CHAPTER6
CINDY THOMAS MADEsure to get to the restaurant early. She’d considered bringing another person from theChronicleto join them but hadn’t seen anyone else at the office she wanted involved in the story. Not even tangentially.
She grabbed a table directly in the line of sight of the cashier. The place was well lit and relatively crowded. A few minutes before noon, Eric Snaff stepped through the front door of the Shake Shack. He glanced around the restaurant, looking for Cindy.
He really is extremely good looking.She noticed a woman do a double take, then stare for a moment. Everyone thought they were surreptitious when they did things like that. There was always someone watching.
Cindy had briefly thought about calling Lindsay to come sit with her when she met with Eric but never even considered asking her husband. Rich was a wonderful man, whom she loved. But no one would intimidate a potential story source like Eric Snaff more than Rich.
Eric saw Cindy, nodded, and headed her way.
Cindy felt a little awkward as he sat down across from her. She didn’t want to spend the whole day here with him, so she got right to the point. “Okay, Eric, what do you have for me?”
“Well, I live in San Julio, near Walnut Creek and a little east of Orinda.”
“I know the area.” Cindy didn’t tell him she already knew a lot of his backstory. She thought of it as “pre-verifying” his comments.
“My daughter, Nicole, is seventeen. She’s a senior in high school.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “As I told you last night, she disappeared about three months ago. But she’s not the only one.”
“You have my attention.”
“Just in our little area, three teenage girls are missing, counting my Nicole. The other two girls are Carly Nash and Katie Dharma. They both had been in court-ordered rehab. Carly was in the youth center where I work, but I only met her one time. Katie goes to my daughter’s high school, but they’re not in the same grade.”
Cindy opened the little notepad she carried around with her and wrote down the names of the three girls.
“Is your daughter, Nicole, troubled in any way?” she asked Eric. She could tell by the long hesitation what the answer would be. She waited patiently until Eric’s eyes met hers.
Finally, he nodded. Then he said, “After her mother left, Nicole and I felt like we could conquer the world together. But as she got older, she grew more distant. At first I just attributed it to the typical teenage attitude. Then she started to stay out all night. Sometimes even a couple of days at a time. Anytime I tried to ask what was going on, she accused me of prying or being overprotective. You know how kids can be.”
Cindy only sort of knew how kids could be. But she felt her heart break a little bit. This man was clearly in anguish.
Cindy said, “What do the San Julio police say?”
“Not much. That’s why I’m coming to you. The police don’t want to hear conspiracy theories about missing girls. They want to clear cases, not create them.”
Cindy said, “Let me look into this a little more. I’ll get back to you early next week.” She didn’t know what she would find, but she couldn’t ignore this either.
CHAPTER7
CLAIRE WASHBURN STRETCHEDher legs out on the red checkered blanket Edmund had spread on the grass in the shadow of the Murphy Windmill in Golden Gate Park. It was part of her wonderful husband’s plan to continue celebrating her award over the entire weekend. He’d set out a beautiful lunch, complete with a wicker picnic basket.
It was perfect. At least that’s what she’d say if Edmund asked her.
In reality, the wind off the Pacific had been picking up and testing the aerodynamics of their paper plates. They were the only ones near the beach at this end of the park. With good reason. Fog had started to creep in from the ocean. Claire was bundled in a colorful sweatshirt yet still chilly from the breeze cutting through the park.
But Edmund had worked so hard, she didn’t want to disappoint him. He was like a puppy. If you gave him a little bit of love, he was happy for the whole day.
They lounged on the blanket and enjoyed their lunch. Then Claire noticed a small group of people starting to gather near a clump of trees in the corner of the park.
Claire said, “What do you think that’s all about?”
Edmund was already evaluating the crowd. He got to his feet and offered his hand to Claire. They casually strolled over to the group.
As they got closer, Claire noticed they were all looking at a figure on the ground, a body lying motionless in the grass. The body of a young woman. Claire could just make out her face in a tangle of red hair.
It looked like Claire’s day had just taken a U-turn.
CHAPTER8
