Helen R. - While Others Sleep

“I’m over there at least once a week, so if you’re worried about my DNA being left behind, it’s too late.” Maybe it was because she’d missed out knowing her grandparents, but she liked to help Maida with errands and projects, and to listen to her talk about her youth and her views on life in general. “I know what you’re going to say—it’s a pretty good guess that Dwayne Saunders is going to try to blame Cody Security for his mother’s disappearance, making me the last person he’d want in her house. So tell me, how hard I can push back?”

“I don’t follow,” Taneeka replied.

“If it looks like the LPD will wrap up this case fast and no one else from the school is involved, I can appeal for the Saunderses’ full attention. If they’re pulled in two different directions because their daughter lost a close friend and the police are hounding her for information and possible leads, it’s going to make my job even tougher.”

Tankeeka looked pensive. “Please say you’re not asking for—”

“No privileged information. Absolutely not.”

“Well, it’ll be this evening or maybe even tomorrow before Detective Snow gives our shift the next briefing—unless he suddenly brings in someone. Don’t you think Mr. Saunders will call the sheriff himself and then this will be out of your hands?”

“One would hope, only he didn’t sound all that concerned to me when we spoke a while ago. Either way, I’m going to do what I can until I find her.”

“All right, I’m in, too,” Taneeka replied. “Hey, have you got a picture of her?”

“Down on the console.” The wallet-size photo had an index card attached with some personal information on Maida.

“Aw,” Taneeka said softly. “She’s sweet. She looks like she should be on a jar of pasta or something.”

“Make that chicken soup. She’s half Jewish, on her mother’s side. Her first husband was a Southern Baptist, though. Then twenty years ago, after his death, she married Arthur Livingstone. He passed four years ago.”

Taneeka read the data on the card. “Well, you’d better drive me back. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Although grateful, Campbell took her indebtedness seriously. “I know it’s still early, but I was going to buy you lunch.”

“Honey, I saw how you froze when we passed that patrol car a minute ago,” Taneeka drawled. “And to be honest, I’d rather paint a bull’s-eye on my back than be seen in this rolling advertisement for abuse. Let me take a rain check. And hopefully we’ll have something to celebrate.”

Relieved, Campbell cut a U-turn in a bank parking lot. “I like the sound of that.”

The change of plans turned out to be a blessing. It was just as well that Campbell’s offer for lunch didn’t work out. Only minutes after saying goodbye to Taneeka, she heard her pager sound. She checked the display window and the brief surge of hope she’d felt after her visit with her friend vanished. Her father—sounding as serious as she’d ever heard him—was advising that he had news and didn’t want to tell her over the radio or phone.

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