We rode through the traffic in silence for a few moments, then suddenly Bailey gave a short laugh. “What a trip. Ian Powers was little Mattie-”
Russell Antonovich’s manager and business partner.
“And he still knows how to turn on that cutesy smile,” I said. “So you watched the show too?”
“Never,” Bailey said. I gave her a look. “Okay, once in a while.”
We turned left at Outpost Drive and I enjoyed the view of the charming, old, and very pricey neighborhood as we headed over the hill and into the Valley to Clarington Academy, where we planned to brace up Hayley’s bestie, Mackenzie Struthers. The uniform who’d questioned her late last night hadn’t gotten much of anything out of her. It was our turn to try.
“Want to call the principal and have Mackenzie ready for us?” Bailey asked.
“Nope. I got her cell number from Raynie. I’ll call her when we get there. The less lead time, the better.”
“Good point.”
I had no particular reason to think Mackenzie would lie to us. But my experience with teenagers has taught me that they invariably keep secrets from the adult world and they consider it an honor to guard those secrets closely. I don’t think it’s nefarious, I think it’s just tribal loyalty. With a little time, I could probably earn enough of Mackenzie’s trust to get her to open up. But with Hayley’s life hanging in the balance, time was the one thing I didn’t have. I needed to know it all and I needed to know it right now. The less time Mackenzie had to ruminate and sift through what she did or didn’t want to share, the better.
And I had the element of surprise on my side because Hayley’s kidnapping wasn’t public knowledge yet. We’d decided to keep it all under wraps for the moment in the hope that it would induce the kidnapper to release Hayley. But that strategy was a short-term option; we wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet for long. Someone was bound to leak, and soon. There were dozens of employees, assistants, all their friends, and then there were cops and all their friends, and…you get the picture. And even if no one leaked, we couldn’t afford to wait more than a couple of days without running the risk that we were exposing Hayley to greater peril by keeping it quiet. If she didn’t turn up in the next day or so, we’d have to change strategies and put the story out there to ratchet up pressure on the kidnapper to let her go.
Bailey badged our way into the principal’s office-which was casually yet tastefully decorated like no public school principal’s office I’d ever seen-and explained in as little detail as possible that we were there on official business that didn’t involve any student misconduct. The principal looked confused, but he was cowed enough not to ask questions. He gave us the run of the school grounds. Bailey and I moved outside the building, where we wouldn’t be overheard, and I called Mackenzie on her cell.
