“Oh.” Liz blinked three times as if it had never occurred to her that someone might want to know about Zoe’s personality or characteristics. I didn’t blame her. Our society has a strange habit of misunderstanding and misrepresenting teenage girls.
Liz took a dainty sip of her caramel latte and then set it down. She chewed on her lower lip as she thought. “Her parents could probably describe Zoe better than me.”
I did my best to not roll my eyes. I had great sympathy for everything a junior high school girl goes through on a daily basis, but I couldn’t stand low self-esteem. If Liz spent her whole life discounting her knowledge and words before she even said anything, then no one was ever going to listen to her.
“I’m sure Zoe kept a few secrets.” I gave Liz a conspiratory smile. “We don’t tell our parents everything, right?”
Most times, I hate that I look so young. It’s harder to get taken seriously. But in this case, I wanted Liz to see me as a friend. Not a parent. Not a police officer. I wanted her to think of me as someone just a few years older than she was. I had even worn skinny jeans and leopard-print ballet flats to try and look a bit more hip.
Instead of leaning forward to gossip with me, Liz just lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “It was just the guy she was dating. But she didn’t even tell me that much about him.”
This was a sore spot. I could tell by the way Liz looked down, it had hurt when Zoe had shut her out all those months ago. The wound was still tender. I could use that.
“Yeah, I heard about him,” I said. “She only told you that he was older, right?”
“I saw a text on her phone and asked,” Liz said. “She told me he was older and they had to keep it on the down low.”
“See, that’s odd to me.” I tapped my finger against my lower lip in a show of thinking. “I would think Zoe would wanna bragallabout her new boyfriend.”
I widened my eyes and shook my head, as if I was so over girls who boasted about their boyfriends. Liz mirrored my annoyance in an instant. I had played it right.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t even know if he was actually her boyfriend,” Liz said. “To be honest, it seemed like he was using her.”
I leaned forward and raised my brows. Everyone loves to gossip. You just have to direct them to the right topic. “To deal drugs? Did she ever mention that?”
“Oh, no,” Liz said. “I never heard her say anything about drugs, I just meant it seemed like he was using her to make an ex jealous or something. Like, I got the idea he was not as into Zoe as she was into him.”
“How did you get that idea?” I asked.
“Well, Zoe would get really moody,” Liz said. “She would be on her phone all the time and, when I peeked over her shoulder, I would see that she was texting him but he wasn’t texting her back. It drove her crazy, but then eventually he would get in touch with her and she would be all smiles until it started over again in a few days.”
“You’re observant,” I said. “You’d make a good PI.”
Liz smiled up at me. Poor girl probably didn’t get enough praise. Liz wasn’t an athlete, nor was she a great beauty, and she didn’t have brains galore. She was just average. Overlooked by boys and adults. Now her one friend had vanished as well.
“Can you tell me anything else you noticed about him or the relationship?” I asked.
Liz pressed her lips together and looked at the ceiling as she thought. She was really thinking at this point, not just giving me basic answers.
“Well, he was a biker,” she said.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Liz shrugged. “Zoe started wearing a leather jacket that he gave her. She mentioned him taking her on a few rides.”
I leaned forward with eagerness. “Did the jacket have a patch sewed on?”
“No,” Liz said.
An Outlaw Souls patch would have been all too obvious. I nodded. Then I leaned back and gave Liz a careful look.
“I know this might be awkward to ask,” I said. “But I do feel I need to know now if Zoe was sexually active with this guy. Do you know if she was?”
Liz’s cheeks turned pink. It was a safe bet that she was a virgin. It didn’t mean Zoe was, but I filed the information away.
“She had condoms,” Liz said. She lowered her voice to a tiny whisper on the last word. “But I’m not sure.”
“Ok, thanks for telling me,” I said.
