Kiss Me, Kill Me

TWO

Kirsten Benton had been missing for five days.

Because she’d been dubbed a habitual runaway for her tendency to disappear on the weekends, the Woodbridge, Virginia, police didn’t take this episode seriously. Sean Rogan, however, took it very seriously, because Kirsten had broken her pattern.

The other half-dozen times she’d disappeared, she’d returned home by Sunday night. Now it was Wednesday, and her cell phone was going straight to voice mail. Sean had already tried to trace the GPS on her phone but got nowhere. He suspected that she’d either turned it off or the battery was dead.

It could have been an easy case, but now Sean and his partner, Patrick Kincaid, had a lot of legwork-and fingerwork on the computer-ahead to track down the high school senior. Patrick was at the Woodbridge police department talking to the detective in charge of missing persons about Kirsten and retrieving a copy of all the missing-person reports her mother had filed over the past six months. They hoped there was a pattern and they could figure out where she went.

Sean was doing the fingerwork at the Benton household on Kirsten’s computer. Teenagers lived for their electronic toys, and between her social networking accounts and emails, he hoped to track her down before the end of the day.

Sitting at Kirsten’s desk in her bedroom, he first needed to get rid of Kirsten’s hovering mother, Evelyn, who stood behind him as he hacked her daughter’s computer password. He ran his hands through his brown hair in frustration but it fell back over his eyes. How was he going to kick a worried mother out?

“Your partner is talking to the police, but I don’t know that it’s going to do any good.”

Evelyn was Sean’s distant relative by marriage-well, he couldn’t even say that, since she’d divorced his uncle, Tim Benton, who was his mother’s stepbrother and not even a blood relative. But Sean’s brother Duke took family seriously-no matter how related or estranged or scattered.

Sean said, “If anyone can get the police to take Kirsten’s disappearance seriously, it’s Patrick. He used to be one of them.”

Patrick had joined RCK two years ago when Sean was still living in Sacramento. Three months ago, they had moved to Washington, D.C., and opened RCK East, both hoping to forge their own career paths away from the controlling guidance of their respective older brothers, who were principals in the protective-services company. RCK didn’t normally handle missing-person cases-the closest they came were overseas kidnappings-but the Bentons were family.

“Do you want me to call her friends again?” Evelyn asked.

“No, they’re in school right now. Did you make the list for me?”

“Yes-”

“Can you go over it again? Make sure you have their phone numbers and any other information you can think of-how much time Kirsten spent with them, any boyfriends or ex-boyfriends. Also, her school schedule and grades. Teachers’ emails and phone numbers-we’ll want to talk to them to see if Kirsten’s behavior has recently changed.”

He was trying to give Evelyn something to do, not start a conversation-he and Patrick had listened to her worries for two hours the night before and had all the information they needed to get started-but Evelyn continuted, “She hasn’t been herself since I moved here. It was the right thing to do. I couldn’t live in L.A. after what Tim did! Right?”

Sean had heard all about her ex-husband’s affairs and the nasty divorce and subsequent move three thousand miles away. Her then fourteen-year-old daughter hadn’t wanted to move east, but this was where Evelyn had found a job. Evelyn admitted at the beginning that she and Kirsten had had a strained relationship ever since the move to Virginia three years ago. The only reason Sean was here now was because Kirsten had never been gone this long, and Tim Benton had hired RCK to find her.

“Let’s find Kirsten first, then you two need to have a heart-to-heart, okay?”

“You know she’s only looking at colleges in California? She hates me.”

He flashed his dimple and blue eyes, and asked her kindly, “Evelyn, can you work on that list for me?”

She finally left the room. Sean felt bad for the woman, but he couldn’t do his job if he had to hold her hand. Earlier, he’d suggested that Evelyn ask a friend to come over for the day, but when he and Patrick had arrived, she’d been alone.

While his laptop ran through a code-breaking program Sean had written, he surveyed Kirsten’s sparsely furnished room. Most teenage girls-if his older sister had been a good example-had more stuff than Kirsten Benton. Eden could have opened up a small department store with all her clothing and makeup, half of it strewn across the floor. Missing here were a teenage girl’s usual tiny bottles of makeup and perfume, along with the stuffed animals and knickknacks and general clutter. There weren’t even posters on the walls, save for a single beach scene above the desk.

He glanced at his program, which still had a few minutes left to run, then walked around the room taking a short video with his phone. The only place in the room with any sign of the girl’s personality was her desk. Almost hidden on a wall that could be clearly seen only when sitting at her desk was a corkboard filled with photographs of Kirsten and her friends, movie ticket stubs, and sticky notes with messages like English essay due MON!!! and Movies Wednesday-team.

Kirsten’s desk had books stacked up against the wall, and a short bookcase to the left was filled with the popular teenage books of the day-books about wizards and vampires and fallen angels. He flipped through a wall calendar, but it didn’t appear that she used it for anything specific. A friend’s birthday was marked in January, her dad’s in May. June 5 had a big red circle around it and a happy face, but he didn’t know what that signified since he knew Kirsten would be eighteen in April.

He picked up a stack of thick college brochures. University of San Diego, U.C. Santa Barbara, USC, Pepperdine. All Southern California colleges.

Sean glanced at the beach poster, and the location registered. It was the Malibu pier. He didn’t need to be a shrink to figure out that Kirsten Benton was homesick-it was apparent from the barren room, the colleges she’d applied to, and the poster that practically shouted, “I miss my home!”

But the rest of the space was like a hotel room. The bed was plain, with only a white down comforter-no extra pillows or stuffed animals or throw blanket. The nightstand didn’t even have a lamp or digital clock-the clock was on her desk. The dresser was uncluttered, the floor bare. He slid back the closet door and noted that the floor was stacked high with stuffed animals and throw pillows. Why weren’t they on her bed? Was she compulsively neat?

Three years was a long time to have a room that wasn’t lived in.

Sean wished he’d asked Lucy to join him, and not just because he hadn’t spent enough time with her lately. She understood teenagers and would know if something was amiss. He emailed her the short video along with a message explaining Kirsten’s history.

Evelyn had her own theory: that Kirsten had a new boyfriend, probably in college. She’d confronted her the first time she ran away, but Kirsten had denied it. According to Evelyn, Kirsten had said she just needed “some space” and refused to tell her mother where she’d gone, even though Evelyn had grounded her and taken away her car.

If something was going on with Kirsten, her friends would be the most likely to know, but none of them had given Evelyn any useful information.

His computer beeped to signal that he’d broken her code. Sean sat down and assessed Kirsten’s system. He scanned her files and programs, sorting the files by most recent. Several word-processing documents with titles like ENG_MOCKINGBIRD were dated over the last couple of weeks. She appeared to be a diligent student. To ensure that the files were what they purported to be, he opened them; they were legit. He also noticed that she had several.mov files-videos with numbers for names-but with nothing in them. They appeared to be computer shortcuts, but didn’t lead anywhere and had the appearance of temporary files.

Her browsing history was set to delete itself every time she logged off. She’d last logged off on Friday at 4:10 p.m. There were logs he could access and decode to uncover her browsing history, but first he checked her email. Her system password worked for her email as well.

A series of unread emails popped up-she hadn’t accessed her email since she logged off on Friday. Someone named Trey Danielson had emailed her eight times in the last three days. The messages were virtually identical, but increased in urgency from Where are you? You okay? to the last message from last night:

Call me, text me, anything! I’m worried about you. Your phone is going directly to voice mail. I don’t know where you are. I talked to Stacey this morning, but she’s being a bitch. Your mom is calling around. Please, K, no questions, just call me.

Sean frowned, logged onto Kirsten’s Facebook profile, and noted that several friends had posted comments like:

Missed you in Drama!

Mrs. Robertson is a total bitch! You’re so lucky you missed the pop quiz.

Hey, you sick? Hope you can make my party Friday!

Only Trey Danielson seemed truly concerned. He was the best place to start.

Sean responded to the last email Trey had sent to Kirsten:

Trey, I just got home, my mom’s at work, she cut off my cell phone. Can you come over ASAP? I need to talk to you.

He hoped the kid took the bait.

Sean was scanning the computer logs when Patrick called. “I’m leaving the police station now,” he said. “Evelyn only filed a police report the first time Kirsten disappeared. That’s not unusual. Parents of habitual runaways tend to be embarrassed by their kids’ behavior, worried that people will think they can’t control their kids. However, I got the police interested in this disappearance, enough that they’ll bump her to a missing person instead of a runaway. They’ll send her photo and vitals to all hospitals and law enforcement in a hundred-mile radius.”

“Good.”

“I also contacted my friend at NCMEC and he’s going to put Kirsten in the system as soon as Woodbridge PD sends him the data, so that’s another avenue. They can spread the information far better than any local office.”

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children worked closely with both law enforcement and private investigators in finding minors under all circumstances, runaway or criminal. Having their resources on this case was a big plus.

Sean filled Patrick in on Kirsten’s emails as well as on Trey Danielson. “I sent him an email from Kirsten; we’ll see if he bites. He’s a senior at her school, and based on the pictures of them in his profile it looks like he and Kirsten used to go out. It sounds like he’ll be easier to crack than her girlfriends-he’s sent her numerous messages.”

“Unless it’s a CYA.”

“CYA?” Sean asked.

“He’s covering his ass by sending concerned emails, even if he was the one who had something to do with her disappearance. I’ve seen it before in domestic cases.”

“We’ll find out-I asked him to come over ASAP. If he killed her, he might not, but then again if he sent all those worried emails to cover up a crime, he’d come for the same reason, right? Either way, my gut says he’ll show.”

“You’re thinking like a cop now.”

Pretending to be insulted, Sean said, “That was low.”

Patrick laughed. “Whatever reason he comes, we need to get rid of Evelyn. I think she’s too stressed to help right now. I’ll think up an errand for her by the time I get there.”

“Good idea. I sent Lucy pictures of Kirsten’s room and asked her for advice.”

Patrick didn’t say anything.

“Did I lose you?” Sean prompted.

“Why get Lucy involved?”

Patrick’s tone was odd, almost defensive. Sean said, “She’s on edge waiting to hear back about her FBI interview. She could use something to distract her. This kind of case is right up her alley, and she might see something we missed.” Sean hesitated, then asked, “You got a problem asking Lucy to consult?”

“Of course not,” Patrick said and hung up.

Right, Sean thought, no problem at all.

Ever since Patrick had found out about Sean’s relationship with his sister, he’d been acting weird. Sean understood the overprotective big-brother attitude, but Lucy was twenty-five; it wasn’t as if she were a naive teenager. And she was good at this type of work. Lucy was one of the few people Sean knew who not only understood how computer systems and the Internet operated, but understood people as well. She could read a chat transcript and deduce whether the people chatting were predators, victims, or bored kids.

Did Patrick not want Lucy involved with the case because of her relationship with Sean? Or because of her tragic past?

It didn’t matter to Sean. As far as he was concerned, Lucy was capable and willing to help, and he’d use all available resources. The added benefit was that they’d be spending more time together. A win-win, as far as Sean was concerned.