Other considerations for a teenage girl on the run? Change of appearance, or some kind of disguise. Given the Amber Alert, Roxy’s picture was literally everywhere. If she truly wanted to stay hidden, she’d need to take some basic steps. Scissors to cut her hair. Maybe hair dye, which would also require access to a bathroom. A wig? A hat? Sunglasses?
Again, twenty-four hours later, not a single patrol officer had spotted her. Frankly, I wanted to find her simply to ask her how. Because right now, she was my star student and we’d only swapped a few posts on the group message board.
Which brought me to something else. A niggling idea . . .
I loaded up Sarah’s virtual memorial for the Boyd-Baez family. Overnight, it had taken on a life of its own. So many posts, a good number in Spanish. Family friends? Members of Lola’s gang? Their rivals?
I started to pay attention to location, which many posts automatically revealed, depending on the user’s privacy settings. Then I studied the ones that didn’t. No way Roxy was using her cell phone. Police would’ve found her via the GPS locator the moment she turned it on. But it was possible she had a burner phone. Again, another recommended item in a bugout bag. And being that savvy, she would’ve adjusted all the settings to hide her location.
But IP addresses, which were linked to all online activity, included some information that couldn’t be disguised. Basically, they functioned like a return address on an envelope, except the data included the internet access point used by the computing device to connect. Hence, spammers sent their e-mails pinging around the globe before arriving at the final location as a way to bury the original IP address under layers and layers of other network data. But the original was always there for the savvy geek to find.
In this case, I doubted Roxy had the time, energy, or expertise to disguise her digital trail. Meaning that Sarah’s thought to identify repeat visits to the memorial page from public IP addresses was a great idea. In particular, I looked for visitors that didn’t post but just viewed the page again and again.
I found dozens. Next, I plugged in the IP addresses and narrowed my list to online portals in Brighton. Following up on those locations, I found myself staring at an address I knew I knew.
The café last night, Monet’s. The one with the cute waiter, where Anya had been eating with her theater friends. Someone had used their Wi-Fi connection to visit the virtual memorial. Many times. Including after D. D. Warren and I had run down Anya and grilled her on her relationship with Roxy.
I stared at the map. Mother Del’s, the high school, Monet’s, the Boyd-Baez residence, Mike Davis’s job.
Then I simply knew.
Hide in plain sight.
Roxy Baez was brilliant.
Sarah had woken up. She now padded across the small space, stood behind me.
“Are you still going to try to talk to the gangbangers today?” she asked me.
“Absolutely.”
“How?”
“I’m going to make them an offer they can’t refuse: Roxy Baez.”
She stared at me.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I have a job for you, as well.”
? ? ?
WHAT DO YOU BRING TO meet with a bunch of female gang members best known for their love of knives? I debated the matter. A thin blade of my own? Sharpened chopsticks in my hair? My favorite lock picks?
I didn’t do guns. Which was just as well, given Massachusetts’s tough firearms laws. So, best defense against a group of knife-wielding assailants? I was partial to a broom handle. Some kind of long stick. To do their dirty work, knife attackers had to get in close. Meaning something that extended your reach, kept them at bay, came in handy.
I thought it might be a bit too conspicuous, however, to show up with a hiking stick. Las Ni?as Diablas might take that personally, and given that numbers wouldn’t be on my side, I didn’t want to start the conversation by pissing anyone off. In the end, I chose a long scarf. Something that appeared fashionable, but could also be used to whip around someone’s neck or tangle up knife-wielding hands.
Then, I did something more questionable. I called up the guidance counselor, Ms. Lobdell Cass, and asked if I could take Roxy’s dogs for a walk. If these girls had really known Lola, then they’d probably met her dogs, Blaze and Rosie. And while they might not think twice about attacking a female opponent, I was betting they weren’t hardened enough to harm two elderly spaniels.
Jacob wouldn’t have cared. He hated animals. Except for the gators, of course, which he promised to feed my body to on a weekly basis.
And that was the difference, I told myself, as I stopped by Tricia Lobdell Cass’s house. Jacob was true evil. Compared to him, Las Ni?as Diablas were simply a bunch of girls playing badass.
Tricia answered the door after the first knock. I walked into her cheerful, plant-happy, blue-sofa space. Blaze and Rosie heaved to their feet, sniffed my hand, wagged their tails.
“Any word?” the high school counselor asked me. She looked tired, dark smudges bruising her eyes. A long night from taking care of two unexpected canines? Or from worrying about what had happened to Roxy? How close did a guidance counselor get to her students anyway?
I still thought she looked young for her job. Which was ironic, given she was probably only a few years older than me. But then, I never thought of myself as young. And I definitely couldn’t imagine working in a high school.
“No new information on Roxy,” I said. “Dogs okay?”
“They’ve been great. Shuffled around a bit, getting the lay of the land. Then both went straight to sleep. I think yesterday wore them out.”
“You okay?”
She shrugged. “I keep thinking . . . I should’ve done more. I knew Roxy was stressed out. I’d heard about the gang, some of the rumors involving her younger sister. I don’t know. I spoke to her mom when the girls first started at the school in December. Juanita seemed engaged, trying to do the best by her children. Honestly, I worried about Roxy, but I didn’t worry. Compared to some of my other kids, she seemed to have so many resources. A home, a family, even her dogs.”
She patted Rosie on top of her head. “And now . . . I can’t believe it. The whole family. Murdered. Gone. Just like that. I can’t believe it.”
“I heard from Mike Davis,” I said, my way of thanking her for reaching out to him on my behalf.
“How is he doing with everything? I tried to ask, but he’s not much of a communicator.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“The more I consider it, the more I think Roxy probably was his best friend.” She stared at me expectantly.
I shrugged. “It was my first time meeting him. I’d say he’s worried about her. Bouncy. Definitely bouncy. But maybe he’s always like that.”
Tricia smiled faintly. “I think it’s safe to assume he falls somewhere on the spectrum. But he’s a good kid. And Roxy . . . they seem to get each other. Which is what you need to survive high school. At least one person looking out for you.”
“What about Anya Seton?” I asked.
“The senior? Aspiring actress, star of most of the school plays?”
“That’s the one.”
“I know her, but I wouldn’t say well.”
“She knows Mike Davis. They’re in the same foster home.”
Tricia stilled, didn’t say anything. Student–guidance counselor confidentiality? I wondered.
“You ever see them together?” I asked. “Mike and Anya?”
“No. Never. Don’t hang in the same circles at all.”
“What about Roxy and Anya?”
Now the guidance counselor arched a brow. “Definitely not. Last year, when Roxy first showed up at the high school, she and Anya had some kind of altercation. I didn’t see it. But words were exchanged, one pushed the other. Something along the lines of Anya telling Roxy to leave her boyfriend alone.”
“Roxy and Roberto?” I asked in surprise.
“Only in Anya’s head,” Tricia assured me. “Anya and Roberto had been an item for years. She was known to be possessive of him.”
“She must’ve been upset when he shot himself.”
“She missed school for over a week. I finally had to pay a visit—”
“To Mother Del’s?” I asked.