“I know you guys already have your own caseload but I have to admit, I’m appreciative of every set of eyes I can get. This is getting really creepy. Based on what we know at this point, this was a good kid. Fourteen. Just made the eighth-grade honor roll. Played the trumpet in the middle-school band.”
Robert had read the files of the other three dead kids and knew they had similar stories. First victim had been thirteen. Second, fifteen. Third, fourteen. All male. All good students. All without known gang ties. “Any connection to the previous three victims?”
“No. All four lived in different parts of the city and went to different schools. We don’t have any reason to believe they knew each other or had common friends.”
Robert shook his head. “Nobody ever said it was going to be easy.” He pulled his gloves out of his pocket. “Sawyer and I’ll start knocking on some neighbors’ doors. Maybe we’ll get lucky and somebody saw something.”
* * *
CARMEN JIMENEZ SWAYED back and forth with six-month-old Catherine on her hip. “I can’t believe how big she’s getting,” she said to Liz, who was busy making coffee. “I saw her just a few weeks ago and she already looks different.”
“I know. I’m almost grateful that her regular babysitter got sick. It’s nice to bring her to work with me.” Liz pushed the button on the coffee machine.
“Did Sawyer get her room finished?” Carmen asked.
Liz smiled. “It’s gorgeous. I can’t believe he had the patience to stencil all those teddy bears. You should come see it. We’re getting pizza tonight. You and Raoul could join us.”
“Raoul has band practice tonight. Even so...” She stopped.
Liz frowned at her. “What’s wrong? You look really troubled.”
“Nothing,” Carmen denied automatically. Then remembered this was Liz, her best friend. “I was going to say that even so, he probably wouldn’t want to come with me. I haven’t said much, but I’m worried about Raoul.”
“What’s wrong with your brother?” Liz reached for Catherine and settled the little girl on her own hip.
“He’s not talking to me. By the time I get home from work, he’s already in his room. He comes out for dinner, shovels some food in, and retreats back to his cave. I’m lucky if I get a few one-word answers.”
“He’s an adolescent boy. That’s pretty normal behavior. Aren’t you almost thirty? That automatically makes you too old to understand anything.”
“I know. It’s just hard for me. It seems as if it was just weeks ago that he and his best friend Jacob were setting up a tent in our living room, laughing like a bunch of hyenas until the middle of the night.”
“I can see why you’d miss that,” Liz said with a smirk.
Carmen rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. But in the old days he couldn’t wait to tell me what had happened at school.” She swallowed. “He used to confide in me.”
Liz wrapped her free arm around her friend’s delicate shoulder. “That, my friend, is the difference between ten and fifteen. Give him a couple more years and he’ll start talking again. In the meantime, you need something else to focus on.”
“Maybe I’ll take up knitting,” Carmen said. “I couldn’t find my scarf this morning.”
Liz shook her head. “That’s not what I was thinking.”
Carmen sighed loudly. She and Liz had had this conversation. “I know what you were thinking.”
“I never thought I’d play matchmaker. Really, I didn’t. It’s just that I’m so happy. I want that for you.”
“I know. That’s the only thing that’s keeping me from tripping you on these stairs.” She leaned forward and kissed Catherine’s soft cheek. “Take care of your mother, darling. Her head is in the clouds.”
Liz shook her head. “Just think about it, please. Maybe try the online thing?”
“Sure. I’ll think about it. But right now, I have more pressing issues. I’m meeting my new client in fifteen minutes. Alexa Sage is sixteen, seven months along and lives at home with her parents, who have no idea that she’s pregnant.”
Liz nodded. “Winter clothes make it easier to hide a pregnancy, that’s for sure.” She took another step. “Will you come for pizza tonight? Please?”
“No need to beg. My middle name is carbohydrate. I’ll be there.” Carmen stopped at her office door, unlocked it, opened the door and immediately walked across the small space to pull open the heavy curtain on the lone window. Most days the sun offered some warmth but today, everything outside was gray. Wednesday. Hump day. By five o’clock tonight, the workweek would be more than half over. Although for the counselors who worked at Options for Caring Mothers, their workweeks didn’t tend to be so carefully defined. Babies came at all times of the day or night, and none of the staff wanted their teenage clients to be alone at that time.
Alexa Sage arrived five minutes later. She wore a big black coat and jeans tucked into black boots. Her short hair was a white-blond and her pale skin was clear and pretty, with nicely applied makeup. Her eyes were green and wary.
“It’s nice to meet you, Alexa,” Carmen said, motioning for the girl to take a chair. “I hope you didn’t get too cold getting here.”
“I took the bus,” she said. She sat but didn’t take off her coat.
“Better than walking,” Carmen said, keeping up the small talk. “I have a younger brother, and when I don’t have early-morning meetings, I drop him and his best friend off at school.”
“My mother doesn’t work. She takes my sister and me to school every day. Picks us up, too. That’s what Frank Sage wants.”
“Stepdad?” Carmen asked, noting the use of the first name.
“Nope. His blood is my blood. Let me tell you, that has kept me up a few nights. He doesn’t like it when I call him Frank. My mom thinks it’s disrespectful, too.”
“Do you say it to be disrespectful?”
“I say it because I can.”
Maybe that’s why she’d had sex. Because she could. And now she was in a heap of trouble. “How did you find out about Options for Caring Mothers?” Carmen asked.
“My counselor at school. She gave me an OCM brochure.”
That was how many of their referrals came. “I’m glad that happened,” Carmen said. “Did you tell her that you were pregnant?”
“I think the school nurse told her. I got sick a couple times at school. The nurse thought I had the flu and wanted to send me home. I had to tell her the truth.”
“But you haven’t told your parents?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Alexa chewed her lip. “My dad works in some little factory and he hates his job. He gets mad when my sister or I get a B. Says that if we’re not careful, we’re going to be trapped in some dead-end job. When he finds out that I’m going to quit school to take care of the baby, he’s not going to be happy.”
“So, you’re planning on keeping your baby?”
The girl nodded.
“What about the father of the baby?”
This got a shrug. “He’s a junior, too, so we’re not, you know, getting married or anything, but he’s cool with it.”
“He hasn’t told his parents?”
“There’s only his mom. And no, we both agreed that we wouldn’t say anything to anybody.”
Alexa