The Finishing School Read Online Free PDF

credibility issues where there were none.
    “Tell me about Carmen. How she spent her time, where she went. Anything that might help us track her down.”
    “Mostly she go in school, she work, she go in church. She very quiet girl.”
    “What about her friends? Was there anyone Carmen associated with who might have been involved with illegal drugs?”
    “A kid calling her a lot. Him, I don’t like. Maybe you gotta check him out, see if he know sonthing.”
    “Of course. Tell us about him.” She looked over at Ray, who nodded and continued to take notes.
    “Carmen meet him in church. A real
cholo
.”
    “Cholo?”
    “You know, a gangster. He’s from El Salvador.” Reyes scrutinized Melanie closely. “You
puertorriqueña, ¿sí
?”
    “Yes, I’m Puerto Rican. So you don’t like the boy because you think he’s in a gang or because he’s Salvadoran?”
    “He’s a gangster, and he don’t got no papers. I tell Carmen, La Migra gonna deport this one any minute. I complain to the priest about my daughter meeting
ilegales
in the church, and you know what he say to me? Jesus don’ care about papers!” He shook his head with disgust.
    “Was Carmen dating this kid?”
    “No, I never let her. She teaching him to read, from the church program. But he call her too much. So I tell him no call here no more.” Reyes shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe is sonthing. Maybe he get mad.”
    “What’s the boy’s name?” she asked.
    “Juan Carlos Peralta.”
    “Do you know how to get in touch with him?”
    “Carmen had his
número de celular
in her book.”
    “We’d like to see Carmen’s address book.”
    “Okay. Is in her room. You come.”
    Reyes led them down a small hallway and pushed open a door at the end. Two narrow beds and a dresser filled the tiny room. A young girl sitting on the bed nearest the door looked up at them, startled. Presumably Carmen’s younger sister, Lulu. She’d been staring vacantly into space, fiddling with a silver peace sign that hung around her neck on a cowhide string. She was about thirteen or fourteen, with enormous brown eyes just like Maya’s and dark hair in a ponytail. And she looked scared.
    Reyes took Carmen’s address book from a table between the twin beds and handed it to Melanie.
    “Thank you. Is this Lulu?” Melanie asked, her eyes on the girl.
    “Yes. Lulu, you be polite. Say hello to the prosecutor who gonna find Carmen for us,” Reyes said.
    “Nice to meet you,” Melanie said.
    Lulu stared back at her silently. Melanie couldn’t decide if the girl was sullen, in shock, or just sizing Melanie up before she decided to open her mouth.
    Melanie sat down on the bed next to Lulu. “I can see you’re upset. I’d like to introduce myself and tell you what I’m trying to do, because maybe you can help me. Okay?”
    Lulu shrugged. “Whatever.”
    “You go to Holbrooke, too?”
    “Yeah.”
    “She’s in eighth grade,” Reyes said.
    “You know two Holbrooke girls died tonight from snorting heroin?” Melanie asked.
    She finally had Lulu’s attention. “No. Papi didn’t tell me that. Who?”
    “Whitney Seward and Brianna Meyers.”
    “Whitney was into drugs.” Lulu nodded, unsurprised.
    “How do you know that?”
    “Everybody knew.”
    “Does your sister do drugs?”
    “No way. Never.”
    “Does she hang out with kids who do?”
    “Carmen doesn’t hang out with anybody.”
    “Do you have any idea where Carmen might have gone? Do you think she ran away?”
    Again Lulu looked at Melanie with that strange, steady gaze. There was a lot going on behind her brown eyes. Melanie almost thought Lulu was weighing whether or not to talk. She seemed old beyond her years; yet there was something in her gaze that Melanie recognized from her own childhood, from that dark time after her father was shot in a robbery, after he went back to Puerto Rico and left them alone to face life in their bad neighborhood. It was fear.
    “Who knows? Maybe she did run away,”