“See, dicks,” Gabby said. “It’s her room and her things, not theirs, well, mine too.”
“Would you mind? Could we please take a look?” Burke asked, still giving her a flirty smile.
She shrugged. “I guess. Hold on.” She went back into the room and grabbed a laptop, a lanyard with keys dangling from it, as well as an ID card, and her phone. “I’m going to go. I’ll catch you guys later,” she told the other girls.
They followed her to the elevator and rode down the one level to the second floor. She unlocked the door and invited them in. “That’s Zoe’s side of the room.” She pointed to the left as she sat on her own bed to the right. “But I’m not sure what you think you’ll find. Her parents searched through her stuff, and then the cops did.”
“Her parents found her phone in her desk, I understand,” Burke said.
“Yeah, they took it with them,” Gabby answered.
“Did she have another one? I can’t believe she’s out there without a phone,” Burke said.
“You can get a phone just about anywhere,” Gabby said without confirming if she had another one or not.
That answered that question for Burke, though. She had one and Gabby probably had the number. He started to look through the desk.
“So, are you two close?” Tessman asked.
“We’re friends,” Gabby said.
“Do you think she’s in any kind of trouble?” Burke asked.
“I don’t want to say too much,” Gabby said.
“Anything you say won’t get back to her parents. As we said, all we care about is making sure she’s not in trouble or danger and helping her if she is. And if she’d not, we want to get word to her that her parents want a conversation with her. That’s it. Then we get paid and move on to our next case,” Tessman said.
“Zoe isn’t the first college student to have a falling out with her parents about leaving school and cut them out of her life. Is it about a guy? Did her parents not like a new boyfriend or something?” Burke asked.
Gabby twisted her lips but didn’t answer.
“Let me put it to you this way: are you worried about her at all?” Burke asked.
“She’s my friend, and I know she thinks she knows what she’s doing, but I’m not sure if she really thought it through all the way. I mean, she was getting good grades and liked her major. I tried to convince her to at least finish the semester.”
“Yeah, dropping out this close to the end could be foolish if she ever wants to go back, a whole semester wasted and Fs in all her classes,” Burke agreed. “You have a way to reach her, don’t you?”
She stared at them in a way that made them both believe she did. “I might.”
“Can you try?” Burke asked. He pointed at her phone, in her hand.
“What, right now?”
Tessman was searching through her closet. He slipped his phone from his pocket and opened the pairing app.
“Yes, please,” Burke said.
She appeared pensive, as though she was rolling something around in her thoughts.
“What is it you aren’t telling us,” Burke pressed when she hadn’t dialed or typed out a text message.
“Nothing,” Gabby lied.
Both men knew she was lying. They exchanged glances. Burke sat on her bed, facing her. He gazed deeply into her eyes. “Gabby, if you think Zoe is in any trouble, you need to tell us. We can help her. We’re on her side.” His voice was sincere.
“It’s just that I think there was something she wasn’t telling me. Her decision to move out and leave school was abrupt, and she wouldn’t talk to me about it. She just said it was something she had to do, the right decision for her. And if you look at her stuff, you’ll see she really didn’t take much with her, just what she could carry in one trip. I volunteered to help her move to wherever she was going, but she turned me down flat.”
“Did she have a car here?” Burke asked, already knowing that she didn’t.
