“If Smith can find that surveillance footage of her getting into his car, maybe he can track her through other cameras to see where she went,” Burke said.
“My bet is still out of the area, probably up north where those other deleted photos from Oliveira’s Facebook account were taken. Either someone in their prepper group lives up there, or there’s some sort of cabin or compound they use. He had over a dozen pictures from up there over the span of several months,” Wilson reminded them.
“Based on Elly Forsander’s statements, I believe Zoe is in some kind of trouble. And the reaction that Elly and her brother had when I mentioned Zoe’s parents tells me it has something to do with them beyond the fights she had with them about money,” Burke said.
“Not many people walk away from the money paid for a semester away at school,” Tessman added. “Unless there was something that made staying there unbearable. I’m not buying she became a hard-core member of the prepper or militia group that made her leave.”
“Then what do you think it could be?” Burke asked.
“It could be that someone there was giving her a hard time, or something happened to her,” Tessman said.
“Look what happened to Saxton when she was at college,” Rogers said. “One thing that really surprised me during that investigation is the number of women who are assaulted at school and who drop out and go home because of it.”
“You think she could have been assaulted? Why would she have gone off with Oliveira if that were the case? If they were a couple, he could be a suspect in that,” Tessman said.
“Elly insisted that Zoe is safe where she is. If she were assaulted, I’m going to say it was someone other than Oliveira. He strikes me as a lot of things; a rapist isn’t one of them. And if he was, Zoe wouldn’t have gone with him,” Burke said. “But if she was in some sort of trouble, whatever it was, I can see him agreeing to help get her off the grid, and he had the means to do so.”
“Either Zoe needs to contact us, or one of the people we have under electronic monitoring needs to reach out to her either by phone or, preferably, they drive to where she is. I don’t see us resolving this until either of those things happen,” Wilson said.
“I agree,” Burke said. “What do you say we take a little drive north to the area those pictures from Oliveira’s deleted Facebook account were taken? Have a look around?”
Just then, all four men received a text from Smith.
I just sent a file with all the updates I have to everyone’s email. I’m leaving for the night, but Ops will monitor your targets overnight and alert you if needed. I’ll be back in at 0700.
Wilson acknowledged Smith’s text. Then, all four men opened their emails on their phones and read through the file as they ate. Eleanor Forsander, Elly, was also a student at Grand Valley State University. She lived in the same dorm as Zoe Reopelle.
Reviewing Elly’s Facebook page, Smith found pictures of her with Zoe and Gabby Struck, Zoe’s roommate. The locations were mostly at school, but there were a few of all three girls at the house in Lansing and even a few taken the past summer north where Oliveira’s pictures had been taken, near Lake Isabella.
The photos showed a campsite with tents and cabins. The girls swam and canoed on what looked like a river as well as in the lake. A sign partially caught in one of the photos taken of the girls in a canoe gave Smith the best lead yet. The name of a campground. They now had a better target area, the best they’d get with the limited number of cell towers in the area to triangulate off of if they were lucky enough to follow Oliveira or Forsander there.
“Based on Gabby Struck being in the pictures, I think we need to pay her another visit. She has to know more than she told us,” Wilson said.
“For starters, I want to get an exact location of that camp up north,” Wilson chimed in. “As we saw in Wisconsin and in Minnesota, these groups like to use camps and cabins. Zoe very well could be in one up there.”
Burke shook his head. “Not unless she’s with someone else from the group. Oliveira wouldn’t have left her up there alone, and I don’t think Elly would deem her safe if she was in the middle of nowhere all by herself. There are houses out there. My guess is she’s staying at one of them rather than at a cabin.”
“Yeah, it could be that someone from the group lives up there and they use the cabins and camp for the group,” Tessmansaid. “For all we know, the camp could be on someone’s private property.”
“That makes sense. Okay, after dinner, Burke and Tessman go back at Gabby Struck. Her cell phone is still in the area, isn’t it?” Wilson asked.
“Yeah, she hasn’t taken off for the Christmas break yet. By noon tomorrow, the entire campus will be a ghost town,” Tessman answered. “I saw that a lot of them booked this afternoon while I was watching Oliveira. According to the college’s website, the semester goes through tomorrow, though the students are free to go after they complete their final exams.”
“Then tomorrow, we head up to Lake Isabella unless something else happens that changes our plans,” Wilson said.
After dinner, Burke and Tessman drove to campus. They parked in the nearly empty parking lot beside the dorm. This time when they entered, the halls were relatively quiet. They passed only a fraction of the number of students that they had when they’d first visited the dorm.
Gabby Struck frowned upon seeing them at her door when she answered it. “She hasn’t gotten back in touch with me,” she said.
“Can we come in?” Burke asked. “We found out a couple of things since we were here yesterday, and we need you to help us make sense of it.”
Gabby shrugged and then stepped back, inviting them in. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and stared at them with expectation.
“Gabby, we’ve talked to a few other people who know Zoe, and they believe she’s in some kind of trouble. We’re worried about her,” Burke said, watching her closely for her reaction. She didn’t give anything away. “Frisco Oliveira denies he had a romantic relationship with her, but we have confirmed that he was the one with whom she caught a ride when she left here in October.”
Gabby got a satisfied look on her face, given that she’d been proven right.
“How big of a deal is it around here if a TA has a romantic relationship with one of his students?” Tessman asked.
