Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,126
asked, ignoring Megan’s reaction to seeing Kylie.
Megan pointed out the door and down the street to their right. “I followed her for about a block before she lost me, I hurried back home to call you.”
“Did she change clothes after we left?” Kylie asked.
Megan searched Kylie’s face, as if drawing her own conclusion about something, and took a moment before her face lit up. “Yes. She did change. She’s wearing a white T-shirt. Are you going to help look for her?”
“Yes.” Kylie didn’t hesitate in answering.
Diane pushed her way next to her mother in the front door. Although an older version of Dani, Diane also held strong features very similar to her mother’s. Diane focused on Kylie but then glanced furtively from her mother to her uncle.
“I’ll help look, too. With all of us we’ll have her back in no time.” Diane rubbed her mother’s shoulder, looking worried.
“No.” Perry spoke so firmly all the women looked at him. “None of you are leaving this house. Is that understood?”
Diane looked ready to argue, but Megan put her arm around her daughter and backed her into the house. “Bring her home, Perry, alive and well so I can kill her.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
Megan looked so distraught, torn between outrage and pain that created hard lines around her pretty eyes. For a moment, Kylie was ripped back thirteen years and saw her own mother, worried sick while waiting to hear word from the police that her oldest daughter was alive and safe. That message never arrived.
“Here’s what I need from you,” Kylie said, and both Megan and Diane gave her their full attention. “I want you to go through her computer. Find any chats with this boy she was supposedly going to meet.”
“But,” Diane began, immediately chewing her lower lip.
“Do as she says,” Perry ordered.
“I know you don’t want to violate her privacy.” Kylie would snap at Perry later for being so gruff with both of them when they were obviously worried sick. “But it could save her life. Call us immediately if you find anything indicating she planned to meet him tonight. Or if you find her agreeing to go anywhere. Do it now. There isn’t any time to waste.”
Perry turned from the door, taking her by the arm. Kylie hurried down the path with him, not bothering to say goodbye to either of them but hearing the door close behind them.
An hour later, Kylie and Perry had combed the neighborhood and been on the phone with Diane and Megan more than a handful of times. Kylie got stubborn with Perry, aware that he worried about the rest of the women in his life when Dani was missing but insisting they would cover more ground and learn more faster if the two of them split up. Reminding him he wanted to know if she carried her cell phone so they could communicate didn’t seem to help much, but when Kylie pointed out she’d taken on many killers in the past, all alone, Perry’s gaze darkened over, his expression bordering on violent.
“Fine,” he growled.
“Diane is calling Dani’s friends now,” Kylie reminded him. “I say we head to all hangout spots where she might have gone to regroup and be alone. We check out every one of them that is open at this hour.”
“Bowling alley is still open,” Perry said. “We can go there together.”
Kylie nodded. She needed to get to her car, but they would figure out how to do that if the investigation continued into the night. She stared into the darkness, scanning her attention across the large, empty parking lot. It was the fifth or sixth one they’d cruised around and then through. Dani wasn’t anywhere.
Worse yet, Diane couldn’t find anything on any of the computers at the house that helped them. “She’s password-protected her cell phone,” Diane told Kylie in her most recent call.
“Try thinking of her password. Anything you can think of,” Kylie suggested.
“Try ‘Peter,’ ” Dorine said in the background, doing what the fourteen-year-old did best, eavesdropping.
“No luck.” Diane was obviously trying every password she could think of while they talked on the phone.
“Wait a minute,” Kylie said, sitting next to Perry in his Jeep while they drove across town to the bowling alley. “The screen name she was talking to when she told me about Peter . . . it was spelled funny.”
“I’ve got it!” Diane laughed in her ear. “It was Petrie, not Peter. Way to go, Dorine, for being queen eavesdropper.”