It helped me parse through the details and figure out how everything connected. Veronica said I had aggressively neat architect handwriting, with each letter defined like the way engineers write on their diagrams.
I checked my watch. I had an hour before Pin was supposed to arrive. I took a breath and read through all the information I had gathered. I needed to let it soak in, so I could be on high alert for anything Pin said about Outlaw Souls. But I also couldn’t overstudy. I had to act natural around Pin and not ask strange questions. Not until he trusted me more, anyway.
The runaway teens in question were named Zoe Hammond and Hector Elenes. The Hammonds and Elenes hadn’t been friends, but when both their children packed bags and fled in the night within a month, the parents had found each other. Their stories had shocking similarities.
A few months before running away, Zoe had started dating a new guy. Someone older, according to her friends. The Hammonds had no idea. They only knew that their sixteen-year-old daughter was growing secretive and coming home late and telling lies about where she had been. They were concerned, but figured she was just going through a bit of a rebellious phase.
Mrs. Hammond had teared up when I met with her. She blamed herself. She should have noticed something was wrong with her daughter. Her husband had displayed more anger. Like he wanted to get his hands around the throat of the guy who had seduced Zoe and somehow convinced her to run away from her home.
Hector had always been a bit rebellious. Nothing serious, but he was a jovial guy who liked to stay out late with his friends. He broke his curfew a lot. Got in trouble for going to parties with alcohol. But it was all normal high school stuff, his parents assured me.
Until he got into bikes. He started hanging out with a new crowd. Bikers. He would be out at all hours and come home wasted. His parents had yelled and tried to discipline him, but that only made it worse.
Both kids had packed their bags and left notes. They had taken money and IDs which was why the cases were unlikely to be kidnappings. Zoe Hammond and Hector Elenes had walked out of their own homes, of their own volition.
To be frank, it wasn’t exactly a situation that would have stirred the police into action. There wasn’t much they could do. They could ask questions, dig around a bit, but if a sixteen-year-old didn’t want to be found, it was easy to disappear. And then in two years, that runaway wouldn’t be a kid anymore. It was their life to mess up if they wanted to.
The Hammonds and the Elenes, however, were convinced that something was wrong. They knew their children wouldn’t have run away. Even friends had come forward to say that the kids hadn’t intended to stay away for good. Even more concerning, no friend had received texts or calls from Zoe or Hector. The police had tried to track their phones, but both of them had been turned off and discarded.
That sent off my alarms more than anything else. A runaway who was angry at their parents was one thing. A teenager who tossed their phone and didn’t so much as text their friends? That was quite another.
I had one whole page that listed Hector and Zoe’s closest school friends according to their parents. I was going to want to chat with a few of them, especially Zoe’s good friend Liz. Girls that age told each other everything. If Zoe was involved with a biker, Liz was going to know details. I was willing to bet that I could get more out of her than the police had.
All Liz had told the police was that Zoe had been seeing an older guy. Zoe had told Liz she was thinking of running away on one occasion, but Liz had never thought Zoe was serious. Liz was concerned for her friend, so I doubted she was trying to hide information. But she probably didn’t even know how much knowledge she had. She had probably figured the police wouldn’t care about the random gossip from a teenager’s sleepover.
I would chat with some of Hector’s friends too. Perhaps a smile and a wink from me could get some overeager kid to give me all the information he could think of. But something told me that Liz was the key to this case.
All my other notes were about drug activity in La Playa. The Hammonds and the Elenes had been convinced that bikers were drug dealers. There were rumors of course, but also some compelling evidence and even a few arrests. I would want to push on my contact at the police department to see if there was a high number of biker dealers, or if that was a stereotype.
I hadn’t realized it, but Outlaw Souls was fairly well-known. It hadn’t taken the parents much to dig up the name of the club.
“These bikers, they know how to avoid getting caught,” Mr. Hammond had said. “And they know how to use young girls to move drugs. No one suspects a pony-tailed teen.”
I felt the man was a bit dramatic, but I had to admit he had a point. If the bikers were on the radar for drug activity, it would make sense that they would want to recruit some impressionable helpers. Not to mention it wasn’t unprecedented to use teenagers.
There had been a big drug bust in LA a few years ago in which a detective discovered cocaine being moved through a college sorority house. It had gone on for years because no one had bothered to look past the shiny pink facade of Beta Kappa Gamma.
On my final page of notes were two other names: Grace Vasquez and Phillip Harding. The Hammonds and Elenes’ had explained that those two had also attended West La Playa High School and had run away about a year before.
The parents had reported it, but the investigations had fizzled out. I would have to check, but according to the Hammonds, Grace’s parents had pretty much given up on her. She had been a wild child and got involved with a bad crowd. Rumor had it she had been dating a biker dude before she dropped out of school and vanished.
Grace and Zoe had been on the same volleyball team. It was a tenuous connection, but the Hammonds clung to it. Zoe could have been introduced to her mysterious older boyfriend by Grace. Once again, I figured this was something Liz could confirm or deny.
As for Phillip, the only connection was bikes. He had been a known bike-lover. He had even fixed up his own Harley during his senior year. He had been a month away from eighteen when he left his home. His mother, a single mom with three other kids, hadn’t even reported it. The name only came up because Hector’s friend had mentioned Hector getting in touch with Phillip at some point in the last year.
I sighed as I came to the end of my notes. Between the random dates, lists of names, and theories based on local gossip, it was a tangled web indeed. It’s what I had asked for though. By solving this case, I could actually make a difference.
Instead of one cheating scumbag getting his comeuppance (which was satisfying in a small-ball type of way), I could be extricating some poor kid from a drug ring. I could be saving them from jail, addiction, or death. I could be ensuring that the streets of La Playa stayed a little cleaner.
Plus it would feel good. I smiled as I pictured myself busting a drug ring and sending a bunch of no-good guys to jail. I hoped whatever pervert had preyed on a sixteen-year-old girl got the longest sentence.
I had a photo of Zoe taped to one page. She was cute, but visibly young. It was a school photo, her brown eyes wide open and she wore a bashful smile. Zoe was cute, but not the type to get a ton of attention from boys. Her mouth was too wide and she hadn’t quite grown into her looks. Her parents had said she could be shy as well and desperate to please others. The exact type of girl that older guys could manipulate.
I tore my eyes away from the photo and snapped my notebook shut. I had thirty minutes until Pin’s arrival. I shoved my book into my desk drawer and headed to the bathroom. I ran a hand through my hair and swiped on a layer of pink lip gloss, then surveyed the results in the mirror. I was wearing leggings and a cream cable-knit sweater. My feet were bare.
I wanted to look good, but not like I tried too hard. Pin clearly wanted a hook-up. I had figured he would, but he was the one who came out and suggested a night in.
I hadn’t decided if I would sleep with him again. It was a tricky line to walk. For one, I had already slept with him and it had been good. Definitely good enough that I was not averse to repeating the experience.
