Samantha Sanderson Without a Trace (6 page)

All set for in the morning.

— J.T.

The deputy cleared his throat and shot her a disapproving stare, then reached over and grabbed the note.

“Well, I guess I'll go back to class,” Sam said, stepping into the hall just as Bella's dad turned the corner into Mrs. Trees' office.

“How are you, Mr. Kelly?”

His reply was cut off by the office door closing.

Sam stepped out of the conference room's doorway, but didn't rush toward the front office. She did a mental rundown of all the eighth graders she knew. Who
was J.T.? No one came to mind with that nickname or with those initials. She needed to get to the library and look at last year's yearbook.

“Sam, do you need a pass back to class?” Mrs. Darrington stood in the hallway, staring at her.

Sam had been so lost in thought she hadn't even heard the secretary approach. “Yes, ma'am.” She followed Mrs. Darrington to the front office.

The secretary typed on her computer, then a yellow pass printed out of the little badge printer on the front counter. “Thanks,” Sam said as she tore it off, and an idea hit her.

Maybe she didn't need to go manually look through the yearbook in the library, which wouldn't even have new students for this year or transfers in it anyway. What she needed was to get into the system's badge database. Every single student had to have a student badge that had to be worn at all times.

Sam smiled as she stepped out of the office. Makayla!

“You want me to what?” Makayla raised her eyebrows.

Sam smiled as cheese-ily as she could. “I need you to get into the student database and find out who has the nickname J.T. or those initials.”

“Sam, you know I love you and usually will do
anything to help you, but this time? This time, you're asking too much.” Makayla stuck a Cheeto into her mouth and crunched for emphasis. “Hacking into the student database would get me immediately expelled.”

“It's really important. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't.”

Makayla swallowed then took a sip from her bottle of water. “Yes, you would. You have before.”

“And when it's been important, you've helped.” Sam snatched a chip from Makayla's plastic bag. “Just like this time.”

Makayla grabbed the Cheeto back before Sam could take a bite. “This is beyond anything else I've done to help you.” She leaned closer to Sam. “You're good with computers too. Why don't you look it up?”

“Oh, I might be good, but you're a computer ninja and you know it. You can do in ten minutes what it'd take me hours to do.”

Makayla shook her head. “Don't try to flatter me. You aren't going to butter me up to get me in big trouble.”

“But you could do it so easily when you're working in Mrs. Creegle's office.”

“No.”

Felicia squeezed onto the bench next to Sam. “What's going on, do-gooder?”

“Causing trouble, or trying to,” Makayla mumbled.

Great. If Mac was dead set on not getting into the
computer system, Sam had to figure out another way. She faced Felicia. “Hey, do you know anybody called J.T.?”

“No, should I?”

Sam quickly told her about the note the police had found.

“If y'all don't know who J.T. is, I sure don't.” Felicia grabbed one of Makayla's Cheetos. “I bet the police think Tam probably went to meet this J.T. yesterday morning, and that's why they're acting like he ran away.”

“Even if he did meet whoever J.T. is, Tam's still missing now. He's been gone over twenty-four hours.” Sam reached for Makayla's cookie.

Mac slapped her hand. “But at least the police are doing something now, right? I saw Bella's dad here. Does this mean they're finally issuing an AMBER Alert?”

“I don't know. They didn't announce it and they certainly didn't tell me. I couldn't even hang around to see if they got a lead from the index cards.” Sam took a sip of her water. “I don't think Deputy Jameson likes me very much.”

Felicia snorted. “No cop likes me.” She nudged Sam. “No offense to your dad.”

“Speaking of your dad, maybe you could ask him to see if he can find out anything,” Makayla suggested.

“Seriously?” Sam put the cap back on her empty water bottle. “You know how Dad is, Mac. I swear, I think he'd go out of his way not to help me.”

“Well, you have kind of disobeyed him a time or
two for the sake of a story,” Makayla said with a sheepish grin.

“But this time, it's not about a story.” Although, if she helped crack the case she could write an article before it hit the local news, and she'd really secure her nomination for editor next year. “At least, not primarily. I'm more worried about Tam than a story.”

“Yeah, me too. He's always gone out of his way to be nice to me, and I can't say that about many people here,” Felicia said.

“I don't know him, except through you,” Makayla told Sam, “but it's scary to think that a kid can just disappear from our campus without anyone noticing.”

Lana rushed to their little group and squeezed in on the other side of Makayla. “Guess what?” She didn't give anyone a chance to say anything before she started talking. “I had a dentist appointment this morning, so Mom just checked me in. We were in the office waiting for the dentist to fax my excuse because Mom forgot to get one while we were there. I mean, the lady was talking to Mom about the changes in our insurance plan, and Mom's pretty upset that our deductible went up again—”

“Lana!” Sam really liked her friend, but sometimes Lana got off on a side street during a conversation. This was just a prime example.

“Sorry. Anyway, while we were waiting, I overheard Mrs. Trees talking to Mrs. Darrington in the little office right next to the sick room.”

Sam nodded, knowing the space well. She had stood there to eavesdrop herself a time or two.

“So Mrs. Trees tells Mrs. Darrington that the police got a lead from two students. The same lead from both of them, so the police are pretty positive it's legitimate.”

So that must mean two index cards had the same info.

“Mrs. Trees told Mrs. Darrington to call Darby French's parent or guardian and tell them the deputies need to question their daughter.” Lana grabbed the last one of Makayla's fruit snacks and popped it into her mouth. “Mrs. Trees told Mrs. Darrington to tell them to please come to the school immediately.”

Darby French . . . Darby French. Name didn't ring a bell with Sam.

“And then the fax came through, so I had to give it to Mrs. Darrington and then she printed me my pass, so I don't know anything more.”

“Who is Darby French?” Sam asked.

Lana and Felicia both shook their heads.

“I don't know, either,” Makayla said.

“Well, her initials are certainly not J.T.,” Sam said.

The bell rang and they all got up from the table. Sam linked her arm through Makayla's. “You know, you could look for information on Darby French while you're searching for the mysterious J.T. when you're doing counselor's aide today.”

Makayla grunted. “Nope, you aren't tricking me into
really getting into trouble by getting into the system for not one, but two searches.”

“Aw, c'mon, Mac.” Sam tossed her trash into the can. She could whine all she wanted, but she recognized that look on her best friend's face—she wasn't going to do any searches. Sam was going to have to figure it out on her own.

“No. And why does everybody always eat
my
lunch?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
am chewed the inside of her bottom lip as she sat down at one of the class computer stations. Since Makayla wouldn't tap into the guidance counselor's computer, Sam had to figure out who Darby and J.T. were. Since she had little chance of hacking into the student database, and she wasn't going to chance getting busted by trying and failing, she figured her best option at this point was to learn as much about Tam as she could.

While she didn't have a lot of ideas on how to go about that, she did have one, and she just so happened to be her own best resource on that avenue. As one of the returning EAST students who had participated in various training workshops at the EAST conference last year, and as a trainer for the new EAST facilitators in the district over the summer, Sam was one of
the administrators in the system. She had full access to go into every student's project and view the files. Sometimes, Mrs. Shine even asked her to check some of the other classes' project progress.

Tam had EAST for sixth period. Maybe for his project, he had a partner who would turn out to know who the mysterious J.T. or Darby was. Sam could definitely check and see if there was any connection to anyone like that.

She glanced up over the computer monitor to Mrs. Shine's desk—the teacher had her nose buried in her laptop. Not that the teacher would fault Sam for looking. Besides, Sam was Mrs. Shine's favorite student, you could ask anyone. But still. Sam felt a little like a snoop, but if she could find out something that could lead her to her missing friend . . . she swallowed, opened the network, then connected to the EASTSERVER. She scrolled through the list of student users until she found Tam's name.

After checking to make sure Mrs. Shine was still engrossed at her desk, Sam opened Tam's files. She clicked on the one titled “Pictures” only to find it empty. Same with “Research” and “Overview.” Every single file under Tam's project was blank. Even his reports file was empty. There was no way Mrs. Shine would allow anybody to go this far along in the semester without turning in at least a couple of project reports.

Sam closed the program and restarted it, then accessed Tam's files again. Empty. It made no sense. What had happened to all his documents? Pictures? Research?

She maneuvered into Mrs. Shine's documents. The teacher might be less understanding if she caught Sam going through her files. Sam glanced at her desk. One of the eighth graders had a book laid out in front of Mrs. Shine and pointed, the two in deep conversation. No time like the present.

Sam scrolled through the teacher's documents. She'd sorted by class period. Sam opened the sixth period folder, then scrolled down to Tam's name and clicked on that folder. There was only one document inside and it was titled: Project Details. Sam opened the pdf and began reading the brief overview.

Awareness of possible danger is critical to the safety of children. Awareness of physical surroundings, potentially suspect people, and Internet safety measures should all be integral teachings to children who use the Internet. The Arkansas board of education requires students to take a variety of standardized tests, yet for something as critical as child safety and online child safety, there are no requirements. This project will prove the need for mandatory safety education for all students of upper elementary schools. Recommended in-class workshops such as the NetSmartz
^®
and KidSmartz workshops, offered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children. These workshops serve as educational programs, teaching children about online safety as well as educating families about abduction prevention and child empowerment to practice safer behaviors. These programs offer free, age-appropriate resources including videos, games, presentations, and classroom lessons to help children learn how to protect themselves and their friends online.

Sam caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she read bullet points of facts that were apparently part of the presentation of his research.

• Approximately eight hundred thousand children under the age of eighteen were reported missing. Of that, more than two hundred thousand were abducted by family members.

• Ninety-three percent of teens ages twelve to seventeen use the Internet. Eighty percent use it over three times a week.

• The first three hours are the most critical when trying to locate a missing child.

• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 205,550 missing children since it was founded in 1984.

• Their recovery rate for missing children is currently ninety-seven percent.

“Sam, could you come help Joy with the Blender software, please?” Mrs. Shine jerked Sam's focus away from the computer screen.

“Uh, y-yes, ma'am.” Sam quickly closed all the folders and files, backed out of everything, then stood and headed to the teacher's desk.

“I'm having a hard time getting the graphic to actually move,” Joy, the eighth grader, told Sam as she led her to the computer she'd been working on.

Sam helped Joy figure out the animation problem easily enough and wanted to go back into Mrs. Shine's file and read the rest about Tam's project. She hadn't even found out if he had a partner. Epic failure.

“Hey, Sam?”

She looked up and smiled at Marcus Robertson. He was in eighth grade and the school paper's photographer. He stood in front of her desk and motioned to the chair beside her. “Mind if I sit and talk with you for a minute?”