Missing and Endangered

by J. A. Jance

  “I saw those when Jenny was closing them earlier,” Beth offered. “They look pretty amazing.”

  “According to the company’s sales brochure, even trained SWAT teams can’t penetrate them.”

  “Good to know,” Beth said.

  An uneasy silence settled over the table. Finally, after glancing back and forth between Butch and Joanna, Beth said quietly, “I guess you know everything that happened, and you must think I’m really stupid.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” Butch said. “And believe me, you’re definitely not alone. Have you ever watched a program called Web of Lies?”

  Beth shook her head. “Never heard of it,” she said. “As you might have noticed, my mother’s a little weird. She doesn’t approve of TV sets any more than she approves of computers or cell phones, and since that’s how I grew up, I never got in the habit of watching.”

  “It’s on a channel called Investigation Discovery,” Butch explained. “Each show focuses on a victim of some kind of cybercrime—identity theft, cyberbullying, sextortion. That’s what happened to you, by the way.”

  “Sextortion?” Beth asked, frowning. “That’s what they call it?”

  Joanna nodded. “That’s what this so-called Ron guy did to you. It’s when perpetrators blackmail their victims with threats of taking damaging photographs public. Only in your case he didn’t bother with threatening. He just sent out the photos. But Butch is right, you might consider watching a few of those programs sometime. At least you’ll see that you’re by no means alone.”

  Beth nodded. Another short pause followed until she spoke again. “Before Jenny comes back, I have to say that I wouldn’t have made it through all this without her. Even though I left Jenny out and didn’t really tell her much about what was going on between Ron and me, when it started falling apart, she was right there for me. I’ve never had a real friend before—not ever. And to think she almost got killed because of me.” Beth shivered. “If she had died, I never would have forgiven myself.”

  Reaching out, Joanna took Beth’s hand. “But Jenny didn’t die,” she said reassuringly, “and neither did you. You’re both here and safe, and no matter what, we’re all going to have a wonderful Christmas.”

  Beth shot a glance in Butch’s direction. “Did he tell you about my parents?”

  “Not really, no,” Joanna said.

  The truth was, they had yet to have a moment of privacy when he could have.

  “Ron sent my parents all those nude pictures,” Beth said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. “When my mother saw them, she went bananas. She thinks it’s all my fault. She’ll probably never speak to me again.”

  Joanna couldn’t help but remember the often strained relations she and her mother had shared. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she said. “Here’s the weird thing about mothers. Yes, they get mad at their daughters from time to time, but eventually they come around. Maybe yours will, too.”

  Beth shook her head. “I doubt it. My grandmother would have forgiven me, but not my mother. I wish Grandma Lockhart were still here.” Beth’s voice broke, and she burst into tears. “Until I met Jenny, Grandma Lockhart was the only person who ever understood me. She’s dead now, but she’s the one who’s making it possible for me to go to school.”

  “Your mother’s mother?” Butch asked from his end of the table.

  Wiping her tears on her napkin, Beth nodded.

  “Why don’t you tell us about your grandmother,” he urged gently. “Grandma Lockhart sounds like a very interesting person.”

  Chapter 45

  It was much later. The dishes were done, and a weary Butch and Joanna were finally getting ready for bed.

  “All I can say is, thank God for grandparents,” Joanna told her husband as she stripped off her uniform. “When Deb and Garth took Madison Hogan in for questioning, her mother, Jackie Puckett, came riding to the rescue. If she hadn’t been there to take charge of the kids, those poor little ones would have ended up spending tonight in foster care. And you should have seen them. As soon as Jackie showed up, Peter’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He was hoping she’d take them to dinner, and I’m sure she did.”

  “What about Madison?” Butch asked.

  Joanna shook her head. “A pretty pathetic case, if you ask me. She was still in her pj’s and drunk as a skunk in the middle of the afternoon when we got there. Had to be helped in and out of the patrol car. In the meantime here’s poor seven-year-old Kendall stuck with looking after her little brother. If those kids had breakfast and lunch today, it was because she made it happen. Madison sure as hell didn’t do it.”

  “Sounds like Kendall is more of a mother than Madison is,” Butch muttered under his breath. “If you ask me, some people should never have kids to begin with.”

  “Funny,” Joanna said, “that’s the same thing Jackie Puckett said to me earlier today—about her own daughter. She told me outright that with Leon Hogan dead, she’s worried about the long-term welfare of the two kids, and so am I.”

  “Where are they tonight?”

  “When I left, Jackie was getting them packed up to go stay overnight with her at the Windemere Hotel. She said she’d leave Madison a note letting her know they’re with her and that she’ll get them to the funeral on time tomorrow.”

  “So Madison is back home tonight?”

  Joanna nodded. “Deb sent me a text saying that they had taken her back to Sierra Vista and cut her loose.”

  “The detectives let her go just like that?”

  “Under the circumstances there’s nothing else they could have done. We have no solid evidence that would allow us to charge Madison with anything. What we do have, however, is three hours’ worth of video with her answering questions. The next step is to bring the boyfriend in to see if their stories match up.”

  “And if they don’t, you try turning one against the other?” Butch asked.

  Nodding, Joanna crawled into bed. “That’s the way the game is played,” she answered. “Divide and conquer.”

  That night there was no tossing and turning for Joanna Brady. She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, because she was too damned tired to do anything else. She was still sound asleep and dreaming about riding a merry-go-round when the phone awakened her at 6:00 a.m.

  “What does a guy have to do to get some sleep around here?” Butch grumbled as Joanna reached for her phone.

  When Joanna looked at the window for caller ID, Robin Watkins’s face was the one showing. “Hey, Robin,” Joanna said. “What’s up?”

  “An arrest warrant is being issued on a guy named Gerard Wayne Paine, aka Ronald Cameron. I have permission to offer you an engraved invitation to be on hand for the official takedown.”

  “A takedown?” Joanna echoed, sitting up in bed and switching the phone to speaker. “Does that mean you’ve found him?”

  “It certainly does. He’s in a fifty-five-plus community on Tucson’s far west side near Starr Pass. Our bad boy is a seventy-three-year-old suspected-but-not-convicted pedophile living in supposedly respectable retirement on West Placita del Correcaminos. Correcaminos means ‘roadrunner,’ by the way. I looked it up. According to our tech guys, he’s a regular night owl who generally does most of his work in the deep, dark hours of the night and then sleeps during the days. That’s why we’ve scheduled the raid for nine a.m.”

  “This morning?” Joanna asked.

  “Affirmative,” Robin said. “It’ll be morning for us, but for him it’ll seem like the middle of the night, and he should be sound asleep.”

  “If the raid is at nine,” Joanna said, scrambling out of bed, “what time do we rendezvous and where?”

  “At Tucson PD headquarters at eight fifteen.”

  “All right,” Joanna said, “but it’s going to take me at least two hours to get there.”

  “Then you’d better hit the road pronto,” Robin advised.

  With a sigh and a glower o
ver his shoulder, Butch headed for the kitchen and the coffeepot while Joanna dragged clothing into the bathroom to dress.

  “I can’t believe you caught him this fast,” Joanna said. Her phone sat on the bathroom counter on speaker as she stripped off her nightgown and struggled to fasten her bra. Showering was out of the question.

  “We had a whole lot of luck on our side,” Robin replied. “The fact that we had access to Aaron Morgan’s phone is what made it possible to locate Paine as quickly as we did. And we’re wasting no time now, because we want him in custody before he has a chance to break down all his computer equipment and erase whatever’s stored there. According to the utility people, he’s been using enough electricity to run a grow house. He might’ve dodged prosecution back home in Oklahoma, but we’re dealing with federal charges here, and believe me, this guy is going down.”

  “Good,” Joanna said, “I couldn’t agree more, and you’d better believe I’ll be there.”

  “By the way,” Robin added. “How’s the road situation down your way? I heard it snowed pretty hard overnight.”

  “It snowed?” Joanna repeated. “In that case I’d really better get moving.”

  She pulled on her uniform pants, hurried back to the bedroom, and peered out through the burglarproof window screens. The overhead sky was lit by a sliver of waning moon, while the landscape all around the house glowed an unearthly white.

  “Crap,” she muttered aloud. Her Interceptor was equipped with all-wheel drive, but that offered scant protection from the many nutcases who would be out and about with less than zero understanding about how to drive in inclement weather.

  She arrived in the kitchen a few minutes later to find a travel mug loaded with coffee sitting on the table. Next to it was a fried-egg sandwich.

  “Eat that before it gets cold,” Butch told her. “Can’t have you riding off into battle on an empty stomach.” He stood watching as she pulled on her jacket and retrieved her weapons from the laundry room’s gun safe. “So they’re going to get him?”

  “Looks like it,” she said, “and I’ve been invited to attend the party.”

  “By the way,” Butch said, “I just got an e-mail from the school district. The roads are bad enough that school’s been canceled for today. That means we’ll be going into full-bore cookie-making mode.”

  Joanna kissed him good-bye. “I think an entire day of messing with cookie dough will be good for what ails Beth and Jenny both. It’ll take their focus away from all the bad stuff and put it on some good.”

  Nodding, Butch hugged her close. “Stay safe,” he murmured in her ear.

  “I will.”

  A call to Dispatch as she left the ranch let her know that the worst part of the trip would be crossing the Divide north of Bisbee, where several cars had spun out onto the shoulder. Knowing that people would be wondering why she was driving past accident scenes without stopping to help, she turned on her flashing lights to give herself a visible and hopefully understandable excuse for ignoring them. Somewhere south of Tombstone, she remembered that morning’s board of supervisors meeting.

  “Siri,” she said aloud, “call Tom Hadlock.”

  Joanna had copied him on her budget-request paperwork once it was finished, but she still had concerns about Tom’s public-speaking capabilities. Under intense pressure would he be the best advocate for her department? Maybe or maybe not, but she hoped that today he’d measure up, because no matter what, Joanna was going to Tucson right now to participate in that FBI takedown. This was personal for her. Her choice had far more to do with her being a mother than it did with her being a sheriff. Gerard Paine had attempted to murder Jenny, and Joanna wasn’t about to apologize that for this time at least she’d come down on the side of motherhood.

  “What’s up?” a groggy Tom muttered when he came on the phone. “And why are you calling so early?”

  “It’s time to wake up and smell the flowers,” she told him. “And when you come to work, be sure to wear your dress uniform.”

  “How come?”

  “This is your call to duty, Tom,” she told him. “I hope you’re up for an appearance before the board of supervisors, because you’re pinch-hitting for me today.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Not in the least. I’m on my way to Tucson to take part in an FBI raid to take down a guy who tried to have Jenny murdered and very nearly succeeded.”

  “Wait,” Tom said, now fully awake. “Someone tried to kill Jenny? Where? When?”

  “In Flagstaff,” Joanna answered, “night before last.”

  “I never heard a word about this,” Tom grumbled. Clearly he was offended that he’d been left out of the loop.

  “The FBI asked us to keep the whole thing under wraps in hopes of catching him off guard, and it sounds like their ploy has succeeded.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s the ex-boyfriend of Jenny’s roommate—a cyber ex-boyfriend at that, and a pedophile besides.”

  “Great,” Tom said. “He sounds terrific, but if he’s the roommate’s ex-boyfriend, why would he target Jenny?”

  “Because Jenny helped Beth stand up to him.”

  “I see,” Tom said, but since he was a lifelong bachelor with no kids of his own, Joanna wasn’t at all sure he did.

  “Okay,” he added after a pause, “dress uniform it is, and I’ll do my best.”

  “I know you will,” Joanna told him. “You always do.”

  By the time she reached St. David, the snow was gone completely, and she finally gave herself permission to eat Butch’s now-cold sandwich. North of Benson she had just passed the exit ramp to Patagonia when her phone rang with Frank Montoya’s photo in caller ID.

  “Good morning, Frank,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I’m on the scene of a fatality fire,” he said. “The Nite Owl burned to the ground early this morning. The fire was discovered around five a.m. By the time firefighters arrived on the scene, the building was fully engulfed. The remaining structure was so unstable that we weren’t able to let investigators inside until just a little while ago. They reported finding two dead bodies in the debris and called for the M.E. Doc Baldwin says that the victims are a male and a female, both of them shot in the back of the head, execution style.”

  “Any IDs?” Joanna asked.

  “Not at this time,” Frank answered, “but Kendra says that when they went to transport the bodies, they discovered that the female was wearing pajamas.”

  “Pajamas?” Joanna echoed.

  Because approximately half the human body is made up of water, Joanna knew that even during intense fires the area directly under a victim’s body often remains relatively undamaged.

  “My guess is the female is Madison Hogan and the male Randy Williams,” she said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because the last time I saw Madison Hogan, she was wearing pajamas. That was yesterday afternoon when we brought her in to the department for questioning. It was the middle of the afternoon, and she still wasn’t dressed. She was also falling-down drunk. Her mother, Jackie Puckett, is currently staying at the Windemere Hotel, and Madison’s two kids, Kendall and Peter, are there with her.”

  “What happened after the questioning?”

  “Deb Howell and Garth Raymond cut her loose and took her back home to Sierra Vista. I have no idea what happened after that.”

  “All right,” Frank said. “Based on all the connections between these two cases, I suggest we handle this as a joint operation.”

  “Agreed,” Joanna said. “Tom Hadlock will be tied up in a board of supervisors meeting for most of the morning, but I’ll let him know what’s going on. And, Frank, whatever you need from us, just ask.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll send someone by the Hogan residence to see if Madison is or isn’t there. My guess is that you’re right and she’s a goner. I’ll also be in touch with Mrs. Puckett. Hopefully she’ll be able to provide her daughter’s de
ntal information. Due to the fire, dental records are probably our only hope for getting a positive ID on either one of these individuals.”

  Frank signed off. Joanna tried calling Tom back. When her call went to voice mail, she left a message letting him know about the situation in Sierra Vista and then drove on. Before the call from Frank, she’d been feeling upbeat and happy. The prospect of being able to be on hand as Gerard Paine was taken into custody had been almost too good to be true. Now Frank’s disturbing news had burst her bubble. In less than a week, Kendall and Peter Hogan had lost not just one but both of their parents, and it seemed likely that seven-year-old Kendall was the closest thing to a mother Peter would ever have.

  That was beyond unfair. It was downright tragic.

  Chapter 46

  Joanna arrived at Tucson PD in time for the coffee-and-doughnuts part of the joint operation briefing. FBI agents, including Robin, would make up the core arrest team, with part of them focused on taking Paine into custody while the rest were assigned the task of securing his electronic equipment. There was concern that he might have built some kind of self-destruct scenarios into his computers, and the tech guys would be on hand in order to keep that from happening if at all possible.

  Paine lived on a street made up of three-unit town homes. His was an end unit in the last group on Correcaminos. The operation was being conducted inside a strict media blackout. Officers from Tucson PD were assigned to create a perimeter to keep gawkers away. They were also tasked with clearing neighboring units of residents prior to the arrest warrant’s being served. Nearby streets would be closed to traffic in both directions. All officers and agents participating in the operation were expected to be armed. Considering the age of the target, a strategic decision had been made that the presence of a SWAT team wasn’t required. Prior to the operation, the perimeter guys were doing their best to give Joanna the boot. Only Robin’s timely intervention, arriving on the scene with her FBI shield in hand, kept Joanna from being sent packing.