“To look at Roberto’s file, I would assume he was well versed in tricks.”
“So it’s possible he did have some photos, maybe taken while he and the girls were all together at Mother Del’s.” D.D. shook her head. The rumor mill could be harsh in high school. Lola and Roxy wouldn’t be the first two girls to find themselves victims of a shaming campaign, regardless of whether such photos even existed. No wonder Roxy was stressed out.
And no wonder Lola had been driven to join a gang.
“What happened next?” she asked, though she had a pretty good idea.
“Roberto shot himself. Late May, early June? And all the rumors and innuendo died with him.”
“The photos?” D.D. asked. “Someone must’ve ended up with his phone.”
“Had the same thought myself. In fact, just put in a call to the local PD last week trying to find out if they seized his phone as part of processing the scene. According to the school counselor, the photos seemed to disappear with Roberto’s death. But if the images still exist somewhere, and they are from the girls’ time in foster care . . . Roxy was only eleven. Lola, eight. By definition, those photos would be child porn. Highly illegal, not to mention a very powerful tool in my client’s case.”
“But you haven’t found the phone.”
“It seems to have disappeared. Roberto had a girlfriend, Anya Seton. To date, she’s been less than cooperative with my investigator.”
“I’ve met her,” D.D. volunteered. “‘Less than cooperative’ would be an understatement.” She chewed her lower lip. Kiko had returned, was actively nudging her hand. She’d forgotten about her throwing duties. D.D. got back to work.
“Have you checked for other accounts in Roberto Faillon’s name? Say, on the cloud, or other imaging sites? I mean, if Roberto was threatening the girls with these pictures, or even just amusing himself by torturing them with the knowledge of their existence, he’d want to have the images backed up.”
“I was working on it.”
D.D. nodded. She’d get her computer techs on it, as well. Not to mention she was now remembering the lack of social media information on the computer in the girls’ bedroom. Neil had said there was no obvious trace of Instagram accounts, Snapchat, the like. Not to mention the browser history had recently been cleared.
Had Roxy deleted all the online history and social media accounts? One more attempt to protect her sister from graphic images she was afraid might appear there? Or had Roxy received copies of the photos as some kind of ongoing threat and, after viewing them, tried to clear her computer’s hard drive?
Except, of course, truly deleting a computer’s memory involved many more steps than most users were aware of. The information couldn’t simply be erased, but had to also be written over with new data, utilizing specialized software designed for just such purposes. Meaning, odds were, Boston PD’s computer geeks could rebuild anything Roxy had been trying to hide. D.D. would need to follow up with Phil after this.
“Do you know who handled Roberto’s suicide?” she asked the lawyer.
Meekham provided her with the name of the officer in charge from BPD’s Brighton field office.
“Do you think Juanita had a case?” she asked him now.
Silence, as the lawyer considered the question. “I think the more I asked questions,” he stated at last, “the less I understood the answers. When you’ve been in my business this long . . . that’s a pretty big red flag. Something happened. What, how bad, I’m still not sure. But there’s something hinky about the setup at Mother Del’s. And definitely something was going on with this Roberto kid and the alleged photos. Enough curiosities, at least, that I had planned to keep on digging. For the record, Juanita couldn’t afford a retainer, meaning in a case like this, my compensation would come from the back end. So if the case did seem like an obvious dead end . . .”
“You’d give up, move on.”
“I wasn’t moving on.”
“And if you did find some evidence of misconduct during the girls’ time in foster care?”
“Two young girls abused while under state care in a licensed foster care home? We’re talking damages in the millions. Not to mention, given all the kids that have passed through Mother Del’s . . .”
“You’d look for other victims. Potentially file a class action suit.”
“Tens of millions. Motive enough for me to keep working,” Meekham assured her.
“Motive enough,” D.D. replied, “for someone to silence the family once and for all.”
Chapter 29
I DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. The thing with trauma. Even after all these years, the nights were long and filled with too many shadows. I listened to Sarah toss and turn, mumble names of people who were most likely dead. I dreamed of Jacob. Forced myself back to wakefulness. Tried out some deep-breathing exercises, imagining a beam of golden light, breathing it in, feeling it spread to my calves, my knees, my hips.
Lost it, relaunched it. Lost it again.
I’d always sucked at mindfulness.
Two A.M., I moved on to staring at the ceiling and reviewing what I knew about Roxanna Baez. By four A.M., I was convinced I needed to find the girl one way or another. By five A.M., I thought I’d figured out how.
Geographic profiling. Her hideout had to be within walking distance of all our known targets: her house, the high school, the coffee shop, Mother Del’s. And not just because there was no way she’d boarded a bus or subway without someone spotting her, but because she was operating from a place of fear. What did you do when you were afraid? You went to ground. Somewhere in your comfort zone, where you knew your resources and had friends such as Mike Davis to assist.
Roxy Baez had to be holed up somewhere in Brighton.
At six, I took over Sarah’s laptop and started my search.
First, a map of Brighton, which, according to Google, comprised only 2.78 square miles. I marked the four locations we knew Roxy Baez knew. That brought me to an area of approximately 1.2 square miles. Not a huge search zone in terms of size, but still formidable in terms of density. So many buildings and businesses, public and private. I tried a real estate search for available commercial spaces, thinking of her trick of hijacking the vacant office space across from the coffee shop. I got more than a dozen hits.
I sat back, thought harder.
If I were her, right now, what would I want most? Safety. Someplace where I could move around unnoticed. Given that, vacant commercial space might not be the best bet. What if someone nearby questioned why a lone female was going in and out of unoccupied rentals, or spotted a light on at night where no light should be?
Best bet for hiding? That old adage, hide in plain sight. Someplace so busy, so public, you could come and go without attracting attention.
Next order of business? Resources. Access to food and water. Who knew how long she might be holed up. If she’d followed my guidelines for her bugout bag, then she probably had a few protein bars and bottles of water, but a girl couldn’t survive on granola alone. She’d want someplace near a crowded café, maybe a twenty-four-hour mart, where she could stock up quickly and covertly.
I returned my attention to the map. What had Sarah mentioned yesterday? She’d parted ways with Mike Davis when he’d started his work shift at Starbucks. If I were Roxy, I thought, I’d certainly think about swinging by my best friend’s job for snacks. An inconspicuous way to touch base, maybe get some quick intel, while also safely refueling. I marked the location of Mike’s job on the map, an X nearly midway between Mother Del’s and the high school. In other words, a neighborhood that would be well-known to Roxy.