Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(56)
Hey, there, Sweet Betsy from Pike. Thank you for the guided tour. I never knew you were such a hot mama. Care to go out sometime?
Horrified, Beth stood stock-still, as if frozen to the ground, unable to comprehend the words she’d just read. How could Conrad possibly know to call her Sweet Betsy from Pike? And he had seen her “guided tour”? That could only mean that Ron had sent Conrad the photos—the ones that showed her naked body. Feeling as though the phone were suddenly on fire, she pitched it into the nearest snowbank.
The depths of Ron’s betrayal momentarily robbed Beth of the ability to breathe, leaving her close to fainting dead away. As she stood there swaying, an older gentleman, probably a professor of some kind, must have noticed her distress.
“Excuse me, my dear,” he said, approaching her with concern written on his face. “Are you all right? Do you need help?”
Beth shrank away from him with a look of abject terror on her face, as if he were reaching out to drag her into some dark abyss, as though he, too, a complete stranger, had somehow seen her naked.
She turned and raced up the sidewalk and back to Conover Hall, with tears streaming down her cheeks and with her heart hammering in her chest. It was all she could do to make the key work in order to enter the room. Thank God, it was empty. Jenny wasn’t there.
Beth threw herself facedown on the bed and lay there sobbing. Gradually the sobs subsided as the terrible truth dawned. She had defied Ron, and he’d struck back, humiliating her in public in a way that robbed her of every shred of dignity.
How did Ron know Conrad Milton? Were they friends or acquaintances somehow? And how did Ron know that Beth and Conrad were connected? And then she figured it out. It was because of her phone and the contacts list in her phone. Ron was a cybersecurity expert. Somehow he must have gained access to her phone and to the information inside it. So had he sent copies of the video to everyone in her contacts list? To Jenny, even?
And if that were the case, how would Beth ever be able to look anyone she knew in the face without wondering if they’d seen the pictures, too?
For the first time in her life—for the first time ever—Beth Rankin wanted to die. She lay in bed for a long time after her tears finally abated, but she knew she couldn’t stay there. She didn’t want to be in the room when Jenny came back. She didn’t want to face her. She didn’t want to face anyone.
At last Beth stood up. She hadn’t bothered removing either her jacket or her boots when she came in. She simply got off the bed and left. She took nothing with her, not even her purse. Like a wounded animal, she simply fled—first out of the room and then out of the dorm. She had no idea where she was going or what she would do when she got there. She simply knew she was leaving and she wasn’t coming back.
Chapter 24
Jorge Moreno called Joanna before she made it as far as the Tucson city limits. “I’ve just spoken to Lyn Hogan,” he said after introducing himself. “He tells me you’d like to speak to me and that you’re coming to Tucson today.”
“I am,” she answered. “I need to pay a visit to one of my deputies at Banner Medical first, but I could drop by after that if it would be convenient.”
“About two?” Jorge asked. “My office is on Broadway, in a low-rise between Alvernon and Swan.” He gave her an address.
“Two it is,” Joanna said. “See you then.”
When Joanna arrived at Armando’s room, the place was still awash in flowers, but the mood was decidedly less somber than it had been the last time she was there. Armando was actually eating lunch when she came in, and Amy, looking decidedly less stressed, greeted Joanna with a smile.
“You’re looking a lot more chipper than you did on Saturday,” Joanna said to Armando.
He nodded. “This is the first time they’ve given me actual food,” he said. “Chicken noodle soup and red Jell-O may not sound especially appetizing to most people, but it feels like a feast to me.”
“Still no signs of an infection,” Amy put in. “The doctors said that if he stays clear, he may be able to go home early next week.”
Joanna understood that taking Armando home with a colostomy bag would be a challenging issue for everyone concerned, but the fact that he would be going home at all helped make the complexities fade into the background.
“I have some more good news for you,” Joanna announced. “The DPS investigation has concluded. Based on their recommendations, Arlee Jones has declared that you fired in self-defense. That means the shooting is justifiable and you’re in the clear.”
“I may be in the clear, but Leon Hogan is still dead,” Armando said bleakly. “And he’s dead by my hand.”
Joanna understood that, too. She also realized that the guilt of having taken another person’s life was something that would stay with Armando Ruiz for the remainder of his days on earth. She hoped what she said next might lighten that burden, but it wouldn’t erase it—nothing would.
“You may have pulled the trigger, but it’s not your fault,” Joanna said. She went on to explain the M.E.’s findings and the presumption that at the time of the shooting, Leon had been operating under the influence of scopolamine.
“I thought he was drunk out of his mind,” Armando said when she finished.