"No!" Beverly said. "It was just me and the squirrels and the noise. And the girl's scream. Oh, it was so frightening."

  Nicky wasn't sure about this. Beverly definitely seemed confused and scattered, and she didn't actually see anything. Or maybe she did, but even if there was a car, Nicky couldn’t trust the woman to describe it. She couldn’t even remember if she really saw it.

  "I know the girl, Mira," Beverly went on. "She lives with roommates normally, but the police said her roommates are out of town and Mira was there all alone. The poor thing!"

  Nicky glanced at Ken, and she could tell he was having the same doubts about Beverly as she was. "That's correct," Nicky said. "Like I said, ma'am, we're just here to confirm the details. Do you have any idea who might have done this? Did you ever see Mira bring any boys around her house?"

  "Oh no," Beverly said. "None whatsoever. She's a very sweet girl. Never had any problems with her."

  "Of course," Nicky said. She paused. "Ma'am," she said, "are you absolutely sure about what you heard?"

  "Positive honey," Beverly said. "I'm positive."

  Well, it was better than nothing. The car was inconsistent, but Beverly seemed hellbent that the scream really had occurred. Nicky hoped she was right—if she was, then maybe they’d have something to work from here.

  "Okay," Nicky said. She gathered her files and her laptop, then stood up and offered Beverly a smile. "Thank you for your help, ma'am. You've been very helpful."

  "No problem, dears," Beverly said. "It's my pleasure."

  Nicky and Ken left Beverly Johnson's house, stepping into the warm Florida afternoon. Nicky glanced at Mira's house, then down the street, imagining the scenario Beverly had described. This area was quiet, but there was a convenience store across the street with a small parking lot, built into what looked like used to be someone's house.

  A business.

  Maybe it was a longshot--but they could have security footage.

  "You think that woman was lying?" Ken asked as they started toward their car.

  "I don't think so," Nicky said. She glanced at the house again. "I think that woman is confused. She might not have even heard the girl scream. She might have heard the engine, and then the girl's scream. It's hard to say."

  "So you think that Beverly Johnson is just a nutcase?" Ken asked.

  "I don't know," Nicky said. "She could be. She might even be senile, for all we know."

  "But if she did just make up this story, why would she want to?" Ken asked.

  "That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?" Nicky said. She nodded at the convenience store across the street. "You think they have security cameras there?"

  Ken looked over, then back at Nicky. "Only one way to find out."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Nicky and Ken made their way over to the convenience store across the street, and the outside was nondescript enough—a narrow gray building with concrete walls. Nicky checked for any cameras, but she didn’t immediately see one. Would it even be hooked up? Did they keep recordings? She had no idea, but she hoped this place would bring her at least some sort of answer.

  The door dinged as Nicky entered, and she found herself surrounded by aisles of chips and candies and snacks. The place was tiny, but it still managed to have a decent sized deli.

  "Hello?" Nicky called out. "Is anyone here?"

  "What can I getcha?" a man asked, coming out from behind a wall of snacks. He was older, probably in his 60s, with thick, graying hair and thin spectacles on his face.

  "Hi," Nicky said. "I'm Agent Nicky Lyons, with the FBI, and this is my partner, Agent Ken Walker. I'm here to ask you some questions. We're here to ask you about the disappearance of the girl who lives across the street--Mira Phillips."

  “Dang, I heard about that,” the man said. “Saw it on the news this morning. Real shame. That girl used to come in here and grab snacks a lot.”

  "She did?” Nicky asked. It made sense; Mira was a young girl, and she lived right across the street. This guy had probably seen a lot of her.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “A big sugar addict, that one.”

  "We were wondering if you heard or saw anything," Nicky said.

  "Oh, not at all," said the man. "I was sleeping upstairs, but I can't say I heard anything out of the ordinary. I know Ms. Johnson across the street was saying she heard a scream in the early hours of the morning, but I'll be honest with ya, I could sleep through a hurricane."

  "What about the security cameras?" Ken asked. "Do you have any footage of the street?"

  "You know, normally I would," he said, "but my camera was actually smashed last week. I took it down until I can afford a new one. Someone broke it."

  Nicky paused. A week before Mira disappeared, a security camera across from her house was broken. It might be a coincidence--but Nicky wasn't so sure about that. In fact, it could easily be connected.

  "Do you think we could see the footage from before it was broken?" Nicky said.

  "Sure thing," the man said. He walked out from behind the counter, then beckoned for Nicky and Ken to follow him. "I've got my computer in the back room. Follow me."

  Nicky and Ken made their way through the aisles, then into an office behind the convenience store. The man sat down at a desk, then turned on his laptop. He clicked on the icon for a video editing program, then the video for the security tape. He minimized it so they could see the video on the smaller screen in the corner.

  The man clicked play, and the footage started to play. Nicky watched as the camera scanned the street. She could see Mira's house, then she could see the sidewalk, and she could see the road. And that was it. The picture was clear, and she could see into the distance, but there were no cars, no people. It was just her street, silent and empty.

  The man skipped through the footage. "And here," he said, "is the rascal who broke the damn thing."

  Video showed a kid, no older than twelve, come up to the store, looking over his shoulder. It was around four p.m., according to the timestamp, and happened exactly one week ago. The kid warily looked around, then picked up a rock and threw it right at the camera. It smashed and went dark.

  "Haven't fixed it yet," said the owner.

  "Do you know that child?" Nicky asked.

  He let out a hearty bellow. "Oh, yes, I know that little troublemaker. That's Dean Spanos, Frank Spanos's kid. He hangs around at the skate park with his other hooligan friends. Doesn't surprise me they did this. That group of kids is always causing trouble."

  Interesting, Nicky mused. A group of delinquents could be behind this, but Nicky felt fairly certain it wasn’t kids who kidnapped Mira. But still, this all felt like something, so Nicky pushed on.

  "I bet you see them a lot," Nicky said. "Do you remember seeing any of them out here last Friday? Might have been around the time you got that call about the camera."

  "I don't remember seeing them," the man said. "I mean, I was in the back, puttering around. I haven't seen Dean since, though—Frank came in and promised he’d pay for the camera when he has the money. Needed a new camera system anyway--that one's way outdated. Frank’s a good guy; it’s not really his fault Dean is such a little shit, you know? I didn’t wanna press charges.”

  Nicky nodded. Maybe it was just some kid messing around, but the way he'd come up to the shop had looked so purposeful. Plus, on the video, he was alone. No friends to impress or anything like that.

  It looked like he wanted to break the camera on his own.

  But Nicky didn't know what any of this meant. Obviously, a twelve-year-old child didn't make Mira Phillips disappear. It didn’t make any sense. Yet Nicky had that feeling in her gut—the one that told her this was the right lead to chase down. She’d been wrong before, but Nicky had learned to trust her gut.

  Yes, there was no way a little kid made Mira disappear…

  But maybe he knew something about the person who did.

  ***

  Nicky steered the car into the parking lot of the skate park, Ken rigid in the passenger seat beside her. The asphalt surface was polished and the curb that bounded it was painted in alternating stripes of yellow. The playground equipment, which spread behind it, was steel and solid, but the color was friendly. Behind it, the skatepark. A group of teenage boys rode their skateboards up and down the ramp, flipping as they landed and rolled back up to do it again.

  "Think they did it?" Ken asked as they got out of the car.

  "It's possible," Nicky said. She locked their car and started toward the boys. At that moment, she saw one of them quickly clasp hands with another kid--a classic sign of a quick drug deal.

  Well, shit. Nicky's job wasn't to bust teenage druggies. Not at all--she had bigger fish to fry, but maybe she could use this to get them to talk. When the boys saw Nicky and Ken, they all looked over with a sort of resigned irritation. Nicky didn't immediately see Dean Spanos, who on the video, was a tanned-skinned kid with black hair and eyes. But these boys looked older, and they were looking at Nicky and Ken like they were fresh meat. Nicky knew that she and Ken reeked of the FBI--but as of right now, they weren't trying to hide that.

  "Excuse me," Nicky said, pausing in front of the group of boys. They were all around their late teens, with skateboards on their backs, and all had their hair styled in mohawks or mullets. "I'm Agent Nicky Lyons, with the FBI, and this is Agent Ken Walker. Can we talk to you guys for a minute?"

  "What about?" one of the boys asked. "Don't you have anything better to do than harass us?"

  "We're not harassing you," Nicky said, annoyed. Teenagers were so dramatic. "We're trying to help a girl who went missing. You might have heard about it--Mira Phillips?"

  "I've heard about it," the boy said. "We don't know anything about it, though, so we can't help you."

  "And we didn't do it," another kid--the one who had presumably given drugs to the other--said. Nicky noticed his eyes were darting around, like he was paranoid.

  "We're not accusing you of anything," Nicky said. "We're just trying to confirm a few stories. We heard that you guys might have been hanging out in the park last week and might have seen something."

  "Not us," the boy said. "None of us were in the park last week."

  "What about Dean Spanos?" Nicky asked. "He's been seen around here before."

  "He hangs around here all the time," one of the other boys said. "He's a little shit."

  "What did he do?" Nicky asked. It seemed like these guys weren't quick to protect Dean, which wasn't what Nicky had been expecting.

  "Forget it," one of the other guys said. "We're not talking to you. We don't have to."

  Nicky trained her eyes on the paranoid kid, who looked away, then at the other kid who'd taken the suspected bag of drugs from him. He was holding his hands in his pocket, probably clutching the bag.

  "What's in the pocket, there?" Nicky asked.

  The kid scoffed. "Nothing. I don't have anything in my pocket."

  "Are you sure?" Ken asked. "Because I could frisk you if you want."

  "I'm not hiding anything," the kid said. "I'm not a criminal. I'm not a…a drug addict. I'm not doing anything wrong."

  "Really?" Nicky placed her hands on her hips, then glanced around the crowd. "It would be pretty easy for us to call in the local police and let them know we just witnessed a drug deal go down here," Nicky said threateningly, and the boys exchanged glances. "But you seem like good kids. We're just here to ask you some questions. Some questions that might help us find this girl. So, we want to know where we can find Dean Spanos."

  Panic flitted across the kid's face. "I don't know."

  "You don't know?" Ken asked. "Don't you hang out with him?"

  "He hangs out with all of us," the kid said. "If you don't have anything else to say, we're going to do our thing. Can we go now?"

  "He's an asshole," said one of the other boys, who had hair that had been shaved on the sides and top to the scalp. "He's always causing trouble. He breaks into the skate park at night and starts setting up ramps, which just brings all the heat on us. Sometimes he steals stuff from our backpacks when we leave them alone. And I had a cop knock on my door the other day accusing me of graffiti, and we all know it was Dean.”

  "Has he been around here today?" Nicky asked.

  The boys looked around at each other. "No," one of them said. "I haven't seen him since yesterday."

  "Can you tell us where we can find him?" Nicky asked.

  "Doubt it," the boy with the shaved hair said. "He's always just skating around, stealing stuff and trying to hang out with us. But we don't want him around."

  "Has he done anything to you guys?" Ken asked. "Is that why you don't want him hanging around?"

  "He just bugs me," said the boy with the shaved head. "I don't like him. I know he just wants to be friends with us, but I don't need that shit. I'd kick him out of here if I could."

  "We don't really like him either," the other said. "He's always in the way. He won't leave us alone. We're way older than him too, so he's annoying."

  "Would you have a problem if we found him and had a talk with him?" Nicky asked.

  "Do whatever you want," the boy said. "We don't want anything to do with that kid."

  "Thank you for talking to us," Nicky said. "And if you see him around, could you let us know?"

  "Yeah, no problem," the boy said.

  With that, Nicky and Ken turned away, making their way back across the park. Nicky almost felt bad for Dean. It seemed like no one had his back--but then again, maybe it was deserved. But at the same time, he was just a kid. Nicky couldn't help but believe he wasn't a lost cause.

  As Nicky and Ken were walking, Nicky heard a commotion behind them. She turned around, and that was when she saw it--a boy with black hair dashed out of a bush, carrying a skateboard as he darted across the grass. Dean Spanos.

  He was getting away.

  "Wait," Nicky called, narrowing her eyes as the boy ran forward. "Stop."

  The boy slowed as he reached the fence that bordered the park, and looked behind him, spotting Nicky and Ken. He glanced to the side, as though assessing his options, then started running again, jumping over the fence.

  Nicky had been in enough foot chases to know that she couldn't go over the fence. She might be able to get over if she were trained for it and had access to the right equipment, but either way, the drop on the other side was too high. Nicky waited for the boy to come down from the fence and then quickly scaled it herself.

  The boy already had a little head start on her, and she knew she needed to catch him. She could run down an adult if she needed to, but it was much more difficult with a kid. He was small and fast, and as soon as his feet hit the pavement of the road, he threw down his skateboard and started riding.

  "Stop, kid!" Nicky called. "Get back here."

  The boy didn't comply. He weaved around the cars as he continued down the road, with Nicky following behind. The road pounded against her feet as she chased him, feeling like a fool that she, a grown FBI agent, had to exert herself chasing down some kid. But the skateboard gave him more speed than any twelve-year-old had any business having.

  "He's trying to lose us," Ken called, following close behind Nicky.

  Nicky's legs were getting tired, but she was fighting through it. She was going to catch this boy, no matter what it took. She didn't have enough information to pin her case on him yet, but she wasn't going to let him get away.

  The boy darted up another street, and Nicky and Ken turned down it after him. It was a sunny, family neighborhood, and people watched in confusion as the three darted by. The boy's skateboard was clattering against the pavement, and Nicky knew that if the kid continued in this direction, he'd soon be out of her reach. She couldn't have that.

  "Walker, let's split up," she said, huffing between breaths. "You keep on him."

  Nicky had a plan. She darted onto someone's property, jumping a fence into their backyard. An elderly couple gasped, and Nicky flashed her badge as she ran by.

  "FBI! Apologies!"

  She jumped the fence onto the next street, then ran up it and took a corner. She could hear Dean's skateboard, so she darted through another property until she was on the same street again.

  This time, she was ahead of him.

  Ken was behind him.

  Dean gasped and jumped off his skateboard when he saw Nicky in front of him in the street. He went to turn away, but Ken jogged up behind him.

  He was trapped.

  "Dean Spanos," Nicky said. "FBI. Why are you running from us?"

  Dean looked from Ken, who was behind him, to Nicky. He tried to dart away again, but by then, she was standing in front of him.

  "Little help, partner," she said to Ken.

  Ken took a step forward, and Dean panicked, throwing a punch at Nicky. She ducked, easily avoiding it as Ken grabbed Dean and held him still.

  "Stop it," Ken said. "You're not going anywhere. You're just a kid."

  "Let me go!" Dean shouted.

  "No," Nicky said, bending down so she was closer to Dean's level. "You're not going anywhere. Why did you break the camera at Dan's Convenience?"

  Dean's face flushed red. "That's what this is about? I--I swear, I didn't..."

  "Dean," Nicky said slowly. "Tell us the truth. You won't get in trouble. Did someone put you up to it?"

  “I ain’t no snitch!” Dean yelled.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Dean.” Nicky’s voice was calm, even. “We just want to talk to you. But if you don’t tell us the truth, we’re going to haul you into a police station and bring in a social worker. We will get the truth out of you one way or another.”

  “God! Why can’t you people just leave me alone!”

  Nicky looked around at the neighbors, who were just starting to come out of their houses. Nicky looked at Ken and shook her head.

  “Come on, kiddo,” Ken said, tugging the boy by his shirt. “If you’re going to be difficult, we’re going to bring you to a place where you can’t hurt anyone.”

 

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