Detective On The Hunt

“I babysat her one summer. I had graduated from college, and her mother was busy, and I had some time on my hands before the academy started. She was spoiled, of course, but not rotten. She just expected things to go her way because they always had. It never really occurred to her that they wouldn’t until her parents…”

Quint watched as JJ’s mouth thinned, her affect darkened. “How did they die?”

She bit her lower lip, full and soft peach in color, then blew out her breath. “They were murdered five years ago. Home invasion. I had stopped by my parents’ house a few blocks away, so I was the first officer on the scene. Their bodies were found by the housekeeper, but Maura came in a few minutes after I got there and saw…everything.”

The twinge of sympathy Quint felt surprised him. He’d always been empathetic—most cops were—but the only person he’d felt sorry for in the last year and a half had been himself. Maura had been twenty at the time. How deeply had that sight scarred her? If she hadn’t been strong before, that experience certainly wouldn’t make her any stronger. So she’d coped by running away, by living fast and partying hard and trying her damnedest to forget the memories. By drinking and using drugs and having meaningless sex.

But sympathy didn’t mean he wanted any contact with her again. It didn’t mean he particularly cared what state her life was in. He just didn’t have it in him to care right now.

He shoved back the discomfort that admission caused and refocused his attention on JJ. “So, you’re going to go talk to her, make sure she’s okay and go home.” He said it as a statement because that was what he wanted to happen. Like he’d thought earlier, he didn’t want upset in his life. It was routine that got him through the days—and quiet desperation that carried him through the nights—and like a cranky old dog, he needed to stick to that routine as much as possible.

“Actually, I’m going to look around first. Talk to your dispatcher and your officer, maybe visit her neighbors, her landlord.” Her lips thinned again, but thoughtfully this time. “As I said, she’s very wealthy. Her godfather is executor of her parents’ estate. About ten million went to their favorite charities, but Maura got the rest. I don’t know how many zeroes are tacked onto her net worth, but she gets an allowance of $100,000 a month, which she never completely spent until she came here. She’s young, rich, grieving, vulnerable.”

Quint ignored the statement that she was going to stay around longer than necessary—he wouldn’t have to deal with her—and laced his fingers together. “So her godfather is concerned because this spoiled rich kid is spending more money than usual?”

“No, not just that. For all her flaws, Maura was very close to her parents. She left town after they died and traveled constantly until she came here, but no matter where she was, she remembered every holiday—their birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day—with deliveries of extravagant flowers. Even when she was trekking in Nepal and on a tourist expedition to the South Pole, she sent the flowers. But she missed both their birthdays last month.”

“Maybe she’s coping better now. Maybe she realizes flowers don’t change anything.” They made the grave site prettier, let people know that the person who occupied that grave had someone who loved them in death as much as they had in life. But they didn’t ease the pain. They didn’t make life any easier. They didn’t help you survive another day or another week. They were a gesture, but a pretty meaningless one from his experience.

“It was important to her,” JJ disagreed. “Also, in the last three months, she’s only gotten in touch with Mr. Winchester, her godfather, twice by text. The first time, she demanded more cash, and the second, she threatened to sue him for control of the money. Mr. Winchester and his wife are also important to her. They’re her second parents. It’s out of character for her.”

Quint wasn’t convinced anything was out of character for someone like Maura. Pretty, entitled, spent her money freely, shared herself freely… Unpredictable seemed the best word to describe her. Hell, she’d gone from South Carolina to the South Pole to Small Town, Oklahoma, where her name meant nothing. Out of character seemed to be the only constant in her character.

But it wasn’t his problem.

That was the best part of the situation. Once he left the station, he was out of it.

Chapter 2 (#u3993855a-04ae-533e-b526-12a192447bc8)

JJ rose from her chair when Sam escorted two women into the conference room. She’d noticed both women when she and Quint had arrived and had presumed Sam got busy on the way back or Lois had gone back on patrol and he’d had to wait until she returned. The women greeted her with friendly smiles and very curious gazes. Oh yeah, they were just like Carla and Patrick at home. In seconds, they’d summed her up, cataloging her from head to toe as efficiently as any machine.

After shaking hands, she sat down again and told them why she was in town, watching their faces when she named Maura. Recognition lit both pairs of eyes.

“Wild child,” Lois said immediately. She was the officer, the older of the two, compact and competent, her short hair colored a blast of fresh blue that suited her perfectly. “Lot of money, lot of parties, lot of spending. Drives a flashy little red convertible that I would look so good in—” she preened accordingly “—and thinks speed limits and red lights are more suggestions than actual laws.”

Morwenna, the dispatcher, was young enough to be Lois’s daughter, pretty, soft, her clothing bright and mismatched enough to present a danger to everyone’s vision. A faint hint of an accent came and went from her voice as she agreed. “I don’t think she’s a bad person. She’s just spoiled. But she’s very generous, too. We’ve run into her and her friend a couple times in Tulsa, and she paid for everyone’s drinks all night long, then took us to a late dinner—er, early breakfast when we were done. And her parties are always popular. I went once—too loud and too much booze and—” she glanced at Sam “—and, uh, weed for me. And the police show up at least every other time, and I didn’t want a lecture from you, Sam, for being at a party where the cops were called.”

Nothing new there, JJ thought. The cops at home had often gotten called to Maura’s parties. She’d held them at other kids’ houses because the Evans family home would have shaken on its foundations at such goings-on. She’d invited a few friends, who invited a few friends and so on, until two or three hundred people from all over that part of the state showed up. The liquor had flowed freely, the pot had perfumed the air and who knew what else the kids had been doing?

“You mentioned a friend,” JJ said to Morwenna. “Man or woman? Do you remember a name?”

The dispatcher propped her foot on the seat of her chair, wrapping her arms around one leg covered in Easter-patterned tights. The yellow chickies, white bunnies and pastel eggs were cute, but the lime-green shirt over a fiery-red tank… It would give Chadwick apoplexy if one of his dispatchers showed up dressed that way.

JJ liked the outfit for that reason alone.

“It was a girl, but her name was a guy’s name.” Morwenna pressed her lips together and quirked her mouth to one side while tugging on her ponytail. “Mick, Mike…no, Mel. The last name was common. Smith, Jones, something like that.”

Lovely. There was nothing so tedious as searching for someone with a common surname. It was one of Chief Dipstick’s favorite jobs for JJ. “Is Mel a local girl?”

“Not Cedar Creek. We thought she was a cousin or something. Blond hair, blue eyes, cute little nose—” Morwenna tapped her own less-than-little nose “—little Cupid’s bow mouth. Same attitude, same entitlement.”

“There was definitely a resemblance,” Lois said.

“They were really tight for a while. Mel was at her house all the time. She practically lived there. Maybe she did live there, at least for a while.”

That made sense. Maura had never been a quiet, rely-on-herself sort of person. She needed companionship and entertainment. All that traveling… JJ had thought she was getting acquainted with herself, plumbing depths that no one knew she had, but maybe not.

“What happened to Mel?” Sam asked.

“Maura said she went home. She was getting bored with Cedar Creek. She never mentioned where home was for either of them.”

“When was that?”

Morwenna shrugged, her vibrant image blurring in JJ’s gaze. “Three or four months ago. I’m not sure. We aren’t really friends. We just hung out a few times.”

JJ made a mental note to ask Mr. Winchester if there was an Evans relative named Mel—Melody, Melinda, Melanie. As far as she knew, the Evanses had no close relatives. Neither of Maura’s parents had had any siblings, and she’d been an only child herself. But in a lot of Southern families, the Logans included, a cousin was a cousin, no matter how many times removed.

Sam handed out notepads and pens from the battered desk and asked everyone to make a list of Maura’s associates. While the women started writing, Quint declined. “She was alone when I stopped her, and I didn’t know anyone at the party.” He shrugged. “I’m more likely to recognize those kids’ parents than them.”

JJ’s gaze settled on the stone in her ring. It was a Mexican fire opal, orange-red, her birthstone. It was a lucky stone, her mother had told her, symbolic of hope and innocence, a god’s tears turned to stone and colored with the fire of lightning. JJ wasn’t sure about any of that, but touching it did help her think better.

One of Mr. Winchester’s concerns that she hadn’t brought up earlier was the possibility that Maura was being influenced by someone. Con artists were always on the lookout for easy targets, and between her sorrow, her dependence and her immaturity, she would be one of the easiest. The payoff for the crook could be in the tens of millions of dollars. Was that Mel’s role in her life? Manipulating all that lovely money into her own greedy hands?

Or maybe she really was a relative. Or a friend. Maybe more than a friend. Mel had left Cedar Creek about the time of the change in Maura’s behavior. A broken heart could certainly explain a lot, especially with a twenty-five-year-old who’d already lost so much.

But shouldn’t that have strengthened the tie to her godfather? Would she actually threaten the only person left in her life because her girlfriend had left her?

Maybe. If she was distraught enough. If she’d thought he was too conventional to understand.

The women finished their lists at the same time and passed them to her. Morwenna’s, written with loops and swirls, was longer, while Lois’s, in graceful old-school cursive, was more detailed. JJ thanked them as they stood and, after a moment’s chitchat, left the room.

Sam slid a piece of paper down the table toward her. “She owns the house Maura’s renting. Quint will go with you.”

Annoyance flickered across Quint’s face, and for an instant, JJ was half insulted on two fronts. She had conducted hundreds of interviews all by herself and didn’t need help with this one. And Quint should have realized by now that she was fun. Smart. Could carry a conversation all by herself. She was an easy companion. And adorable.

And he was cranky. Not a people person. Not thrilled with the idea of giving up a good part of his day to babysit the out-of-town cop when he had better things to do. She totally got that. She had lots of better things to do than make sure Maura was coping. With all that money, Maura could buy everything she needed: someone to pamper her, take care of her, entertain her, have sex with her, clean up after her. She could even buy someone to love her.

She and Mr. Winchester had managed to temporarily buy JJ herself, though against her will.

“I don’t really need an escort,” she said, standing to her full height, unimpressive as it was with men who both topped six feet.

Sam’s smile was part genuine, part sly. “I promised your chief we’d do all we could to help out.”

She was considering baring her teeth at him when he went on.

“Besides, Mrs. Madison doesn’t take kindly to many cops. Quint happens to be one of the exceptions. She’ll be more likely to talk to you if he’s with you.”

So instead, she bared her teeth at Quint, disguising it as a smile. “Then I appreciate the offer. And I thank you for your time, Sam.”