Read Online Jilliane Hoffman by Pretty Little Things - Free Book Online Page A

now.’
    ‘I’m guessing he’s not too worried about little Elaine,’ Bobby said.
    ‘I’m thinking that’d be a good guess.’
    ‘Real dad?’
    ‘California somewhere. No one’s heard from him in a couple of years. Mom’s got three kids: Liza Emerson, age sixteen, Bradley LaManna, son of our used car salesman, is eight, and Elaine, the one who’s missing, is thirteen by, as you can attest, a couple of weeks. Latch-key kids.’
    ‘Anyone call the hospitals?’
    ‘Done. Nothing.’
    Bobby looked over at the weathered and faded cardboard boxes stacked up along the side of the house. Moving boxes. ‘How long have they all been living here?’
    ‘Both Mom and Step changed their DL address to this house in June. They’re renting. Records place them before that in another rental in Ramblewood, a couple of miles from here.’
    ‘Any history?’
    ‘Not with this kid. But cops have been out to both houses a few times. Once for a domestic and a few times for the sixteen-year-old. She’s been in trouble for drinking, marijuana possession, truancy. The latest last month was a burglary. It was dropped to trespassing on school property.’
    ‘Ouch. A bad apple?’
    ‘Spoils the whole friggin’ barrel,’ Zo replied. ‘Sis has also hit the road before. Miami-Dade picked her up on an NCIC missing juvi report a few months ago down in Little Havana, hanging with some boys from the Latin Kings at two in the morning.’
    NCIC stood for the National Crime Information Center, a nationwide criminal information system for law enforcement. ‘That’s not good company to be keeping,’ Bobby replied, kicking the curb. The lawn was overgrown by a couple of weeks. The edging longer than that. ‘Who’s working it inside?’
    ‘Springs GIU responded last night when Mom finally decided to call it in.’ GIU stood for the General Investigations Unit, an all-purpose detective squad. ‘Bill Dagher and Troy Bigley. You know ’em?’
    Bobby shook his head. He knew most every cop in South Florida who worked Crimes Against Children or Special Victims. The fact that he hadn’t heard those two names before probably said more than if he had.
    ‘They peg the kid for a runaway. The Springs chief called Trenton this morning for assistance to clear it. You know, after the shit storm that hit last year with that Jarvis girl, CYA is the name of the game in this town.’
    CYA as in Cover Your Ass. Bobby nodded. Normally, only endangered missing kids (i.e. snatched) were investigated by FDLE, not runaways. With fifty thousand kids hitting the pavement each year in the state, there just wasn’t enough manpower to go looking for every kid who didn’t want to be found. The locals usually handled their own, calling in FDLE and the Clearinghouse for assistance on abductions, endangered runaways and exceptional cases. But then came the Jarvis debacle.
    Makala Jarvis was fifteen when she was first reported missing to the Coral Springs PD by her grandmother. Two days after cops took the report, Mom called, claiming Makala had returned home. Without verification, the case was closed and Makala’s name was removed from NCIC as a missing juvenile, even though Grandma kept insisting Makala hadn’t really come back home. It was two years before a school resource officer finally listened to the old woman and put Makala’s name back into NCIC. Within a month, the skeletal remains of a young female found stuffed in a suitcase and floating in the St John’s River eighteen months prior were finally identified. Makala Jarvis had died from blunt-force trauma to the head. The subsequent homicide investigation revealed that Makala had been scheduled to testify against Momma’s boyfriend in a domestic violence case just two weeks before Grandma initially reported her missing. A conviction would’ve violated boyfriend’s parole and sent him back to Florida State Prison for twenty years. Mom didn’t want to lose her meal ticket, and since cops don’t go