Page 75 of Don't Say a Word

“Did he have a girlfriend?”

“No—but—” She stopped, considered. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment, “but right before finals, a girl picked him up in front of the school. I barely caught a glimpse of her, just enough to know that she was probably in college. At least nineteen, maybe twenty.”

That was the first I heard about a college-aged girlfriend.

“Do you remember her car? If you saw her again?”

“I never saw her again, or if I did, I didn’t make the connection. And cars? It was a car. Not new, not a truck, but that’s all I can tell you. The only reason I remembered it is because you asked.”

I asked about Lena Clark and Dani had nothing to add. She knew her, but hadn’t worked with the guidance counselor because her mom was hands-on. I asked about Mr. Parsons, and confirmed that most of the students knew they were dating. I asked about who on campus dealt drugs, and she just shook her head. “If I knew, I’d tell my dad. People don’t tell me things, they think I’m a Goody Two-shoes or something. I think that’s why the cheating was a big eye-opener for me and my parents. I’ve never done anything like it before, and I’ll always regret it.”

She walked me to the door, and at the last moment, I said, “Would you mind giving me Chris Vallejo’s phone number?” I could have Tess get it for me, but she was already working on the court records.

She shrugged, pulled out her phone. “Chris is a good guy. Really smart. Maybe that’s why he liked Angie.Ithink she’s a bitch, but she’s a smart bitch.”

I thanked her and drove off.

I had time to stop by the office before heading to the prison. I just wanted to check out Elijah’s computer now that Lu had broken the passcode. Chris Vallejo’s phone went straight to voicemail; I left him a brief message with my number as I walked into the office.

Iris was there and I asked, “Mom and Jack aren’t in yet?” They’d met Logan Monroe for a late breakfast.

She shook her head. “Ava will be here by ten.”

Good to know. I wanted to be gone before she arrived so I didn’t have to fib about my plans for the day. If Mom or Jack knew I planned to visit Dad, they might want to join me. Jack and I often drove down together, but I didn’t want Jack with me while I was chatting with Ben Bradford. He looked and acted too much like a cop. I figured if I could learn anything from Bradford, it would be because Iwasn’ta cop.

Luisa had left Elijah’s laptop on my desk with a note explaining how to access his browsing history, what email program he used, the user names for his accounts, including social media, and the last time he accessed the computer—Friday morning before he went to school.

“Thanks, Lu,” I mumbled with a smile and got to work with one eye on the clock.

Most of Elijah’s emails were to and from teachers about assignments, from his mom who sent him a daily inspirational poem orBible verse, and a few from other family members. This was par for the course for this generation—they didn’t communicate as much by email as they did by text. There were no emails from his three closest friends, except Andy had forwarded a birthday invitation his mother had sent out for his sister Labor Day weekend.

He had taken an online community college class over the summer and there was a chunk of emails, mostly automated, from the class.

Online class? Hadn’t his mother said he went to anight classafter work? Was she mistaken?

Maybe I misunderstood what she said. I would double-check.

Then I thought back to Angie’s surprise that Elijah had taken a course, and his question to Dani about the classes she had taken. It made more sense that his mother assumed an in-person class... Maybe Elijah spent those evenings at the library.

Every two weeks Elijah received an automated email from an accountant that, upon further research, was the firm hired to process the Cactus Stop payroll. He had filed all of those, along with any other financial information such as his monthly bank statement, into a special folder called Tax Info.

I looked at his sent messages and most of them were about school, college, and a few general inquiries that didn’t seem to have anything to do with his work or school.

I skimmed the three days of browser history that Luisa had archived for me. She’d saved it by link and the time and date the site had been accessed.

He accessed Sun Valley High’s web portal daily—where he submitted homework and accessed documents related to his classes. He’d visited social media sites mostly in the evening, and Google Maps on Thursday night where he looked up an address in Paradise Valley. I wrote it down and would drive by later. He’d gone to the Cactus Stop corporate page also on Thursday, which had a login for employees where I assumed he could access pay stubs, withholding information, benefits, and the like.

One of the extensions on the Cactus Stop page wascontact. The night before Elijah died, he’d gone to the contact page. Had he looked up information? A phone number or address? Had he submitted a web form? If so, whatever he’d written hadn’t been copied to his email. Could it have been anonymous?

I made a note to follow up and also ask Luisa if she could find the information somewhere on Elijah’s hard drive.

Then something jumped out at me.

Elijah had gone to the Phoenix PD Silent Witness information page twice—on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. He’d googled the site on Tuesday, clicked through a bunch of Phoenix PD pages, but Silent Witness was the last one he went to. Then on Thursday he went right to that page.

Had he reached out and called?

I made another note. Rick or Josie would know who was responsible for monitoring the Silent Witness program website and phone.