and no sign of the software that whoever posted those threats used to block the tracking information.”
“I told you.”
“So you said something the other night about Megan’s roommate hitting on you one time.”
“Well, you know, everyone wants a piece of DJ Anorexotica.”
Ellie shook her head and laughed. “You realize that this whole shtick of yours is a little off-putting, right?”
“What shtick, girl? An-Ex is one hundred percent authentic.”
“Are you old enough to remember Vanilla Ice?”
“You mean Ice-T? Sure. He’s one of the original gangstas.”
Ellie smiled. “No, Vanilla Ice. Now that you’ve got your laptop back, you can Google him when I’m gone. Trust me: someone else has already mined this creative territory pretty thoroughly. Just try, today, this morning, one time only, to talk to me like a normal person. Talk to me the way I know you talked around Megan.”
The sound of her name made him pause, but not for long. “You’re trippin’.”
“I’m serious, Keith. I need to know about Heather. She’s missing. And she’s not who Megan thought she was. Her real name was Tanya Abbott.” She watched as Keith’s eyes widened. “She was a thirty-year-old prostitute from Baltimore. We need to find her, and anything you know about her might help us.”
“Oh, shit.” The language wasn’t elegant, but at least she’d gotten through to him.
“Exactly. Obviously we need to find this woman, and you appear to be the only friend of Megan’s who ever spent any amount of time around her.”
“Not much.”
“Well, not much is more than what we have right now. You said something about her having a boyfriend? She told us she hadn’t had a date since transferring to NYU.”
“I never saw her with any guys, but me and Megan always joked around that she had some secret sugar daddy on the side.”
“Why was that?”
“You know, she was always getting dressed up and shit, and when Megan asked where she was going, she’d act all cute and stuff. Like, ‘Just a friend,’ with this little smile. And then Heather’d disappear into her room and have these long phone conversations. They’d get kind of heated, you know, like Megan and I could kind of hear the tone. One time Megan was like, ‘Guess someone ain’t puttin’ out tonight.’ Like we just assumed it was boyfriend- girlfriend stuff.”
“Any idea who the guy was?”
He shook his head. “It was only a couple of times, so I don’t want to make a big deal about it or anything. It was more like something me and Megan would joke about—this whole secret life we thought Heather had. I guess she had it after all. I tried eavesdropping once. Megan was trying to stop me, but I could tell she was liking it.” He smiled at what was obviously a happy memory.
“You get anything good?”
“Not really. Something about New York being expensive and her being broke. Man, she was trickin’?”
“Looks like it.”
“No way Megan would have stood for that.” Ellie could tell what he was thinking. If he’d known, if he had listened to more of those calls, Megan would have kicked her out. She would have needed another roommate. Megan would be alive, and they might still be together.
“What about the night she came on to you?”
“I might have overstated that. Just a tiny bit,” he added, holding his fingers an inch apart.
“I thought everyone wanted a piece of the An-Ex.”
He sniffed as he tugged the sleeves of his sweatshirt up his forearms. “Well, you know. Mostly.”
She shared in the laugh. “So what’s the real version?”
“I don’t know if she was trying to hook up or what, but it was weird. Megan went to sleep early because, you know, she had classes or whatever. I was in the living room mixing some files on my laptop when Heather came home. And, man, she was lit. At the time, I assumed she was just really drunk, but now that you’re saying she’s a hooker and stuff, I don’t know. Maybe it was more like heroin or something. Anyway, she wasn’t herself. She went straight to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of tequila on the rocks, and started asking me what I was doing. We started talking, and eventually we’re doing shots together.”
“Would you say you were friends before that?”
“I wouldn’t say we were friends after. And I wouldn’t say she was friends with Megan either. At the time”— he squinted—“I figured she was one of those weak chicks who’s more into guys than any female friends. She started babbling about how nice I was and how lucky Megan was to have someone her age who admired her intelligence and her talent. And then she said something—and, yeah, this was why we always thought she had a boyfriend—she said something about always having a guy who takes care of her. She said it was a kind of a sickness, that she even saw a shrink about it. Then this was why I thought maybe she was coming on to me. She said it all started with this guy who popped her cherry when she was young, and that someone like me would be a change. I thought it was weird because she said
“Did she ever mention any of this to you afterward?”
“No way. She avoided me like an STD, you know? I figured she was embarrassed. I tried telling Megan later she was a head case, but she assumed I had it out for Heather because, well, I wanted to live there instead of her.”
“This place doesn’t seem so bad,” she said, looking around the apartment.
“I wanted to be with Megan.”
“I know.”
“Hey, Detective.”
“Call me Ellie.”
“Did any of this help? Are you going to be able to find Heather, or whatever her name is?”
“I honestly don’t know, Keith. But, yeah, I have a feeling this is going to be helpful.”
Ellie found Rogan deep in thought in front of his computer.
“What’s so interesting?” She bent to look over his shoulder.
“You want little news first, or big?”
“Save the best for last.”
“All right. To start with, I think I figured out how our girl created a little life for herself as Heather Bradley.” Ellie caught a glimpse of a Morgan Stanley logo before Rogan switched screens on his computer, pulling up an article from the
The date on the article was from last January.
Ellie skimmed the text. Arizona State University students had held an on-campus vigil after a third student this semester—a freshman named Heather Bradley—was killed by a drunk driver on Apache Boulevard. A summary of the accident followed: pickup truck driven by a thirty-two-year-old carpenter who was being charged with manslaughter. A summary of the other two accidents. And then quotes from Heather’s friends and one of her professors.
She reread the penultimate paragraph of the article, the quote from the math professor: “Heather was an outstanding student and a brilliant mind. I had only recently written a letter of recommendation for her. She was very happy here close to home but was ready to leave Arizona after all. I was sorry we’d be saying good-bye to her, but I never expected it to be like this.”
And then the final paragraph: “After earning acceptances from New York University, Smith College, and several other prestigious schools, Bradley had accepted an offer from Stanford. She would have matriculated there as a sophomore this fall.”
Forging a college application would have been extremely complicated, requiring fake transcripts, an SAT report, and phony letters of recommendation. But Tanya Abbott did not have to forge anything. The application had already been taken care of and the acceptance letter already sent in the mail.
“She just picked up the phone and called NYU,” she said.
