by Lisa Gardner
I shot Ree a dry look, because we’d never gone on family vacation, so how would she know it was such a good thing?
Jason wasn’t looking at our daughter, however. He was regarding me, his expression contemplative, waiting. He was up to something.
“Where would we go?” I asked lightly, returning to the frying pan.
“Boston.”
“We live in Boston.”
“I know. I thought we’d start small. I got us a hotel room downtown. A swimming pool, atrium, all sorts of fun stuff. We can be tourists in our own town for a few days.”
“You already booked it? Chose a hotel and everything?”
He nodded, still staring at me. “I thought we could use some time together,” he said, his face inscrutable. “I thought it would be good for us.”
I poured in the Hamburger Helper seasoning packet. A family vacation. What could I say?
I gave Wayne the news by e-mail. He didn’t reply for two days. When he did, he wrote one line: Do you think it’s safe?
That jarred me. Why wouldn’t I be safe with Jason? Then I remembered the photo again, and the research I was supposed to be doing with the family computer, except I’d gotten so caught up in flirting with Ethan’s uncle, I’d forgotten Wayne was supposed to be offering me expertise instead.
We have a four-year-old chaperone, I wrote back at last. What could go wrong?
But I could tell Wayne didn’t approve, because the text messages dropped off. He was jealous, I realized, and was naive enough to be flattered.
Sunday night, I sent him a cell phone photo of Ree, dressed in a hot pink bathing suit with a purple snorkel, blue face mask, and two oversized blue flippers. Chaperone prepares for duty, I wrote, and included a second photo of Ree’s suitcase overflowing with the approximately five hundred things she believed she needed for a four-night hotel stay.
Wayne didn’t write back. So I cleared the inboxes of my cell phone, purged my AOL account, and prepared for four days of family vacation.
My husband will never hurt me, I thought I guess right up until that moment, I didn’t realize how much both of us were living a lie.
| CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO |
D.D. was on a roll. She could feel it. First the conversation with Wayne Reynolds, then the interview with Maxwell Black. The investigation was coming together, key pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place.
The moment they were done talking to Sandy’s father, D.D. had blasted Jason Jones’s photo over to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as well as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. She was getting a solid profile in place now—known aliases, possible geographic connections, key financial information, and relevant dates. Jason had left a heavy paper trail from the past five years, after he disappeared from the radar screen. Now they were getting the sliver of insights necessary to crack his full identity wide open, including tracing his offshore funds.
At this point, D.D. was willing to bet that some other law enforcement agency in some other jurisdiction had the exact same file she did, except under a different alias. When she connected with that agency, Jason Jones/Johnson would finally be exposed, and she’d have her arrest. Preferably in time for the eleven o’clock news.
In the meantime, of course, they continued to work the basics. Currently, D.D. was reviewing several evidence reports, including preliminary findings of a trace amount of blood on the quilt they had removed from the Jones family washing machine. Unfortunately “trace amounts of blood” hardly played well on a warrant. Trace amounts because the rest had been successfully washed away? Trace amounts because Sandra Jones had had a nosebleed sometime in the past few weeks? Blood type matched Sandra’s, but not having the blood type of Jason and Clarissa on file meant that, theoretically, the blood could be theirs as well.
In other words, the evidence report alone didn’t do much for their case, but perhaps later, when combined with other relevant data, it would become one more bar in the prison slowly but surely being constructed around Jason Jones.
D.D. touched base with the BRIC team in charge of analyzing the Jones family computer. Given the current level of urgency, the team was working round the clock. It had taken most of the night to create a forensically sound copy of the computer’s hard drive. Now they were running report after report, focusing on e-mails and Internet activity. They expected to have their first update bright and early in the morning. Which made D.D. optimistic enough to assume that if she missed the eleven o’clock news, maybe she could make the morning cycle.
This was the type of momentum that made a homicide sergeant happy, and provided the whole team with enough incentive to work another long night after two previous midnight grinds. It didn’t necessarily explain, however, D.D.’s sudden interest in the honorable Maxwell Black or her need to look up the death of Missy Black eight years prior. The local sheriff’s office informed her that they’d never opened a case file on the matter, but gave her the contact information for the county ME, who would be available in the morning. The official ruling had been suicide, but the sheriff had hesitated just enough for D.D. to remain curious.
Maxwell Black bothered her. His drawl, his charm, his matter-of-fact assessment of his only child as a reckless young woman, capable of habitual lying and sexual promiscuity. It struck D.D. that Sandy spent the first two-thirds of her young life with an outgoing father who said too much, and the last third of her life with a highly compartmentalized husband who said too little. The father claimed the husband was a pedophile. The husband implied the father had been party to child abuse.
D.D. wondered if Sandy Jones had loved her husband. If she had viewed him as her white knight, her valiant savior, right up until Wednesday night when the last of her illusions had been violently, and sadly, stripped away.
Sandra Jones had now been missing three days.
D.D. didn’t believe they’d find the young mother alive.
Mostly what she hoped for at this stage of the game was to save Ree.
Ethan Hastings was having a crisis of conscience. This had never happened to him before. Being smarter than any adult he’d ever met, the teenager was naturally disparaging of them. What they couldn’t figure out, they didn’t need to know.
But now, sitting on the floor with his mother’s iPhone—yesterday’s incident at school had resulted in a total loss of computer privileges for the next month, but technically speaking, no one had said he couldn’t rifle his mother’s purse—he was reviewing e-mail and trying to figure out if he should call the police.
Ethan was worried about Mrs. Sandra. He had been ever since November, when it became clear to him that her interest in online security extended way beyond what one might need to know to teach a sixth grade social studies class.
She’d never told him she suspected her husband, which meant, of course, that he was the most likely culprit. Likewise, she’d never used the words “Internet porn,” but then again, what else would drive a pretty teacher to spend all of her free periods working with a kid like him?
Oh, she was kind about it. She knew that he worshipped her, because he wasn’t so good about hiding these things. But he got the message, loud and clear, that she was not in love with him the way he was with her. She needed him, however. She respected his skills. She appreciated his help. That was good enough for him.
Mrs. Sandra talked to him, person to person. Not many adults did that. They either tried to talk over his head, or they were so terrified of his staggering genius they avoided engaging him in conversation altogether. Or maybe they were more like his parents. They both tried to talk to him, but sounded like they were grinding their teeth the entire time.
Not Mrs. Sandra. She spoke warmly, with this pretty lilt he could listen to again and again. And she smelled of oranges. He never told anyone, but he got her to mention the name of the lotion she used. Then he bought an entire case of it online, just so he could smell her when she wasn’t around. He had the case of lotion stashed in his father
’s closet, behind all the suits his father never wore, because he’d long ago figured out that his mother searched his room on a daily basis.
She tried very hard, his mother. Having a kid as bright as him couldn’t be easy. Then again, it wasn’t his fault he was so smart. He’d been born this way.
In November, after deducing that Mrs. Sandra was worried about her husband’s online activities, then determining that Mrs. Sandra’s husband was surprisingly computer savvy, Ethan had decided he needed to take further action to protect his favorite teacher.
First, he’d thought of his uncle, the only adult Ethan considered intelligent. When it came to computers, Uncle Wayne was a pro. And, better yet, he worked for the state police, meaning that if Mrs. Sandra’s husband was doing something illegal, Uncle Wayne could arrest him for it, and Sandra’s husband would go away. This had been a very good idea, in Ethan’s mind. One of his better plans.
Except Sandra’s husband hadn’t gone away. Neither, for that matter, had Uncle Wayne. Suddenly, his uncle had developed an enduring interest in JV basketball. Every Thursday night, Uncle Wayne would appear at the school, and off he and Mrs. Sandra would go, leaving Ethan all alone with pesky Ree.
Ethan had started to be annoyed by Thursday nights. It didn’t take three months of weekly meetings to hack into someone’s computer. Heck, he could’ve done it in five minutes or less.
Then it had occurred to him: Maybe he didn’t need his uncle or state police involvement after all. Maybe all he needed to do was write some code. It was called a Trojan Horse. He could tuck it into an e-mail. He could send it to Mrs. Sandra. And the Trojan Horse would open up a gateway on her computer just for him.
He would have access.
He could see what Sandra’s husband was really up to.
He could save the day.
Except that Ethan had never actually written the code before. So first he had to study it. Then he had to test it. Then he had to revise it.
Three weeks ago, he’d been ready to launch. He wrote an innocent little e-mail to Mrs. Sandra containing some links he thought she might find helpful for her social studies class. Then he’d embedded the code and sat back to wait.
It took her two days to open the e-mail, which annoyed him a little. Weren’t teachers supposed to be more responsive than that?
But the Trojan Horse passed the gates, the computer virus embedding itself instantly into Mrs. Sandra’s hard drive. Ethan tested it on day three, and yeah, he had access to the Jones family computer. Now he could sit back and catch Mr. Jones in the act—literally.
Ethan had been very excited. He was gonna be on 48 Hours Investigates. A whole episode on the boy genius who nabbed a notorious child predator. Leslie Stahl would interview him, social websites would want to hire him. He’d become a one-man Internet security alpha team. A modern-day website Marine.
The first three nights, Ethan had definitely learned some things about Mr. Jones. He’d learned, in fact, quite a lot about Mr. Jones. More than he really wanted to know.
What Ethan hadn’t counted on, however, was how much he’d also learn about Mrs. Sandra.
Now he was stuck. To rat out Mr. Jones, he’d have to also rat out Mrs. Sandra, and Uncle Wayne, too.
He knew too little, he knew too much.
And Ethan Hastings was a bright enough boy to know that was a very dangerous place to be.
He picked up his mother’s iPhone, checked messages again. Told himself to call 911, set down the phone again. Maybe he could call that sergeant, the one with the blonde hair. She seemed nice enough. Then again, as his mother always told him, lies of omission were still lies, and he was pretty sure lying to the police would get him in even more trouble than school suspension and a four-week loss of computer privileges.
Ethan didn’t want to go to jail.
But he was terribly worried about Mrs. Sandra.
He picked up the iPhone again, checked messages, sighed heavily. Finally, he did the only thing he could bring himself to do. He opened a fresh e-mail box and started, Dear Uncle Wayne …
Wayne Reynolds was not a patient man. Sandra Jones had been missing for multiple days, and as far as the forensics expert could tell, the lead detectives were taking a slow boat from China to find her. Hell, he’d practically had to hand them Jason Jones on a silver platter, and still, judging from the five o’clock news, no arrests had been made.
Instead, reporters had picked up the scent of a registered sex offender living just down the street from Sandra. Some pale, freaky-looking kid with a blistered scalp they’d caught walking down the street, then literally chased all the way to an old 1950s ranch. “I didn’t do it!” the kid had cried over his shoulder. “Talk to my PO. My girlfriend was underage, that’s all, that’s all, that’s all.”
Pervert had bolted into the house, and the erstwhile reporters had documented half a dozen shots of a closed door and blinds-covered windows. Really scintillating stuff.
At least Sandra’s father had entered the fray, deriding Jason Jones as a highly dangerous, manipulative man who’d isolated the beautiful young woman from her own family. The grandfather was demanding custody of Ree and had already won visitation rights to begin shortly. The old man wanted justice for his daughter and protection for his granddaughter.
The media were eating it up. And still no arrests had been made!
Wayne didn’t get it. The husband was always the primary person of interest, and as suspects went, Jason Jones was perfect. Conspicuously lacking in credible background information. Suspected by his own wife of dubious online activities. Known to disappear for long periods of time after midnight, in a job that didn’t really provide a concrete alibi. What the hell was Sergeant Warren waiting for, a pretty package with a bow on top?
Jason needed to be arrested. Because then Wayne Reynolds could finally sleep at night. God knows in the past few days he’d been frantically purging his personal computer as well as his Treo. Which was ironic, because he of all people knew he’d never get the electronic devices one hundred percent clear. He should buy a new hard drive for his computer, and “lose” his Treo, preferably while running over it with his lawn mower. Or maybe he could flatten it with his car? Toss it into the harbor?
It was funny, outsiders always assumed law enforcement officers had an advantage—they worked in the system, meaning they knew exactly what sort of misstep might trip a guy up. Except that was the problem. Wayne of all people knew how hard it was to cover one’s electronic tracks, and, being fully aware of such things, he understood just how hard his own actions would be scrutinized under a microscope.
He’d spent three months going on walks with Sandra Jones, nothing less, nothing more, but if he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself labeled as her lover and placed on administrative leave, a subject of internal investigation. Especially if the forensic computer expert “lost” his Treo, or “replaced” his home computer. That sort of thing simply wasn’t going to play.
Which made him wonder why the BPD hadn’t cracked open the Jones computer yet. They’d had it nearly twenty-four hours. Figure five to six hours to make a forensically sound copy, then getting EnCase up and running …
One to two more days, he figured, and sighed. He didn’t think his nerves could take one to two more days.
Let alone what such a long period of time might mean for Sandy.
He tried not to think about it. The cases he’d worked on before, the crime-scene photos he often viewed in his line of work. Suffocation? Stabbing? Single gunshot wound to the head?
He had tried to warn Sandy: She never should have gone away on the February vacation.
Wayne sighed heavily. Consulted the clock again. Decided to stay a little later at the crime lab, do a bit more work. Except then his Treo buzzed. He looked down, to find a message from his sister’s e-mail address.
He frowned, clicked open the message.
Five forty-five P.M. Wayne read his nephew’s startling confession.
And
started to sweat in earnest.
Six P.M. Maxwell Black was sitting at a white linen-covered table in the corner of the dining room at the Ritz. His duck had just arrived, prepared with wild berry compote, and he was savoring a particularly fine Oregon Pinot Noir. Good food, fine wine, excellent service. He should be a happy camper.
Except he wasn’t. After his conversation with the detectives, the judge had returned to his hotel and immediately called his law clerk to have him do some legal research on Max’s behalf. Unfortunately, the case law unearthed by his clerk did not sound promising.
Most family courts—and Massachusetts was no exception—deferred to the birth parents as the primary caretakers in a child custody dispute. Naturally, grandparents did not start the process with any guaranteed rights, with the courts accepting the parents’ decision in the matter.
Max had assumed, however, that Sandra’s disappearance—and Jason’s resulting position as a viable suspect in his wife’s disappearance—might sway the court in his favor. Furthermore, Max was confident that Jason was not Clarissa’s biological father. Hence, with Sandra gone, Max himself was now Clarissa’s closest living relative. And surely that would count for something.
But no. Leave it to the state that had legalized gay marriage to accept in loco parentis, or the person that had served in the place of the parent, as the proper legal guardian. Which put Max back in the position of having to prove that Jason posed an immediate threat to Clarissa in order to successfully challenge the current custodial arrangement. Take it from a judge, those standards were nearly impossible to prove.
Max needed Sandy’s body to be found. He needed Jason to be arrested. Then the state would take Clarissa into custody and he could argue that as her biological grandfather it would be in the child’s best interest to live with him. That should work.
Except he had no idea how long it might take to find Sandra’s body. Frankly he’d driven by that harbor four times already and as far as he could tell, Jason Jones could’ve dumped Sandy’s body just about anywhere. It could take weeks, if not months, if not years.
