Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

you can get her emails, texts, call logs, and computer files.” He tapped the plastic bag. “With her ID you can pull down anything she has on the cloud. Oh, and I checked credit card activity. Nothing recent.”

“Anything especially interesting in her files?”

“I didn’t read much. Just enough to make sure I got into everything. Besides, exam week starts Monday and I have tons of work to do this weekend.” He hesitated. “But based on what you told me about this lady, I did see something in one of her text messages that sounded kinda like a threat. I tracked the phone number—”

“A burner,” I said.

He nodded. “I found where it was sold. A corner store on the east side.”

“Thanks,” I said. But that information would be useless to me because I had no way of obtaining or executing a search warrant for access to any video surveillance. The most I could do was sit on the store and see if anybody connected to Keisha showed up there.

As if he’d read my mind, LJ added, “I tried to see if they had security cameras online but I couldn’t find any. They may have a closed system or no cameras at all.”

“Especially if they’re a front.” In recent years several neighborhood stores had been caught selling drugs, bootleg DVDs, and even handguns. “So what was the threat?”

LJ unzipped the bag and took out one of the fingers and pressed it against the phone’s home button. The screen lit up—as did his face with a flash of pride. He called up the texts and turned the phone so I could see a single gray text bubble beneath a phone number: Lucky once bitch but remember luck is like lightning.

I looked at LJ.

“Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” he said.

12

Phoenix texted me hearts and kisses emojis to thank me for the flowers, but she was at a friend’s bachelorette party, so I had Friday night to myself.

Before a light workout that included free weights and punching past shoulder pain on the heavy bag in my living room, I sent Mira a text that confirmed the Dorans would come to her house for Christmas. After the workout, I showered, toasted a ham and cheese panini on my tabletop George Foreman grill, and popped open a Corona. I ate at the dining counter in my kitchen as I examined Keisha’s phone and computer.

I went through her iPhone first. Her home screen—which had a picture of earth from space—held the usual icons for the phone’s features and half a dozen games that included Candy Crush and Words with Friends. I tapped Words and looked at the list of unfinished games and saw that Odell and Bianca were among Keisha’s regular challengers. I returned to the home screen and jotted notes as I scrolled through her contacts, call logs, calendar, and texts. Her contact list had more than four hundred names—individuals identified by one name or two, businesses that ranged from Cora’s Curlz salon to EM Tea Coffee Cup Café to pizzerias like LaNova, Bocce, and Just Pizza, national and local professional associations, the Red Cross, more than thirty different medical offices, and two dozen social service agencies. I pulled up each entry, finding only a phone number for most, sometimes an address, and occasionally a birthday or office hours or a note indicating the best time to call.

Her call logs stretched back over two months and included calls to and from various states, as well as Canada. Most were brief, three or four minutes, just enough time to order food or answer a question or check a bank balance. Many, including three from the burner number LJ had shown me, lasted less than five seconds—just long enough for Keisha to hang up on robocalls or heavy breathers trying to intimidate her. The longest calls were between Keisha and those I already knew were closest to her—her parents, Ileana, Odell, Bianca, and Fatimah, whose frequency of contact with her missing friend was greater than I had been led to believe.

Why did you lie to me, Fatimah? I made a note to visit her again.

Keisha’s calendar was mundane—meetings, appointments, reminders, even the date with Odell that ended with the overdose. The text messages ranged from the routine to the ridiculous—work matters, friendly chatter, comments on news stories, here and there jokes, confirmation of meeting times and lunch dates, playful banter and goofy emojis with Odell, some of it sexually suggestive. What emerged from most of the texts was a picture of the relationship Keisha had with each of her texting partners. With most co-workers she kept a professional tone: Must postpone mtg till Fri and LED projector needs bulb before presentation tomorrow. With her women friends there was a supportive sisterhood: LMAO and usual spot, drinks on me and Ugly, don’t buy! under a picture of a dress. With Odell, there was a comfortable intimacy that included shorthand like TOY—thinking of you—and ILY2—I love you too. Other messages between the lovers included things like Pick up wine & Ital bread and Feel like waking up at my place? and Hungry? I can order something. So far there was nothing to suggest they wanted to try drugs together.

At first, my review of Keisha’s information was clinical and detached. Then I listened to her voice mails, mostly voices I had never heard and names I had seen only on the contact list saying Call me back or You’ll never guess where I am or I just wanted to thank you. I recognized the voices of those I had interviewed—her friends, Dr. Markham, her parents, who had left several worried messages before they realized she had disappeared without her phone. There were two heavy breathing recordings from the burner number that had made the text threat, and I felt a stirring of anger in my gut.

But it was hearing Odell for the first time that sent a wave of sadness washing over me. It was entirely possible that Carl Williamson had found