more to her. To both of us.

  And we made our choices accordingly.

  “What does Samuel think of this?” she asked abruptly, referring to my FBI victim advocate and probably one of the only people in the world I truly trusted.

  I hesitated. “He thinks a support group is a good idea. Be empowered and all that.”

  “And your mom?”

  “Given that she’s pretty happy with Samuel . . .”

  “They’re together?” D.D. was caught off guard enough to end the staring contest. “Finally? Well, that explains a few things.”

  My turn for shock. “You knew?”

  D.D. shrugged. “That explains a few things,” she repeated. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure you out.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Fresh eye roll. “Tell me about Roxanna Baez,” D.D. said. “Why are you here?”

  “I saw the Amber Alert this morning and immediately recognized her name. She’d already been brought to my attention.”

  “She’s one of your band of survivors?”

  “Kind of. Roxanna Baez recently talked to one of the other members of my group. Looking for help. Not for herself, but for a friend.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I know. Oldest line in the world. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say she was probably looking for help for herself.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “If you’d like, you can judge that for yourself. I come bearing gifts. Transcripts. From a chat room.”

  We’d halted across the street from a looming medical complex, St. Elizabeth’s. D.D. glanced at the building, then at Phil. They exchanged a look.

  “We didn’t find a record on the girl’s computer that she had logged in to any chat rooms,” D.D. said.

  “You won’t. This chat room doesn’t exist. At least, not anymore.” I turned to Phil, held out a sheaf of folded papers.

  “And you know this how?” Phil asked sharply.

  “Because I’m the chat room leader, and I’m good at making things both appear and disappear.”

  D.D. nodded, clearly not surprised, and apparently already one step ahead.

  “It’s time for more coffee,” she announced. “Good news, you get to join us.”

  “Where?”

  “Has to be a coffee shop in the med center. And as long as we’re there . . .” She and Phil exchanged that look again. I was probably in trouble. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  “I get the gunslinger’s seat,” I called.

  “Somehow, I never doubted you’d have it any other way.”

  Chapter 10

  THEY FOUND THE HOSPITAL CAFÉ, bu
t even D.D. could handle only so much caffeine. She went with water, then, upon second thought, added a bagel with cream cheese. God only knew when she’d be able to eat again. Phil joined her. Flora declined all. Woman probably didn’t eat anything she didn’t prepare herself, or pass through poison control.

  “You’re bleeding,” D.D. said to Flora once they were all situated. She nodded toward Flora’s hand.

  The woman raised her left arm self-consciously. She had a bandage over the meaty edge of her palm. Sure enough, red notes had bloomed across the white surface. Flora shrugged, lowered her arm again.

  “What’d you do?” D.D. asked.

  “You know how it is. All the hand-to-hand combat training. Hard not to leave without at least one or two reminders of your time on the mat.”

  D.D. nodded, though in her experience, self-defense training led to bruising, sometimes abrasions. For a wound to still be bleeding like that, it made her think of a gash. Which made her wonder just what kind of training Flora was into these days.

  Phil had taken the chat room transcript. Now, he spread the pages out on the table. “No URL, IP address.” He regarded Flora skeptically. “This is beyond sanitized. For all we know, you typed this up. Script from a play.”

  D.D. saw his point. The pages basically held lines of dialogue, assigned to various user names. No way of authenticating. Worthless, as real evidence went.

  “I’m the chat room leader,” Flora said again, as if reading their minds. “If anything, you have my testimony, just like any other witness’s, that this is what I heard.”

  “So who are these people?” D.D. asked.

  Flora pointed halfway down the page to a user identified as BFF123. “That’s Roxanna Baez.”

  “And you know this . . . ?”

  “Because the chat room is by private invitation only. As the leader, I register new members. And we only accept based on personal recommendation.”

  “Meaning someone in your group personally met Roxy?”

  Flora didn’t say anything.

  “You know we’re going to need to talk to that person. Directly. Not everything can be because the great survivalist Flora Dane said so.”

  Flora merely arched a brow.

  Even Phil was exasperated. “Are you helping us, or are you helping us?”

  “Reading the transcript of this particular chat,” Flora supplied coolly, “you’ll notice the topic.”

  “‘Massachusetts Castle Law,’” D.D. read. Castle Law referred to the rights homeowners had in their own dwelling, specifically the right to defend their lives and property in said dwelling. Laws varied state by state, which in a region as tightly packed as New England could lead to confusion.

  “Roxy brought it up. In reference to her ‘friend.’ In Massachusetts, what were the gun laws regarding self-defense?”

  “‘FoxGirl,’” D.D. read. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

  Flora nodded.

  “Well, according to you, then, Massachusetts Castle Law permits deadly force by a homeowner against an intruder only in cases of direct fear of bodily harm.”

  “Can’t shoot a guy stealing your TV,” Flora deadpanned. “Can shoot a guy attacking you with a weapon. Fists remain a gray area—some would argue an unarmed opponent throwing punches doesn’t rise to the level of imminent danger. Though in the case of a teenage girl, she could probably argue a grown man coming directly at her incited reasonable fear of bodily harm.”

  D.D. didn’t need to be educated on Massachusetts gun laws. The notoriously liberal state was not exactly an NRA stronghold and never would be. New Hampshire to the north, however, with its motto of Live Free or Die . . .

  Phil asked the next question. “There appears to be four different people commenting on the subject. You’ve blacked out the other names.”

  “Everyone has a right to privacy.”

  “Because when you were a victim, you never had any?” D.D. asked dryly.

  “Partly. But also because survival turned us all into instant celebrities. And who wants to be famous for this?”

  D.D. glanced up. “You questioned if Roxy’s friend had a gun. You advised against it.” She pointed to the lines of the transcript. “Interesting advice coming from you.”

  “Statistically speaking, guns aren’t a great self-defense strategy for females. Unless they invest in training and establish comfort with their weapon, most will hesitate to pull the trigger, or they’ll fire wildly, missing their target. At which time, they’ll lose their gun and have it used against them. As the group leader, I knew Roxanna was a sixteen-year-old girl. I’m assuming her friend is a teenager, as well. Meaning the firearm is most likely a street weapon, and there’s been little training involved.”

  “What do you recommend for women?”

  “A dog. Especially certain breeds that no one, not even an armed intruder, wants to mess with.”

  “You don’t have a dog.”

  “I live in a tiny Boston apartment. Not exactly dog friendly.”

  “Roxanna had two dogs,” D.D. said.

  “Two elderly spaniels. How fearsome is that?”

  The waitress brought water, bagels. D.D. and Phil dug in. Flora stared at the table. “I don’t think Roxy had a friend,” she said abruptly. “And not just because it’s the oldest line in the book.”

  “You think she felt personally threatened.”

  “Our mutual acquaintance,” Flora stressed the word, “who recommended Roxy for the group . . . She thought the girl looked stressed and exhausted. Who carries the weight of the world on their shoulders for a friend?”

  “A BFF?” D.D. asked dryly.

  “Read the questions she’s asking. All related to self-defense. Not offense. And particularly, self-defense in the home. Who lives with their BFF?”

  D.D. shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe she’s simply looking for the best way to frame a shooting in order to get away with it.”

  “By that logic, she should’ve remained in her home this morning. Argued someone in the house attacked her and she killed them in self-defense. That would keep with the advice given in this transcript.”

  D.D. raised a brow. “She killed her entire family in self-defense? Including her nine-year-old brother?”

  “Are you sure there was only one shooter? One person killed them all?”

  “Versus what? An attacker took out the family, then Roxanna took out the attacker?”

  “Why not?”

  D.D. wasn’t surprised by the question. No details of the homicides had been leaked to the press, as it should be in such a case.

  “I will give you this much,” D.D. granted at last. “There’s no evidence of an argument, disturbance, or exchange of fire. All signs point to one shooter ambushing four targets. Cold, clinical, controlled. This was planned and carried through.”

  “An execution,” Flora whispered.

  “Most likely.”

  Flora frowned. “You really think Roxanna could do such a thing? I mean, this is a sixteen-year-old girl under pressure, asking for advice—”

  “On Massachusetts gun laws.”

  “But to take out her entire family, including two younger siblings . . . I don’t buy it. Not the Roxanna I knew. No way.”

  “Except according to you, you’d only just met her. Meaning you didn’t really know the girl at all.”

  “The Amber Alert said to be on the lookout for a girl walking two dogs. Doesn’t that imply she was gone at the time of the shooting?”

  “According to a neighbor, she’d left with the dogs. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t double back.”

  Flora frowned again, shook her head. She didn’t speak right away. D.D. used the opportunity to attack her bagel.

  “Our group is small,” Flora said finally. “And not stupid. You go through the situations we went thr
ough, plus navigate everything afterward—the reporters who pretend to be your best friend, only because they want exclusive rights to your story; the people who suddenly love you, but only really want to bask in the reflected glow of your celebrity . . . You learn to be a good judge of people. We don’t allow many in, and everyone has to come with a personal recommendation. Roxy got that blessing. She convinced at least one pretty savvy woman that she was desperately in need.”

  “Maybe.” D.D. shrugged, chewed more bagel. “But according to you, she always talked about a friend, which everyone knew was a lie. So, you believed her fear was genuine, even as she lied to you?”

  “We believed she lied because she was afraid.”

  “Tricky proposition. She reveal anything personal? Trust you guys with any intimate details of her life? Hell, the name of this alleged best friend? Or, better yet, biggest enemy?”

  “Not yet. But she was new to the group. Sharing takes time and trust.”

  D.D. rolled her eyes. “In other words, you know nothing. And have spent the past twenty minutes telling us nothing. Thanks a lot.”

  “We didn’t know much about her current home life,” Flora said abruptly. “But I know she was once in foster care.”

  D.D. paused mid-bite, remembering what Hector had told them, about the year when Juanita’s drinking had caught up with her and she’d lost custody of the kids. “What makes you say that?”

  “She referred once to her CASA advocate. Advice she’d received from the woman on how to handle uncomfortable situations. Basically, threat-assessment skills for a foster kid entering a new home environment. Clearly, Roxanna had some experience.”

  “What else?”

  “You tell me. When Roxy went for her walk, did she take anything with her? Say, a backpack.”

  “Maybe.”

  Flora nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “Bugout bag. She was preparing. Keeping the essentials with her at all times. Something foster kids learn to do.”

  “Except Roxy’s been back home with her mother and siblings for years now. Seems like a strange time to suddenly expect a social worker or CASA volunteer to show up again.”