Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(60)
“Sponda,” Nick replied with a grin.
Nick, a junior at NAU, hailed from St. George, Utah, originally. His mother, Lorene, was a widow in her early sixties. His father, Marvin, a big-animal vet and once a prizewinning bull rider in his own right, had died of a heart ailment when Nick was a senior in high school. When Nick was offered a rodeo scholarship to NAU, the family jumped at the chance. And no matter where the competitions occurred, you could count on Lorene to be there in her camper with her two feisty Pekingese along to keep her company.
Lorene was not just a fan, she was the team’s volunteer den mother. The door to her RV was always open, and she always had a pot of stew or soup available for hungry team members in need of sustenance. The first time Jenny met Lorene had been over a plateful of spaghetti covered with mouth-watering meat sauce at the table in the RV’s tiny kitchen. In the course of the meal, Jenny and Lorene discovered a bit of common ground—they’d both been involved in Girl Scouts, Lorene as a troop leader and Jenny as a Scout.
By the time dinner ended, they were sitting at the table singing rousing versions of songs they’d learned at troop meetings and camp-outs—“Girl Scouts Together,” “My Hat, It Has Three Corners,” “White Coral Bells,” “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.” Much to their mutual surprise, they both loved the same round, which featured the lyric “Sarasponda, ret, set, set.” By the time Jenny and Lorene finished belting it out together, Nick loved it, too.
Between Nick and Jenny, one of the nonsense words from the song became a traditional greeting between them. It was like a secret handshake, a code none of the other team members had so far been able to decipher.
“Cold enough for you?” Nick asked.
“Better than it was,” Jenny said, slipping down to the ground. “I’m tired of being locked up inside, and so is Maggie.”
“How are finals going?” Nick asked.
“Almost over. One to go—sociology—and that isn’t until Friday.”
“Want to grab a burger on the way home?”
“Sure,” she said, “if you don’t mind waiting until I finish grooming and feeding Maggie.”
He didn’t mind. There was a café in Munds Park that was popular with the rodeo set, and that’s where they went for dinner. It was after dark by the time Jenny got back to Conover Hall. When she stepped into the room, she was surprised that the lights were off and no one was home. That was unlike Beth. She wasn’t someone who hung out with friends. If she wasn’t in class, she was usually in their room. Looking around, Jenny noticed that Beth’s purse was there, so she must not have gone far. Maybe she was just down the hall doing laundry.
Jenny showered and pulled on the pair of sweats she usually wore as pajamas. She settled down on her bed and stared at her class notes for sociology. No matter how hard she tried, nothing seemed to penetrate, because by now a niggle of worry was starting to form in her head. Time slowed to a crawl. Her eyes kept going from her notes to the clock on her bedside table, which was now showing 7:46. Still no Beth. She wouldn’t be doing laundry this long, so where was she? Since her purse was in the room, was it possible she was still in the dorm? Maybe she was really hanging out with friends, but did Beth Rankin have friends? Jenny didn’t know of any.
Jenny’s mind kept returning to how upset Beth had been over the weekend—upset but unwilling or else unable to talk about it. Was it a problem with the boyfriend, or was it part of the continuing problem with her mother? Jenny had no idea about that, either.
Picking up her phone, Jenny dialed Beth’s number. It rang several times before going to voice mail. “Beth here. I’m unable to take your call right now. Please leave a message.”
Jenny did so. “Hey, Beth, I’m back in the room. Where are you? Give me a call.”
Hanging up, Jenny looked around the room again. There was nothing out of the ordinary and there was no sign of any disturbance. Beth’s laptop sat on the desk where it belonged. Except for her down jacket and boots, her clothing all hung in the closet. Her makeup laid out on the counter in their shared bathroom was undisturbed.
Telling herself she was just being silly, Jenny finally gave up trying to study and turned on her small television set, more for the company than to actually watch anything. A cop show was just coming on. Jenny didn’t watch enough TV these days to know where it was set, what the storyline was, or even who was starring in it, but as the credits rolled, she found herself thinking about her mother.
Years ago her mother had mentioned the abbreviation JDLR—cop shorthand for “just doesn’t look right.”
“Whenever that happens,” Mom had told her daughter, “it’s time to pay attention to your instincts, because if something inside you is telling you something is wrong, maybe it is.”
And that’s what this is, too, Jenny thought. It just doesn’t look right. That’s when she remembered her last conversation with her mother. Mom had said that if Jenny was worried about what was going on with Beth, maybe it was time to reach out to the boyfriend in order to get to the bottom of it.
Over the course of the evening, Jenny had tried Beth’s number several times, always with the same result. Just after nine thirty, she tried again one last time while walking to Beth’s desk. Again there was no answer, and by now Jenny’s small tweak of worry had grown a lot more serious. Maybe something really was wrong. Initially her plan was to log on to Beth’s computer and locate Ron Cameron’s name in the contacts list. But then Jenny remembered something else.