Alanis shrugged, but Carrie brought some force to her voice. “Monarch teaches us to trust our judgment and be our own security guards,” she said.
“Maybe we should revisit that policy,” said Stahl. Then she looked at me. “They’re talking about Alchemy 101. It’s a teen club in Oceanside. Live music, big-screen videos, vegan menu. No smoking, no alcohol.”
“Some of the people there are ugly,” said Alanis.
“They are not,” said Carrie.
“Not ugly-looking,” said Alanis. “Looking ugly.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
Alanis shrugged. “At me. They look ugly at me.”
Then an awkward moment between the girls, a stand-off I sensed they had had before.
“Did you see them yesterday?” I asked. “The Alchemy 101 men?”
They both nodded, and both looked at Chancellor Stahl with visible worry.
“We went to the sneak-out with Daley at lunch,” said Carrie. “Because she asked us to. Because in a group you don’t stand out to Mr. Cates. That’s Wayne, the security geek. And Daley snuck through the hole in the chain-link that’s hidden by ivy. And she got picked up by Nick in his van with the dog’s face on the doors. Alanis and I watched Nick drive away and we waved. And just as we were about to head back to the quad, that’s when we saw the silver SUV and the Alchemy 101 guys.”
Who followed Nick and Daley to Nick’s place, I thought.
“I take it the sneak-out is your latest way off campus without permission?” asked the chancellor. “Out there behind the visitors’ bleachers?”
The girls pursed their lips and nodded glumly, more concerned with their fates as lunchtime conspirators than the possible fate of Daley in the company of two murderers. Youth isn’t wasted on the young, I thought. They just can’t see over it.
Chancellor Stahl walked me to the main exit. Her default expression was the frown, but it looked like one of concern more than disapproval. I dropped my visitor’s badge back into the box.
“Daley Rideout is a troubled girl,” she said. “Bright, but easily distracted. She tested at one thirty-one on the Stanford-Binet but only makes Bs. She has a list of Monarch infractions a mile long. Mostly absences. I don’t know much about this Nick Moreno, except that he walks dogs for a living and is twenty years old to Daley’s fourteen. So a child with a man. I have spoken with the police about this, though Mr. Moreno has broken no laws in associating with Daley. She’s been here two years now and this is her third interaction with a man much older than she is. She is sexually mature. Which puts Monarch in a difficult position. Quite honestly, I don’t think the sister can control her.”
“Does she try?” I asked.
“She seems powerless. Penelope was just eighteen when her parents died. Daley was all of four. So they have a deep sisterhood. But is that the basis for competent stewardship? Not for me to judge. I can say that I’m worried about Daley and what has happened to her. And what might happen in the next days.”
“What about the husband?”
“Distant and disengaged, from what I’m told. He’s only been on campus a couple of times. Penelope says he travels a lot on business. What business, she hasn’t said.”
Parental kidnapping came to my mind. The most common form of child abduction on the planet. But Richard Hauser wasn’t Daley’s biological father, and there was no custody battle going on, at least according to Penelope.
I listened to Penelope’s message from the road. Voice jittery. Detective Darrel Walker had come to the house. I called and told her I was just a few minutes out. She clicked off without a word.
4
Her home was a forties beach bungalow on Myers Street in Oceanside just a few blocks from the Transportation Center. The fence around it was wrought iron and the gate swung quietly. The front yard was drought-proof gravel with pots of succulents and sturdy geraniums. There was one Mexican fan palm, tall and thin and needing a haircut. The slat cottage was mint green with white trim, and the porch had an oval rug for a welcome mat.
Penelope held open the screen door and I stepped into the living room. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Baggy cargo pants and a black T-shirt. Ball cap, makeup gone.
“We’re going to get her back,” I said.
“I need more than words from you.”
“Darrel Walker is a tough detective, and every agency knows what happened.”
“My sister is abducted by murderers and you tell me how tough the cops are?”
“They’ll do what they have to, and so will we.”
“Meaning what? Meaning fucking what?”
She stared up at me for a long moment, a festival of pained emotions playing across her face. She balled her fists and shut her eyes and mouthed a silent string of words that I could make no sense of. It went on for a bit. A calming mantra, maybe. Or a prayer. Or a curse.
Then she took a deep breath. Her eyes and fists opened. “I shall now control myself. Penelope is in control again. See?”
“I need to take a look at Daley’s room.”
“Then I will take you to her room. I’m sorry for my anger.”
“I feel some of that, too.”
“I’m ninety percent lover and ten percent killer,” she said.
“I’m German-English.”
She studied me through a thicket of suspicion. “You have an unusual sense of humor. Here, a list of friends, and how you can contact them.”
I pocketed the sheet of paper as she led me down a narrow hallway. Then a right turn into Daley’s room. Good light coming through the window. An unmade bed, pink everything. A plush floor rug with dalmatian puppies romping. A mirrored closet, stuffed with clothes, sliding door half open. One wall with pop-star posters taped askew — Beyoncé and Selena, Justin and Bruno. An acoustic guitar propped in a corner, a nice Gibson. Another wall had been entirely painted in the blackboard finish popular with students, and apparently Daley had taken a serious shine to it: many-colored chalk swirls, yellow creatures with compound eyes, blue ponies with flowing orange-and-red tails, armies of tiny white ants marching over black, The Scream repeated several times in varying sizes, all faithfully re-created in violet and chartreuse.
From dalmatians to Munch, I thought. Part little girl and part “easily distracted” teenager. And what else?
Penelope allowed me to search Daley’s room and her bathroom, which was just across the hall. I found no drugs, prescription or otherwise, no paraphernalia, no alcohol or tobacco. No birth control. There were more than a few energy-drink cans in the wastebaskets. She liked the same candy I do, anything with peanuts and chocolate, and plenty of it. No backpack.
On her desk were two small stacks of notebooks dedicated to different subjects from the previous school term. Her handwriting was sleek and aggressive, nothing like her sister’s. Six books, stacked on top of one another, big to smalclass="underline" the Bible, the Twilight saga, the diary of Anne Frank. And a bright collection of ceramic Día de los Muertos skulls and colorful folk-art crosses. The center desk drawer was a tangled wad of cords and adapters.
The shower and bathroom counter were crowded with hair and skin products. Penelope told me that in addition to clothes and a few toiletries, and her carry-on rolling luggage, Daley had taken her laptop and a Martin Backpacker guitar that Penelope had bought her for her twelfth birthday. She played and wrote songs.
“Is she on social media?” I asked.
“I don’t allow it.”
“Does she have a smartphone?”
“Of course,” said Penelope. “The child security software has never worked properly, but I examine it every night before she goes to bed. As agreed. I check it covertly, too. I prowl her friends’ sites on my phone for signs of her. She’s good to her word — no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram.”