“What do you remember about this man?” Lance asked.
“He used a ridiculous fake name. It stood out.” She pressed her forefinger to her pursed lips; then her face brightened. “Mr. Joshua.” Her eyes rolled in a what-an-idiot expression. “Those Lethal Weapon movies were really big back then, with all their martial arts fighting. But this guy didn’t look like he could fight traffic. He was too clean cut.”
Morgan leaned forward. “Would you recognize a picture of him?”
“I might,” Abigail said.
“Mary was reported missing in August 1994. We’d like to know about the clients she entertained that month. Do you keep old registration information?” Lance asked.
“Yes.” Abigail nodded. “Back then I still used a paper system, but I kept everything in the storage room. I keep meaning to clean it out. There’s no reason to keep records that old, but I never seem to get around to it even though I’m there most evenings.”
Lance’s surprise must have shown on his face.
“Yes. I am too old to put in that many hours, but like I said, you can’t trust anybody anymore.” Abigail let a deep breath out through her nose. “I have been thinking about selling the place. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. Even the quality of my low-life clients has deteriorated. Used to be I only had to worry about vomiting drunks and married cheaters. Last year, I had two people overdose in my rooms. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life.”
“Could we stop by the motel and look at the old registries?” Lance asked.
“I’m usually there between six p.m. and midnight,” Abigail said. “That’s our busiest time of the day.”
“Thank you.” Morgan stood.
“You’re welcome. Mary didn’t have much of a chance with Crystal for a mother, and she certainly didn’t deserve to be murdered.” Abigail showed them out.
Back in the Jeep, Lance started the engine and stared through the windshield. “The sheriff thinks my dad was one of Mary’s clients. He was right about Mary not being a nice person. Maybe he’s right about my father too. I don’t know how I would ever tell my mother that.”
Had Lance been that wrong about his father?
His phone buzzed, and MOM displayed on the screen.
“Mom?” he answered. But her words were too fast and jumbled to understand. “Hold on. Calm down. What’s wrong?”
His mother took a huge, audible gulp of air. “The sheriff is on TV. He says Vic is a person of interest in Mary Fox’s death.”
“I’ll be right there.” Lance lowered the phone, put the Jeep into gear, and relayed the call to Morgan.
“Oh, no.” Morgan fastened her seat belt. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t you have to pick up Sophie and Gianna?” Lance backed out of the driveway.
Morgan shook her head. “It’s OK. I’ll call Mac. He’ll get them.”
Lance pulled onto the road and stepped on the gas. “But then he’ll have to leave your grandfather alone.”
Morgan turned and took his hand. “It’s all right. Grandpa can behave himself for thirty minutes. My family will always pitch in. That’s what we do. We help each other, even if our responsibilities sometimes seem like the same deck of cards that gets shuffled and dealt out to new people each morning.”
“But I want be there for you and your girls”—frustration filled Lance—“not take you away from your family.”
“Life isn’t neat and clean. Family responsibilities aren’t divvied up in perfectly equal slices all the time. Look at my family. I live with Grandpa and Stella is nearby. So we handle his needs. Mac isn’t family at all, but he does more for Grandpa than my brother, Ian, or my sister, Peyton, because Mac is local.”
Lance couldn’t articulate his feelings, how much he wanted to be a part of her family, because in the end, it just might not be possible.
Chapter Twenty-One
Thirty minutes later, Lance stood in his mother’s office, watching the computer monitor over her shoulder. On the screen, the sheriff stood behind a podium. The image changed to a mocked-up picture of what Vic Kruger might have looked like if he had aged to the present day.
“Mr. Kruger has been missing since August 10, 1994. He is now a person of interest in the murder of Mary Fox.” The sheriff leaned closer to the microphone. “If anyone has information as to his whereabouts, please call the sheriff’s department.”
A phone number scrolled across the bottom of the screen. The sheriff ended the press conference and stepped away from the podium. The video froze.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I can’t believe he made that announcement without warning us.”
But he could. Lance had let a few instances of decent manners soften his opinion of the sheriff. King did what suited King.
“You have nothing to apologize for.” She patted his hand. Her nails were bitten below the quick, so far down that several of them had scabs. “The sheriff is just doing his job, though he’s headed down the wrong path. Your father would never have hurt that girl.”
But Lance couldn’t be so sure. He’d already learned that many of his childhood perceptions had been dead wrong.
“I mean it, Lance. Your father was a good man.” His mother’s body stiffened. She looked more angry than upset. “The sheriff is way off base. He’s wasting all of our time.”
Morgan leaned in the doorway. “Lunch is ready.”
“You’re a dear.” His mom got up from her chair and followed Morgan into the kitchen. “I don’t know that I can eat.”
“You should try.” Morgan wrapped an arm around his mom’s shoulders. She’d heated tomato soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches for three, one of his mother’s favorite wintertime meals. Morgan always paid attention to the little things.
His mother sighed and sat at the table. “All right.”
“Did I tell you what Sophie did this morning?” Morgan launched into a story of Ava tattling on Sophie for coloring on the wall, and Sophie cutting all the hair off Ava’s dolls in retribution.
Distracted, his mom ate half her sandwich.
“I’m almost surprised she didn’t slide a toy horse head into Ava’s bed.” Morgan chuckled.
“That Sophie must be a handful.” His mom dipped her spoon into her soup.
“She is.” Lance finished his grilled cheese without tasting it.
“I’d love to meet your children,” Jenny said to Morgan.
Lance tossed his napkin onto his empty plate. His mother depended on routine. Morgan’s oldest two girls were predictable, but Sophie was a freight train full of chaos. Could his mother handle it?
He studied the lift of her chin and stubborn set to her jaw. Maybe. Just maybe she could. She seemed determined to improve her life.
But it was too soon to speculate about the future. First, they had to get through the current crisis.
“About those e-mail and phone records the sheriff wanted.” His mom got up and fetched a slip of paper and a pen from a kitchen drawer. “As you know, my phone and e-mail are both with my Internet provider. Here’s the log-in and password to my account.” She handed him the paper. “The sheriff can sift through my personal e-mails until his eyeballs cross from boredom. I did not give him access to my professional accounts. He’ll have to get a subpoena for those. I will not compromise my clients’ privacy.”
Sometimes his mom’s intelligence got lost in all the craziness of her life. A trip to the grocery store was beyond her capabilities, but she could design and maintain websites, detect cyber security issues, and teach computer science.
Lance took the paper, hoping the information satisfied the sheriff.
“Don’t worry. He won’t find anything in my e-mails,” his mother said.
Lance hoped she was right.
He turned to Morgan. “Let’s take this information to the sheriff and get back to work.”
They’d uncovered their first big break in the case. It was time to find Warren Fox.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morgan sat in the passenger seat of the Jeep, talking to Sharp on the speakerphone. She kept one eye on Lance in the driver’s seat. He gripped the steering wheel like he was going to rip it out of the dashboard.