I would hope the police have cell text/call information by now. I wonder how quickly they are able to obtain that kind of data in a situation like this?
Even knowing that she didn't make any other phone calls between that last text and now, would be worth knowing. If there is other texts/calls after that last text that we know of, that changes things drastically. It also potentially narrows down the window of time where something happened or reveal someone with potentially more information.
Also, I think the CI angle is not crazy. I can imagine if anyone was in a situation like that, they'd put thought into running away. It's obviously not something she could share with co-workers etc and I could also see it being something you wouldn't tell your parents. Would the police acknowledge this, if it was the case? Seems like it could be a rather important detail to consider.
It's all sketchy still. But I think my areas of focus right now would be :
text/phone call information
searching her residence for clues that might exclude/include potential scenarios
talking with boyfriend and monitoring his activity - I don't think it's unrealistic to check his cell/text phone information as well, just to be thorough.
I'd want to understand why she'd be meeting people at shady lady and talk specifically to whoever divulged that information as well as the people she was supposed to meet.
There's a certain bit of sketchiness between what people have said and what she was doing in terms of her known path. I am curious as to whether they can confirm via the gas store surveillance if she left alone?
Did she get gas? if so, how much? I do believe that she was possibly lying about the gas, but would be worthwhile to ask the cop that pulled her over if he looked at her gas gauge. It's a bit easier to verify her excuse via a gauge than waiting to see if she actually gets gas imo
I'm still not clear as to whether the police officer saw her leave.
I'm also going to throw this out there, although I think it's quite a longshot, but I do think there's at least reason to consider it. I was witness to a friend of mine who got pulled over all the time by a police officer. I was in the car when she got stopped once and I sensed awkwardness during the stop by the way both of them were talking about her speeding. I didn't even know if she was speeding as I don't pay attention to those kinds of things when someone else is driving. He let her off with a warning. She even said something like "Do you really need to see my registration??", which caught me off guard! I mentioned it to her after the stop and she said that he pulls her over often and that he's flirty. I got the impression that she was cool with the whole situation, but she'd never mentioned it before. I also got the feeling it wasn't something she was comfortable with me knowing about. She says she never got ticketed. I didn't pry at all beyond that. But that's the first thing that popped into my head when I heard about this case and the friend saying she got pulled over all the time.
He is factually at this point the last person to have seen her. I get the sense that maybe it not being divulged immediately might be due to it not being a "by the book" stop. Not very probable that there is a connection here, but I'd certainly be looking to exclude that this officer might know more than he's offered at this point. I can think of reasons why he might not divulge more about their conversation, because it would potentially lead to more questions.
Again... a real longshot there, but thought I'd at least mention it since that was something I thought of immediately from own personal experience. I think it's unlikely the officer was involved in any way, but if the stop was off the record UNTIL this case came into the limelight, I think you gotta ask some more questions. imo