Janice Kay - Because Of A Girl

He asked now about boys Sabra had hung out with once school started. Had she gone out with any? Disappeared for a while when the two friends were at a party? Emily kept shaking her head, although when pressed she named boys in their crowd.

“But I don’t think she was into any of them like that. You know?”

“What about after school or evenings? You must have gone separate ways some of the time.”

She ducked her head. “Well, after school.” Her mumble went with her sudden refusal to meet his eyes. “Evenings Mom is really strict. Mostly she makes us be home and do schoolwork. Once in a while we study at the library or something.”

Or sneak out to parties. Like her mother, her cheeks reddened, suggesting she’d had the same thought. Or was she thinking about other wild parties her mother didn’t know about?

She shot a resentful look his way. “It’s not like it was my business where she was all the time.”

Yep, definitely evasive, Jack decided.

With a sniff, she continued, “We have some different friends. Plus, I work on school plays and I started newspaper this year, so I don’t go right home after school a lot of days.”

“What about Sabra?” he asked. “She involved in any extracurricular activities?”

“Um...not really. Probably because of being pregnant. You know.”

Yeah, he didn’t suppose whatever teacher cast plays would want to put an obviously pregnant girl onstage. And nothing he’d learned about Sabra Lee encouraged him to picture her doing Science Olympiad or yearbook.

“Does she catch the bus and go straight home most days?” he asked.

Emily was back to studying her hands on her lap. “I think she hangs out with friends.”

“Can you give me names?”

Clearly feeling pressured, she offered a few she hadn’t included before.

Jack let her go back to class at last. He worked his way down a list of other students, learning nothing new. None of the friends whose names Emily had offered admitted to hanging out with Sabra after school.

In fact, one looked surprised and said, “I think she practically always catches the bus. I never see her after school.”

In other words, Sabra Lee had been practicing her vanishing act for a while. Possibly with some help from her best friend.

He and the principal huddled over a flyer to be sent home with students. It asked the students or parents to contact Jack if they had seen Sabra on school grounds on the relevant morning, or had any information pertaining to her disappearance.

He could only talk to teachers during their individual planning periods, which required him to put together a jigsaw puzzle. If he sat down with the geometry teacher fifth period, he’d have to leave World History until tomorrow. He’d long since missed the Spanish teacher’s planning period. Computer Science, too, he saw; that had been fourth period. And so on. He thought it was pretty unlikely any of them would be able to contribute, but he wasn’t ruling anything out.

And face it—the kid hadn’t been gone long at all. The police wouldn’t have gotten involved yet if not for Sabra’s irregular home placement, or if anyone had seen Meg Harper, her van or Sabra at the school Friday morning. Girls her age did impulsive things. It was still likeliest she was hiding out somewhere because of some mini-catastrophe that had her distraught. She and her guy could have headed for Seattle to hang out and pretend they were UW students for a few days. See a concert at the Showbox. Maybe they were on their way to Vegas in some beater of a car, convinced they could get married there, no questions asked. Who knew?

He chose to start with Carl Howard, biology, following a school secretary’s directions to the classroom. A bell rang just as he arrived, and he had to step aside and flatten himself against the wall to avoid being trampled. The kids might as well have exploded off starting blocks on a track.

When the last seemed to have passed, he peered cautiously into the classroom, where the teacher was wiping clean a whiteboard. As expected, “the douche” was neither young nor hip. In his forties, at a guess, skinny and balding. Nothing about him would stand out. He wore chinos, a plaid sport shirt and brown lace-up shoes that were starting to roll out.

Jack rapped lightly on the door and, when the teacher glanced his way, introduced himself.

The conversation was short and unhelpful despite Mr. Howard’s cooperation. Sabra Lee was a C student in his class, which frustrated him as he felt sure she had the ability to do well. She just wasn’t interested.

Jack asked how many students really were enthusiastic, and saw subtle signs of discouragement. The gung-ho, college-bound kids paid attention because they wanted the grades. Some seemed to enjoy the experiments. But science classes in general weren’t popular.

“Because they can’t skate in my classroom,” the teacher declared.

Had he noticed Sabra huddling with other students? Only Emily. They shared a table and partnered for lab work. Boys? He hadn’t noticed. Any talk among teachers? About her pregnancy, yes, and whether she should have been shuttled to the alternative school the minute she started to show, but otherwise? No.

Jack thanked him and moved on.

CHAPTER FOUR

ANDREA LEE WORKED at The Beauty Boutique, which along with haircuts and perms offered waxing, sugaring—he didn’t even let himself speculate about that one—and manicures and pedicures. He stepped inside cautiously, seeing only women. Every single head turned. A sharp, chemical smell overwhelmed Jack’s sinuses.

A middle-aged woman who had been folding tiny pieces of aluminum foil into a customer’s hair left her to step behind the small front counter. Lifting her gaze from his badge, she smiled tentatively. “May I help you?”

She seemed a little old to be Sabra’s mother, but he couldn’t be sure. Nobody he saw resembled Sabra, judging from the most recent school photo.

“I’m looking for Andrea Lee,” he said. “I understand she works here.”

“Oh!” She pressed a hand to her bosom. “We’ve all been so terrified, wondering what possibly could have happened to Sabra. Andrea was so brave to come to work today.”

“She’s here, then?” He studied the half-dozen women either cutting hair or working on someone’s fingernails. He was pretty sure every one of them was eavesdropping.

“Yes, let me get her.” His informant went rushing to the back, where a curtain blocked the view of a supply or break room. A moment later, a second woman emerged, short and blonde like Sabra.

Any pretense of a waistline had disappeared, and he could tell by the time she was ten feet away that the blond hair wasn’t natural—or, at least, wasn’t natural anymore. Blue eyes welled with tears, tracking mascara down her cheeks. A whiff of cigarette smoke accompanied her.

“At last!” she cried. “I thought the police were pretending Sabra didn’t have a mother.”

Oh, damn. She’d managed more high drama in one sentence than a dozen teenagers had in the several hours he’d been at the high school. Jack hadn’t gone out for theater in high school or college, and he didn’t like being dragged into a scene staged for the benefit of an enraptured audience.

“Mrs. Lee, can we step outside to talk about your daughter’s disappearance? Or is there somewhere private we can speak?”

“All of my coworkers know about Sabra. I’ve been so shattered.” The woman who had gone back to foiling hair had tears in her eyes now.

Mrs. Lee finally led him through the shop, eight pairs of eyes following them, and behind the curtain to what was, indeed, a cramped break room with a small refrigerator, a microwave and a couple of reasonably comfortable chairs.