A Trace of Death. Blake Pierce

She’s under strict instructions not to.” The woman exhaled and said, “God, I’m really shooting my mouth off. Stafford would be livid.”

      “Do you two get along?”

      “Yes, of course.”

      “How about Ashley? Do you get along with her?”

      “There’s no one in the world I’m closer to.”

      “Okay. Does Stafford get along with her?”

      “They get along fine.”

      “Is there any reason she’d run away from home?”

      “No. Not even close. That’s not what’s going on here.”

      “How’s her mood been lately?”

      “It’s been good. She’s happy, stable, all of it.”

      “No boy trouble – ”

      “No.”

      “Drugs or alcohol?”

      “I can’t say never. But in general, she’s a responsible young lady. This summer she trained as a junior lifeguard. She had to be up at five in the morning every day for that. She’s not a flake. Besides, she hasn’t even had time to get bored yet. This is her second week back to school.”

      “Any drama there?”

      “No. She likes her teachers. She gets along with all the kids. She’ll be going out for the girls’ basketball team.”

      Keri locked eyes with the woman and asked, “So what do you think is going on?”

      Confusion washed over the woman’s face. Her lips trembled.

      “I don’t know.” She turned her eyes to the front door, then back, and said, “I just want her to come home. Where the hell is Stafford?”

      As if on cue, a man appeared from around a corner. It was Senator Stafford Penn. Keri had seen him dozens of times on TV. But in person, he gave off a vibe that didn’t come through onscreen. About forty-five, he was muscular and tall, easily six foot two, with blond hair like Ashley’s, a chiseled jaw, and piercing green eyes. He had a magnetism that seemed to almost vibrate. Keri gulped hard as he extended his hand to shake hers.

      “Stafford Penn,” he said, although he could tell she already knew that.

      Keri smiled.

      “Keri Locke,” she said. “LAPD Missing Persons Unit, Pacific Division.”

      Stafford gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek and sat down beside her. He didn’t waste any time with pleasantries.

      “We appreciate your coming down. But personally, I think we can let it rest until the morning.”

      Mia looked at him in disbelief.

      “Stafford – ”

      “Kids break away from their parents,” he continued. “They wean themselves. It’s part of growing up. Hell, if she was a boy, we would have been dealing with days like this two or three years ago. That’s why I asked Mia to be discreet when she called you. I doubt this is the last time we’ll be dealing with this kind of thing and I don’t want to be accused of crying wolf.”

      Keri asked, “So you don’t think anything’s wrong?”

      He shook his head.

      “No. I think she’s a teenager doing what teenagers do. To be honest, I’m sort of glad this day has come. It shows she’s getting more independent. Mark my words, she’ll show up tonight. Worst case, tomorrow morning, probably with a hangover.”

      Mia stared at him incredulously.

      “First of all,” she said, “it’s a Monday afternoon during the school year, not Spring Break in Daytona. And second, she wouldn’t do that.”

      Stafford shook his head.

      “We all get a little crazy sometimes, Mia,” he said. “Hell, when I turned fifteen, I drank ten beers in a couple of hours. I was literally heaving my guts out for three days. I remember my dad got a good chuckle out of that. I think he was pretty proud of me, actually.”

      Keri nodded, pretending that was completely normal. No point in alienating a US senator if she could avoid it.

      “Thanks, Senator. You’re probably right. But as long as I’m here, would you mind if I took a quick peek in Ashley’s room?”

      He shrugged and pointed to the staircase.

      “Go for it.”

      Upstairs, at the end of the hall, Keri entered Ashley’s room and closed the door. The decor was about what she expected – a fancy bed, matching dressers, posters of Adele and one-armed surfing legend Bethany Hamilton. She had a retro lava lamp on the bedside table. Resting on one of her pillows was a stuffed animal. It was so old and tattered that Keri couldn’t tell if it was a dog or a sheep.

      She fired up the Mac laptop on Ashley’s desk and was surprised to find it wasn’t password protected.

      What teenager leaves her unprotected laptop sitting out on her desk for any nosy adult to check?

      The Internet history showed searches for only the last two days; the priors had been cleared. What was left mostly appeared to relate to a biology paper she was researching. There were also a few visits to websites for local modeling agencies, as well as a few in New York and Las Vegas. Another was to the site for an upcoming surfing tournament in Malibu. She had also gone to the site of a local band called Rave.

      Either this girl is the most boring goody two-shoes of all time or she’s leaving this stuff out on purpose to present an image she wants her folks to buy.

      Keri’s instinct told her it was the latter.

      She sat down at the foot of Ashley’s bed and closed her eyes, trying to channel the mindset of a fifteen-year-old girl. She’d been one once. She still hoped to have one of her own. After two minutes, she opened her eyes and tried to look at the room fresh. She scanned the shelves, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

      She was about to give up when her gaze fell on a math book at the end of Ashley’s bookshelf. It read Algebra for 9^th Grade.

      Didn’t Mia say Ashley was in tenth grade? Her friend Thelma saw her in geometry class. So why is she holding on to an old textbook? Just in case she needs a refresher?

      Keri grabbed the book, opened it, and began paging through it. Two-thirds of the way through, easy to miss, she found two pages carefully taped together. There was something hard in between them.

      Keri sliced open part of the tape and something fell out onto the floor. She picked it up. It was an extremely authentic-looking fake driver’s license with Ashley’s face on it. The name on it was Ashlynn Penner. The date of birth indicated she was twenty-two.

      More confident that she was now on the right track, Keri moved quickly through the room. She didn’t know how long she had before the Penns got suspicious. After five minutes, she found something else. Tucked in a tennis shoe in the back of the closet was a spent 9mm casing.

      She got out an evidence bag, pocketed it along with the fake ID, and left the room. Mia Penn was walking down the hall toward her as she closed the door. Keri could tell something had happened.

      “I just got a call from Ashley’s friend Thelma. She’s been talking to people about Ashley not making it home. She says another friend named Miranda Sanchez saw Ashley get into a black van on Main Street next to a dog park near the school. She said she couldn’t be sure if Ashley got in on her own or if she was pulled in. It didn’t seem that weird to her until she heard Ashley was missing.”

      Kerry kept her expression neutral despite the sudden increase in her blood pressure.

      “Do you know anyone who has a black van?”

      “No one.”

      Keri started briskly down the hall toward the stairs. Mia Penn tried