Made to Be Broken (Nadia Stafford 2)

"Did she start taking an interest in other places? Buying the city papers, looking for an apartment or a job?"

"No, she hates reading. She - " Tess lowered her voice. "She's not very good at it."

"Okay, so - "

"Wait. There was something. Not a job, really, but something she didn't want anyone else to know."

I leaned onto my elbows. "What?"

Tess glanced around, but no one was within ten feet of our booth. "There was this guy, a tourist, a few weeks ago when we had that warm spell. He saw Sammi and Destiny at the park. He worked for some modeling agency in Toronto. He told Sammi - "

" - she could be a model," I finished.

"No, not Sammi. Destiny. His agency works with babies. He took a bunch of pictures of her, then wrote down Sammi's number and said he'd call in a few days. Only he never did. She was real broken up about it. She'd hoped it might be a way to make extra money and get out of here even sooner."

"Maybe she went to Toronto looking for him."

"If she did, she would have taken her mom's truck. But that's not like Sammi, anyway. She doesn't go begging." She twisted her napkin. "I think someone took her."

"Took her?"

"You know. A serial killer. A rapist. I told her she shouldn't go walking the back roads at night, but she always laughed, you know. Said no one would grab a girl with a baby."

My gut went cold. "When did Sammi do this?"

"Every night, around dusk. Said it was good for Destiny. The fresh air helped her sleep."

"But we don't know that Sammi went out Sunday night."

Tess shot up straight, eyes gleaming fierce. "Yes, we do. That's what I told Don. Kira's mom saw Sammi walk past their place around eight. She went for her walk and she never came back. That's what I've been trying to tell everyone."

After lunch, I dropped Tess off at her car and told her I'd keep in touch. Then I drove the route she'd said Sammi usually took on her evening walk, and found nothing.

Next stop: talk to the person who'd last seen Sammi.

Meredith Desmond was Kira's mother. They lived in a tidy bungalow outside town. Meredith and I got on fine. I'd decorated the lodge with her watercolors and made a point of sending guests to her home-based studio.

According to Meredith, Sammi had walked past around eight, roughly the same time she had every night this month. Meredith and her husband had been on the front swing, reading and enjoying the sunset. When Sammi walked past, Meredith called out a greeting, as usual. Sammi waved back, as usual. Then she kept going.

Unlike the other adults I'd spoken to so far, Meredith was concerned. Sammi was a good kid, she said. Pissed off at the world, but who'd blame her?

As for Tess's theory, that Sammi had been picked up by a sexual predator, Meredith conceded anything was possible. But we hadn't had such a killer around here since... well, since never. In this region, stranger rape wasn't unheard of. Murder by a stranger, though, was so rare that neither of us could recall the last one.

Most likely, Meredith thought, Sammi had used her nightly routine as a launch pad for a planned disappearance. She'd taken Destiny on her usual walk, planning either to meet a ride or to swipe a summer car left at one of the big cottages over by the nearby Potter place. Maybe she'd hoped to stir up a little trouble with her sudden disappearance, make people sit up and take notice. Maybe even, for the first time in her life, she'd make her mother worry about her. If that was the case, I hoped she never learned the truth - that except for her friends, nobody seemed to care.

Still, something about that scenario rankled. If Sammi had trusted Tess with the secret about the photographer, wouldn't she have at least hinted that she was leaving?

I didn't like the "modeling photographer" idea, either. As a cop, I'd seen that routine too often. Pervert approaches teenage girl and asks her to "model" for him. So why target Destiny instead? Because anyone who'd spent five minutes with Sammi knew her world revolved around her baby. She was streetwise enough to see through any guy who offered to make her a star. But Destiny? That would be hard to resist. Maybe the guy had called and asked Sammi to meet him that night.

I wanted to walk Sammi's route, but only made it as far as parking on the roadside, where I sat staring out the windshield.

Before Tess left, she'd cursed herself for not being more forceful with Sammi and insisting she stop her nighttime rambles. I'd reassured her that there'd been nothing she could do except give her advice. It had been up to Sammi to take it. But now, sitting here, Tess's words came back. "I should have done something. It was my job, you know? That's the way we were, Sammi and me. She was the fun one, always getting into trouble. I followed along, and made sure that didn't get out of hand. I kept her safe."

I kept her safe.

It was my job.

How many times had I thought that about my cousin Amy? A year older than me, Amy had been my best friend from the time I was born, to hear our parents tell it. She was the one who knew how to have fun, and I was the one who kept it from getting out of hand.