The Shark (The Forgotten Files 1)

When Mr. Gilbert did not answer, Sharp reached in his pocket for a stick of gum as if he had all the time in the world. “Is pinning down the date you last saw Vicky a tough question?”

“No. It’s not. Let me go inside and get my wife. Bonnie knows our daughter better than I do.”

Mr. Gilbert opened the front door, and the three of them entered the foyer. “Bonnie! Can you come downstairs?”

“What do you want?” she shouted back from an unseen room on the second floor.

“There are a couple of cops here who have questions about Vicky.”

“Vicky?” Footsteps hurried across the upstairs hallway.

Mrs. Gilbert rounded the corner. Heavyset, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt and her hair pulled up in a ponytail. Despite the puffy contours of her face, there were hints of a resemblance to Vicky.

Bonnie wiped her hands on a rag as she descended the stairs, pausing several steps short of the bottom. “What’s this about?”

“Wasn’t it last week when we saw her?” Gilbert offered.

Riley’s bullshit meter always worked well. Some of the officers in patrol called it her superpower. The human lie detector, others said. But it didn’t take a superpower or much police work to know Mr. Gilbert was lying.

Mrs. Gilbert kept wiping her hands as if she would never really be able to get them clean. “Is she okay? I’m worried about her.”

“When did Vicky run away?” Sharp asked.

“Hold on,” Mr. Gilbert said. “I never used the words run away. She became upset with us and moved in with a friend to cool off.”

“That’s running away, Mr. Gilbert,” Riley said.

“You have to be underage to run away,” Mr. Gilbert countered. “She turned eighteen a week ago.”

“That absolves you of a legal responsibility, but what about a moral obligation?” Riley couldn’t hide the annoyance burning under her tone.

Mr. Gilbert advanced a step, but Sharp edged forward, blocking his path. “Mrs. Gilbert, when did Vicky move out?”

“She didn’t run away. She went to stay with friends. She texted me several times a week and checked in. I knew where she was staying.”

“How long has she been gone?” Sharp asked.

“I’m not sure. But not long.”

“You don’t know?”

“Not exactly. No.”

Sharp studied the slightly frayed tip of his red tie before locking his gaze on her. “Who was she staying with last?”

“I’m not sure,” Bonnie said. “She has many friends and it’s hard to keep up. But she and Rebecca are very close.”

“When did she start staying with friends, Mrs. Gilbert?”

The woman hesitated. “About five weeks ago.”

Mr. Gilbert expelled a breath, cursing as he ran a hand through his hair. “Vicky didn’t like the house rules. She wanted to do what she wanted. She wasn’t interested in school. And then she was arrested for stealing.”

“She’s a senior in high school?” Riley asked.

“She was supposed to start her senior year, but the first days of school didn’t go well,” her mother offered.

They were retelling Riley’s life, she thought. “Did you only fight about school or the arrest?”

“She was upset,” Mrs. Gilbert said, glancing at her husband. Tears welled in her eyes. “She gets very upset sometimes. We took her to doctors, trying to figure out why she became anxious. It was exhausting. When she left, it was nice to have peace in the house.”

“Was she on medication?” Riley asked.

“Mood stabilizers,” Mr. Gilbert said. “But she never stayed on them long enough for the drugs to really work. She didn’t like feeling fuzzy, as she put it.”

“Where’s my daughter?” Mrs. Gilbert asked. “I want to see her. She’s gotten into trouble again, hasn’t she?”

Riley glanced at Sharp, and when he nodded she kept her voice steady. “Mrs. Gilbert, your daughter is dead. She was found along I-95 north of here.”

Chapped hands rose to the woman’s lips as she stifled a cry. “There must be some kind of mistake.”

“We identified her using fingerprints on file with the Chesterfield Police Department.”

Sharp watched them both carefully, his expression showing no signs of emotion. “There’s no mistake.”

Mr. Gilbert sucked in a breath like a boxer who’d taken a shot to the gut. “How did she die?”

“You’ve made a mistake,” Mrs. Gilbert said again. She made no move toward her husband. “Vicky isn’t dead. She’s staying with friends.”

As much as Riley believed this murder was connected to a bigger case, she couldn’t rule out that someone who knew the girl well had killed her. In over 70 percent of homicide cases involving a female victim, the killer was a loved one.

“We found her about fifty miles north of here,” Riley said. In the middle of the night, without traffic, the trip would’ve taken less than an hour. Maybe her father had a chance to win big money in a poker game. Maybe he was tired of Vicky’s outbursts.

“Vicky isn’t dead,” Mrs. Gilbert said. “I texted her two days ago.”

“Two days?” Riley noted the time in her book. Mrs. Gilbert might have received a text from Vicky’s phone, but that didn’t mean Vicky had sent it.

“Maybe it was four days. But she told me she was fine. She told me she had a lead on a good job.”

“What kind of job?”

“In a bar.”

“Did she give you a name of the bar, a boss, or a coworker?” Sharp asked.

“No,” Mr. Gilbert said. “I think I need to call our attorney.”

“Mr. Gilbert, there’s no need for an attorney now,” Sharp said. “We’re simply gathering as many facts as we can so we can solve your daughter’s murder. No one is going to get busted today for a kid running away or working in a bar.”

Mr. Gilbert’s grip tightened on his cell. “I’m calling our lawyer.”

“Richard. Please.” Mrs. Gilbert’s voice cracked. “This is Vicky.”

“Who has once again pulled us into a mess.” He turned from them all and dialed a number.

As her husband spoke into the phone, Mrs. Gilbert said to Riley, “She said it was good, honest work. I worried about the drinking, but she said that wouldn’t be a problem. She said they were sending her to get her hair and nails done. She was going to be a greeter. She was really excited.”

Vicky’s nails and hair were done, meaning the kid wove the lies with some truth. “Did she say where they were taking her to get fixed up?”

“A beauty salon, I guess. She didn’t say where.”

“And that was the last time you had contact with her?” Riley asked.

“Yes. That was the last time she responded back to me.” Tears welled in her eyes as if the news had finally taken root. “I text her every day. I’m always checking up on her. Sometimes she answers and sometimes she doesn’t.”

Riley kept her voice soft as if they were two friends having a chat. “What can you tell me about her life? Did the texts give you a clue?”

“She said she and her friends went to parties.”

“Friends have names.”

“Jo-Jo was one name she mentioned. Another was Cassie. She said they were all pals. Looked out for each other.”

Riley glanced at Sharp, who was paying close attention. “Did your daughter have any tattoos?”

“A butterfly and a star.” She dropped her voice a notch. “When she showed them to me, I told her not to tell her dad.”

“What about the initials JC on the back of her neck?”

“She didn’t have a tattoo like that.” Hope glistened. “Do you think you’ve made a mistake because my Vicky didn’t have a JC tattoo on her neck?”

“We have it right, ma’am,” she said. “The tattoo is new. Did she have a boyfriend?”

“She dated a boy named Jax. Do you think it was his initials?”

“I think JC was her pimp,?

?? Riley said. “I think he marked her as his own.”

Mrs. Gilbert wiped away a tear from her cheek as it spilled. “That’s not my daughter. She wouldn’t have sold herself like that.”

“Our daughter,” Mr. Gilbert said, shutting off his phone, “was a free spirit. She did as she pleased. If you have questions, you should talk to her boyfriend. Jax Carter.”

“He works in Richmond tending bar,” Mrs. Gilbert said. “I have his phone number.” She moved into a side room where she retrieved her phone from her purse. She scrolled through the numbers, and when she found Jax’s, she rattled off the number. “He’s older than her, but Vicky really liked him. And he wouldn’t put her on the streets like you said.”

“Is he the friend she was living with?” Sharp asked.

“Sometimes. But not all the time. They fought from time to time.”

Sharp’s jaw clenched. “How did Vicky break her arm?”

Mrs. Gilbert twisted her fingers around her wrist as she looked at her husband.

“The fracture is a spiral shape,” Riley said. “You get those kind of breaks when someone twists your arm.”

“I never hurt her,” Mr. Gilbert said.

“No one said you did,” Sharp countered while continuing to study Mrs. Gilbert’s face.

“Ask her boyfriend,” Mr. Gilbert said.

“How long have they been dating?” Riley looked at the mother.

She glanced at her husband and then tipped her chin up a notch. “About six months.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“He must have.”