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CHAPTER FOUR

I hurried into Nickelsons to meet my friend Stan after work. We’d met in law school at Hamline, in one of my criminal justice classes. He was studying to be a police detective, and I was going for my juris doctorate. Years ago, we’d casually dated, but there hadn’t been much of a spark. We were way better as friends, and we’d stayed connected all these years. We’d consulted on a few cases together. I knew I could trust him.

He was already at the bar and rose from his spot when he saw me. Tall and broad shouldered with matching brown hair and eyes, he looked a little like Miles Teller. He gave me a huge hug and pointed to the two beers in front of him. “Figured you needed this, stat.”

I slid onto the barstool. “You wouldn’t be wrong.”

He’d been my first call on the way to court this afternoon. I couldn’t go in knowing there was a girl out there potentially plotting to shoot a group of students and then turn the gun on herself. I’d filled him in on all the details about what had happened with the girl since last night. This was way bigger than me, and I needed his help.

“I talked to my supervisor and a couple of other officers about what’s going on, and I’m sorry to tell you there’s not much we can do at this point. There’s no way to track the calls at the center, even if the request comes from law enforcement, because the actual geolocations aren’t part of the software. They don’t track or trace anything.” I sighed, and he could sense my frustration. “Now, they do record them, so there’s the potential to go back through the call and try to pick up any clues or ideas about who she is or where she might’ve been calling from. I’m not sure if there’s anything there, but it’s something. Do you have access to your previous calls?”

“Yes, they’re all recorded.” Even if Phillip hadn’t been listening to the call, he still would’ve found out I’d given her my phone number after reviewing the tape.

“Have you listened to it? You might want to think about doing that. Just see if you hear anything you might’ve missed the first time.”

I nodded. “We listened to it twice last night. The only thing that stood out was her mentioning Buckley. I just don’t know what to do, Stan. What else can I do?”

He reached over and gave me a side hug, but I didn’t want a hug. I wanted answers. A plan. I couldn’t stand living with this ambiguity.

“Can I be totally honest with you?” I nodded, and he exhaled slowly. “I’m not convinced she’s serious about her threats. For starters, you know as well as I do that most violent crimes are committed by men, especially when it comes to mass shootings. Rarely women. Second, she’s a teenager, and I can’t tell you how many threats the department gets that end up being pranks. These kids can have some sick and twisted forms of fun these days, especially if they’re recording it for social media.”

I shook my head at him. “I already told you—it wasn’t a prank. Everyone at the call center agreed that it sounded extremely serious, even my supervisor, who’s been there ten years.”

Stan cocked his head to the side. “Really? I don’t want to sound insensitive, but she’s in a park with a gun in the middle of the night. And then she gets chased? It sounds like a poorly written horror flick.”

“I agree. It sounds totally dramatic and over the top, but you didn’t hear her voice. You can’t fake that kind of raw emotion.”

“Have you heard anything from her since?”

“Not since the texts before court. I was waiting to contact her until after we met. I wanted to get your take on everything.” I pulled out my phone, unlocked it, and handed it to him. “See what you can do.”

This was the real reason we were meeting in person. Because the call and texts came from different numbers, I was even more confused about tracking this girl down. I was good at a lot of things, but technology wasn’t one of them. Normally, Hunter was my go-to person for things like this, but obviously not this time. Stan took the phone and got busy. His brow wrinkled as he worked, tapping and swiping away. It wasn’t long before he handed it back to me.

“Man, these kids are smart,” he said, shaking his head and taking a sip of his beer. “You’re not going to be able to track either number. Well, you can, but it’s not going to tell you anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s calling you from her phone, but doing it through a burner app to make sure her real number stays hidden.”

“What’s a burner app?”

“Basically, it’s a disposable phone number, but on your phone.” I raised my eyebrows at him. I still wasn’t following. “Let me put it to you this way—it’s like having a phone within a phone. You use the app to make the calls or texts, and it gives you an anonymous number. Changes every time you use it if you want. You can also route all your outgoing calls through it, and then there’s no way to trace it back to your actual number. There are all kinds of different ones you can use, and that’s definitely what she’s doing.”

“I had no idea you could do all that.”

“Yeah, well, those kids sure do. Scary world we live in these days.”

I couldn’t help but agree. “I don’t know what to do now.”

He raised his shoulders sheepishly. “Maybe just let it go, unless you hear from her again? I get that you’re upset, but you followed the protocol. You did what you could to help.” I’d heard those words before—they took me right back to those awful months after my sister passed—and I still wasn’t ready to accept them.

“I wish I could, but I can’t.” I completely understood why you weren’t supposed to counsel anyone you knew. Even with only a few details, I was forming a picture of this girl in my mind, starting to feel attached. I was never breaking the rules again. “She’s just a kid. I feel too indebted to the parents. What will they think if I don’t do everything I can to make sure she’s safe? To stop whatever she’s planning?”

He nodded his head in understanding. “It’s so crazy you ended up with someone from Hunter’s school. I mean, I know it’s possible, but still. Must feel so weird. Have you talked to him?”

“I asked him if he knew about any videos circulating around his school, and he said no. I was hoping he might’ve seen it or that someone had sent it to him, but no such luck.” I frowned. My brain was racing for solutions. There had to be a way to keep everyone safe.

“Maybe you should ask him again,” Stan said, motioning to the bartender for another beer.

I gave him a strange look. “I guess I could. It was early this morning. Maybe he forgot, or he wasn’t fully awake yet?”

He snorted and batted his hand at me. “Please,” he said, laughing.

“What?”

“Do you know how many times you have to ask teenagers about something before they tell you the truth?” He leaned in closer. “You remember when all those cars were getting broken into over on Third Street and vandalized after the football games? All the kids knew it was happening. Every single one of them. But I couldn’t get anybody to talk.”

“That’s different. You’re the police. Of course they’re scared of you. They don’t want to say anything that might get them into trouble. But I’m his mother. We have a good relationship.”

Stan shrugged. “My kids are young, so I don’t have any personal experience,” he said, taking the final sip of his beer, “but I do know one thing about teenagers—they lie.”