"If you weren't in juvie at the time, then you would know how fucked up a person Jennifer was and from what I gather still is. I felt bad for the kid," Joel said with a shrug as he turned away.
Following Joel into the office across from the storeroom, Hayden pointed to the open laptop on the desk. "Pull her up. I want to see her."
Joel stopped in the middle of the office. Standing with his back to him, Hayden watched with amusement as Joel's face tilted toward the ceiling. He could see the hard lines of Joel’s jaw flex as he ground his teeth before letting out a sigh. "Fuck, man," Joel groaned. "I haven't logged into Facebook in fucking forever." Going to the desk, he sat heavily in the chair and shot him a glare. "You going to tell me what this is all-"
"Just do it," Hayden ordered, cutting his bitching off. He wasn't in the mood. What he needed were answers.
Angrily, Joel pulled up the social media page. After a few failed attempts to log in, each punctuated with mumbled curses, he finally pulled up his page. Joel's account, Hayden noted, was less of a personal profile page and more of a page dedicated to his bike. Going through the small friends list, he stopped at the profile picture of the posing brunette. Hayden braced one hand against the desk and leaned forward.
Pushing Joel's hand out of the way, he used the laptop's trackpad and clicked on the woman's photos.
Joel sat back in the office chair and regarded him as he searched. "Can't you just tell me what we're-"
"I saw a girl this morning," Hayden cut him off.
"…okkkk and why does-"
Not taking his eyes from the screen, Hayden scrolled and scrolled through the endless selfie shots of the woman. Never in his life had he seen so many selfies. But the information fit. After he got out of detention and came back to their foster home, Jennifer had already left, but the stories that remained painted quite a picture of the girl: beautiful, self-absorbed, and cunning.
Opening yet another album that was shockingly just of her, Hayden frowned. "I saw a girl who I know for a fact ain't from around here walking down the road with a backpack in the direction of the school." Getting annoyed, he backed out and clicked onto another album of endless selfies and pictures of food. "Why doesn't she have any photos of her kid?"
The office chair creaked as Joel suddenly leaned forward. "No." His normally calm tone hardened at the edges as he looked at Hayden. "It couldn't be her," he said, shaking his head. After another pause, he asked. "What did she look like?"
Hayden recalled the girl he had seen each day and looked away from Joel, straightening away from the desk. There were no words for her kind of looks. Shaking his head, Hayden didn't answer. Pulling the laptop to the other side of the desk, he sat down in one of the chairs and continued combing through the woman's profile.
Pulling out his own phone, Joel stared at it with a frown as he typed.
"What's the kid's name?" Hayden asked, changing his tactic and now searching through the woman's friends list.
Leaning forward now, Joel swiped through the app, taking up the search on his own. "Sapphire, I think. Sapphire Waters."
Simultaneously they typed in her name and froze.
"There's only one Sapphire Waters," Joel whispered, not looking away from his phone.
Hayden could only nod as he stared at the girl's unsmiling face staring straight back into the camera. It reminded him of those serious looks models had, but he knew that wasn't her intent. He had seen that same beautiful face each day and knew that apathetic expression was more than an act.
"That can’t be her kid," Joel muttered disbelievingly.
Sitting back in his own chair, Hayden ran a hand over his thick beard as he swiped through the five photos the girl had on her account. "Well, she could've hooked up with a black guy or Puerto Rican or something," he offered as he stared at the girl's golden-brown skin versus her mother's paler complexion.
"Yeah…" Joel grumbled as he stared at his phone in disbelief. "No," he said, getting up and shaking his head. "This can't be whoever you saw."
Hayden just gave him a level look that said it all.
"Fuck," Joel cursed as he stomped from around the desk. "But where would…."
Hayden watched with a resigned smile as his friend's words faded, and realization visibly froze his body. A hardness settled over Joel's face as his blue eyes cut to his. Carefully, he spoke, his words tight. "Where was she walking from exactly?"
"Now you’re catching on," Hayden sighed. "The fucking motel, that's where."
Chapter six
"Whyissheevenat this school?"
"You know she's like twenty or twenty-five or something, right?"
"I heard she is just some flunky student who had to come out here because she got kicked out of her old school for whoring.”
