Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(66)

On the computer’s screen side, there were two pulsing lights—a green one that didn’t move and a red one that did, with the moving one gradually closing the distance between the two. No wonder Betsy had gone quiet. Obviously, she’d somehow lost her phone during the course of the day and was now using her computer to locate it.

Then, after close to half an hour of steady movement, it stopped, with the red dot almost on top of the green one. As the computer was placed on the ground, the face of the person carrying it appeared on the screen for only the briefest of moments. That one glimpse sent a shock wave through Gerard Paine’s body as he realized that the person who’d been carrying and operating Betsy’s computer wasn’t her at all. It was someone else entirely—Betsy’s roommate, Jennifer Brady.

For the next several minutes, Gerard waited and watched in stunned silence. Then another alarm sounded behind him as Betsy’s phone came to life. Turning to that monitor, he saw droplets of water lingering on the face of the phone, as though the device had been left out in the rain—or maybe in the snow. And once again it was that other face, Jennifer Ann Brady’s, peering back at him.

Gerard watched with some concern as Jennifer manipulated the phone. First she searched through the letter C in Betsy’s contacts list. Gerard had no doubt that she was searching for the name Ron Cameron. When she came up crickets on that, she began scrolling though Betsy’s phone history as well. And then, suddenly, the phone went dark—totally and completely dark—and it didn’t come back on. Moments after that the computer switched off as well.

For the first time since he’d been doing this, Gerard Paine was concerned. He didn’t know where Beth was, but Jennifer Ann Brady, the interfering daughter of a small-town sheriff from Hicksville, Arizona, was now nosing around in his business. Gerard was sure it was due to Jennifer’s unwanted influence that Betsy from Pike had rebelled. He’d been close to done with Betsy, but he was sure she would have been good for at least a few more provocative photos. He had invested a lot of time and effort in bringing her along, and those missing photos would make for a dip in Gerard’s bottom line. It was a loss that Jennifer Brady was destined to pay for, one way or the other.

But first he turned his attention to wreaking a bit of revenge on Betsy herself. Maybe she thought that by simply ignoring him she’d be immune, but that wasn’t true. He knew all about her prudish parents. She’d spent hours on the phone bewailing her relationship with both of them, especially her mother. With a certain amount of glee, Gerard set about sending Kenneth and Madeline Rankin a care package. He’d been surprised to find no listing for Betsy’s parents in her contacts list, and there was nothing in her e-mail or texting history to indicate they had any online presence. As a result there was no way to gift them with a digital copy of their daughter’s nude photo album. That meant he would be forced to send them hard copies of the photos by snail mail.

He used latex gloves to put together an envelope containing glossy eight-by-ten copies of their daughter’s degrading see-all poses as well as a printed note that said, “Please enjoy your daughter’s first photo shoot. I think she has quite a career ahead of her.” Next Gerard set to work locating a physical address for Kenneth and Madeline Rankin, and that took time. Once he’d done so and addressed the envelope, he applied self-adhering stamps, making sure they weren’t enough to cover the cost of postage. That was his finishing touch. With no return address given, Betsy’s parents would be forced to visit the post office and cough up cash to cover postage due. Not only was he sending the Rankin family an emotional time bomb, they would have to fork out extra money for the privilege of seeing it. That struck him as an appropriate way to add insult to the injury. Gerard had no doubt Madeline and Kenneth’s world would be shattered. The only thing that bothered him was that there was no way he’d be able to witness it.

After dropping the letter in a drive-up collection box, Gerard returned home to do a deep dive into the life and times of Jennifer Ann Brady. He used information gleaned from Betsy’s computer to locate some of the basics—like Jenny’s home address on High Lonesome Road near Bisbee, for example. His clone of Betsy’s computer gave him ready access to Jennifer’s Facebook postings, which turned out to be a revelation. In addition to her mother, the cop, the girl had a stepfather named Butch Dixon. She had both a younger brother and a younger sister. She was a star member of NAU’s rodeo team. Her prizewinning barrel-racing horse was named Maggie. Her best pal on the rodeo team was a guy named Nick Saunders. The two of them often volunteered their time with a horse-therapy program for special-needs kids at the Lazy 8, the ranch where they both boarded their horses and where they put in lots of practice time. Bingo! Knowing about Jenny’s home away from home was just what the doctor ordered.

Gerard’s use of the dark web allowed him to be in touch with a network of equally dark people—the kinds of folks who’d do almost anything for a price, including a murder-for-hire guy in Vegas who was willing to undertake the task of removing Jennifer Ann Brady from the planet. The death of the daughter of a small-town sheriff would likely cause quite a stir, but Gerard had absolute faith in technology and in the identity-shielding software and hardware he’d purchased at great expense. Jenny would get what she deserved, while at the same time Gerard would deal a death blow to Beth Rankin’s very soul, and that was all to the good.