Sean, focusing on another girl’s problems instead of her own, annoyed her, distracted her from her self-pity. Selfish?
Sean turned off I-95 into the Woodbridge suburb. With fifty thousand residents, planned developments, and strategically placed parks and schools, Woodbridge was a great place to raise kids, but Lucy could imagine how teenagers might easily go stir-crazy. Especially a teenager who had been transplanted three thousand miles from her friends and family by a mother who couldn’t see beyond her own pain and feelings of betrayal.
Several houses in the Bentons’ neighborhood had “for sale” or “bank owned” signs posted in the yard, an all- too-familiar sight across the country, particularly in the halted growth of suburbia. Sean stopped in front of a split- level house more than twenty years old, standard fare for this part of Virginia. The neighborhood was pleasant but unremarkable, the houses on wide lots with bare trees including thinned-out pines separating them from their neighbors. Quiet, not particularly quaint, and now empty, which Lucy suspected had more to do with commuters than the foul weather.
What kind of home did Kirsten have before her father betrayed her mother and her mother ran away with Kirsten? What did Kirsten see when she came home from school every day-or, more important, what
Lucy’s stomach clenched as she realized that it was four months before graduation when she first started talking to the man she believed was nineteen-year-old Georgetown freshman Trevor Conrad. Someone who seemed to know and understand her better than her friends did, better than her family did. What Lucy had not known until it was too late was that he’d researched her long before he contacted her. Knew her favorite bands. Her favorite movies. Her favorite books. All because of places she’d visited and made comments about on the World Wide Web. He knew she was the youngest of seven, came from a family of cops and military heroes. He understood-even though she never said it in so many words-that she wanted to get away from home because of the deep sadness that had permeated her family after the murder of her nephew Justin when she and Justin were only seven.
“Trevor Conrad” had known more about her than anyone else, and she’d walked right into his trap.
Had Kirsten made similar mistakes?
“Lucy, what’s wrong?” Sean asked.
She shook her head, realizing that she was staring into space and Sean had been trying to talk to her about Kirsten and her mother. “What isn’t wrong?” she countered, not able to discuss her thoughts right now. “I’m ready, though you hardly need me.”
“We need to talk to Kirsten’s friends, and you’ve worked with teens. You know their in-speak, so to speak.” He smiled at his humor.
“And you don’t?” she said. “I’m here, so let’s get on with it.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “You’re not really mad at me.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I am.” But she wasn’t, not at Sean. Not anymore.
He reached out and lifted the amethyst daisy pendant off her chest. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m not going to take my anger out on a beautiful piece of jewelry just because the gift-giver picked the lock on my bedroom door.”
He kissed her. “I’ll try not to do it again.”
“Try?”
“I’m not going to make any promises I’m not sure I can keep.”
Lucy supposed that honesty was better than false promises, but she cherished her privacy, and Sean was going to have to learn that sometimes she needed to be alone.
They walked up to the front door. Sean had a key and let them in. “Evelyn had to work today, but that’s just as well because I work better without someone asking a million questions.”
“She’s worried.”
Sean closed the door behind them. “I don’t like that Kirsten hasn’t contacted anyone, not her mother or a friend.”
“Unless one of her friends is keeping a secret.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He walked down the hall to the kitchen. “First I’m going to check Kirsten’s cell phone records. Evelyn told me she left them on the kitchen table.”
He motioned up the stairs. “Kirsten’s room is at the top on the right. Patrick and I searched it yesterday, didn’t notice anything odd other than what I told you. But maybe you’ll see something different.”
“Because I’m a girl?”
“Exactly.” He kissed her again. “I’m going to set up down here and go through the phone records.”
Sean watched as Lucy went upstairs. He hadn’t been sure she’d like the daisy necklace because she rarely wore jewelry. He was pleased to see the pendant around her neck.
Sean sat at the table and pulled out his spreadsheet of Kirsten’s friends and their phone numbers. He compared that list to the cell phone log. Nothing looked unusual. Next, he looked at the phone numbers on the log that didn’t match up to Kirsten’s known friends.
There was one number in the 917 area code that kept coming up. Sean searched the prefix. It was retained for cell phones in New York City. Who did Kirsten know in New York? Sean looked at last Friday’s phone calls and noted that the same number called Kirsten in the morning and they spoke for eight minutes.
He dialed the number. It went straight to voice mail, a generic computer voice telling him to leave a message at the tone.
He emailed Patrick to run a reverse telephone directory search on that number while he continued to go through the rest of the current calls.
The last call Kirsten made was at 1:07 Sunday morning, to that same 917 number. It lasted one minute.
The records didn’t identify where text messages were sent or at what time, and there was no way of getting those messages unless Sean had the physical phone.
Kirsten called two 212 phone numbers on Saturday, in addition to short calls to the original number. Sean dialed them. One was a restaurant. He asked for their hours and location. Manhattan? He quickly pulled the address up on a map and noted that it was only three blocks from Penn Station.
Amtrak had service from Union Station in D.C. to Penn Station in New York. If Kirsten paid cash, there was no way to trace it. That’s why she didn’t take her car when she left home; she had taken a train to New York. From Woodbridge, there was both train and bus service direct to Union Station.
He called the second number.
“Clover Motel, Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn? That wasn’t near Penn Station. “I’m looking for a guest, Kirsten Benton.”
“Room number?”
“I don’t have it. She would have checked in Friday night.”
“Just a sec.”
Sean heard the phone placed on a desk and television noise in the background. He Googled the motel for the address. The motel didn’t look too bad, though it wasn’t a place Sean would stay. Had Kirsten reserved a room, or was she calling a guest?
“Sorry,” the clerk came back on the line. “We have no guest by that name.”
“What about Ashleigh Benton?”
The clerk sighed. A moment later he said, “No. No Benton. No Kirsten. No Ashleigh. Anything else?” the clerk asked.
“Did you work last Friday night?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a private investigator looking for a missing teenager.”
“How do I know you’re not some crazy asshole? You want information, you come down with proper ID, and I’ll tell you. I can spot a fake, so don’t be pulling any shit with me.” The clerk hung up.
Sean didn’t much want to go to New York just to talk to a motel clerk when he didn’t know for certain that Kirsten had been there.
