Dream Chasers by Barbara Fradkin Page A

kaftan wagged her head back and forth. Her every move seemed to be in slow motion.
    â€œHannah never told us you were a cop.”
    I’m sure she didn’t, he thought. He doubted Hannah even wasted breath on her boring old dad. “Do you know where she is? She’s not answering her cell.”
    â€œWell, that’s Hannah. She comes and goes. Smart though. When she’s here, she gets more work done in half a day than the rest of us do in three.”
    â€œSo it’s normal for her not to be at school?”
    â€œOh, yeah. Especially now. It’s so nice out, we’d all be at the beach if we didn’t have stuff to finish up.”
    â€œDo you know where she’d hang out?”
    The lanky girl’s eyes shuttered. She shrugged her bony shoulders. “Hannah never likes the same thing twice. Drugs, boys, hang-outs, it’s always got to be something new.”
    Green’s heart chilled at the mention of drugs. He’d been in Major Crimes too long to be cavalier about it. Drugs meant dealers, and dealers meant trouble. “Any guesses?”
    â€œWell—” The younger girl in the striped hair began, but the lanky girl shot her a scowl that silenced her in mid-word. Green wanted to throttle her but forced himself to be nonchalant. Throttling never worked with Hannah either. Instead, he dredged up a rueful smile.
    â€œLook, I’m a dad. I worry. And because I’m a cop, I worry even more. Like right now, with this teenage girl missing, I’m imagining all sorts of crazy things. So please, if you know anything, tell me.”
    â€œWe don’t know anything,” the tiger-haired girl said. “Not really.”
    â€œCan you at least tell me if she’s all right?”
    â€œI’m sure.” The lanky girl bobbed her head. Her black hair swung in ropes. “The guy—the people—she’s with are cool.”
    Green gritted his teeth to keep from screaming at her. “If you can reach her, or you hear from her, tell her to call me. Please!” They exchanged glances, and to a person twitched their shoulders in a doubtful shrug. It was not a comforting response, but there was nothing more he could do beyond attaching electrodes to unspeakable parts. He headed back to the car, seriously debating the wisdom of filing a missing persons report. Hannah might never forgive him if he did, but if something was really wrong, or something had happened to her, he would never forgive himself if he didn’t.
    As he was nosing his way into the impossible traffic on Bank Street en route to the Elgin Street Police Headquarters, a police cruiser streaked by towards Billings Bridge, its lights flashing and siren blaring. Green’s blood ran cold. At that very moment his phone rang, and he grabbed it, praying it was Hannah.
    It was Brian Sullivan.

Six
    L ea Kovacev had travelled a mere hundred metres from where she’d probably entered the water, and had come to rest on the rocky point of a small island just below the falls. The Rideau River, having picked up speed on its plunge through the gorge, raced white and angry over the rocks below the falls and split to encircle the tiny island in its path. Only five metres of water separated the island from the eastern shore, and it was easily crossed by a person wearing rubber boots.
    She was still face down in the shallow water when Green arrived, her bloated body rocking gently in the reeds and rocks that marked the shore. MacPhail was completing his examination, and Lyle Cunningham was photographing the scene. Green splashed out to join Brian Sullivan, who stood knee-deep in the river a safe distance away. The rest of the officers clustered on the eastern shore of the mainland opposite. The roar of the falls rushed in to fill the human silence that had descended on the scene.
    â€œLikely caught underwater on a lip of rock in the gorge and only dislodged when the body began to bloat,”