Page 65 of Sunset Beach
With her phone still in her hand, she reopened the Facebook app and typed Jazmin Mayes’s name into the search bar.
Jazmin, she discovered, lived on in the world of social media. Her profile photo showed a laughing young woman, her hair cut short and straightened, grinning flirtatiously into the camera. She had a small cleft in her narrow, pointed chin and wore large gold hoop earrings and a shoulder-baring pink top.
It was the first photo she’d seen of the girl, and noting the resemblance both to Yvonne but more so, Aliyah, Drue felt an overwhelming sense of sadness.
The most recent entry on Jazmin’s page was dated April 2018, posted by someone named JeezyD: “R.I.P. Jazmin. We will never forget the good times.”
Drue grabbed an index card and jotted down the name. There were several more entries posted on the same date. “Gone, never forgotten.” “Heaven has a new angel.” “Prayers for your family.” She wrote down all the names of the friends who’d posted memorials.
She paused when she came to a photo showing Jazmin and a Hispanic-looking man holding hands and standing in front of a palm tree, with a swimming pool in the background. Could this be the new boyfriend Lutrisha had mentioned?
She shook her head in frustration, but kept scrolling through more posts and photos. There was Aliyah, dressed in a spangly blue and green mermaid costume, posed under a Christmas tree. Jazmin and Aliyah at Halloween, with the girl posed in the same mermaid costume, but this time with a flowing red wig, just like Ariel in the movie.
She paused again when she came to what was obviously a selfie of Jazmin and a friend. Someone had tagged the friend as Neesa Vincent. Score!
Drue tapped Neesa’s name to check her other social media posts, but Neesa had a private page. Undeterred, Drue typed out a direct message.
Hi. My name is Drue Campbell, and I am working to help your friend Jazmin’s mom get more information about her death. Please contact me.
She typed in her phone number and pressed Send.
The rain slowed but didn’t stop. Drue paced in front of the doors to the deck, anxious to be outside, doing something. Anything. She’d never been good at inactivity.
Antsy, Sherri would have called her. Drue opened the guest bedroom door. Her kiteboarding gear took up most of the space in the room. Between her kites, boards, control bar, lines, harness, spreader, bar boots and wet suits, the gear had easily cost her upward of $7,000. Money she’d earned waitressing in crappy beach bars or working in surf shops. She ran her hand over one of her favorite boards, the Slingshot Karenina. Just another dust catcher now, she thought.
Her phone rang and she was surprised to see that the caller was Yvonne Howington.
“Look here, Drue,” Yvonne started. “I was thinking about all those questions you were asking me about Jazmin’s friends, so I got out the box of cardspeople sent after her funeral. I’d forgotten how many there were. I guess I didn’t know just how many friends that girl had. And I found a little card signed by somebody called Jorge Morales. I’m thinking maybe that was the boy my Jazmin was going out with.”
“That’s great, Yvonne. I did talk to somebody who knew Jazmin from the hotel and they told me her boyfriend’s first name was Jorge, but they didn’t know his last name. That gives me something to go on.”
“Maybe so,” Yvonne said. “Also, Aliyah would like to speak to you.”
“Hello?” The little girl’s voice was so soft it was nearly inaudible.
“Hi, Aliyah,” Drue said.
“I really like my coloring book,” Aliyah said. “And the glitter markers.”
“You know, I thought maybe you were a fan of Ariel,” Drue said.
“Uh-huh. I’m gonna be a mermaid when I grow up,” she confided.
“I love that idea,” Drue said. “Do you like to swim when you go to the beach?”
“I don’t know how to swim,” Aliyah said. “Mama said Jorge would teach me, because he had a pool at his apartment, but I haven’t seen Jorge in a long time. And Grandmama is afraid of the water.”
“Tell you what, Aliyah,” Drue said. “Someday soon, I will take you to my friend’s pool at Sunset Beach, and I will teach you how to swim, so you can be a mermaid.”
“You promise?” the little girl asked.
“I promise,” Drue repeated.
She heard Yvonne’s voice in the background. “Don’t be bothering that lady with stuff like that now.”
Then Yvonne was on the phone again. “You’ll call me when you find something out, right?”
“I will. And I really would like to teach Aliyah how to swim.”
