Fractured

'I only saw it once. It was this shitty color blue. It didn't even have air-conditioning.'

Adam would have had thirty days to register the car with the state, which might explain why they hadn't pulled up anything on the state's system. If they could get a description, then they could put it on the wire and have every cop in the city looking for it. 'Can you remember anything else about it? Did it have a bumper sticker or a cracked windshield or-'

He turned petulant. 'I told you I only saw it once.'

Faith could practically feel the irritation in her voice, like an itch at the back of her throat. She took a deep breath before asking, 'Why didn't you tell me about the car before?'

He shrugged again. 'I told my girlfriend, Julie, and she said… she said that if Emma's dead, it's my fault for not telling you. She said she never wants to see me again.'

Faith guessed that that was what was really bothering him. There was nothing more self-involved than a teenager. She asked, 'Did you ever meet Emma in person?'

He shook his head.

'How about her friend Kayla Alexander-blond girl, very pretty?'

'I'd never even heard of her until I turned on the news.' Gabe asked, 'Do you think I did a bad thing?'

'Of course not,' Faith assured him, hoping she managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. 'Do you know the Web site Adam and Emma used?'

He shook his head. 'He had it on his laptop, but then his laptop got stolen.'

'How did it get stolen?'

Gabe sat up, wiping his eyes with his fist. 'He left it out at the library when he went to pee, and when he came back, it was gone.'

Faith was hardly surprised. Adam might as well have put a 'take me' sign on it. 'Did you ever see what name he used on the site? Did he use his e-mail address?'

'I don't think so.' He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe his nose. 'If you put in your e-mail address, then you get all kinds of trolls for spam and shit.'

She had assumed as much. Compounding the problem, there were probably nine billion Web sites for people with learning disabilities, and those were just the American ones. She reminded him, 'When you called me, you said you had something to show me. Something that belonged to Adam.'

Guilt flashed in his eyes, and she realized that the other stuff- the Web site, the car, the fear about Emma's age-was just preamble to the information that had really compelled him to call her.

Faith struggled to keep the urgency out of her tone. 'Whatever it is that you have, I need to see it.'

He took his sweet time relenting, making a show of leaning up on his heels so he could dig his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. Slowly, he pulled out several pieces of folded white paper. He explained, 'These were slipped under Adam's door last week.'

As he unfolded the three pages, all she could think was that between the creases, smudges and dog-eared corners, the paper had been handled many, many times.

'Here,' Gabe said. 'That's all of them.'

Faith stared in shock at the three notes he'd spread out on the floor between them. Each page had a single line of bold, block text running horizontally across it. Each line heightened her sense of foreboding.

SHE BE LONGS TOME!!! RAPIST!!! LEV HER ALONG!!!

At first, Faith didn't trust herself to speak. Someone had tried to warn Adam Humphrey away from Emma Campano. Someone had been watching them together, knew their habits. The notes were more proof that this was not a spur of the moment abduction. The killer had known some if not all of the participants.

Gabe had his own concerns. 'Are you mad at me?'

Faith could not answer him. Instead, she gave him back her own question. 'Did anyone else touch these besides you and Adam?'

He shook his head.

'What order did they come in-do you remember?'

He switched around the last two sheets before she could stop him. 'Like that.'

'Don't touch them again, okay?' He nodded. 'When did the first one come?'

'Monday last week.'

'What did Adam say when he got it?'

Gabe was no longer being emotional about his answers. He seemed almost relieved to be telling her. 'First, we were like, you know, it was funny, because everything is spelled wrong.'

'And when the second one came?'

'It came the next day. We were kind of freaked out. I thought Tommy was doing it.'

The asshole dormmate. 'Was he?'

'No. Because I was with Tommy the day Adam got the third note. That was when his computer was stolen, and I was like, ‘What the fuck? Is somebody stalking you or what?' ' Gabe glanced at her, probably looking for confirmation on his theory. Faith gave him none, and he continued, 'Adam was pretty freaked out. He said he was going to get a gun.'

Faith's instincts told her that Gabe was not blowing smoke. She made her tone deadly serious. 'Did he?'

Gabe looked back at the notes.

'Gabe?'

'He was thinking about it.'

'Where would he get a gun?' she asked, though the answer was obvious. Tech was an urban campus. You could walk ten blocks in any direction and find meth, coke, prostitutes and firearms in any combination on any street corner.

'Gabe?' she prompted. 'Where would Adam get a gun?'

Again, he remained silent.

'Stop screwing around,' she warned him. 'This is not a game.'

'It was just talk,' he insisted, but he still wouldn't look her in the eye.

Faith no longer tried to hide her impatience. She indicated the notes. 'Did you report these to campus security?'

His chin started to quiver. Tears brimmed in his eyes. 'We should've, right? That's what you're saying. It's my fault, because Adam wanted to, and I told him not to, that he'd get in trouble because of Emma.' He put his head in his hands, shoulders shaking again. She saw how thin he was, how his ribs pressed into the thin T-shirt he wore. Watching him, listening to him cry, Faith realized that she had read Gabe Cohen completely wrong. This was no act on his part. He was genuinely upset, and she had been too focused on the case to notice.

His voice cracked. 'It's all my fault. That's what Julie said. It's all my fault, and I know you think that, too.'

Faith sat there, not knowing what to do. The truth was, she was mad at him, but also at herself. If Faith had been better at her job, she would have spotted this yesterday. The time lost was down to her. Gabe had probably had these notes in his pocket when he challenged her less than twenty-four hours ago. Blaming him for her own failure would not get them any closer to finding Emma Campano, and right now, that was all that mattered.

She sat back on her heels, trying to figure out what to do. Faith could not tell how fragile the young man was right now. Was he just another teenager caught up in his emotions or was he playing up the situation for her attention?

'Gabe,' she began, 'I need you to be honest with me.'

'I am being honest.'

Faith took a moment, trying to find the best way to phrase her next question. 'Is there something else you're not telling me?'

He looked up at her. There was suddenly such sadness in his eyes that she had to force herself not to look away. 'I can't do anything right.'

His life had been turned upside down over the last couple of days, but she knew he was talking about more than that. She told him, 'I'm sure that's not true.'

'Adam was my only friend, and he's dead-probably because of me.'

'I promise you that's not true.'