Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(51)

“I certainly do.”

“Who was that on the phone?” Butch asked. “I heard it ringing while you were in the bathroom.”

“It was Casey,” Joanna answered. “The protective order tested positive for the presence of scopolamine.”

“Which means that Madison had doped Leon Hogan sometime prior to when bullets started flying.”

“Yes, it does.”

“What’s next, then?” Butch asked.

“Who knows?” Joanna replied. “For right now the ball is in Dave Newton’s court.”

She left the house right at seven thirty, and her phone rang before she made it out to High Lonesome Road. Jenny’s face showed in caller ID.

“Hey,” Joanna said. “I thought you had a final first thing this morning.”

“I do,” Jenny said. “I’m on my way there now, but I need some roommate advice.”

Instantly Joanna felt out of her league. She’d had two husbands but no roommates—ever. By the time she was Jenny’s age, she and Andy were married and already had a baby. When it came to roommate issues, Joanna Brady knew absolutely nothing.

“About what?” she asked.

“About Beth,” Jenny answered. “I wanted to talk to you about this last night, but with Dad on the phone I just couldn’t.”

“Talk about what?” Joanna asked.

“Beth was still asleep when I left the dorm this morning, but she spent most of the weekend crying her eyes out. I’m pretty sure she’s never had a boyfriend before, and losing this one is real hard on her. I’ve tried to get her to talk to me about it, but she won’t. She just says that it’s hopeless—that her life is over and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. I don’t know how to help her, Mom. I’m afraid she’s going to go off the deep end.”

Joanna heard an unfamiliar note of panic in her daughter’s voice. “When you say ‘off the deep end,’ are you saying you’re afraid she might harm herself?”

Jenny hesitated for a moment before she replied. “I am, actually,” she admitted.

“Doesn’t NAU have counselors on staff?”

“They do,” Jenny answered. “I already suggested she look into seeing one, but Beth said no way was she going to talk to one of them ‘over this.’ Those were her exact words. That’s what she said: quote/unquote, ‘over this.’”

“So does ‘over this’ mean something other than boyfriend troubles?” Joanna asked. “If she meant her boyfriend . . . What’s his name again?”

“Ron—Ronald Cameron.”

“Right, of Washington, D.C. So if it’s all about Ron, wouldn’t she have said ‘over him’?”

“Beats me,” Jenny said gloomily. “I have no idea if the breakup is his idea or hers, but what I do know for sure is that Beth’s taking it really, really hard.”

“How long were they together?” Joanna asked.

“Not that long, since shortly after school started last fall,” Jenny said. “They’ve never actually met in person, but they talk back and forth almost every day. I think Beth truly loves the guy. At least she thinks she does.”

That was something Joanna couldn’t quite understand. How could you possibly fall in love with somebody you’d never met in person? But then she thought about Sage and Denny and Jenny herself. She had loved them long before meeting them in person as living, breathing human beings. And that set of thoughts kept Joanna from saying the first thing that came to mind. She said the second thing instead.

“Maybe you should call him,” she said. “If they’ve been in constant contact for this long, even if they’re splitting up, chances are he still cares enough about her that he wouldn’t want something bad to happen to her.”

Like suicide. That was Joanna’s chilling interior thought, one she didn’t mention aloud to her daughter.

“All right, Mom,” Jenny said. “Thanks. I’m here now. I’ve got to go in. Wish me luck.”





Chapter 21





By the time Joanna arrived at the department, Casey Ledford was already sitting in the lobby just outside Joanna’s office, chatting with Kristin.

“What’s up?” Joanna asked.

Casey passed her an array of colored photos, the previously mentioned crime scene photos. There were five of them in all, arranged in a fan like a hand of cards.

“Take a look,” Casey said.

Joanna did as she was told. The first picture was of a coffee table. An indecipherable piece of paper lay in the middle of the table, with a pool of liquid spilling across it. Some of the dark liquid remained on the table itself, but most of it had soaked into the paperwork, creating a large brown stain. To the left of the puddle, a coffee cup lay on its side, with its handle pointing away from the spill. At the far end of the coffee table was another tipped-over cup and another puddle of spilled coffee. Yes, this cup, too, lay on its side, but with the handle right at the edge of the table, so indications were that whoever had been sitting on the sofa and using that cup had most likely been right-handed.

The next enlargement focused on the coffee-stained paper itself, with the camera lens close enough that the words on the document, including those obscured by the coffee, were still legible. Leon and Madison Hogan’s names were both front and center.