Page 11 of Already Lost

Mrs. Henson took a sobbing breath. “We’vealready spoken to the officers,” she said. “Why do we have to go over itagain?”

“We’re coming to the case with fresheyes,” Laura explained. “It’s important that we make sure we haven’t missedanything. Please, if you could just bear with us.”

“It’s for Dakota, Mom,” the brother said,and Laura nodded at him gratefully.

Mrs. Henson’s shoulders heaved up and downas if to say she had no choice but to agree, her eyes traveling up to thatphotograph like it was the only thing she could hold onto. Laura shuddered atthe thought of having nothing left of her daughter but that, trying to suppressthe movement and make it less noticeable.

“Your daughter,” Nate said, shifting inhis position, awkwardly standing beside the coffee table. “Can you tell us ifshe had any disagreements with anyone lately? Anyone who had a grudge againsther?”

“Of course, not,” Mrs. Henson said,shaking her head miserably. “She was a lovely girl. The sweetest. People werealways taking advantage of her, but she never even fought back. She was toonice. Everyone liked her.”

“I know they all say that,” the boy spokeup. “It’s the kind of thing you hear on the news all the time, but it’s true.Everyone loved ‘Kota. She’s really – shewasreally nice. I used to ribher about it, tell her she needed to get a backbone.”

“Oh, I wish you’d been nicer to her,” Mrs.Henson cried, clutching her hands tightly against the hem of her cardigan as ifshe wanted to wring it out. Her eyes were squeezing shut. She was a woman onthe verge of not being able to take much more, Laura could see.

“Sorry, Mom,” the boy said quietly, hisvoice going hoarse.

Blaming one another wasn’t a good route togo down – Laura had seen that before. “Did she report anything unusual in thelast few weeks?” she asked, trying to change the subject somewhat. “Somethingthat unsettled her or was just different than normal? Someone new hangingaround?”

“She didn’t say anything.” The brothershrugged. “We spoke a couple of days ago. She didn’t seem any different. Ididn’t get the feeling she was hiding anything or whatever.”

Laura nodded, looking towards the mother.

“Nothing,” Mrs. Henson said. “She saidnothing. She was just at home, like normal. That day when she left I didn’teven know she’d gone. She sent me a message that she was going to the store anddid I want anything, and she never came back.”

That wasn’t much to go on. Laura tried onelast true and tested tactic. “Was she seeing anyone recently?”

“No, not since college,” the brother spokeup confidently. “She was kind of aimless the last year or so. With the jobmarket around here the way it is, she was just kind of drifting, looking forsomething to do.”

Laura nodded understanding. That was twoquestions answered in one: no need to ask about her employment.

“Did she know someone called…” Laurachecked the notes from the briefing which she had copied down into her ownnotebook. “Jenna Janes? Had you heard of her?”

Both the mother and brother shook theirheads, exchanging puzzled looks. So, there was no evidence yet that the secondvictim had known the first one. Of course. It was never going to be that easy,was it?

They were getting a whole lot of nothingright now, which didn’t bode well for the overall case.

“Where was she headed?” Laura asked.“Which store?”

“Just at the end of the street, before youget to the school,” Mrs. Henson said, nodding in the general direction asthough they could see it through the walls of the house.

“Alright,” Laura said, getting up. “Ithink we need to walk the route, take a look at where she was last seen. Thankyou for your time – and if you do think of anything that might be helpful,however small, please do get back in touch with us.”

Mrs. Henson nodded again, her eyes goingdistant. Laura saw it all the time. The thoughts just seemed to drift out of theminds of those who had suffered a recent loss. Everything, every road, andevery thought, led back to the one who was gone. Laura didn’t press her on theniceties. She simply nodded once to Mrs. Henson and once to the brother, andthen got up to leave.

Nate stepped out by her side as they leftthe home, so they could walk in tandem. Laura lifted her eyes and noddedforward. The street had a slight rise to it, meaning they could not see whereit would take them, but she could see it was long. She estimated it had to be afive-minute walk to the furthest part of the street they could see from wherethey stood, but from there it was anyone’s guess.

“It’s eerie,” Nate said quietly.

Laura nodded in response. It was a strangefeeling, walking in the footsteps of someone who was dead. Even though thecircumstances now were far different – they weren’t doing anything like areconstruction of the real events – it sent a shiver down her spine.

“Let’s keep our eyes peeled,” she said,just to try to break the mood. She began looking while she walked: scanningconstantly to the side, looking for anything that might have fallen onto theground or been trodden into the grass next to the sidewalk, any small sign ofwhat had happened to Dakota Henson. Beside her, Nate did the same, peering downat the side of the road and the drains, covering the area that she couldn’t aseasily see.

The local cops had already done this,examining the surrounding area as part of their initial investigation, but itdidn’t hurt to check. It made for slow progress, but as they walked, Lauracould finally see the store that Dakota Henson must have been heading for up infront of them. It was a small and unassuming place, and it gave her anothershiver to think that this was where the girl must have been taken from.Somewhere along this route – even though the whole time, she would have been inview of other buildings and homes.

“He’s bold,” Laura said.

“Or maybe cunning,” Nate said. Heindicated the way the road had that slight angle to it, right behind them.“Look at this view, here. There’s not great visibility in either direction.Yes, it’s a risk to grab someone here in broad daylight, but it’s also not asmuch of a risk as it might be on any other street. If he had a plan and knew hecould grab her quickly, it wouldn’t take much.”

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