“So when a student gets into trouble, are they sent to talk to you?” I asked.
“Sometimes. It depends on the transgression and the motive behind the bad behavior, but yes, when a student is struggling, it’s not uncommon for them to be sent to talk to me. Anyway, like I said, Kalen had been a regular visitor in my office by the time Zane began coming around almost as often. I knew that Zane and his father hadn’t been getting along. Zane’s dad has always been harsh in his approach to child-rearing. I’m sure Zane never had it easy, but when he was younger, Zane had apparently figured out how to manage his father by avoiding certain actions, so it wasn’t too much of a problem. During the last weeks before he went missing, however, something changed. Instead of avoiding behavior that would set his dad off, Zane seemed to almost be egging him on by doing exactly the opposite of what he demanded.”
“Okay, so we have two teenage boys who are angry at their parents and begin to lash out. You mentioned commonalities.”
She nodded. “I first noticed Kalen using terms like personal power and one life. It sort of sounded like he had gotten ahold of a motivational handbook of some sort. It’s not unusual for kids around that age to begin to look inward for meaning, so it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility that Kalen had begun to think about who he was as an individual. I suspected at the time that the divorce had triggered that introspection. He went from being a kid who probably felt safe in an intact family to one who felt threatened when that family imploded.”
“I guess that makes sense. And Zane?”
“Zane’s life situation hadn’t changed the way Kalen’s had, although his sister did go off to college this past fall, and I think that up to that point, she served as sort of an anchor for him. Their father is strict and, at times, cruel in his approach to parenting. I think the two children banded together to get through things. Zane seemed to be the sort of kid who’d learned to adapt to his situation, but after his sister left, he began to push back, and his mother told me that she could feel him pulling away. What I found most interesting was that when Zane talked about some of the decisions he’d made, he also used the terms personal power and one life.”
“The exact same terms?” I asked.
She nodded. “The exact same terms. The use of the words personal power can be found in a lot of self-help and personal empowerment type books, but the term one life seems unique. Unfortunately, I didn’t really pick up on it until I went back through my notes after the boys went missing.”
“And Trevor?” I asked.
“Trevor is a smart kid. Brilliant, in fact. Lately, however, he’s had a hard time in school. It’s not because he can’t do the work, but because he’s refusing to participate. I spoke to Trevor’s parents about a private school for gifted students, but they didn’t want to move, and they didn’t want to send him off to board. Trevor is a good kid with a superior mind, but he’s also interested in doing what he wants to do. Still, he does generally seem to respect his parents.”
“So how does he fit in with the others?” I asked.
“I guess I should have said that Trevor has been a good kid who has generally respected his parents until recently. That all seemed to change a month or so ago when Trevor got it into his head that he was going to drop out of school and start his own video game company.”
I cringed. I hated to see a smart kid give up on having a higher education.
“Of course, given his age, his parents were against the idea, but it seemed that Trevor had made up his mind, so he began cutting classes. I worked with his parents to find a solution to the problem, but short of following Trevor from class to class, there was little they could do to keep him in school. Still, they tried. They all met with me. They restricted his privileges when he cut classes and provided rewards when he attended. They did what they could, but Trevor had decided that he was old enough to make his own choices and was determined to do just that.”
“Let me guess. During your sessions, Trevor used terms such as personal power and one life.”
She nodded. “Those exact terms. Again, I wish I would have honed in on this as being a problem before the boys went missing, but I guess I was more concerned about finding a solution to the problem than I was in identifying the reason the problem existed in the first place.”
“So what do you think it means that all three missing kids suddenly started using these exact terms about the same time they began to act out?”
Heidi returned with the dress and headed to the register to ring up the charge for the alterations.
“I think that all three boys somehow came into contact with the same book or possibly the same person,” Silvia answered. “I think that the terms personal power and one life are concepts they were exposed to, and I think that all three were vulnerable enough to be drawn in.”
I narrowed my gaze. “So what does that mean? How would something like that lead to their disappearance?”
“I’m hoping this means that the boys
