Suddenly, the guy named Gary slammed his palm against the side of the car we were hiding behind. Instinctively, I let out a small squeal. I quickly covered my mouth with my hand, but it was too late.
“What was that?” I heard Les ask sharply. I looked over at Jason, my eyes wide with panic. I had no idea what to do. We were totally going to get caught eavesdropping. Great. Suddenly, Jason took me in his arms, pulled me toward him and started kissing me!
I looked into his eyes in surprise as his lips pressed against mine. Part of me wondered what on earth he was doing, another part of me surrendering to the sweet touch of Jason’s lips, my legs going weak as his mouth explored my own. I involuntarily closed my eyes as sensations of pleasure coursed through my body.
“Aw, Gary, it’s just a couple kids making out,” Lester Forrester said, coming over and finding us. “Come on guys, get out of here.”
“Whatever man, stop ruining my vibe,” Jason said, shooting Lester a dirty look as he grabbed my hand and led me away. We ran off, giggling like children as adrenaline coursed through my body, both from the kiss and the fact that we’d just barely gotten away with our eavesdropping. If it hadn’t been for Jason’s quick thinking, we would have been caught for sure.
“Sorry about that,” I said when we finally stopped running, having reached the street Jason lived on a few blocks away from the beach. He lived in his father’s old house, a quaint little thing perfect for a single guy, or a couple. Not that I was thinking about moving in with Jason. Not yet, at least.
Jason grinned at me. “You’re so not cut out to be a spy,” he replied.
“Please, I’ve helped solve three murders so far.”
“Yeah, how on earth you actually managed to do it without getting caught is beyond me.” Ok, well maybe I had a little bit of help from the supernatural. But Jason didn’t need to know that.
“Maybe I’m just a lot better at investigating than you think I am,” I retorted.
“Maybe, but if it wasn’t for me, we would have totally gotten caught back there,” he replied, coming closer to me. My breathing was heavy, I could practically feel Jason’s body only inches from mine. The tension between us was palpable, when suddenly Jason leaned in and kissed me again. I surrendered to the kiss as Jason suddenly grabbed my legs and picked me up. My legs wrapped instinctively around his waist as he carried me into his house, where we went straight to the bedroom.
Chapter 12
An hour later Jason and I were lying in the bed together, with me nestled into the crook of his arm. He pulled out his phone and opened up the web browser, typing in Jonathan Cork’s name.
“There’s nothing quite as sexy as a man opening up his phone browser after a nice romp in the sack,” I teased, putting a hand on his rock hard chest.
“Hey, the first forty-eight hours of a murder investigation are the most important,” Jason replied with a wink. The first few results were what you’d normally expect from a high powered lawyer—the website for Forrester, Forrester and Cork, a LinkedIn account, links to a number of law organizations and a few charities that Smith was on the board of.
Jason frowned. “There’s nothing here about Cork even having worked in Chicago.”
“Why don’t you search for his name, then add ‘murder’ to the end of the results?” I suggested.
“Good plan,” Jason replied, doing just that. The first few results were once again his LinkedIn profile, and a few other charity sites. “Something about this seems weird,” Jason said as he continued to scroll down. “It’s like someone has put a lot of effort into making sure all the search results for Jonathan Cork are completely sanitized. I bet it was that Gary Forrester guy, Lester’s brother.”
“Yeah, I bet he’s done a lot of work to make sure nothing scandalous comes up,” I replied. “There!” I said suddenly, pointing to an article in the Chicago Tribune from nine years earlier.
Promising Young Lawyer Murdered in Her Lake View Home
Jason clicked on the link, which opened up a new page. Under the headline was a headshot of a blonde woman, probably in her early thirties. Her blue eyes sparkled with life, even in the context of the boring corporate headshot, and her smile looked completely genuine and unforced. She was really quite pretty.
Jason scrolled down as the two of us began reading.
“The body of a young woman was found in her Lake View apartment early Tuesday morning. Police have identified Laura Kasic, a twenty-nine year old lawyer, as the victim. Police were called after the victim didn’t show up to work for two days in a row. At this time, the police are treating this death as a homicide.
“Kasic was an up and coming lawyer at the local personal injury firm of Forrester, Forrester and Cork, who, according to her coworkers, had a great future in the profession ahead of her.
“Laura was a wonderful human being,” according to paralegal Maisie Long. “She was so smart. She graduated from Harvard Law Summa Cum Laude, and everyone knew she was going to go places. And she was the nicest person you’d ever meet. She was always taking on pro-bono cases, always working. She really wanted to make the world a better place.”
“Well, it seems Jonathan Cork certainly has a type,” I said wryly, looking at the picture of Laura Kasic and her long, bleached-blonde hair.
“I wonder what Cork’s alibi was,” Jason said slowly, as he Googled Laura Kasic’s name, clicking on more links from various news sites.
“You’re thinking he killed her and Jessica Oliver?” I asked, suddenly sitting up.
“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? These two women were sleeping with the guy and they both turn up dead? That’s a pattern.”
“I don’t know,” I said, still somewhat unconvinced. “It could just be a coincidence.”
“Shouldn’t we at least try to find out?” Jason asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah, for sure. After all, no matter what, I think Jonathan Smith is definitely our prime suspect now.”
“You’re definitely right there.”
On a whim, I grabbed my phone and searched the name of the firm—Forrester, Forrester and Cork—myself. After all, I wondered if there were any more literal skeletons in the firm’s closet, and my instincts were telling me there was more to find out.
The first ten pages or so of search results yielded nothing interesting whatsoever. My eyes began to glaze over as I read webpage title after title listing the firm in a directory after directory of personal injury lawyers. Maybe my hunch was wrong, but I had a feeling. And as a witch, when I had a feeling, it usually meant something. So I forced myself to continue wading through the pages of tedium, thinking to myself that maybe the internet was finally getting too big.
Suddenly, I stopped. There was an article, sticking out among all the others. It wasn’t immediately obvious that there was any connection to the firm, but I clicked on the link all the same. It was a link to a Facebook profile, belonging to someone called Tina Port. She looked to be a lady in her early senior years, who enjoyed cooking and sharing videos about animal rights, as well as cat gifs. I scrolled through her post history, laughing at the cat gifs—I knew this was important, but so are cats doing funny things—until finally I got back to the post that Google would have flagged.
Please help me find my daughter.
It was a photo post, and I clicked on the photo to read the accompanying text. The picture showed a happy, smiling blonde woman eating a slice of pie from, where else, Betty’s Café right here in Willow Bay. I scrolled down to read the text.
Please help me find my daughter. Ella Port has been missing for two weeks now. She went out with friends on Saturday, March fifteenth and never came home. Her friends say she wanted to walk home, and one of them insisted on going with her. She left her one block from her apartment, but Ella never made it that one block.