Page 80 of The Advocate’s Ultimatum

“Did he go home?”

“I don’t know. He could’ve gone to the school because that would’ve been the same direction, and it was about the time school got out.”

“So, you stopped following him?” JP asked.

“I got a call on another case, one I couldn’t ignore. I pulled over to write something down and lost him. I drove by Hannah’s house to see if his car was there. He wasn’t supposed to be in the home at all, but I was pretty sure he was living there.”

JP took a sip of his coffee. “And that time frame lines up with the disappearance?”

“It does.”

“Who else were you looking at?” JP asked.

“The mother, although she didn’t seem likely,” Rourke said. “There was also another registered sex offender a few blocks away, but he was in therapy at the time. So, that was dismissed pretty quickly. I can text you the name if you want it.”

“Sure. It wouldn’t hurt,” JP said. “Was the half-brother ever a suspect?”

“Not really. Lots of people verified that he was at basketball practice. There weren’t many likely suspects,” Rourke added. “It could’ve been a complete stranger, but in my experience, if a kid gets into a car like that in the middle of the day she knows the person.”

“Anything else stand out to you now that didn’t then?”

Rourke considered it. “Nothing I can think of. This whole case rubs me raw every time I think of it.”

“Me too. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you since you knew the little girl.”

“It’s not easy,” Rourke said. “I’ve played the if only game over and over, blaming myself, blaming the system, and anyone else I could. I just wish the cops could’ve got Hayes to talk.”

“I don’t get that either, but this whole case fits together like a saddle on a sow.”

Chapter 30

Saturday late morning

Sabre sat at her desk at home with the drawing of Bay’s tattoo. She studied the lines: a vertical, a curved hook on the left, another curve on the right but reversed. It was almost symmetrical, but not quite. The curve on the right was shorter than the left.

She entered a prompt in Google: symbol with vertical line and curved hooks.

The results came back with pages of images, forums, tattoo sites, and law enforcement references. Most were useless, but a few were similar.

One result caught her eye. A thread discussing regional gang identifiers of low-level, less formal markings.

Sabre clicked through and saw a symbol with a vertical line and a curved extension, a slight variation, not identical, but enough to pause on.

She zoomed in. Then back to Bay’s mark. Then back again. Her brow tightened.

“Close,” she murmured. “But not right.”

She shifted tactics. Instead of searching for the symbol, she described it. She typed out a prompt, every line, every curve, every detail she could articulate. Then she ran it through an AI query.

The response came back: The symbol described may resemble simplified gang markings or prison-based identifiers. These often use minimal line work and abstract forms to represent affiliation, hierarchy, or territory. Variations are common, especially among smaller or localized groups. Such symbols may not appear in official databases if they are informal, evolving, or deliberately altered.

Sabre sat back. “That could explain it,” she said quietly. No match, but familiar enough.

She tried another prompt: prison symbol vertical line hook meaning

She got more similar results but nothing exact.

She grabbed the print of the image and stood.