Melissa screwed up her face. “What’s a skip tracer?”
“She finds people who are missing. Tracks them down using all sorts of special ways on her computer.”
“Oh.” Melissa pondered her lap.
“Keep that in mind, Melissa.” Baxter flashed her a smile in the rearview mirror. “You don’t want to go running off from here—ol’ Joanne will hunt you down.”
Linda gave him a playful punch in the arm. “She’s not ‘ol’ Joanne.’”
Melissa shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
They’d have to chase her out of town before she’d leave this place.
FIFTEEN
FEBRUARY 2010
By 2:20 a.m. I was perched at my sister’s unfamiliar computer in her small guest room. My bag of sundry toiletries and a pair of pajamas sat untouched on the quilt-covered bed. The storm had lessened, giving me hope that by dawn it would wear out completely. Dineen had returned to her room to sleep.
In a bowl on my left lay a stash of Café Latte and Chocolate Pudding Jelly Bellies. I’d filled a large glass with water and brought it in as well. A yellow pad of paper and a pen sat on my right. I’d be taking some notes by hand, as well as logging them into a new file.
Before setting to work I’d checked every lock in the house. I’d even crept into Jimmy’s room, hearing the soft whoosh of boy-sleep as I tested his windows. Dineen was leaning against the wall in the hallway, arms folded, when I gently closed his door.
“You think you’re being followed or something?” She’d rubbed one eye, as if too tired to entertain fright any longer.
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Her computer was taking forever to boot up. I shoved a succession of Chocolate Puddings into my mouth, urging it to come on under my breath.
I’d left the bedroom door open. If someone came into this house, I wanted him finding me before Jimmy or Dineen. I’d be the one he was looking for anyway.
Such bravado. Where had it been when I’d been in my house, alone in the dark?
Finally the computer sat ready. I brought up the Internet.
In my mind I’d reconstructed what I could of my search. I’d found two Melissa Harkoffs of the right age. One in San Jose—although that address had been listed four years ago—and a second in Gilroy, with an address listing only six months ago. I didn’t have my case file, but I could start over, again finding the two birth dates and their Social Security numbers. And I could log into my commercial data services and software from here.
But first I would start with Google—where I’d been when my electricity cut off. If I could find a picture of my Melissa, I could avoid numerous rabbit trails.
I typed in “Melissa Harkoff” + San Jose. Sixteen hits popped up, most of them apparently connected to a church. I clicked on the first and discovered the newsletter for San Jose Evangelical Fellowship, edited by Melissa Harkoff. Scrolled through it, looking for a photo or anything that might indicate this person’s age. No such information. I followed the second hit…the third and fourth. Different issues of the same newsletter.
The rest of the hits also failed to yield a photo or descriptive information. But the newsletter articles sounded quite dull for a twenty-two-year-old. Would someone that age be interested in writing about such things as a church picnic, volunteer committees, and the need for substitute Sunday School teachers? The photos that I did see contained not one young person.
On my pad of paper I jotted down the church’s name and phone number. I also placed it in my new note file. Unless I found my Melissa elsewhere, I may need to conduct a pretext call. A church office should be easy to bluff. I could pose as an attorney, looking for heirs to an estate of a deceased client. The receptionist wouldn’t likely give me a telephone number, but she’d pass mine on. That’s where my trapline came in. When Melissa called back it would trap her number. From there I could trace the address.
But my phones wouldn’t work until my electricity came back on.
I leaned back in my sister’s chair, blinking gritty eyes. If only I knew this was my Melissa. I could watch the church entrance tomorrow, stop her on her way out of the service. Then the trick would be to convince her to talk. Would the news of the death of Baxter Jackson’s second wife be enough to sway her conscience?
My mouth twisted. If this church-active Melissa was the right one, how could her conscience have allowed her to stand by a lie for six years, knowing Linda’s murderer walked the streets? Where was her sense of justice? What kind of Christian was that?
A false one, that’s what. Like Baxter, head elder at Vonita True Life Church. Perhaps he had taught our Melissa all too well.
I drank some water, scarfed down some Café Lattes, and googled my second possibility—the one in Gilroy. A few hits blipped on the screen—for Bluefly Flowers & Gifts. I clicked on the link and landed on a basic-looking website for the shop. Owner Melissa Harkoff smiled at me, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. She was gray-haired and at least in her mid-fifties.
Not my gal. Not the right age to match the birth date that had led me to a Gilroy address in the first place. Apparently this was the third Melissa Harkoff I’d originally found, the one with a birth date too long ago. But two Melissa Harkoffs in such a small town? Surprising. I hadn’t considered the name to be all that common.
Could this woman be a relative I hadn’t known about? Someone who’d know where my Melissa was? I copied and pasted the number and address of the shop in my computer file and wrote it on my yellow pad. Even so, I doubted it would lead anywhere. Linda Jackson had told me Melissa had no relatives, which is why she’d ended up in foster care.
My mind was growing sluggish. As hard as I typically worked, I wasn’t used to staying up all night. I needed some decent music along with my Jelly Bellies to keep me going.
Diminishing the screen, I opened Dineen’s iTunes and perused her playlists. Ack. All jazz and pop. I knew my sister had poor taste in music, but this was downright embarrassing. How did a person exist without classic rock?
So much for music. I closed the program.
I stretched my neck right, left. Rubbed a hand across my forehead. Outside the wind had finally ceased its uproar. Fine drops plinked at the window, mere shadows of the night’s deluge. By morning, perhaps, all would be quiet.
I listened for telltale sounds in the house. Nothing.
Maybe I had been wrong. Maybe I’d left my rear garage door unlatched. That was much easier to believe now that I sat in Dineen’s home, enveloped by light. I wanted to believe it. Especially as the bed across the room looked more and more inviting…
I sat up straighter and pulled in five deep breaths, hoping the oxygen would clear my head.
The computer clock read 3:10 a.m.
My right hand reached for the mouse, my brain ticking through what I had so far. I’d eliminated an older Melissa in Gilroy, but I still hadn’t found the one in that town who could match the birth date in ’87 or ’88. And the San Jose birth date still needed to be run down as well. If only I could remember those exact dates. I could do no more now without finding them again, then rematching them to Social Security numbers. There were still a lot of techniques I could employ once I had those SSNs.
Opening Skiptrace One, I went back to the beginning, typing in Melissa’s name and the State of California. Up came the fourteen addresses I’d found, with the two possible birthdates: 01/27/1988 and 09/13/1987. I ran those dates and snagged their Social Security numbers. From there I traced the addresses on each SSN.
Next, phone records.