and poured herself her fourth coffee of the long night becoming a long day.
She thought that every other case on her desk should take precedence.
Saving Jennifer Riggins from whatever emotional morass that had instilled in her the need to run was way beyond the detective’s job description.
Yet she could not bring herself to just let her run. Terri knew the statistics far too well.
And, she reminded herself, she knew the necessity of running away with an intimacy that she would never forget.
You had to run once. Why do you suppose this is different?
She answered: I wasn’t sixteen. I was grown up and with two babies.
Almost grown up.
But you still had to run, didn’t you?
The question reverberated within her and she plopped down and rocked in her seat at her desk, trying to imagine where Jennifer had gone. She leaned forward and took a long pull at the coffee cup. Hers had a large red heart and World’s Best Mom written on the side and had been a predictable Mother’s Day gift from her children. She doubted that this sentiment was true, but she was doing her damned best to try.
After a second she sighed, then took the flash drive copy of the hard drive on Jennifer’s computer and plugged it into her own. She sat back and started to survey the sixteen-year-old’s life, hoping that some road map would appear on the screen in front of her.
Jennifer’s Facebook entry was surprising. She had friended a very small number of her classmates at the high school and several rock and pop stars, ranging from a surprising Lou Reed, who was older than her mother, to Feist and Shania Twain. Terri had expected the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus, but Jennifer’s tastes were very much outside the mainstream. Under the category Likes she had written Freedom and under Dislikes she had put Phonies . Terri guessed that word could be applied to any number of people in Jennifer’s world.
In the Profile section, Jennifer had quoted someone named Hotchick99, who had written on her own Facebook entry: “Everyone in our school hates this one girl.”
Jennifer had replied: “This is kind of a badge of honor to be hated by people like her. I never want to be the kind of person she would like.”
Terri smiled. A rebel with any number of causes, she thought. It gave her a little non-cop respect for the missing girl, which only made her sadder when she considered what was likely to happen to Jennifer on the streets. Escape wasn’t going to seem so great then. Maybe she’ll have the sense to call home, no matter how terrible that will seem.
She kept looking through the hard drive. Jennifer had also tested a few computer games, made a number of Wikipedia inquiries and Google searches that seemed to correspond to courses she was taking in school. There was even a Translate the page inquiry, where she’d submitted something that Terri suspected was a Spanish assignment. Beyond the ordinary, Jennifer did not seem particularly computer-dependent. She had a Skype account but there were no names listed on it.
Terri raced through an American history paper on the Underground Railroad and an English paper on Great Expectations that she found under Word Documents. She half expected to find these were written by a term paper mill but was pleased when she did not. Her impression was that Jennifer actually did most of her own work at school, which made her the exception rather than the rule.
She also seemed to like doggerel. She had downloaded samples from Shel Silverstein and Ogden Nash, which were odd choices for a teenage girl in this day and age. She found a file called 6 Poems for Mister Brown Fur, which were rhymed couplets and haiku written for her teddy bear. Some—there were many more than six—were quite funny, which made Terri smile. Smart girl, she thought again.
She continued searching. There were frequent visits to vegan websites and new age entries, which, Terri guessed, were efforts to understand her mother and
She thought that every other case on her desk should take precedence.
Saving Jennifer Riggins from whatever emotional morass that had instilled in her the need to run was way beyond the detective’s job description.
Yet she could not bring herself to just let her run. Terri knew the statistics far too well.
And, she reminded herself, she knew the necessity of running away with an intimacy that she would never forget.
You had to run once. Why do you suppose this is different?
She answered: I wasn’t sixteen. I was grown up and with two babies.
Almost grown up.
But you still had to run, didn’t you?
The question reverberated within her and she plopped down and rocked in her seat at her desk, trying to imagine where Jennifer had gone. She leaned forward and took a long pull at the coffee cup. Hers had a large red heart and World’s Best Mom written on the side and had been a predictable Mother’s Day gift from her children. She doubted that this sentiment was true, but she was doing her damned best to try.
After a second she sighed, then took the flash drive copy of the hard drive on Jennifer’s computer and plugged it into her own. She sat back and started to survey the sixteen-year-old’s life, hoping that some road map would appear on the screen in front of her.
Jennifer’s Facebook entry was surprising. She had friended a very small number of her classmates at the high school and several rock and pop stars, ranging from a surprising Lou Reed, who was older than her mother, to Feist and Shania Twain. Terri had expected the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus, but Jennifer’s tastes were very much outside the mainstream. Under the category Likes she had written Freedom and under Dislikes she had put Phonies . Terri guessed that word could be applied to any number of people in Jennifer’s world.
In the Profile section, Jennifer had quoted someone named Hotchick99, who had written on her own Facebook entry: “Everyone in our school hates this one girl.”
Jennifer had replied: “This is kind of a badge of honor to be hated by people like her. I never want to be the kind of person she would like.”
Terri smiled. A rebel with any number of causes, she thought. It gave her a little non-cop respect for the missing girl, which only made her sadder when she considered what was likely to happen to Jennifer on the streets. Escape wasn’t going to seem so great then. Maybe she’ll have the sense to call home, no matter how terrible that will seem.
She kept looking through the hard drive. Jennifer had also tested a few computer games, made a number of Wikipedia inquiries and Google searches that seemed to correspond to courses she was taking in school. There was even a Translate the page inquiry, where she’d submitted something that Terri suspected was a Spanish assignment. Beyond the ordinary, Jennifer did not seem particularly computer-dependent. She had a Skype account but there were no names listed on it.
Terri raced through an American history paper on the Underground Railroad and an English paper on Great Expectations that she found under Word Documents. She half expected to find these were written by a term paper mill but was pleased when she did not. Her impression was that Jennifer actually did most of her own work at school, which made her the exception rather than the rule.
She also seemed to like doggerel. She had downloaded samples from Shel Silverstein and Ogden Nash, which were odd choices for a teenage girl in this day and age. She found a file called 6 Poems for Mister Brown Fur, which were rhymed couplets and haiku written for her teddy bear. Some—there were many more than six—were quite funny, which made Terri smile. Smart girl, she thought again.
She continued searching. There were frequent visits to vegan websites and new age entries, which, Terri guessed, were efforts to understand her mother and
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