Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(93)

At the hotel, the moment they walked into the lobby, Kendall spotted someone she recognized. The tall blond police officer, the woman who’d come to take Mommy away the day before, was sitting on a sofa facing the entrance. As soon as she saw them, she rose and hurried to meet them.

“Mrs. Puckett?”

“Yes,” Grandma said.

“I’m Detective Howell. Could I have a moment of your time?” Then, after glancing toward Kendall and Peter, she added, “In private, please.”

Grandma looked slightly flustered, but then she opened her purse and pulled out a fistful of quarters. “Do you remember where the vending machines are?” she asked.

“I do!” Peter crowed. “They’re down at the end of the hallway by the ice machine.”

“Why don’t you go get yourselves a treat while Detective Howell and I talk for a moment?”

Peter went skipping off without a care in the world. Kendall followed him, but she didn’t like it—not one bit. When grown-ups had to speak “in private” like that, it almost always meant something bad for kids. She didn’t know how bad, though, not right then. When Kendall and Peter returned from the vending machines a few minutes later with a bag of Doritos and a Snickers candy bar in hand, they found a pale and shaken Grandma sitting alone on the sofa. As soon as Kendall saw the expression on Grandma Puckett’s face, she knew that something awful had happened.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Grandma turned and looked at her—stared at her, really—but at the same time it felt weird, like she didn’t know who Kendall was and didn’t even recognize her face.

“It’s about your mother,” Grandma Puckett answered at last. “Two people were found dead this morning.” She paused again as tears filled her eyes. “They believe one of them is your mother.”





Chapter 48





As soon as Joanna hit the open road, she dialed Frank Montoya’s number. “What’s the news?” she asked.

“I sent my guys by to check on the Hogan place,” he said. “A vehicle registered to Randall J. Williams, a Jeep Cherokee, was parked in the driveway of the residence, but no one was home. A search of the place showed evidence of a knock-down, drag-out fight—broken bottles, broken furniture, and blood—lots of that, enough to assume that someone got hurt real bad.”

“Do you think Madison Hogan and Randy Williams are the two victims?”

“Yes,” Frank replied, “pending a positive ID.”

“And you believe they were kidnapped from her place and then taken to the Nite Owl, where they were finished off?”

“That’s a pretty good bet, but we’ll need to examine the physical evidence to know for sure. My CSIs are working the fire scene, so Casey Ledford is working the house.”

“Any witnesses?” Joanna asked.

“No actual eyewitnesses so far,” Frank answered. “In the course of the melee, a kitchen clock got knocked off a wall and broken. It stopped at 2:46, so that’s the time frame we’re guessing—just prior to three A.M. We’ve had people out canvassing the neighborhood.

“The lady next door, a Mrs. Walkup, told us that she’s deaf as a post. Once she takes out her hearing aids at night, she doesn’t hear a thing, but another neighbor, Lois Watson from up the street, has a security camera. We took a look at her overnight footage. It shows a vehicle with no headlights—an SUV of some kind—driving past her house in the direction of the Hogan place at two fifteen A.M. It departs the same way—again with no headlights—at three-oh-five, so the time frame fits. Naturally there’s no license plate visible, and the resolution is crap, so you can’t see any details other than the fact that the vehicle is an SUV.”

“No make or model.”

“Right,” Frank said, “but we’re on the lookout for security footage from other nearby locations that may tell us more.”

“Has Madison’s mother been notified?”

“Deb Howell handled that,” Frank said. “She inquired about dental records. Mrs. Puckett said she knows that Madison had her wisdom teeth pulled a year or so ago. She’s pretty sure it was a dentist here in town, but she doesn’t know which one. We have people out looking. If and when we find the unknown dentist and her records, we’ll get that information to Kendra immediately.

“Even without a positive ID, however, Mrs. Puckett said she would call Leon Hogan’s parents and suggest that they either postpone the funeral or cancel it altogether, which seems like a good idea as far as I’m concerned. My heart aches for those kids, though—to lose one parent is bad enough, but both of them almost simultaneously?”

“Where are they?” Joanna asked. “The kids and Mrs. Puckett, I mean.”

“At their hotel, as far as I know.”

“I’m on my way back from Tucson right now. I’ll drop by the Windemere and see them, unless you think there’s a reason for me to come by the crime scene.”

“No need,” he said. “It’s nothing but dirt and grit and ashes at this point. If you don’t have to be there, don’t go. But I didn’t realize you were in Tucson. What were you doing there?”

“It’s a long story,” Joanna said. “I had a front-row seat at an FBI takedown. Maybe we can talk about it at Ernie’s party.”