Missing and Endangered

by J. A. Jance

  “You might want to put this over your head while we escort you out to my vehicle,” she said.

  “Reporters?” Beth asked.

  Agent Norris nodded. “Lots of them,” she said. “It turns out you’re big news around here at the moment. But don’t worry, Ms. Rankin, you’re a victim, most likely a targeted victim. Your name has not been released to the media, and it won’t be—at least not by law enforcement.”

  That was the first time Beth had even considered that she was the victim of anything. She had excoriated herself for being stupid, but she hadn’t focused on the fact that Ron had specifically targeted her.

  “Ron and I had a fight,” she said.

  “That would be Ronald Cameron?” Agent Norris asked.

  Beth nodded.

  “The FBI has already done a computerized search for Mr. Cameron. As far as we’re able to determine, he doesn’t exist.”

  Beth was offended. “You think I made him up?”

  “No, Ms. Rankin,” Agent Norris said. “We believe that the person or persons who did this to you made him up, and I’m hoping that by examining your electronic devices and by interviewing you we’ll be able to find a trail that leads back to those responsible.”

  Beth spent the next three hours in a conference room at the Northern Arizona University Police Department, where Agent Norris, with the help of the department’s female commander, LuAnn Maxfield, conducted an extensive interview. Beth, grateful that her interrogators were both women, answered their probing questions to the best of her ability. How had she and Ron first connected? What, if anything, had he told her about himself? To avoid their having to obtain search warrants, Beth offered them full access to the information available on both her laptop and her cell phone. An hour passed and then two. By hour three Beth’s head was swimming. It seemed as though the questions were going around in circles and not getting anywhere.

  “I’m done,” she said at last. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Where would you like to go?” Agent Norris asked. “We could put you in touch with your parents. . . .”

  “No!” Beth said definitively. “Not my parents. I don’t want them involved in this. Just take me back to the dorm.”

  They shut down the interview, and Agent Norris drove her home. It wasn’t until they stopped in front of Conover Hall that Beth realized she had neither her purse nor her keys. She had left completely empty-handed, and the dorm’s nighttime resident assistant wasn’t thrilled to be summoned from her bed to let Beth in at such an ungodly hour of the morning. Once Beth reached the room, she had no choice but to knock on the door and wake Jenny in order to be let in.

  The door was flung open instantly, as though Jenny had been standing on the other side waiting. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, pulling Beth into a warm embrace. “They called and told me they’d found you but . . . Are you okay? What can I do to help?”

  In reply Beth simply allowed herself to lean into Jenny’s protective arms, sobbing out the day’s worth of tension and hurt.

  “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” Jenny murmured over and over, all the while patting Beth’s shoulder.

  Standing there together in the open doorway of their shared room, for the first time in her life, Elizabeth Rankin understood what it meant to have a real friend.

  Chapter 30

  After their wine Joanna and Butch went to bed but not to sleep. Joanna was a cop. She knew too much about the often tragic aftermaths of cyberbullying. Too many of the vulnerable kids who’d been targeted in school ended up committing suicide, and the ones who didn’t die outright often suffered long-term effects, including debilitating cases of PTSD.

  But Beth Rankin’s current situation came with the very real possibility of dire consequences for Jenny’s life as well. If there was a bad outcome for Beth, what were the chances of a similarly bad outcome for Jenny? Joanna recognized that her daughter was someone who cared about other people, sometimes too much. If Beth emerged from this ordeal with permanent emotional scars, would Jenny be similarly damaged? And because all those possible outcomes were completely beyond a mother’s control, Joanna found herself utterly terrified.

  When the phone rang at 1:00 a.m., she’d been in bed for the better part of two hours, tossing and turning and unable to sleep. Butch evidently wasn’t asleep either, because as soon as she answered the phone, he turned on his bedside lamp and sat up. Jenny’s photo was in caller ID.

  “Did they find her?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “They used a search-and-rescue bloodhound to track her down. She was hiding out in one of the heating and cooling plants right here on campus.”

  “And she’s okay?”

  “As far as I know. They told me they’ve taken her somewhere to be interviewed by the FBI and the campus cops. If they’d told me where she was, I’d be there right now.”

  Joanna let out a sigh. Beth was safe, and if the FBI was on the scene, that meant Robin had come through in a big way.

  “I’m sure you would be,” Joanna said. “But how are you doing?”

  Jenny didn’t answer right away. “I looked at the rest of those photos,” she said finally.

  The shock and revulsion in Jenny’s voice made Joanna’s heart hurt.

  “They’re awful, Mom,” she continued. “Just seeing them made me sick to my stomach.”

  What Joanna wanted to say was, Why on earth did you do that?—but she held her tongue.

  “I didn’t mean to look,” Jenny continued, “but I couldn’t help it. I had glanced at them on Beth’s phone, but when they showed up in my e-mail, I ended up clicking on them anyway. I think Ron must have sent them to everyone in Beth’s contacts list.”

  Joanna was horrified. “Including her parents?” she asked.

  “Probably not, because her parents aren’t in her contacts list.”

  That seemed strange. “They’re not?” Joanna asked.

  “Why would they be? That’s part of Beth’s beef with them. They’re terminally opposed to all kinds of electronic communication.”

  “In this case,” Joanna said, “that’s probably a blessing.”

  Butch joined the conversation. “Jen,” he said, “would you like me to come up to Flag and serve as backstop? I’m sure Mom could hold down the fort here if you need me as moral support.”

  Jenny seemed to pause for a moment, thinking, before she answered. “You probably shouldn’t come,” she replied at last. “The way things are right now, I’m not sure how comfortable Beth would be with having a strange man hanging around.”

  “I’m strange, all right,” Butch said.

  “Dad,” Jenny admonished. “You know what I meant—not strange as in odd but strange as in unknown. She’s really broken right now—broken and fragile.”

  “Understood,” Butch agreed at once. “You’re the one who knows her, and you’re in a good position to assess her current situation, but if you change your mind and decide my being there would be helpful, let us know. In the meantime be sure to take care of yourself, starting with deleting all those photos from your computer and your phone. They’re bad for you, but they’re poison to Beth.”

  “You’re right,” Jenny said. “I’ll delete them as soon as I’m off the phone.”

  “And if I were you,” he added, “I wouldn’t mention to her that you’ve seen them. It would make Beth’s sense of humiliation that much worse.”

  “Are you going to try to get some sleep?” Joanna asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Jenny replied. “I don’t have any exams tomorrow, so I should probably wait up for her.”

  “You’re a good girl, Jennifer Ann Brady,” Joanna told her, “a really good girl.”

  Moments later the call ended, and Joanna returned her phone to the charger.

  “Crisis averted?” Butch asked as he switched off his lamp.

  “Hopefully,” Joanna replied.

  Turning on her side, she tried to fall asleep, but it still didn’t work. Her
daughter was out in the real world dealing with some pretty ugly stuff, and there was nothing at all Joanna could do to protect her.

  It was almost four before she finally drifted off. As a consequence it was a weary, bleary-eyed Sheriff Brady who showed up at the Justice Center just in time for roll call the next morning. Once that ended, she held a conference-room powwow with her Investigations Unit, where she brought her detectives up to date on everything she’d learned the day before, including recounting her conversation with Eugene Autry. Deb, who was due in court to testify in another case later that day, would be stuck in the office. Meanwhile Ernie and Jaime, the reunited Double C’s, were tasked with going out to Sierra Vista to track down whatever they could find on Williams.

  Back in her own office, Joanna stared at the phone, wanting to call Jenny while at the same time trying to resist temptation. She and Butch had discussed the matter earlier that morning before she left home. When she’d started to call, Butch advised against it.

  “Look,” he said. “Our daughter took a punch in the face from the cold, cruel world yesterday. If she needs us, she knows we’re here and she can call on us, but Jenny’s a sensible kid, Joey. We need to leave her alone and let her navigate this her own way.”

  Joanna could see that Butch’s approach to handling the situation made sense on any number of levels. Even so, sitting at her desk and not picking up the phone to call wasn’t easy. It also got in the way of her being able to concentrate on doing anything productive. Instead she stared at the ridge of limestone cliffs outside her window and thought about Beth Rankin and Leon Hogan. Both had been victimized. Beth’s future was compromised, but Leon’s had been outright canceled. Beth might recover, but there was no such possibility for Leon. In his case the best Joanna could hope for was to help his family pick up the pieces.

  And then, in a moment of inspiration, Joanna realized that there was at least one piece that might indeed be recoverable. She reached for her phone after all, but instead of calling Jenny, she dialed Jeannine Phillips.

  “Animal Control,” Jeannine answered.

  Animal Control was part of Joanna’s department. There were several mobile Animal Control officers who patrolled the county and doubled as kennel workers when they weren’t out on the road. As far as the office itself was concerned, however, it was a one-woman operation.

  “Sheriff Brady here,” Joanna said. “I need some help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Do you remember that bluetick hound you took in a couple of months ago, the one you refused to put down?”

  “Coon, you mean?” Jeannine replied at once. “Sure I remember him. He’s a great dog. No way I was putting him down. Why?”

  “The woman who brought him in, Madison Hogan, is involved in a homicide investigation,” Joanna said.

  “Right,” Jeannine said. “I heard. She’s married to the guy who died in the officer-involved shooting. How’s Armando doing, by the way?”

  It made sense that Jeannine remembered the dog’s name but not the name of the woman who’d brought him in.

  “Armando’s doing better than anyone expected,” Joanna replied. “He may end up being released from the hospital sometime early next week, but my concern right now is with the dog.”

  “How come?”

  “I learned yesterday that Leon and Madison were estranged and headed for divorce. Coon was Leon’s dog, but when he moved out of the house, he left Coon behind because his young son, Peter, was so attached to the dog. The next week, when Leon came by to pick up the kids, the dog was gone. The kids told Leon their mother said he’d been hit by a car and died.”

  “A lie,” Jeannine said. “That dog was in perfectly good shape.”

  “But tell me about the guy who took the dog in, the one out in Double Adobe. If there was a chance Coon and that little boy could be reunited, do you think the new owner would be willing to give him up?”

  “Are the kids still living with their mother?” Jeannine wanted to know.

  “Yes.”

  “In that case I won’t even ask,” Jeannine said. “That Hogan woman already tried to get rid of Coon once. If he goes back home, chances are, she’ll try it again, and this time she might make it work. I won’t be a part of putting that poor animal in jeopardy.”

  Joanna couldn’t help smiling into the phone. In Jeannine’s world animals always came first.

  “Maybe there’s a way to have it both ways,” Joanna suggested. “Leon’s folks are here for the funeral. They drove down from Wyoming. I have no idea if they’d be interested in taking Coon home with them or not, but if they did, at least the kids would know the dog is still alive and maybe they could even see him every once in a while if they had a chance to go visit.”

  A long silence followed. “All right,” Jeannine agreed, relenting at last. “That might work. The guy’s name is Rusty Miller—Russell Miller really, but everybody calls him Rusty. Do you want me to check to see if the victim’s parents are willing to take the dog?”

  It turned out that Russell Miller, along with his wife, Kathy, were names Joanna remembered from her Christmas-card mailing list. Although she didn’t know the Millers personally, they had evidently donated to her campaign. So maybe . . .

  “No,” Joanna said, “I’ll look into it and let you know.”

  And that’s what Joanna was sitting there thinking about when a call came in from Jenny.

  “I’m so glad to hear your voice,” Joanna said. “How are things?”

  “Beth’s sleeping now finally,” Jenny said. “We talked until the wee hours, so I probably should be sleeping now, too, but I’m on my way to the food court to pick up something for breakfast. I know Beth won’t want to go there herself. She doesn’t want to show her face, because she’s sure everyone she meets will know all about her.”

  “Even though they probably won’t,” Joanna put in.

  “You know that and I know that,” Jenny said. “Beth? Not so much. She thinks her whole life is ruined. I told her that the only way to make something good come out of this is for her and for us to do everything in our power to bring down the guy who invented Ronald Cameron. Beth seems to think she’s the only person this has ever happened to, but that’s not true. I’ve just spent an hour on the Internet coming up with at least a dozen similar cases. I doubt this particular jerk—her so-called Ron—is necessarily involved in any of those other cases, but they’re all surprisingly similar. Perpetrators like this usually have multiple victims, and one of the things that keeps the bad guys from being brought to justice is that none of their victims want to come forward and blow the whistle.”

  “That’s where the FBI task force comes in,” Joanna suggested quietly.

  “Exactly,” Jenny agreed, “and that’s what I tried to tell Beth, but I’m not sure she’s hearing me. She’s so unbelievably broken, Mom, and I don’t know how to help her.”

  Joanna heard the pain and doubt in her daughter’s troubled voice. “You’re listening to her for starters and making sure she eats,” Joanna said. “Both of those things count. What about her folks? Has she talked to them about any of this?”

  “No,” Jenny said. “I suggested that, but Beth’s sure that if she tells them about what’s happened, they’ll say it was all her fault. In terms of having people in her corner, it looks like I’m it.”

  Shortly after Andy died, Jenny had found an injured rock dove out near the stock tank. Its broken wing was beyond repair, but Jenny had nursed it along for months, providing shelter for it as well as food and water. Eventually the poor creature had disappeared. It seemed likely that it had finally fallen victim to a predator of some kind—probably a coyote. And here she was doing it again, lifting up another broken bird, a human one this time around.

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Jen,” Joanna advised. “You’re being her friend, and right now that’s what Beth Rankin needs more than anything else.”

  Once the phone call ended, Joanna sat for a while l
onger before arriving at an obvious conclusion and ending up laughing at herself in the process. When it comes to fixing broken birds, like mother like daughter.

  Picking up her phone again, she checked her incoming-call list and dialed a number. “Mr. Hogan?” she asked when Lyndell answered.

  “Yes.”

  “Sheriff Brady here,” she told him. “If I stopped by the hotel, would you be available to visit for a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” Lyn said. “Our room isn’t exactly spacious, so can we talk in the lobby?”

  “The lobby would be fine,” Joanna said. “See you in a few.”

  Ending the call, she left her desk and poked her head out the door. “I’m going uptown for a few minutes,” she told Kristin.

  “Any idea when you’ll be back?”

  “Nope,” Joanna said. “I’m off on a mission of mercy. No telling when I’ll be done.”

  Joanna parked at the bottom of Brewery Gulch and walked up the hill to the hotel entrance. The lobby was an old-fashioned, homey kind of place, with worn leather chairs scattered here and there on an aged hardwood floor. She found Lyndell Hogan seated on a couch tucked in behind the staircase.

  “What’s up?” he asked when she sat down next to him. “On the phone it sounded like something serious.”

  “It might actually be a bit of good news,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  There was no point in beating around the bush. “For starters,” she said, “it turns out Coon is alive.”

  “Really?” a disbelieving Lyn Hogan demanded. “Are you sure?”

  Joanna nodded. “I’m sure.” She then went on to tell him the story of how, shortly after Leon moved out, Madison had brought the dog to Animal Control, asking that Coon be put down.

  “What a dreadful woman she is,” Lyn muttered under his breath. “I’m the one who gave the dog to Leon in the first place when Coon was little more than a pup. Where is he, then? Where’s Coon?”

  “He was adopted by a fellow who lives out near Double Adobe.”