Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(30)

For some time now, Jenny had wondered about the inordinate amount of time Beth spent in the bathroom. Conover Hall was supposedly a nonsmoking facility, which should have included being a nonvaping building as well. But if that’s what Beth was doing, wouldn’t there at least have been a hint of smoke or flavor of some kind left behind? As far as Jenny could tell, there was none.

When the two girls met, back at the beginning of the school year, Jenny had taken the younger girl to be astonishingly innocent and na?ve, and maybe she was. But in her bed that night, Jenny had wondered about that for the first time. What if Beth Rankin was really a capable liar? What if the stories she’d told about her unreasonable and domineering mother weren’t true? What if the difficulties Beth claimed to have with her parents were actually her fault rather than theirs? And what if the person Jenny had just invited to come home with her for Christmas wasn’t at all who Jenny thought she was?

She’d lain awake in bed worrying about that. Then she slept through her alarm. She’d come within minutes of being late for her test. She was sure that at least some of the answers she’d given were wrong, but she didn’t have the heart to look them up. Thankfully, this was the only final she had today. If she’d had to face another, she might just have given up altogether.

She went back to the dorm. She took an Aleve and lay on her bed, nursing her headache right along with her wounded pride. When the headache finally let up a little, Jenny stacked some pillows behind her, sat up, and reached for her iPad.

She had been nine going on ten when her father died. She didn’t remember that much about it, but of course she’d known that he was a deputy sheriff at the time he was murdered. Jenny didn’t remember any specific conversations, but she suspected that first her father and later her mother had both understated the life-or-death risks that went along with being in law enforcement.

Yet gradually Jenny had figured it out all the same. She didn’t really remember much about her father’s funeral, but when one of her mother’s deputies had been gunned down, it was almost as though the whole town had come to a complete stop. And seeing her mother standing next to a black-clad but very pregnant Sunny Sloan at her husband’s funeral was an image that was now engraved on Jenny’s heart.

And then there was Jeremy Stock, one of her mother’s own deputies, who had lost his marbles and very nearly killed his boss. The remembered terror of that night—of not knowing whether her mother would live or die—had made the dangers all too real.Jenny had also come to understand that politics and public relations had a lot to do with what was going on in her mother’s life. As a result, even when she was away at school, she tried to keep up with what was going on in her hometown, because more often than not something about her mother’s department would be mentioned in the news.

The day before, Jenny had been focused on studying, so it wasn’t until Friday afternoon that she found out about what had happened to Deputy Ruiz. She immediately dialed her mother’s number.

“I just now saw Marliss Shackleford’s article,” Jenny said when her mother answered. “Is Deputy Ruiz going to be all right?”

“He seems to be recovering,” her mother said after a pause. “That was the word I had earlier this morning, but I haven’t been in touch this afternoon. I should probably give Amy a call once we’re off the phone. I was going to go up today, but we decided it was Tom Hadlock’s turn to represent the department. I need to get home and finish working on the Christmas cards, although I have to say that seems incredibly unimportant right now.

“How are things with you?”

Jenny sighed. “I had my organic chemistry final today, and I may have blown it.”

“I doubt that,” her mother said. “When it comes to taking tests, you’re right up there with the best of them.”

Jenny didn’t want to go into any detail about how Beth Rankin had upset her test-taking applecart that day. Instead she changed the subject.

“Marliss Shackleford’s article said that the incident is being investigated by the Department of Public Safety. How come?”

“Because that’s the way officer-involved shootings work,” Joanna explained. “The idea is that if we investigated our own people and encountered wrongdoing on their part, we might be tempted to cover it up.”

“But it sounded like Deputy Ruiz was firing back at someone who was already shooting at him. How could that be anything other than self-defense?”

Joanna laughed. “Good question,” she said. “Maybe you should consider going to law school instead of veterinary school.”

“How’s Dad doing?”

“He’s in Tucson right now with appearances there both tonight and tomorrow. He should be home on Saturday. I can hardly wait. Single motherhood isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I know I did it with you for a while, but you were older. With two little kids? Take it from me, two kids need two parents. But enough about us. When’s your next final?”

“Tomorrow afternoon at one. It’s for a psych class. That one shouldn’t be nearly as tough as the one I took this morning. I’ll go over my class notes, but I should be fine.”

“What about Maggie?” Joanna asked. “Are you going to be bringing her home when you come?”

“No,” Jenny said. “Nick is staying here over the holidays. He’ll look after her. Even with four-wheel drive, dragging her around in a horse trailer when there’s a chance of ice and snow on the road seems like a bad idea.”