Kill You Last Read Free Page A

Roman about it. You know how she’s obsessed with true crime stuff.”
    “What crime?” Dad asked. “They’re just missing. And I’m kind of busy right now.”
    “I know, Dad. Roman just wants to know if they came together or separately, that’s all.”
    “Probably separately,” Dad said. “We do a lot of head shots. It’s hard to remember.”
    Meanwhile, Roman had hastily written something down on a piece of paper and was holding it up on the screen: Names and where from?
    “Do you remember their names? And where they were from?” I asked.
    “Shels …” Dad sounded impatient. I wondered why he didn’t just answer, since that would have been the fastest way to get off the phone.
    “The police must have had some idea,” I said.
    “Yeah, uh, Rebecca, Margaret, maybe from Pennsylvania or Connecticut or New Jersey, something like that. I really have to get off the phone, hon, okay?”
    “Sure, Dad.”
    We hung up and I told Roman what I’d learned.
    “You’re the best,” Roman said. “Love you. Later.” She was gone, probably to search for every crumb of information she could find about missing girls named Rebecca and Margaret. Meanwhile, I still had homework to do, and an outfit to pick out for an interview at Sarah Lawrence College the next morning. But an hour later, Roman was back on video chat. “Go to the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Select female, Connecticut, and missing within one year.”
    I did what she said and three thumbnail photos popped up.
    “See Peggy D’Angelo from Hartford?” Roman asked.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Hit view poster.”
    I did. Peggy D’Angelo was a round-faced girl described as five feet six inches tall and weighing 135 pounds.
    “Now do the same thing with Pennsylvania,” Roman said.
    “This one’s name is Rebecca Parlin, from Scranton.”
    Rebecca Parlin had a bony face and thin lips. She was five feet nine inches and weighed 120 pounds.
    “So?” I said.
    “Both were aspiring models, and both went missing after saying they were going to a mall to meet someone.”
    I went back and took a closer look. Peggy D’Angelo was cute but, at that height and weight, far from model material. Rebecca Parlin was closer to an acceptable model’s height and weight. But she was hardly what you’d call a beauty.
    “I bet those are the two girls,” Roman said.
    “All the way from Hartford and Scranton?” I asked. “Aren’t they both, like, hundreds of miles away?”
    “About a hundred miles…Maybe a two-hour drive.”
    “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Lots of photographers do head shots. Why would they come all the way to Dad’s studio?”
    “Good question,” said Roman.

Chapter 4
    I WENT TO the interview at Sarah Lawrence the next morning. Even though I imagined myself going to a large university in a college town like Amherst or Ann Arbor, I’d promised Mom I’d consider Sarah Lawrence because I knew she wanted me to stay close to home. The college had a well-respected teacher-training curriculum, and it was one of the few in the United States that offered an exchange program with the University of Havana in Cuba, which sounded exciting.
    I got back to school just as lunch began, and as soon as I stepped into the cafeteria, I sensed that something was off. People stared at me, and tables actually got quiet when I passed. When Roman, sitting at our regular table, saw me, her eyes widened.
    “What’s going on?” I whispered as I sat down.
    “You don’t know?” she asked, obviously surprised.
    I shook my head and felt apprehensive. Based on the looks I’d just gotten, I realized it was not only something I didn’t know, but also something I probably didn’t want to know.
    “There are three missing girls,” Roman said. “And all of them got head shots by your father. It was on the news a couple of hours ago. There’s this Web site called Team Hope where the parents of missing kids compare notes and try to