We recently sold the tennis school, and now we have the time to tick things off our bucket list! If only we had a bucket list! Oh well.
* * *
“Christina?”
She looked up to see Ethan, in a turquoise shirt today, at her cubicle entrance, gleaming with health and optimism. “These young guys are like fucking Energizer Bunnies,” one of the other detectives had sighed to Christina, and he was fifteen years older than her, but she knew what he meant.
“Joy Delaney’s internet search history for the day she disappeared,” said Ethan, handing her a sheet of paper. He’d highlighted relevant lines in yellow.
Joy had googled the following questions:
How do you know when it’s time to divorce?
Divorcing after sixty
How does a divorce affect adult children?
Does marriage counseling work?
Does whiskey go off?
“So much for that wonderful marriage of theirs,” said Christina.
“I know,” said Ethan sadly, and he momentarily bowed his head as if to honor a loss, but then he immediately lifted it again, and said brightly, “I’ve also got her phone records. One hour before she sent that text—”
“If she sent that text,” said Christina.
“One hour before that text was sent,” Ethan corrected himself, “there was a forty-minute telephone conversation with a Dr. Henry Edgeworth. He’s a forty-nine-year-old plastic surgeon, married with two children. He’s currently overseas and not returning our calls.”
“A plastic surgeon?” Christina frowned. “How does that fit?”
It didn’t fit.
“Booking in for plastic surgery so she could change her identity?” suggested Ethan.
“Yeah. Because she got mixed up with the Mafia,” said Christina.
“Should I look at potential connections with organized crime?” asked Ethan enthusiastically.
She looked up to see if he was joking. She couldn’t tell.
She said evenly, “We need to look at all potential connections.”
Ethan nodded. He looked down at his notes. “There was that huge hailstorm two days after Valentine’s Day.”
“So you’re thinking she got hit by a hailstone and now she’s got amnesia?”
He looked up at her. Now he couldn’t tell if she was joking.
She said, “How are we going with that houseguest of theirs?”
“I’m closing in on her.”
“Good,” said Christina. “Because I reckon all roads lead to her.”
Chapter 20
FATHER’S DAY