“And tell them what exactly? There’s no missing persons report on Marie. All we have to go on is her Tumblr account. We can’t connect this Javier to the guy she talks about. We don’t know who he is or even if Javier Abano is his real name. Let me do some more research, see what I can find. Then we’ll go to the authorities.”
“Okay, but I’m giving this a short leash. I don’t like it. I knew there had to be more going on here. You were so secretive I was worried. And then the drinking and the affair…I didn’t know what to do. I can’t believe all of that is happening right here in San Diego.”
“I’ve identified four other girls, but so far I have nothing to tie them to Javier. I need your help to track down clues about this asshole. I want to know where he is and how he operates. I think the girls will tell us.”
“Give me what you’ve got. I’ll get on it right away.”
I send Cora the info on eleven and fourteen and then start with number two—a girl named Barbara Moore. Barbara disappeared eight years ago from her foster home here in San Diego. She’s described as troubled, having multiple run-ins with the law and bouncing around in the system. It’s assumed she ran away, and after the first couple weeks she stopped appearing in the news. A missing fifteen-year-old in foster care doesn’t hold interest, I guess.
Barbara posted a photo of her tattoo to Facebook shortly before her disappearance. Not a drawing like Marie’s. An actual photograph. I extract the location of where the picture was taken and add notes to my file to follow up on later. Then I delve into the world of Barbara Moore, a pretty, blond sophomore in high school, who liked the Foo Fighters, the Twilight saga, Starbucks, Pringles, and South Park. There are quite a few posts about a mysterious man she met. She calls him Jay. This might be the first real clue as to what Javier’s real name is. Or not. It’s too early to tell.
Jay sweeps her off her feet. He’s attentive, tells her she’s beautiful, and spends time with her. He’s more sophisticated than guys her age. He’s interested in her and the things she’s interested in. He even takes her to a Foo Fighters concert. The dates of the posts get further and further apart the closer to her disappearance. I go back to the first few times she mentions Jay.
She met him at the Starbucks near her high school. He struck up a conversation with her. Next thing she knew she missed her first-period class, so she just stayed and talked to him. He was a good listener. They exchanged phone numbers. Texts and phone calls escalate to ditching school and staying out past curfew. The posts follow a pattern similar to Marie’s. He isolates her, makes her fall in love with him, and controls her world. She’s a virgin just like Marie is and Vera was. She talks about finally going all the way with Jay and him wanting her to be as in love with him as he is with her. Exactly like Marie.
It makes me want to hurl.
Putting blue pins in a map on the wall, I keep track of the locations Barbara mentions meeting with Jay. I add a white pin to the location where Marie took the photo of the tattoo drawing. Moving on to the next girl, I go through the same thing, this time using green pins in the map. Cora adds yellow pins for number eleven and red for number fourteen. It takes us all day to map out an area that’s approximately twenty by twenty-five miles—Javier’s hunting ground.
Marie’s pin is near the upper-left corner, so we’re pretty sure he’s still in the same area, if not just outside. I create a separate search for girls age fourteen to eighteen who were in foster or group homes and went missing from the time Barbara disappeared until now—one hundred and eight in just over a ten-year period. Not all of them are Javier’s victims, but there are just too damn many. Tomorrow we’re going to divide the list and search each name individually.
This fucker has a pattern. I can see it. It’s possible he has a source in child services who is helping him find and target these girls. They’re all described the same way—troubled, incorrigible, violent, defiant, at risk, failing in school, hard to place, and in some cases there are notes about drug or alcohol abuse. They all have parents who are either deceased or incarcerated, and no older siblings or other relatives in their lives.
They’re the perfect fucking victims. No one would look very far or long for them, and there’s no one to ask questions or care if they disappeared.