The progression was unremarkable. They were the typical low-level jobs young adults took to make ends meet until they figured out a career goal. And the move from security guard to jewelry store manager made perfect sense to me. I shrugged. “Doesn’t seem all that unusual.” But Bailey’s expression looked ominous.
“Not until you factor in the locations. Except for the Galleria, every single one of those jobs was within walking distance of Russell’s studio. And the Galleria? That was just a stone’s throw from Hayley’s school.”
I tried to make the pieces fit, but no matter how I turned them around in my mind, they refused to fall into place. “I would’ve said that sounded like Brian had been stalking Hayley for the past year, but he spent most of his time circling Russell’s studio.”
“Right. And we can check with the parents, but I doubt Hayley hung out at daddy’s studio much.”
“No.” Not at this age. She had her own world. And so did daddy.
Bailey pulled up to the cybercafé, charmingly named Head of Steam. It looked like any Coffee Bean, just with more tables. As we searched the room for our tipster, I got a strange and unappealing glimpse into the future: everyone there was transfixed by a computer screen, and most wore headphones. Though there were signs of life as we know it around the cash register, the rest of the café was eerily quiet; the primary sound was the clicking of laptop keys, the conversations virtual, not verbal. Was this where we were headed? Eye contact traded for Skype, personal discourse traded for e-mails or, worse, blogs? Thankfully, further depressing predictions were curtailed when our tipster spotted us and waved us over.
Pierced nose and lower lip, greasy black hair combed up in back and into long spikes at the sides of his face, skinny jeans that had room to bag on even skinnier legs, and black high-top sneakers. It came as no surprise to me that his name was Legs Roscoe. With the preliminary introductions completed, we got right down to business.
“I was just hanging out-”
“Sorry to stop you, but do you remember what day it was?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was Monday. Had to be well after five o’clock.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because my last class ends at four and traffic’s a bitch that time of day. So I couldn’t have gotten here much before that.” Legs dipped his head. “I, uh, didn’t mean to ‘sniff’ anyone, it was just an inadvertent thing. I don’t usually run into any-”
