FEI DU WATCHED THOUGHTFULLY as Tao Ran spoke to Chenchen’s father.
“I arrived around 5:05, which is when I told her I’d be there,” the man was saying. “When I got there, I didn’t see her, so I called her from the entrance. Her phone was off, and I figured it had run out of battery. I signed in to go find her, but the classroom was empty. At that point, I still wasn’t thinking that she was lost. This was the youth center—it’s basically the same as a school, so I thought she’d gone to the bathroom or run off to play somewhere. I waited angrily in the classroom for a while. I only started to panic when the security guard started checking the doors and windows and shutting off the lights. At that point, I started asking around. I even asked a female teacher to check the bathroom for me…”
Chenchen’s mother gripped his shoulder tightly, tears rolling down her face. “You think she’d run off without saying anything when she knew an adult was waiting for her? She’s not that kind of kid! How can you call yourself a father? Whenever something happens, you always blame my daughter first. If anything happens to her, I’ll…”
Her grip on Chenchen’s father made him stumble, and he shut his mouth. Tao Ran and Chang Ning quickly separated them.
“Apparently, that child-tracking app on Chenchen’s phone can turn the phone on remotely,” Fei Du said suddenly. “That’s probably how the officers found it earlier. Why didn’t you turn her phone on then?”
“I tried to.” Chenchen’s father looked like he was about to break down, but managed to keep it together, breathing so harshly that it sounded as though he was barely holding on. “For some reason, the app kept telling me that it couldn’t connect to the service… But I’m not great with technology…”
“We found Chenchen’s phone,” Tao Ran told him. “It still had half its battery life left. It was probably stolen before you first called. Maybe Chenchen noticed that it was missing and went looking for it?”
“You’re saying someone stole it from inside the youth center?” Fei Du shook his head. “I doubt it. It would be too risky to try to steal from inside the center. She must’ve left the park for some reason. Her class ended half an hour before you came to pick her up. She might’ve bought snacks from a nearby store or gone to play with her classmates…but she probably wouldn’t have gone more than half a mile away. She would’ve wanted to be able to return to the youth center immediately when you called her. Have you taught her what to do if someone steals from her?”
Chang Ning glanced at Tao Ran. “Yes,” she said quietly. “When I was joking with her a few days ago, I said that if anything happened, she should go find Tao Ran-gege. She knows how to dial one-ten. And if she can’t do that, she knows to return to the school to find security.”
Tao Ran patted the back of Chang Ning’s hand and gave her a reassuring look. “The areas around the youth center are all busy, and it was rush hour. It should’ve been safe, aside from the middle of the park in the northwest corner…”
“There’s no way…” Chang Ning grabbed Tao Ran’s wrist as though seeking comfort. “Chenchen’s very timid. She can’t even sleep alone after reading a thriller. There’s no way she’d run somewhere isolated.”
“What if she wasn’t alone?” Fei Du said suddenly. “What if she was with her classmates?”
It took everyone a moment to react. They all stared at him blankly.
Fei Du approached Chenchen’s father. “When was the first time you tried to turn on her phone?”
“After…after six,” he said. “Her teacher reminded me.”
“Can you demonstrate?” Fei Du asked quietly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“BOSS! THE TEACHER HELPED US contact the kids in the security footage!” Pushing aside a branch in her way, Lang Qiao caught up to Luo Wenzhou. “The kids said they ran to the washroom to change, then went to the park to take photos.”
“Photos?”
“One of the kids in the photography class had an assignment, and he asked the girls to model for him. A few of the girls had brought clothes specifically for that. Afterward, Zhang Yuchen was going to return to the youth center, so the other kids said goodbye at the park entrance. No one knows where she went after that.”
Shit. Luo Wenzhou took a deep breath. If Chenchen realized that her phone had gone missing after saying goodbye to her friends, her first assumption would’ve been that she left it back where they took the photos. She’d have gone back to the empty park to find it. But that park wasn’t monitored like a major road; it would be difficult to find out what happened after that.
Lang Qiao looked worried. “What now, Boss?”
Luo Wenzhou was deep in thought for a while. Then he pulled out his phone and called the people surveilling Xu Wenchao. “Tell me where Xu Wenchao’s been today.”
“Xu Wenchao gave Deputy Tao a copy of his dashcam records and left the station at 5:40 p.m. He drove twenty minutes to a fast-food restaurant, ordered some takeout, and then went home. He hasn’t moved since.”
“You’re sure he’s been home this whole time?” Luo Wenzhou asked quietly.
“Yes. He didn’t shut his curtains; he’s been in the study this whole time. He’s never left our sight. What is it, Boss?”
“Boss, it doesn’t look like Xu Wenchao has anything to do with this case,” Lang Qiao said. “Either we suspected the wrong person, or this case is unrelated to Qu Tong. I’m just baffled. Why are there so many criminals in this world?”
Before Luo Wenzhou could respond, his phone rang. The display said Feirritating. “What?”
“I’m with Chenchen’s father right now,” said Mr. Feirritating himself, unhurried. “The thief didn’t steal Chenchen’s phone directly. He really did just pick up the phone she had ‘forgotten.’”
“How do you know?” Luo Wenzhou asked immediately.
“Mr. Zhang tried to turn on Chenchen’s phone remotely at around 6:00 p.m. He couldn’t, but I don’t think that was user error. That must mean either that one of the phones was getting no signal, or the girl’s phone battery had been taken out.” Fei Du paused for a moment. “The thief had no reason to do that if he was going to put the battery back in later, and he probably didn’t know that the phone had a tracking app. I can only think of one possibility: One of the other kids hid her phone while she was changing or posing for photos. When Chenchen noticed, that kid suggested that she return to the park to look for it, and even offered to accompany her.”
Naturally, Chenchen would have trusted her friend and told them that her phone had a GPS-tracking app.
“You’re saying that a kid—quite possibly a girl—planned this.” Luo Wenzhou sucked in a breath. “And not only did this girl kidnap a friend, she tossed the victim’s phone to mislead us? That’s way too…”
Fei Du chuckled ominously.
Luo Wenzhou suddenly remembered that young man from all those years ago, with that dark, icy gaze. He swallowed his words. “How did you think of this?”
“I’ve warned her about adults: familiar, unfamiliar, men, women, even the elderly,” Fei Du replied. “The only people I didn’t warn her about were other kids.”
Why couldn’t it be a kid?
Little girls around ten years old were like flower buds: beautiful and delicate, naive and fragile. The entire world treated them like potential victims, like they were missing a part of their soul or brain. Everyone tried to protect and nurture them. Who would ever suspect one of being a criminal herself?
Luo Wenzhou ended the call with Fei Du and turned to Lang Qiao. “Were any calls made that a parent didn’t pick up?”
Lang Qiao looked even more horrified than she had when she tried to catch a knife-wielding criminal unarmed. “I…I think there was one…”