LITMIR.BIZ

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the first time around.”

      “You’re not going to get into any trouble. I’m only interested in Lindsey now. Were the two of you supposed to meet anyone else?”

      “No,” she said quickly.

      Decker stared at her.

      “Like maybe she was supposed to meet her boyfriend that her parents didn’t know about and you were supposed to meet your boyfriend that your parents don’t know about,” Decker pushed.

      The girl studied her fingernails.

      “Who was her boyfriend, Heather?”

      “It doesn’t matter now,” she said weakly. “Is she really dead?”

      Decker nodded.

      Heather swallowed hard and looked away.

      “It matters, Heather,” Decker said, “if it was her boyfriend who ripped her off.”

      “Hey,” Brian butted in. “He wouldn’t do something like that. Man, he was torn to shreds when Lindsey took off. He thought she dumped him.”

      “How long had they been sneaking around together?”

      “They were in love!” Heather protested. “It wasn’t anything raunchy.”

      Decker backed off.

      “Okay, they were in love. Nobody’s saying they weren’t. How long were they going together?”

      “Over a year,” Lisa volunteered. “He was a nice guy, but sort of a dropout. You know, free-lance photographer, a one-day-at-a-time person.”

      “What’s his name?”

      The room was silent. Decker waited.

      “Chris Truscott,” Lisa blurted.

      “Snitch.” Brian muttered.

      “Listen, jerk,” the girl yelled, “if he had anything to do with Lindsey’s death, I don’t want him to go unpunished.” She looked to Decker for approval.

      “It was okay to protect him before,” the detective said. “After all, if the two of them ran away together, it’s not your business. But now you know Lindsey has been murdered. She was probably burnt alive and suffered a lot of pain. No sense letting Chris walk away as innocent as a newborn babe if he lit the match.”

      Stunned silence. Decker hated this. Bullying people with misery to get what he wanted. Tears fell down Lisa’s cheek.

      “He lives in Venice,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I forget the exact address. I think it’s Fourth and Rose.”

      “How old is he?”

      “Twenty,” Brian answered. “I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but I feel shitty talking about Chris like he was a criminal. He was in love with Lindsey.”

      “Do you think she took off with him, Heather?”

      “I honestly don’t know.”

      Decker could barely hear her.

      “Tell him about the gig, Heather,” Lisa prompted.

      “What gig?” asked Decker.

      “Photography gig,” Lisa answered. “See, Chris didn’t get it together with Lindsey that day—”

      “Why don’t you let Heather tell it, since Chris made the friggin’ phone call to her?” Brian interrupted.

      All eyes went to Heather. She drew her knees into her chest and rolled herself up into a tight ball.

      “He had this photography gig,” she began in a small voice. “I think it was a wedding or a baptism. I forget. Anyway, he said that’s why he didn’t make it. He asked me to pass the word to Lindsey. See, he was off-limits to her. Her parents hated him even though they’d only met him once. Lindsey didn’t want to upset them by telling them that she was in love with Chris, so she lied and said that she broke up with him. But she didn’t. Anyway, she never showed up and I thought she’d just made other plans. Sometimes Lindsey’d forget things if she’d get real involved with her makeup or nails.”

      Decker told her to go on.

      “Anyway, much later that night,” Heather continued, “her mom had called me, all freaked out. Lindsey hadn’t come home. Was she at my house? God, I got all freaked myself. I didn’t know what to think. Where was Lindsey? She didn’t show up at the mall, she wasn’t at home … home she really did take off with Chris and he just told me he didn’t meet her at the Galleria to throw me off base. So I called Chris and asked him. But he swore no. I didn’t think he was lying. I mean, he really, really loved her.” She paused, then said. “God, I’ve thought about the whole thing over and over. What went wrong? What really happened to poor Lindsey? I’ve had a ton of nightmares. I just don’t know what to think anymore.” She buried her face in her knees and began to sob. “I don’t feel so good.”

      Lisa threw her arms around her and rocked her back and forth.

      Peter, you callous asshole, thought Decker. He comforted himself by saying he was on the right side.

      When Heather seemed to have calmed down, he asked, “Have any of you had contact with Chris since Lindsey’s disappearance?”

      “A little. Like the first week after she split,” Brian said. “He kept coming to the neighborhood, trying to find her. Then, nothing.”

      “Chris and I used to ride in a bike club together,” answered a boy with lank dark hair and a huge Adam’s apple. His voice was a rich baritone and his name was Marc. “I saw him a couple of weeks ago, first time since Lindsey disappeared. He had sold his bike to someone at the club; said he was hard up for cash. I believe it. He looked terrible, totally wiped out. Asked me if I had heard from Lindsey. ’Course I didn’t.” The boy’s black eyes were sharp and alive. “He couldn’t have killed her, Officer. I’m not saying they didn’t take off together, but he couldn’t rip her off. He was really wild about her.”

      “Any of you know his phone number by heart?”

      “He’s listed,” Lisa said.

      “Did Chris and Lindsey hang around you guys or did they have their own set of friends?”

      “They hung around us sometimes,” Heather said. “Sometimes, me and my boyfriend would double with them. But they tried to be alone as much as possible. I don’t know much about his friends.”

      “Did Lindsey ever talk about knowing a deaf girl?”

      “Dead?” Brian asked.

      “Deaf,” Lisa snapped. “Like you can’t hear.”

      “Huh?” Brian joked.

      “Get serious, Armor. This isn’t the time,” Marc scolded. He looked back at Decker. “She never mentioned any deaf girl to me.”

      “To me either,” said Heather.

      “Any friend of Chris’s deaf?”

      Blank stares.

      “So none of you heard a thing about Lindsey after she disappeared.”

      They all shook their heads.

      “Did Lindsey ever talk, even jokingly, about running away with Chris?”

      “Lindsey may have dug the guy,” Marc said, “but she wasn’t the type to do something like take off. She had lots of plans for the senior year.”

      “What kind of plans?” Decker asked.

      “The prom. Varsity cheerleading,” Heather said.

      “She was really into cheerleading,” added Lisa. “And modeling. She wanted to be a model. She certainly had the body for it.”

      “I’ll

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