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
