Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

Tina whistled. “Well, what are we waiting for? Have you searched their staff records?”

“I tried for a little while last night, but their website is a mess.”

Tina scoffed. Something flickered on the screen and a moment later, her desktop popped up. She shared it with Elle as she went to the Mitchell University website and navigated to their staff section. As Elle had found last night, several hundred profiles were there, and it was impossible to know if it was even up to date. A subpoena for the university’s records would give police better information, but that could take weeks.

“What do you know about the person you’re looking for?” Tina asked.

Elle thought back to Eduardo’s testimony. “Just that he’s probably a middle-aged white man.”

She snorted. “Good thing those are hard to come by in academia.”

Despite everything that had happened that day, Elle smiled. “Tell me about it. Oh, I know that he had a key to the physics building. Building J. But I don’t know for sure whether he’s a student or a janitor or a professor or something else. The witness told us only staff were allowed access after ten p.m., and it was apparently around one a.m. when the man approached our witness.”

“So that rules out students, at least,” Tina said.

Elle nodded. “It should. Unless a student got someone else’s pass.”

“If we go down that hypothetical, though, then it could literally be anyone. Is it only the staff who work in the building that can access it after hours, or can any staff member access the building?”

“I don’t know.”

On the small square of video that was embedded next to the shared screen, Tina’s face was focused. “So, this is the course page for the math and physics degrees.”

“Yeah, I found that last night, but that’s where I got stuck. Each course has the professor’s name next to it, but I couldn’t find any links to the full faculty, and I didn’t have the energy to comb through dozens of courses.”

“Hmm, they must have . . .” Tina typed a few more things, clicked a couple times.

“Oh, what’s that?” Elle sat forward. “Where it says ‘meet our team’?” There was a link lost in a chunk of text on the main physics course page.

Tina clicked and then sat back with a victorious smile. On the screen was a page filled with pictures, names, and profiles of about thirty men and women.

Elle read the headline at the top. “Physics and Mathematics Faculty. Well, that took you all of two seconds.”

“It would have taken you two seconds too if you’d slept in the last week.”

“Hush,” Elle said, already scanning the list of names. At least two-thirds of the people fit the description Eduardo gave them. Tina scrolled again and a new face popped onto the screen.

“Didn’t you say the girl who saw the man talking to Amanda said he was bald? There are, like, ten bald guys here.”

“Wait . . .” Elle whispered.

Tina stopped scrolling. “See something?”

Elle pointed at the screen. “I know that guy. Third from the bottom, in the white collared shirt. Dr. Stevens. That’s the guy I went to see last week. The one Luisa Toca’s mother said her daughter was dating.”

“Luisa Toca. Leo’s ex?”

“Yeah,” Elle said, staring at the photo. The man was clean-shaven and not wearing a baseball cap like he had been the day they met, but she recognized him anyway. “He told me he and Luisa’s mom were neighbors and he just flirted with her daughter one time. I figured her mom just misunderstood. His story checked out.”

“Hmm, weird. But you know, Minneapolis is one of those big small towns. And there are a few guys here that match the description.”

“True.” Nevertheless, Elle pulled out her phone and got the sketch Danika helped put together up on her screen, holding it up next to the man’s picture on the computer. She shook her head as her stomach sank. “Looks nothing like the sketch. The guy three above him does, though, at least a little. Dominic Jackman.”

“Cool. Why don’t you head over to Stevens’s house again and see if he has an alibi. I’ll check out Jackman and the other baldies.”

37

Natalie

January 19, 2020

Natalie was alone now.

She shivered in the dark as she watched the slot on the door. It had been hours since it last opened. Upstairs was silent. She heard no footsteps. This might be her only chance.

Until yesterday, she and Amanda had agreed they would wait to be rescued. Natalie had read a lot of true crime books she sneaked out of Elle’s studio, so she knew their chances of escaping on their own were low. She warned Amanda over and over not to make the man angry. Elle would never stop looking for her. She would find a way, use her podcast to find the man that had taken them. Help was on the way; they just had to wait.

But that was yesterday.

Time had blended together, but she was pretty sure a full night had passed since the man killed Amanda. The two of them had been locked in the basement for what felt like days, with no windows letting in light or dark that would indicate the passage of time. Amanda was sick, vomiting and crying into the gross toilet that was the only piece of furniture in the room besides the bed. They had no food, and the single bottle of water he’d left them was almost drained from Amanda trying to get her fluids back up.

After ignoring them for hours, the man had finally opened the door. He brought a bowl for each of them, which held just a few spoonfuls of some boiled, brown mash. Amanda took a couple bites, and then she lost it. She threw the hot dish at him and screamed her head off and thrashed around on the bed while the man tried to calm her and Natalie cowered, weak with fear and hunger. Then, when Natalie was sure the neighbors would hear the