young teen, I’m not sure why they’d find that a less-than-alarming explanation. Anything could’ve happened to her by now. I’ve come down to help look.” I slide one of my business cards across her neat desk. “Is there anything you can tell me about Kayla?”
“Not really. This was only her second year here. She was a little . . . Well. I can’t violate privacy laws, of course . . .”
“Of course.”
She leans into her desk and meets my eyes. “I don’t believe things have been very stable for her.”
“My parents took her in a few months ago, and they are no one’s first choice. I can tell you that from my own experience.”
She presses her lips together sympathetically.
“I would imagine she’s quite troubled,” I say. “But of course those are the girls who are so often made victims.”
“That is the unfortunate truth. Predators identify the troubled girls right off the bat. And she certainly acted out. She got in a fight her first week of school here. She came off as very aggressive, but she was likely just looking to protect herself.”
“Certainly. Anything in particular stand out?”
“Not really. She was pretty quiet. A few in-school suspensions. Quite a bit of truancy and lateness.”
Before I make my way out of the school, I thank her and ask her to get in touch if she hears anything. I don’t really need more information about Kayla. I’ll meet her myself in a few hours. But at least I explained my presence in the hallway and nobody called the cops. I consider that a good day at school.
I wish I could find that jock’s car and slash the tires, but I’d better go while the getting’s good. I always enjoy pushing things further than I should, but I don’t have the free time today.
After heading back to my hotel, I spend half an hour looking into Roy Morris and the lieutenant governor, assessing my danger, but the only interesting thing I find is that Roy Morris has filed for bankruptcy twice in his life. Other than that, there was a DUI at age twenty-five and one more at thirty-one. A fairly average businessman’s life if one accepts that most of them have mediocre financial skills at best. They consider bankruptcies the cost of doing business, even though anyone else who doesn’t pay their bills is a freeloader.
I check my work email to see if there are any responses to the information I helpfully sent Rob on the North Unlimited case. Distracted, I open my first email just to skim the details before I hit the road, but when I see what it is, I growl low in my throat.
“That motherfucker.” Someone from North Unlimited has forwarded something to me with a response, only I never saw the original email. The original email is an apology from Rob and he’s apologizing for me. “Oh no,” I breathe. “Oh no, sir, you lying little shit.”
He screwed something up and didn’t get them a number they’d requested, and then he blamed it on me. Sorry, my colleague Jane is out of town with some personal issues and didn’t get to this. Here’s the document you requested.
This is his whole shtick. He hasn’t learned his lesson at all. He rides on the backs of others and then takes credit for being tall.
That’s it. No more. I gave him his chance and agreed to help him out and he failed spectacularly at redeeming himself. Good old Rob has fucked with the wrong woman for the very last time.
I log into his email account with a smile.
CHAPTER 17
After that surprise from Rob, I get out of town later than I expected, and then I stop for a leisurely lunch along the way at an adorable cowboy-themed café I spy from the road, so I don’t hit the outskirts of Tulsa until six. Not that I’m worried about making Little Dog wait. I’m in a better position if he’s anxious for me to show up.
The address I finally pull up to is quite a surprise. It’s a suburban two-story brick house with an old-fashioned portico that is far too fancy for the size of the place. It’s the kind of ostentatious eighties house that oil industry people loved in the era of the TV show Dallas.
Now that I think about it, this house fits in perfectly with Little Dog’s estate out in rural Oklahoma. Perhaps it’s another gift from his dead grandparents. Hot damn, this kid is living the mauve