to just two after half an hour: Melissa Princeman and Gabriella Sanchez. They were as different as could be. Melissa was small, delicate, almost elfin, and every emotion showed on her heart-shaped face. Gabriella was large, solid and muscular.
Melissa was radiating frantic guilt. Gabriella was so controlled that Katie couldn’t help but think that there was something waiting behind it to be discovered.
They sat in one of the smaller classrooms, one Katie remembered well; she’d suffered through geology in this room, absolutely convinced that knowing about rocks would never help her in the least. She’d held that opinion right up until she’d discovered the fascinations of forensic science, and geology had opened up for her like a new horizon.
She shook herself out of the past and focused on the present as she paced. Christine Evans had taken the teacher’s desk at the front, and Rebecca stood quietly at the back of the room. The two girls were rigid and unmoving in their student chairs.
“Melissa,” Katie said, “what if I told you that somebody saw you with Teal today?”
It was a shot in the dark, but it struck home. Melissa visibly flinched, and her china-blue eyes welled up with tears.
“It wasn’t my fault!” she blurted. “It was just a note, I didn’t read it or anything. I don’t even know if it was important! I just handed it to her!”
“And did she open it while you were standing there?”
Melissa nodded, gulping back sobs. “She showed it to Lena. They both looked worried.”
“But you don’t know what was in it?”
Melissa shook her head violently. Tears broke free and slid down her pale cheeks.
“Melissa.” Katie slowly lowered herself into a crouch, one hand on the student desk for stability, and looked Melissa in the eyes. “Honey, you need to tell me who gave you the note.”
Melissa looked stricken and anguished. “It couldn’t have been the note. Honest, it couldn’t.”
“You still need to tell me. You don’t want anything to happen to Lena and Teal, do you? We need to eliminate that note as being part of what happened.”
“No, it couldn’t have been anything bad—” Melissa couldn’t finish. She looked away. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
From the front, Christine Evans said softly, “Melissa. You may have promised not to tell, but promises sometimes have to be broken for the greater good. Keeping your word at a time like this is nothing but a way to avoid responsibility.”
Melissa swallowed, nodded and looked down at her intertwined fingers. “I see that. But—”
“It was me,” Gabriella interrupted flatly. “I gave Melissa the note to give to Teal. Liss, there’s no reason to protect me. I don’t have anything to hide.”
Melissa looked tremendously relieved. Gabriella sat back in her chair and crossed her arms—defensive body language. Her deep brown eyes were steady. She was Teal’s age, Katie remembered. Nearly adult, and probably determined to act more than her age. Not a bad girl, but one who might have a lot to prove.
“Tell me about the note,” Katie said and sat down in the student desk across from her, leaning forward. Open posture. “What was in it?”
“It wasn’t mine,” Gabriella said. “Somebody gave it to me. I only gave it to Liss because I knew she’d see Teal first. They had track together.”
Katie controlled her frustration with an effort. “Gabriella, what was in the note?”
Gabriella’s eyes widened just slightly, but her tone stayed completely neutral. “How would I know? You think I read it?”
Not a denial, Katie noted. “I know you did. What did it say?”
Gabriella finally showed an expression—a flicker of shame. She looked away. “It wasn’t a message really. It just said, Blue Camaro, in front of Macy’s, at 11:00 a.m.”
“It was instructions to meet someone,” Katie said. “Why didn’t you come forward with this?”
“Because I—” Gabriella’s lips tightened. “Look, we were just trying to do the right thing, okay? Somebody was in trouble, and we were trying to help out. Besides, their disappearance couldn’t be about the note. Teal and Lena never even got to Macy’s, right?”
“Right,” Katie agreed grimly. “But all that means is that they were never meant to arrive. Somebody knew where they’d be going, and when. And I suppose, because you girls were cloak-and-dagger, that’s why Teal and Lena didn’t take a cab or catch a ride to the mall.”
The two girls, so different and yet in this moment so alike, exchanged a quick look. “Yeah,” Gabriella agreed. Suddenly, she didn’t sound nearly so sure of herself. “But—it wasn’t any big thing! Honest… It was just— Look, somebody was in trouble. We were trying to help.”
“Help how?” Katie pressed. “Why were they meeting this person?”
Melissa said, “Teal was going to give the guy money.”
Oh God. “How much money?”
“Not that much. A couple of hundred dollars,” Gabriella said defensively. “I told you, it wasn’t that big a deal!”
Katie cursed all the fates she could think of. She’d thought the kidnapping would turn out to be relatively simple, but the complications kept rolling in. The addition of this kind of money drop opened up all sorts of unwelcome possibilities, from blackmail to kidnapping to—although she couldn’t believe it—drugs. All fraught with danger, all involving professional criminals of one type or another, which didn’t ensure the girls’ safety by any means. Only that the situation would be far less easy to resolve.
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