Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,83
sixteen. Our daughter is seventeen now and not once has she missed a day on the job. None of our children are slackers,” Polly said, straightening. “Something terrible has happened to our Rita.”
“Let me ask you this,” Perry said, agreeing with Mrs. Simoli but not seeing the point in saying so. “Does your daughter spend a lot of time on the computer?”
“What kind of question is that?” Ricardo snapped. “All of us do. Part of Rita’s job is entering tickets on the computer.”
“I meant chatting, online chatting. Does she do a lot of that?”
Ricardo looked at his wife, who returned a concerned expression. She focused on Perry first, her expression sadder than it had been a moment before. “There was a time, not too long ago, when she appeared obsessed with talking to this boy on the computer. It wasn’t natural, or proper. Her father and I put an end to it.”
“Do you know who she was chatting with? The boy’s name?”
“Peter, Peter Rangari. We didn’t know his family, and he wasn’t from Mission Hills. There are good boys here from very successful families, plenty for our Rita to choose from.” Polly straightened, tilting her head slightly while pressing her lips together in a very determined-looking expression. “Why do you ask us this?”
“Peter Rangari,” Perry repeated, writing the name down. “I need as many current pictures of your daughter that you can provide, and also, with your permission, I need to look at the computer your daughter used to do her online chatting.”
“Our daughter obeys us.” Ricardo pushed his chair back and stood, then took his wife’s arm and encouraged her to her feet. “Don’t even think she would go behind our backs and meet a boy we demanded she sever all communication with. If you want to send a team over to our home, we’ll cooperate. But you’d better come up with a better lead than that, or I’ll insist another cop be given our daughter’s case, one who knows what the hell he is doing.”
A couple hours later, Perry walked out of the Simolis’ house, a nice two-story country home with a large landscaped yard, his mood more sour than it had been all day.
“Peter is hitting hard,” Carl said, scowling when he reached for the passenger door.
Perry looked at him over the top of the car. “She’d been talking to him for months, too. We’ve got the printed chats, but I think we need to subpoena their hard drive.”
“Going to have to. Mr. Simoli didn’t like us even going through the computer.” Carl slipped into the passenger seat next to Perry. “More than likely he was scared we’d stumble onto all of his souped-up accounting.”
Perry snorted, not giving a damn how the man ran his restaurant. “You’d think he’d be more cooperative in finding his daughter.”
“At least we know where she went to meet him.”
“And we’re heading there now.” Although arriving at the health-food grocery store where apparently Rita went on a regular basis to pick up vegetables for her family’s restaurant hours after she met Peter wouldn’t find them shit, and Perry knew it.
Kylie squatted in the dark, frowning at the asphalt in the parking lot as she glanced around at her quiet surroundings. Peaceful and serene, in the wake of a terrible crime. Another teenage girl had been yanked out of her world, taken from the safe and happy life she’d known for seventeen years. It wasn’t right that she would be exposed to the nightmares that would follow her abduction. Kylie’s heart hurt as anger and frustration bit at her, making the chill in the night air feel more like poison than cooling relief.
Cars drove up and down the main street, even at this hour. She looked in the direction of the intersection and her heart skipped a beat when she saw a city police car. She couldn’t risk being seen at a crime scene, even if the police hadn’t designated the place as such. When Paul called her, informing her about Rita Simoli, Kylie knew her time was limited before Perry showed up here.
Kylie straightened, not sure what she expected to find here. But a teenage girl had disappeared, possibly where Kylie stood right now, and it always helped her to physically witness where a crime took place. She bet Perry would feel the same way. Which was why she kept one eye on the road and all passing cars.
She looked across the empty parking lot, at the community grocery store and its