Lorie O - Strong, Sleek and Sinful

As the pizza was ordered, Kylie glanced at the notes she’d taken so far.

“I want to ask you something,” she said without looking up. “And any of you or all of you can answer. What’s the most common way you talk to your friends? On the phone? Text messaging? Instant messages?”

“All of those are the same,” Dorine said, laughing.

“She means instant messaging on the computer,” Diane offered. “Like AIM or Yahoo! And for me it’s probably mostly on my phone.”

“We don’t have a computer at home anymore,” Dani said. “But you can text-message or instant-message on the phone.”

Kylie nodded. “I actually knew that one,” she said, pulling her cell phone out of her purse and holding it up before dropping it back into the bag again. “So you think most kids between the ages of twelve and eighteen use their phones to talk to their friends? But do most of them talk on them? Or do they type on them?”

“I never thought about that.” Denise turned on Diane’s lap. “I think we text-message more than talk. And Diane can text-message without looking, even when she’s driving.”

“No. She can’t,” Perry growled from across the room, his back still to all of them.

Diane slapped her sister’s leg. “No, I can’t,” she stressed to Denise, who looked appropriately chastised.

“How many people do you talk to by texting on your phones?” Kylie asked, putting her notebook on her lap and writing: Check ISPs; if there aren’t any, then phone records .

“Dani talks to so many that Mom had to put unlimited messages on our phone plan. But Dorine never talks to anyone because she doesn’t have any friends.”

“Speak for yourself, brat,” Dorine snapped. “Not all of my friends have cell phones like Dani’s rich-bitch friends.”

“Watch your mouth, Dorine,” Diane snapped, and glanced over her shoulder at her uncle.

“Okay. Okay.” Kylie held her hand up in the air with her pen between her fingers. “I want to talk about online relationships. How many of you have met guys you’ve talked to online?”

The room got quiet and each girl glanced down at her hands. Perry turned around, watching them as well, a frown planted on his face. Kylie shook her head at him, silently willing him to stay quiet. He had demanded she not discuss anything sexual. Kylie would simply argue that relationships at their ages, or at least of the ages of the younger three, probably weren’t sexual. Either way, she prayed he wouldn’t interrupt her line of questioning.

“It’s okay, girls. Everyone does it today, right?”

“Have you ever met anyone you’ve chatted with online?” Dani asked.

“Sure have,” Kylie said without hesitating. She didn’t add that they were fellow agents and the discussion was work-related. Her private life was just that. But gaining the girls’ confidence would let them open up to her and help her gain more knowledge of what they knew. “So let’s assume that each of you has.”

“I haven’t,” Denise offered.

“And you’d tell on any of us if we agreed to meet anyone,” Dani snapped, chastising her younger sister.

“I would not,” Denise denied the charges, but focused on the ground, her long hair streaming over and partially covering her face.

Kylie smiled at the twelve-year-old. She was very thin and in a year probably at the most would start filling out. If she followed suit like her sisters, she would be drop-dead gorgeous in no time.

“How do you know the person you’re chatting with is who they say they are?”

“And not some pervert,” Dani said, nodding. “They’ve talked to my friends, or there are pictures of them on Facebook that are taken around town and you can tell that they are from around here.”

“Have you ever talked to anyone who’s chatted with someone that they think is not for real?”

Dani and Diane leaned forward. Diane pushed her little sister to the floor and rested her elbows on her knees.

“A friend of mine has,” Dani said.

“Yeah, same here,” Diane offered, lowering her voice. “He said he was going to school with us, but when we read his messages there were things he didn’t have right.”

“So what did you do?” Kylie asked.

Diane turned and gave her uncle a pointed look. “I’m not going to answer her questions and risk you yelling at me,” she said, sounding cross.

Perry turned from the group and pulled open the sliding glass door. Kylie managed to keep her expression relaxed. She’d fought with that damn door forever this morning and wasn’t able to make it budge. He opened it as though he did it every day. Without saying another word, he disappeared into her backyard.

“He’s so moody sometimes,” Diane said, looking at Kylie and sighing.

“Mom says he just needs to get laid,” Dorine offered.

Kylie quickly cleared her throat and refused to allow the image of Perry’s buns of steels to form a clear picture in her head. All that mattered was gathering intel from these girls that could help her clear a path toward the pervert stalking children online.

Someone knocked on her front door and her alarm buzzed. Perry was back inside in a second, proof he hadn’t wandered too far. Kylie stood, grabbing her purse, and walked over to the peephole she’d drilled herself when Paul had set up her computer system. The pizza guy stood there holding a large black bag in front of him.

Opening the door, she grinned at the young, pimply-faced kid. “How much do I owe you?”

“Forty-three dollars,” he said, pulling the Velcro strap and then sliding out several pizza boxes.

Kylie pulled the bills from her purse and paid the kid as the girls came to the door to help. “Looks like you all ordered a lot of pizza. Sure hope you’re hungry.”

“Starved,” Dorine said, eagerly taking a couple of the boxes.

Diane stood in line to take the third pizza. Kylie watched the girls hurry to the table with three large pizzas and a couple smaller boxes that she guessed contained bread sticks.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Dani said, offering a limp wave. “She tip you good?”

“Hi, Dani.” Jimmy blushed so brightly his acne stood out. “Yeah. She did.”

“Good.” Dani walked to the open door and stood next to Kylie. “Any more word on Olivia?” she asked.

“Nothing, dude,” Jimmy said, lowering his voice. “She’s like totally disappeared. Word is she is like dead or brutalized or maybe sold into slavery.”

“God, Jimmy. Don’t be sick,” Dani said, sounding serious. “She probably flipped on her parents and skipped town.”

“Without her car?” Jimmy challenged. “Dani, grow up. You’re as hot as she is. Someone stole her cute ass, and you could be next.”

“Yeah, right.” Dani seemed to have lost the fight in her. She turned noticeably pale and didn’t say anything else, nor did she move.

“Man, sorry, Dani,” Jimmy said, and backed up down the sidewalk. “I’ve got your back, though.”

“That’s what we all have to do,” Dani decided, her spunky, confident tone returning. “If someone stole her and he wants to steal one of us, we’ve got to stop him.”

Jimmy looked at Kylie, and Dani did, too. “I’ll see you at school,” she said, backing away from the door.

Kylie closed the door and turned to look at Dani. The teenager scowled as she walked over to the boxes of pizza with her sisters and Perry. Kylie followed, her mind spinning with the conversation she’d just been privileged to hear.

“Do you know someone who is missing?” Kylie asked.

Kylie shrugged. “We were in the same grade. She was my ride home. Mom threw a fit until Uncle Perry vouched that she’d disappeared.”

“Who are we talking about?” Perry asked.