Page 84 of Don't Say a Word

I hesitated to bring Angie into the investigation. She was seventeen and had already overstepped with Detective King. I didn’t want her to get into trouble—and I didn’t want to put her in danger.

“I’m working on it.”

“Did you talk to Danielle? She hated him.”

“I did. She isn’t involved, and she isn’t holding a grudge.”

“How do you know?” she asked, belligerent.

“Because I sat down with her. I know what I’m doing.” Mostly. I’d made a misstep talking to Ben Bradford today without more information, but the conversation did get me thinking about a wide range of possibilities.

“Whatever,” she said and was about to get out.

I put my hand on her arm. I didn’t want to tell her everything I’d learned because I didn’t know where it would take me, but she could help with one thing.

“What?” she snapped.

I dropped my hand and said, “You need to be careful, okay? I’m asking questions, I’m getting answers, and even when I don’t get answers, that’s okay because then I know where to go next.” I wasn’t explaining this well. “What I mean to say, I want you to be extra careful. Lena Clark was asking questions and I don’t know if her murder is connected to what happened to Elijah, but I’m assuming it is until I learn different. Just think about that, okay?”

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t get out of the Jeep either.

I said, “I have some photos Elijah took over the summer.” I wasn’t confident I was making the right call asking her to look at them, but I didn’t know who else to approach who might know these people.

“You found his phone?” she asked.

“His cloud account. They may have nothing to do with his death, but he took pictures of customers at the Cactus Stop. Tell me if you know any of them.”

“Okay.” She leaned forward in anticipation.

“You have to promise me you won’t say anything to anyone—if you see one of these people, don’t talk to them, confront them, give any indication that Elijah took their photo. I don’t knowwhyhe took the pictures. Understand?”

“Yes,” she said, exasperated. “Iunderstand. I’ll be careful. I won’t talk to anyone.” She looked at my phone.

I had already sorted the photos on my phone based on estimated age. I only showed Angie those I figured were under nineteen.

There were fifteen photos of four girls and eleven boys.

Angie only recognized one.

“That’s Benny Vallejo,” she said of the second to last picture.

“The kid who was just hired?”

“Yeah.”

“But none of the others?”

She shook her head. “A couple look familiar, but I can’t be sure. SVH is a huge school.”

I looked at Benny. He was a clean-cut kid, tall and gangly, just waiting to grow into his long limbs. This photo was taken a month before Elijah died. Maybe he’d gone in and dropped off his application, though most applications were managed online. Still, I filed the information away to consider later.

“I went to visit Mrs. Martinez last night,” Angie said.

“I’m sure she appreciated that.” I renamed the photo of Benny with his name.

“Elijah’s boss was there. Mr. Ramos.”

“I met him. He owns the Cactus Stops.”