Chapter 35

 

Hopeful I’d seen the last of the battling Lorrentos, I turned my attention back to our other case, figuring out how I was going to verify both Delaney twins were all right and get a picture for their aunt. Even this morning, Clover was sticking with the story that Zayne was living in Las Cruces, although I smelled deceit all over the tale.

Somehow, I needed enough proof to confront her and get the real skinny on it. I leaned back in my chair and thought about the reasons an otherwise gregarious young woman would choose to disappear.

A man.

I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before. The most likely reason Zayne wasn’t around was because she’d run off with some guy. In another era, if she’d become pregnant she might have been sent off to a home for unwed mothers and returned a few months later. But times had changed and I couldn’t see such a scenario now.

Still, there were other reasons people moved away. The guy promised exotic travel, or he lived in another city, or there was some reason she needed to keep the relationship secret. I could see the desire for secrecy if this was someone her family didn’t approve of, but Rick and Jane were hardly around and they certainly didn’t appear to have set any limits on their two daughters.

The other puzzle I kept asking myself: how much does Clover know? Surely she was in on the secret. It didn’t seem logical her twin would have gone away without a word, not to mention Clover’s lack of worry and the cover story about Zayne being away at school. No, she was in on it.

My challenge was to get close enough and find the opportunity to get her to talk about it.

How would I do that? I drummed my fingers on the desk. Maybe Clover had inadvertently handed me the answer: social media.

I opened my browser and went to Facebook. Over the past few years, several friends had suggested I set up accounts, including Twitter and Instagram. I’d done it, friended a few people, and discovered I either needed to monitor it constantly to keep up with the crowd, or I had to forget about it. Life being busy enough already, I did the latter. Now, my social media skills were severely lacking.

I found the little cheat-sheet where I’d written all my passwords and logged into my Facebook account. A few dozen comments awaited my viewing, but I discovered most were hopelessly outdated tidbits from friends who had, no doubt, given up on hearing from me. A few friend requests waited to be accepted or denied. Deleting the obvious scams from handsome soldiers in military uniform, men I’d never seen in my life, I noticed two of the requests came from Clover and Zayne. I accepted both.

Clover’s page contained the photos from our hike and picnic. She was right—the one of me and Freckles touching noses had received a lot of likes, along with comments like “Awwwwww, how cute!!!!!” Apparently, drawn-out words and loads of punctuation were the way to bring extra emotion to short and simple messages. At any rate, I found myself a little flattered by the attention.

On her timeline, a day after the picnic with me, Clover had posted a charming heads-together shot of herself and Zayne dressed up and maxed out on their makeup. The caption read: Checking out RADZ! Best time ever!!!!

I recognized the name of the club that had opened a year or so ago to lots of media attention. Apparently, it had caught on with the younger crowd. It might be worth a trip if I could spot the two girls together, and if not, perhaps I could get a conversation going with their friends and learn more. I could mention it to Drake and see if my dear hubby was up for a night out on the town.

Then I quickly discarded the idea. Not only was nightclub life not at all his thing, the two of us would stand out just as badly as someone Clover’s age walking into a retirement home. With the touches of gray in his hair, Drake would most likely be taken for law enforcement. If the kids smelled a narc they’d scatter like roaches in the light.

It would be better if I walked into the club with a girlfriend. Who did I know with the playfulness, not to mention the clothes to dress us up properly? I needed a pal who would inspire me beyond my preferred stay-home-with-a-book demeanor. The Facebook page was still open and I scanned the photos of my friends. Geez, we were becoming a dull crowd. Linda was a doctor with such a busy practice she rarely stayed up past ten o’clock. Sally was younger but had a husband and two kids. With the toddler, she was barely awake most days, much less into the evening hours.

Victoria. My sister-in-law has sparkle and energy. She’s a classy dresser, but she knows fashion well enough to young-it-down a bit. She’d be the one to come up with something we could wear. I called her.

“I’m tied up with something tonight,” she said. “Could we make it tomorrow night?”

“Sure.” An extra twenty-four hours to work up my courage would be a good thing, right?

I put the phone down and went back to the computer. Zayne Delaney’s Facebook page showed a half-dozen selfies. Prominent in the recent ones were posts about how she was loving college life. Interesting.

I scrolled to one that read “In dorm room with BFF Missy.” It was the girl I’d spoken to briefly outside her dorm at UNM, the one who’d gone to the river party, supposedly with Zayne, although I hadn’t known how to positively identify her at the time. Okay, if Missy attended school here in Albuquerque, how was it going to fool anyone to imply she was now down in Las Cruces at New Mexico State? The background behind the two girls certainly did look like a dorm room. I could see scattered clothing and the general clutter that defines living quarters of kids all over the world.

Another post, dated two weeks ago, showed Zayne wearing a studious-looking pair of glasses which reflected the glare of a computer screen. “Late night studies,” said the post. The girl’s surroundings showed muted colors in a dim room. I clicked the photo and it came up larger on my screen. The blue and tan color scheme seemed familiar but I couldn’t immediately think where I’d seen it.

I read the comments her friends had made, commiseration over the tough schedule and encouraging little prods like “Don’t work TOO hard. Hahaha!!!”

I zoomed the picture, trying to spot Zayne’s tattoo, but in each photo she wore her hair in front of her ears, concealing her neck. I scrolled back over her timeline, looking for some indication when she’d left for college or wherever it was she’d gone. Prior to last October, nearly all the photos on both of the twins’ pages showed the two together. Since then there were a lot more of each girl individually. Something felt different about the things they talked about. Something just a touch off. But what? I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure it out.

I spent another hour zipping around Twitter and Instagram, looking for activity by either Zayne or Clover Delaney. There was plenty, and pretty soon the whole scene began to blur in my brain. The frequency of posts, both with the girls I knew and with their many friends, was mind boggling. A lot of importance was placed on receiving approval—Likes, and little smiley faces, hearts, flowers, the occasional sad-face or frown.

Observing them closely, there were undercurrents of the sort I remembered from the horrible, hormonal middle-school years. I thought of the importance these kids placed on social media ‘likes.’ From an adult perspective, it seemed so needy and desperate but I was young enough to remember the pressures.

It really seemed doubly needy when I considered these were no longer thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds but grown young women. Sad to know so much importance rested on popularity.

My shoulder ached from steering the mouse and my neck was screaming in protest. I needed to move. I wandered across the hall to Ron’s office but his chair sat empty. He may have told me he was going out—I didn’t remember. Scary to think how absorbed I’d become in the social media world, and how quickly.

I glanced at his desk and saw his computer monitor still lit. Okay, so he couldn’t have gone too far or for too long. The image on the screen caught my attention. Apparently, it was the home page of Innocent Times, the alibi company Bobby Lorrento had been using to help cover his tracks during his little cheating escapades.

An idea leapt into my head. I sat in Ron’s chair and put my hand on the computer mouse. Clicking the About Us tab on the page, I found a phone number and an email address. At the bottom of the page was the required tagline with the site owner’s company name and address. I found a pad of sticky notes and a pen and wrote it all down.