Toni was not happy. “Yeah, you think?”
Kelli continued. “I know. I got to the point where I would just drop Izzy off at the curb. I couldn’t stand going in.” She stared at the wall for a second, then tears welled up in her eyes. “Izzy didn’t have a choice, though. Maybe if I’d have done something, she wouldn’t have had it so bad.”
I looked at her and shook my head. “Done what? What could you have done? Don’t second-guess yourself like that. Hell, if I did that, I’d be a wreck. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t even know anything was happening. And if what Isabel said is true, the only one who did anything wrong was her stepfather. Don’t forget that, alright?”
“Besides,” Toni said. “Look at it. Now that you’ve discovered a problem, what are you doing? You’re trying to get help-just like you should. Danny’s right. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Kelli sniffed. “I guess,” she said.
Toni handed her a tissue from the box on the credenza.
“You ready to keep going?” Toni asked
“Yeah,” Kelli said.
“You said you’ve known her since last year?” Toni asked.
“Yes,” Kelli said. “When she was a freshman.”
“Did you ever see anything with her-any sort of sign that she might have been in some sort of trouble?”
She shook her head. “Other than her creep-job stepfather, no.”
“No bruises-no cuts-nothing like that?”
She shook her head again. “No, nothing. Not that I ever saw, anyway.”
We paused, and then I said, “Did you guys hang out other than at school?”
“Yeah, sometimes. We’d go to the mall sometimes.”
“Alderwood Mall?”
“Yeah. It’s right by our house.”
“Anything else?”
“We went to the movies a few times, too.”
“When did she tell you about what happened at her house? About her stepfather?”
Kelli sniffled. “Not until after she left.”
Toni and I both scribbled on our notepads. After a few seconds, Toni said, “Tell us about Isabel leaving home.”
“Okay. I called her on her birthday, but she didn’t answer, so I sent her a text. She called me back later the same day. She was like ‘Kelli-I ran away.’”
“And then she told you what happened?”
Kelli nodded. She started to cry again. “She said it was because her stepfather raped her,” she said.
“She said that?” I asked. “In those words?”
Kelli’s face was red with anguish. “Yes,” she said. Toni got up and put her arm around her sister as Kelli sobbed quietly into her tissue.
A couple of minute later, she composed herself and continued. “She said she wasn’t going to put up with him anymore, so she ran away. I offered to come and pick her up, but she wouldn’t tell me where she was-at least not then. I think she was afraid that if I knew, I might rat her out accidentally. I told her she could come stay with us, but she said that she didn’t want us to get in trouble. She thought that her mom or her stepfather would come over looking for her. She made me promise not to say anything to anybody.”
“Did they?” I asked. “Did her parents come looking for her?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“So she’s been gone a month, and they haven’t even come looking? Do you think that her mom or her stepfather would have come to ask you if you knew anything?” Toni asked.
“Sure,” Kelli said. “They know about me. They know Izzy and I are good friends.”
“What happened next?” I asked.
Kelli opened her purse and pulled out her phone. She opened the text message window.
“A couple of days after she called, she sends me a text.” She handed me the phone. Toni leaned over, and we both read it.
Isabel Delgado 5/9/12 7:32 PM
Met a cool girl named Crystal at the mall. Staying with her and her boyfriend Donnie for now. IOK.:^) LYLAS
“I don’t know much about texting. IOK stands for ‘I’m okay’?” I asked.
“Yes,” Toni said.
“How about LYLAS?”
That one stumped Toni. Kelli said, “It means ‘Love you like a sister.’” She sniffed and wiped her nose. “Now scroll down,” she said. I did. The next message was one day later.
Isabel Delgado 5/10/12 4:56 PM
Went shopping for clothes-Crystal loaned me $$. Looking good!:^) LYLAS
“Again,” she said. “A week later.”
I scrolled down again.
Isabel Delgado 5/18/12 11:24 PM
Kicking it with Donnie’s friend Mikey. He’s the bomb, and we’re into each other.:^) LYLAS
“And then the last one,” she said. “A week ago.”
I scrolled down again.
Isabel Delgado 5/28/ 12 5:17 PM
Kelli-2G2BT.:(LYLAS
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“2G2BT? It means ‘too good to be true.’”
“Too good to be true and a little frowny-face thing,” I said. “I wonder what she meant by that?”
“Something must have happened,” Toni said. “Something she didn’t like, by the sound of it.”
“Seems that way,” I said. I thought for a second. “It’s amazing how four little text messages can tell a story like that.” I punched the intercom button and called Kenny into the conference room. When he arrived, I asked Kelli, “Do you mind if I get Kenny to pull copies of your text messages off your phone?”
“No,” she said. “That’d be okay.”
“And can you give us Isabel’s cell phone number?”
“Yeah,” she said. She read the number off, and all three of us wrote it down.
Kenny left with the phone. I turned to Toni. “What do you think?”
She thought for a second and then said, “Sounds like we need to find Isabel.”
I nodded. “I agree,” I said. “The sooner, the better.”
Kelli smiled, tears flowing again. “Thanks, you guys. Thank you so much.”
I smiled at her. “We’ll find her.” I thought for a second. “But if we do,” I said, “where will we take her? We can’t very well take her back to her home.”
“First things first,” Toni said. “Let’s focus on finding her for now. Then we’ll worry about where to take her.”
I nodded. “Good plan. Let’s do it.”
So we started hunting for Isabel.
Chapter 2
“Jeez-thirty-five yards? I can barely see that far,” Detective Goscislaw “Gus” Szymanski said as I recounted
