That is, if they’re still alive.
Mitch
The idea of Opal getting caught snooping around the director’s office has the hair on my neck standing on end.
“Can you forward me your notes?” I ask. “I’ll look into those other names, see if I can find anything. What about the other three files?”
“You mean has he taken them? No, they were still in the filing cabinet when I left earlier.”
So, he takes one but leaves the others. It doesn’t really make sense.
“Why one and not the others?” I muse out loud.
“Timing? From what I can tell, Chantel stopped showing up at the center about eight months ago. The others were more recent. Bobby-Jean went AWOL three months ago, and Melissa and Georgia only in the last couple of weeks. Maybe he’s afraid those more recent files going missing are more likely to be noticed?”
Possible, although I’d almost wonder why bother doing away with Chantel’s?
“But that’s not all I was calling about,” she continues as she shuffles through the copied files in front of me.
Four girls, four sets of copies held together with a paperclip, and Opal flips each of them to the last page, displaying four portrait pictures.
I recognize Georgia; her mother provided us with a recent picture. Melissa is also easy to pick out, thanks to her social media presence which abruptly ended a few weeks ago. But I haven’t seen recent pictures of the other two girls.
What we’d been able to find out about Bobby-Jean Lark isn’t much. After losing her parents at eight years old, she ended up in the care of Child Protective Services, getting bounced around in foster care. I tracked down her social worker yesterday, who hadn’t even known the girl hadn’t been seen by her fosters in three months. Of course, the couple had been content to stay quiet as long as they received their monthly stipend for her care.
Turns my fucking stomach.
Even the social worker seemed less than interested, unable to provide us with more than the girl’s six-year-old photograph attached to her file.
The picture Opal is showing me is of someone who looks way too mature for a fourteen-year-old.
Same for the fourth girl, Chantel Staffman. According to the volunteer, Sally Kendall, who first contacted GEM, Chantel was a street kid who had showed up to the center almost daily for a meal before she stopped coming abruptly. Her picture shows an African American girl, looking much older than her reported seventeen years, but that may be partially due to her hardened expression. Her face betrays a tough life.
Four pictures, four pretty girls.
What am I looking at?
“Do you see it?” Opal asks, leaning so close I catch the scent of some kind of soap or shampoo wafting in my direction.
Something light and a bit fruity.
Appealing.
So much so my body responds.
I glance sideways to find her face partially obscured by a curtain of her hair falling forward as she bends over my shoulder, focused on the images on the table. She turns her head slightly and I catch a glimpse of her gray eyes.
“The pictures, are you seeing what I see?” she prompts, and I dutifully turn my attention where she wants it.
I look at them in order of disappearance. Chantel, Black, pretty, seventeen. Bobby-Jean, Asian, pretty, fourteen. Melissa, Hispanic, pretty, fifteen. And finally, Georgia, fourteen as well, pretty, and an all-American blonde.
Studying them I notice each of their images appears to have the same background.
“These pictures were all taken in the same place.”
Opal nods, a small smile pulls at her lush lips.
Fuck.
I instantly avert my eyes.
“See the corner of that frame?”
I hum affirmatively. The same frame is visible in each of the pictures.
“It’s from a print hanging in the director’s office. It’s on the wall across from the desk.”
“Is that standard? For Kramer to take pictures for the files?”
Seems odd to me.
“I haven’t noticed, but that’ll be easy to check. It’s not the only thing that struck me about those photos though,” she prompts and I take another good look.
It takes me a moment because I’m looking for similarities, but then it occurs to me.
“They’re all a different ethnicity.”
“Bingo,” she says softly as she sits down at the table across from me, taking a drink from her bottle before continuing. “At Transition House there were rarely more than twelve kids housed at a time. Among other things, Kendrick was responsible for interviewing new kids. Presumably to make sure they’d be a good fit with the rest, but in reality, he was handpicking by merit of gender and/or ethnicity. Creating a diverse offering. Something for every palate.”
It’s impossible to unsee it now and her words give me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Looks like a portfolio for a modeling agency.
Except I don’t believe it is.
I think it’s a fucking menu for sick, sexually depraved bastards.
SEVEN
Opal
“These can go in.”
Brian pushes another tray of cinnamon rolls across the counter and I slide it in the hot oven.
He’s had me on my toes since I got here an hour ago. Already the sideboard in the dining space next door is getting full. Three kinds of muffins, Danish, and cinnamon rolls, and we haven’t even started with the actual breakfast yet.
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to slip into my office while it’s still quiet to have another peek at the files. This time to see if I can find any other files that include pictures, but it may have to wait until I can find a quiet moment later.
It makes me wonder about those other so-called ‘old’ files slotted to be destroyed. Would they have had photos in them too? Did those kids go missing?
“You’ve been here a while, right?” I ask Brian, who is cracking eggs in a massive bowl.
He glances up at me from under bushy brows.
“About a year and a half or so.” He points at a pile of potatoes at the far end of the counter. “Those need dicing.”
I look for a knife and find one hanging from a magnetic strip on the wall. He nods his approval when I hold it up.
“Why?” he asks when I start cutting the potatoes down to the size of home fries.
I shrug, feigning indifference. “Oh, just wondering what kind of turnover of kids you see on average. Are most kids here frequently? I mean a lot of the ones I’ve met so far appear to be regulars, but I’ve also seen some names on files that aren’t familiar.”
“What names?”
I look up at his brusque tone. He’s leaning forward, both hands planted on the counter and his eyes are narrowed on me.
“Well, one I remember is Chantel…”
“Staffman,” he finishes for me. “What about her?”
“So you know her? That’s weird, I swear the director said hers was an old file.”
“She never missed a day until late last year. Then she stopped showing up from one day to the next.”
His eyes are no more than slits now, scrutinizing me.
“What’s this about her file?”
I turn my attention back to the potatoes and answer casually, “Oh, Kramer was asking for a few old files he said were slotted to be destroyed. Hers was one of them, but maybe I misunderstood.”