ELEVEN
Fatigue was setting in by the time Jessie arrived at the building on Nineteenth Street where she rented a two-hundred-square-foot space for $400 a month. It was the smallest office in the building, but the only one that had a window facing the street. The best part was that it was only a block and a half away from where she lived.
She blew at a light coating of dust on the stainless steel sign on the door that read: JESSIE COLE DETECTIVE AGENCY. She unlocked the door and stepped inside. The first thing she’d done after finding the place was paint the walls light gray and install white crown molding, making it look up-to-date and professional. Her desk, a sturdy piece of wood with four steel legs, faced the door. The window overlooking the street was to her right and provided a lot of natural light. A row of filing cabinets against the wall took up most of the space. The nicest piece of furniture was her client chair. She’d found it on a street corner with a sign that said, TAKE ME. So she had. It was a polyester blend fabric with no stains and only one small tear underneath the seat cover that nobody could see unless they turned the chair upside down.
She had a vent in her office but no thermostat to control the airflow. Although it was hotter than hell outside, it was freezing inside. She grabbed a sweater from the hook behind the door, then settled into her mesh swivel chair behind her desk, pulled out her cell phone, and went through her messages.
Before the unfortunate event in the park, business had been picking up. Although her clients varied, including the occasional husbands or wives who paid her to keep a close eye on their spouses, she preferred to focus on cold cases and missing persons. Jessie had started her PI business serving subpoenas and doing subcontracting work for companies that wanted proof that an employee wasn’t injured and shouldn’t be collecting workman’s compensation. Ever since she’d located fifteen-year-old Tonya Grimm, though, a girl who had been missing for two weeks, hiding out at a friend’s house to avoid her parents’ constant bickering, the public tended to think finding people was her expertise.
The first message on her phone was from an angry woman who called Jessie a killer. Her stomach tightened. She thought of the man lying in the hospital and wondered if she deserved this woman’s ire. She’d done everything by the book. She’d pulled out her weapon to defend herself and others. She had a license to carry, and she never worked a case thinking she’d have to do anyone harm. She hit “Delete.” The second message was also from a woman, but she’d called to congratulate Jessie for taking down one more douchebag in the world. Jessie sighed. The last three callers were interested in hiring her to do investigative work.
By the time she’d returned calls, answered new ones, paid bills, and sent out invoices for services rendered, she had a couple of potential new clients. She looked at the clock, surprised that it was already four. She wanted to talk to Parker Koontz’s partner, David Roche, but she decided to put that off until tomorrow. As she readied to leave, her cell rang. She picked up the call as she headed out the door.
“Is this Jessie Cole?”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Ben Morrison, crime reporter with the Sacramento Tribune. I was hoping you had some time to talk.”
She’d known the press would call sooner or later. Parker Koontz was well known, an established lawyer in the area. If she ignored the press, they usually became more determined. Better to deal with it now and get it over with. “I have a few minutes right now.”
“I’d prefer to meet in person. Would tomorrow work?”
Jessie sighed. “Does this have to do with Parker Koontz?”
“I’m calling about your sister, Sophie.”
He had her attention. She walked back into her office and took a seat.
“I happened to watch an old episode of Cold Case TV the other night when they aired your story,” he told her. “At the end of the show, they mentioned that there have been few leads and that Sophie has yet to be found.”
“That’s correct.”
“I’m calling because I’m interested in doing a story about you and your family. I would also like to conduct my own investigation on your sister’s disappearance.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Well, you were born and raised here in Sacramento. Our readers enjoy hearing about locals. And the public is also fascinated with cold cases.”
“I see.”
She was about to turn down his offer when he said, “There’s also a possibility that I knew your sister.”
A chill raced up her spine.
If he’d known Sophie, his name would have come up at some point in the past decade, wouldn’t it? After her sister had disappeared, she’d done everything possible to get the media involved, but there was always something more interesting going on in the world, and the police received hardly any tips. Since Jessie had been taking care of Olivia during the day and working nights, she didn’t know who Sophie hung out with other than a woman named Juliette. And Juliette had told her that Sophie was a loner and had few friends.
She still didn’t know the identity of Olivia’s father. There were only two men Jessie had talked to in the past ten years who admitted to having spent time with Sophie. One of those men told Jessie outright that her sister liked sex, plain and simple. He said she would hang out at one bar or another, looking for someone to show her a good time. And it never took her long to find what she was looking for. The other guy she’d talked to hinted at the same thing. Both fellows agreed to take a lie-detector test and have blood drawn. Neither ended up being Olivia’s father, and both were telling the truth about not having seen Sophie in the weeks leading up to her disappearance.
“Are you there?” Ben asked.
His voice gave her a jolt. “I’m here.” Her mind swirled with speculation. “Can you tell me where you met my sister?”
“It’s complicated.”
If he knew anything at all about Sophie, then she needed to meet with him.
Jessie looked at her calendar. “How about tomorrow at ten o’clock in my office?” She gave him the address.
“I’ll see you then.”
She hung up the phone and turned on her computer. She typed his name into the search bar and hit “Return.” The name Ben Morrison popped up in a long list of search items.
She clicked on the first link.
Just like he’d told her, he worked for the Sacramento Tribune. His bio talked about him being a family man who’d been married for nine and a half years. He and his wife had two children—a boy and a girl. Apparently he’d been in a horrific car accident near Blue Canyon, past Colfax.
Wow, Jessie thought. Six months after his accident, he married the nurse he’d met at the hospital where he’d been recovering. Interesting.
She read on. He’d escaped the burning vehicle but suffered severe head trauma along with third-degree burns on more than half of his body. He was eventually diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, which prevented him from accessing memories prior to the crash. But he’d said he might have known Sophie. Did that mean his memories were returning?
She clicked on images of Ben Morrison.
He was a big man, broad-shouldered and tall, at least three inches over the six-foot mark. He had a square jaw and hooded eyes. He would be hard to miss in a crowd and easy to recognize tomorrow when he came to visit. Something about him, though, gave her goose bumps. Maybe it was the hawkish stare or the fact that he wasn’t smiling in any of the pictures. Whatever it was, she told herself she would have to be cautious.
Did she really want a stranger’s help?
Yes, she wanted answers. Yes, she wanted to know where her sister was. But the idea of having her family’s story dragged through the mud and left wide-open for public scrutiny when Olivia was starting high school didn’t sit well with her.
Damn. She never should have agreed to meet with the man.
She thought about calling him back, then changed her mind. If Ben Morrison knew anything about her sister’s disappearance—anything at all—then she needed to know what it was. Not a day went by that she didn’t wonder whether her sister was dead or alive.