The Fort (Aric Davis)

anyways. If I get tough—”
    “Then the parents just lawyer up,” said Dr. Martinez. “I get it. Still, there has to be something out there. Someone has to have seen something.”
    “That’s what I would have thought, but think about what we know about Riverside. Drives a green car—maybe. Is a white male who favors a ball cap and glasses. Of course, we were also told by pretty much every hooker on Division Avenue that they’ve been picked up by a guy with that exact description and came back A-OK to get back to business.”
    “And because most of them return just fine, they’ll still get in green cars with white males,” said Dr. Martinez wearily. “And the ones who don’t aren’t noticed until we come around asking questions and showing off pictures.”
    “Exactly,” said Van Endel. “There’s not much left on this one for either of us to do.” Van Endel chuckled to himself, and Dr. Martinez gave him a quizzical look. “It’s funny. If those kids—the three boys, not the teens—really had been telling the truth, we’d have tons of people to talk to.”
    Dr. Martinez shrugged. “You have to follow the evidence, right? And the available evidence says you need to assume the teens are telling the truth and the boys are lying. That said, you know my feelings on the matter. Body or not, not one of those boys came off to me as a liar.”
    “At least you like it as much as I do,” said Van Endel. “This is just infuriating. There’s a young girl missing, dead most likely, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”
    “Well,” said Martinez, “there is the hope that Tracy finally gets a negative on those teeth. If that’s not Molly, those boys might really have seen her.”
    “Yeah, I know,” said Van Endel. “I’ve had that thought at least a million times. Not ideal conditions for grabbing a decent night’s sleep. Hey, that reminds me. I didn’t tell you what Tracy found on the body. I don’t think much of it, but he thought it was interesting.” Dr. Martinez tilted her head, as if to say, “Go on.” “She had condoms on her. More than just one too, though Tracy couldn’t tell me exactly how many. Think it means anything other than that she wanted to party?”
    “That’s interesting,” said Dr. Martinez. “Did the mother give any indication that Molly was sexually active?”
    Van Endel shrugged. “Mothers aren’t necessarily the best source for that info, as you know. But as it happens, this one made it a point to tell me that her daughter was not sexually active. I can’t remember the exact quote, but it was something like, ‘She does stuff with boys, but not that .’ She was almost smug about it. Molly was either telling the truth or lying well enough that her mom believed her.”
    “You know,” said Dr. Martinez. “Molly has something in common with those girls who keep showing up at Riverside, other than being missing, of course.” Van Endel raised his eyebrows. “Rubbers, Dick. Every single working girl on Division Avenue has them on her.”
    “I have a picture of Molly in my car,” said Van Endel. “Let’s go for a ride.” He looked at his watch. “It’s a little early, but we should be able to catch some day shifters.”

41
    Luke was walking through the neighborhood doing something he never had before: actually analyzing what was around him. It had never occurred to him before that he spent so much time whizzing around on a bicycle or fighting imaginary battles that he had never really focused on the people around him, and the myriad differences in the ways they lived. Tim had told them that Becca had said to look for things like an unmowed lawn, and Luke was trying to take that a step further, looking for windowless vans, poorly maintained landscaping, and signs that said KIDNAPPER posted in someone’s front yard. He’d seen lots of yards that needed mowing, several windowless vans, and a great number of homes with poorly kept landscaping, but he was batting zero on KIDNAPPER signs.
    This is a total waste of time , thought Luke as he walked on a street perpendicular to the one that Scott lived on, and actually bordered the woods where the fort was. So far he had seen two houses that stuck out: one a couple of blocks from here, also along the forest’s edge, and one that was gray and needed paint. Beside the latter, Luke had seen a man in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt watering a dying bush with a hose. The man had been on crutches and