“I’ll meet you there. I’m going up there anyway.”
“You are?”
“I just talked to Dave Parris. Thought it would be a good idea if we took a look at the girl’s room. Unless you’re too busy.”
11
The window to Jessica Parris’s room was open, sunlight pouring in along with the warm summer air. It was clear from the posters on the wall that Jessica favored Josh Hartnett, Shakira, and Nelly. Laura had done stupid things in her teenage years, but worshipping a guy who wore a Band-Aid on his cheek wasn’t one of them.
Someone had written all over Jessica’s sheets with permanent markers: “Stay cool!” “You’re my best friend ever.” “You and Cary are the coolest people I know.”
“Her friends wrote those things,” Mrs. Parris said from the doorway. “We had a slumber party and they helped her decorate her room.” She hugged herself as if by doing so she might hold herself together, her nervous gaze straying to Buddy Holland, who was poking around the room as if it were a garbage dump. “Do you need anything else?”
Laura said, “I notice she doesn’t have a computer. Do you or your husband?”
“No. We’re not computer literate around here. Excuse me. I have to check the cookies.”
A dresser drawer screeched as Buddy opened it with latexed hands.
Laura looked up sharply. Holland returned her look, eyes devoid of all expression. She’d seen that look before, had used it herself. Cops who detested each other still had to work together, so they did it with as few words possible, just enough to get the job done. No one did cold as well as a cop.
Laura said, “No computer in the house, but she probably has access to one at school. You really think CRZYGRL12 has something to do with the Internet?”
“Could be.” Then he did something she didn’t expect: volunteered. “Let me check it out. I know my way around the Net pretty well. If she’s there, I can probably track her down.”
It was the longest speech she’d ever heard from him. “What would you do?”
“Check out Internet Relay Chats, see if I can find her there.”
Laura seized on the one word of the three she understood. “You mean chat rooms?”
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t elaborate. “You want me to or not?”
She nodded. “I think you should.”
A photograph on the dresser top caught her eye—Jessica and a young man she assumed was Cary Statler. Jessica was pretty in a short denim skirt and halter top. Statler was a skinny, sleepy-looking kid in a black t-shirt and dirty-looking jeans. His hair looked like a pineapple top.
Buddy had gone back to searching, rummaging through a make-up caddy, then moving on to a velvet-lined box holding her earrings, bracelets, and anklets. A tinny sound as an anklet hit the floor. Doing it to annoy her.
“Buddy.”
“What?”
“Why don’t you interview Mr. Parris?”
Shrug. “Fine with me.”
He snapped off his gloves and left the room.
The stillness contrasted with all his banging. Now maybe she could get a feel for the girl.
Jessica had a thing for girly stuff: Flavored lip gloss; smiley-faced colognes with names like Cool Diva and Cha Cha Chica; and at least a dozen tubes of Sungirl—sun care products with glitter.
Laura looked at the photo again, wondering what about it nagged her.
It would come.
She looked through the dresser drawers and closet: Blue jeans, peasant blouses, halters, clogs. Jessica’s underwear was neatly folded in her dresser drawers. Bikini underwear in pastel colors, a couple of bras—Victoria’s Secret type stuff. They looked sophisticated for a fourteen-year-old girl, at least the fourteen-year-old girl Laura had been. A different era. She found a few homework assignments jammed into a bookshelf, most of the answer spaces blank. Round handwriting with hearts to dot the ‘i’s. No diary, unless Jessica kept it in a secret place. No books other than schoolbooks and the Harry Potter series, which was lined up in the bookcase like those leather-bound classics people displayed for show. Laura couldn’t say for sure, but she doubted that Jessica had cracked one of them.
Lots of
She noticed a newspaper clipping from a modeling agency tucked into the frame of the dresser mirror. Mrs. Parris had told her Jessica had wanted to be a model or a rock star.
Now she would be neither.
Laura walked into the kitchen, where the smell of baking cookies was overwhelming. Mrs. Parris fluttered back and forth through the sunny kitchen like a bird trapped indoors, her movements increasingly frantic.
“How are you doing?” Laura asked.
Mrs. Parris checked the heat on the oven. “We’re okay. I mean. It’s horrible, but …” She wiped a strand of red
