Call Me! by Dani Ripper

subject, but keeping me on task. I’ll read a couple of perverted posts to her, we’ll laugh, hang up. Then I’ll dig into the more serious conversation threads that have posted over the last twenty-four hours.
     
    “Ready?” I say.
     
    “Hit me!”
     
    I find one and say, “ PillowLips says, I like anagrams. My new online bf said his name is Alan. Do you think that’s code for Anal?”
     
    “She probably thinks Santa is code for Satan.”
     
    “Maybe you can work that into a song.”
     
    She laughs. “Read me another.”
     
    I scan the Lunatic List of names I put together to follow on a regular basis. Most are guys, but I keep an eye on a few young ladies in case they turn up missing. The ones I follow are prime candidates.
     
    Sofe says, “What’s FingerSniffer up to? Gotta love that name!”
     
    “Let’s see. Nothing since he asked all underage girls to send him nekkid pix .”
     
    “Did anyone do it?”
     
    “Nope. Or he would’ve posted.”
     
    “Too bad you don’t have Carter Teague’s photos.”
     
    “She’s twice too old for these men to care.”
     
    I read her a couple more, then we hang up.
     
    Ten minutes later, I locate SeanInPain .
     
    As expected, Sean’s post about his younger sister rallied the demons. He’s showing forty-six responses! I’m pleased to read that two young ladies are appalled he wants to drug his sister. Unfortunately, forty-four readers are not only encouraging him to do so, they’re actually giving him advice. Disturbing advice, including how to acquire date rape drugs, and what he should do to his sister while she’s unconscious. Sean is grateful. He promises to go through with it as soon as he can score some GHB, which I know to be one of three so-called date rape drugs. Legal with a prescription, GHB is used to treat narcolepsy. In its liquid form, GHB is odorless, colorless, and mixes in alcohol, which intensifies the effect dramatically. Sean is taking pre-payments for pictures of her, and I wonder who would trust him to deliver. He says he’ll send the four most graphic shots of his fifteen-year-old naked sister for only twenty-five bucks and promises they’ll be better than her shower pix.
     
    Shower pix?
     
    The little bastard has taken shower pictures?
     
    I click on the link. And there it is:
     
    Three shower pix of little sister, age 15, highest quality, only $10.00!
     
    I try to remain detached, but the sisterhood gene kicks in and I want to kill him. Since that’s not an option, I want to at least warn the poor girl. I nearly sign up, thinking I might obtain a website or mail drop address I can trace back to Sean . But then I come to my senses and realize I can’t purchase nude photos of underage children! I could go to jail!
     
    I scroll through my cell phone contact list till I come to Patrick Aub. Pat’s a policeman. In a moment of weakness (his, not mine) I talked him into giving me what he had on the guy who abducted Jaqui Moreland. It wasn’t much, since he wasn’t directly involved with the case, but he did know two things: the perp’s handle was ManChild , and the phrase about the cherrystones had posted on an underage chat site.
     
    Pat answers the phone with, “Dani! Wow, I can’t believe you called. Please tell me you found our guy!”
     
    “Not yet.”
     
    “But you’re still working on it?”
     
    “I’ll never stop.”
     
    “You’re a saint.”
     
    “And you’re a bullshit artist. And a flirt.”
     
    Pat laughs. “Guilty as charged.”
     
    Jaqui’s mom contacted me two days after the abduction, against the wishes of the local police and FBI. I worked sixty straight hours with no cooperation from law enforcement. The last eight of those hours were logged after the cops found Jaqui’s corpse.
     
    I heard about it the same time you did. On TV.
     
    I can understand Jaqui’s mom being too upset to call me. But the cops? That was just ugly. Now there’s a public rumor the cold case experts