“Mission accomplished,” I said.
“I couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening with Wendy. I thought you might have heard something,” Joy said.
“You’re the first person I would have called if I had heard anything. Actually, I did call you to find out if you’d talked with her girlfriend at work. What was her name? Julie?”
“I was on my way here when I picked up your message. I finally reached Julie late this afternoon. She said that Wendy was at work yesterday and didn’t say anything to her about going away or about Colby or anything else that seemed unusual and that she hasn’t heard from her since.”
Julie’s lack of information confirmed my belief that Wendy had left her apartment unexpectedly and probably involuntarily. It was one more piece of bad news, but I didn’t want to add to Joy’s worry.
“You never know. Wendy might call her. Did you get Julie’s home and cell phone numbers?”
Joy reached into her pocket and handed me a slip of paper. “I learned a few things about investigating a case from living with you.”
“Thanks. I’ll check back with her.”
She looked around and past me into the house. “Are you going to invite me in?”
I took a deep breath before answering and held it when I saw Kate pull up at the curb. Joy turned around. Kate got out of her car. I shook, a quick shimmy like I was warming up for a Michael Jackson moonwalk.
Joy covered her face with her free hand. “I am such an idiot. I should have called first.”
“I’m sorry.”
She waved her hand. “Don’t be silly. I’m the one who should be sorry. Here we are not knowing where our daughter is and I’m acting like a jealous schoolgirl.”
She may have been acting like a jealous schoolgirl, but her comment made me feel like Louse of the Year for having a date instead of beating the streets to find Wendy. I retreated to my comfort zone of half-truths.
“That’s why Kate is here.”
Joy looked at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Kate’s helping me with this case. She’s an expert in something called the Facial Action Coding System. It’s a way of telling whether someone is lying. She’s going to help me analyze the evidence.”
It was the truth even if it wasn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It wouldn’t help to explain that Kate and I had planned to screw our brains out all weekend but that, under the circumstances, I had sel?essly decided to delay that indulgence.
Kate was standing next to her car sizing up the situation before entering the zone of danger. Joy looked at her again and then at me, embarrassment giving way to rising anger.
“Is that why she’s wearing that slinky black dress and carrying a bottle of wine and that grocery bag from Dean amp; DeLuca?”
Kate was wearing a slinky black dress. She was carrying a bottle of wine and there was a French baguette sticking out of the Dean amp; DeLuca bag.
“She probably came straight from her office. We’re going to work through dinner.”
“That’s what she wears at the office?”
“It’s not her fault. We made these plans before I knew about Wendy. She still doesn’t know. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of days.”
There it was. I had admitted making plans with Kate, redefining the term as a synonym for getting laid. Kate’s slinky black dress illustrated my meaning in case Joy had any lingering doubts.
Joy spit out her response. “You could have called her.”
“I did. I left her a message. I left you a message. I left messages for half the civilized world. No one answered. Instead they’re all showing up on my doorstep.”
Joy covered her face again. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. Look at me. I brought my dog and Chinese. She brought wine and bread and God knows what else.”
Kate began walking toward us. I didn’t know what to do.
“Stay. We’ll have potluck.”
Joy tightened her shoulders, held her arms rigidly against her sides, and balled her hands into fists. “You must be kidding! Where’s my damn dog?”
She elbowed past me into the house, scooped up Roxy, and came out as Kate reached the front steps. Joy’s face had morphed into a?at, cool, closed-mouth smile. She extended her hand.
“I’m Jack’s wife, Joy.”
Kate smiled in turn, accepting her hand. “I’m Kate Scranton.”
“I hope you can help my husband and me get our daughter back.”
Kate, her eyebrows raised, looked at me for a clue, then back at Joy. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’m certain you will, but as Jack will tell you, that’s not always good enough.”
Chapter Forty-five
“Tell me what’s going on with Wendy,” Kate said.
“She didn’t go to work today. She doesn’t answer her phone. Joy and I went to her apartment. It looks like she left in a hurry.”
“She’s an adult. She can do that. It doesn’t mean anything has happened to her.”
“Her boyfriend, Colby Hudson, has disappeared too, and he left behind some stuff he’s going to have a hard time explaining.”
“Like what?”
“Like drugs and cash. Not the sort of thing an FBI agent should leave lying around in plain sight especially when two agents come looking for him to find out why he isn’t answering his phone and why he didn’t show up to take a polygraph.”
Kate set the bottle of wine and the grocery bag on the front stoop, folded her arms across her chest, and stared at the street, lost in thought. She picked up the wine, marched back to her car, left the wine on the front seat, and retrieved an overnight bag.
“Change of plans,” she said, when she came back.
The front door was wide open. Ruby found us and jumped on Kate, who picked her up and traded kisses with her.
“You really got a dog. I don’t believe it.”
“It was your idea.”
Ruby spied the grocery bag and squirmed until Kate let her down so she could sniff at the contents.
“Chilean sea bass,” Kate said, rescuing our dinner from the dog. “I don’t cook, but I do buy.”
I took her hand. “I’ve got to find Wendy and I need all the help I can get.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Besides, you’ve got a dog now.”
A black sedan turned down my street before we could go inside. I recognized the government plates before it stopped in front of my house.
“Why can’t people just return my phone calls?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you later. Take the dinner inside. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Troy Clark stepped out from the passenger side and waited. Ammara Iverson was his driver. She joined him, leaning against the front corner of the car, the three of us forming a triangle. I took my time walking to the curb.
“I know about Colby and Thomas Rice,” Troy said. “What I don’t know is why you knew before I did. So tell me.”
There was no reason to leave anything out except my conversations with Ammara. She didn’t need the aggravation. And the more Troy knew, the better Wendy’s chances were, even if she wasn’t his first priority. I explained all of it, starting with the man I thought I’d seen running from Marcellus’s house. I described my unplanned meeting with Marty Grisnik and how I had learned about Oleta Phillips’s disappearance from her brother.
“That’s when you called Ammara and told her to check the fingerprints on the cash you found in Marcellus’s backyard against Oleta’s fingerprints.”
Ammara looked at me, nodding. “It’s okay, Jack. He knows.”
I took a breath and told Troy about almost having dinner with Wendy and Colby and that Colby had told me that he was buying Rice’s house and car.
“That’s the first you knew about it?” Troy asked, his head cocked to one side, his eyes narrowed as if he expected me to lie.
“Absolutely. Why?”