Ripper(9)

But Helen didn’t think Cassie should be saying anyone acted weird, I could guess. I leaned forward. I wasn’t going to make the mistake of not taking her seriously. “How was she acting weird?”

She bit her bottom lip as though wondering exactly how much to tell me. I had to put a stop to that.

“Cassie, I’m not here to judge her. The crap I’ve done in this lifetime makes me unfit to judge anyone. I’m here to find her. The only thing I care about is figuring out what happened to her. I ain’t the cops. You can tell me whatever and trust me, I’ve probably been there and done that.”

Cassie groaned in frustration. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on. I just know she’s been acting weird for Jo. She’s been going out late at night and staying out all night sometimes.”

“Clubbing?” I heard Liv ask.

“Maybe,” the girl said, still a little wary.

Liv walked out of the closet carrying a handful of dresses on hangers. “Look at the labels.”

I obediently read the labels on the beautiful dresses. They were awfully sexy for a sophomore good girl. “I don’t know who Versace is.”

Liv groaned and I guessed I hadn’t pronounced it even close to right.

“Holy shit, that’s a Versace?” Cassie asked and it was obvious she didn’t borrow the other girl’s clothes.

“They were in the back.” Liv went through the dresses one by one. “Gucci, Zac Posen and Monique Lhuillier. I found two pairs of to-die-for Jimmy Choos.”

“I take it those are expensive.” I’m not a fashionista. I wear jeans and T-shirts. I have exactly one little black dress and one pair of good heels. It’s all I need. But the fact that Joanne had clothes she shouldn’t have been able to afford made me curious. “Check her underwear.”

Liv was game. She opened the top drawer of the dresser. “Plain white cotton. Panties and bras.”

“She tends to sleep in a T-shirt,” Cassie offered.

I wasn’t buying it. “Check the back of the drawer.”

Liv’s hand disappeared and her eyes widened when she came back with a handful of silk. “Wow. La Perla. This is freaking gorgeous.”

I wasn’t an idiot. Not even close. This particular leap I was taking had nothing to do with my so-called instincts and everything to do with connecting the dots. “Do you know when Jo lost her scholarship?”

If she’d ever had it in the first place.

Cassie’s mouth dropped open and she stared at me for a moment. “How did you know that?”

I wasn’t about to tell her I knew because most nice girls didn’t prostitute themselves if they weren’t seriously hurting for cash. She wouldn’t be doing it if she still had a free ride. She might not be hooking in a traditional sense. I doubted that given the designer clothes and fancy undies, but she was making cash off some man, somewhere. “It was an educated guess.”

Cassie shook her head and sat up straight. “I transferred in last semester in the middle of the year. Jo’s roomie had dropped out so she got paired up with me. We got along okay. She was always studying or doing things at home. I was surprised she requested to room with me again this year, but I was up for it. She’s a nice girl and she doesn’t freak about the weird stuff. But I knew something was different this semester. She was out a lot and her grades weren’t that great. I know it’s only October, but she missed a test because she slept in. It wasn’t like her. I asked about it and she said the foundation that administered her scholarship went broke this summer. There was some sort of scandal. She lied to her mom so she wouldn’t worry. She said she was working at some club, but I don’t know where.”

“Were there any particular men who would come by wanting to see her?”

“Well, there’s Darren. Jo’s known him since they were kids. Obviously he has a thing for her, but she doesn’t see him as anything more than a friend.” Cassie thought for a second or two. “She spent some time with a professor. She had him last year for freshman English, but she’s taking a special class with him this year on mythology and folklore. I think his name is Hamilton. She called him Peter, which I thought was a little weird. The profs around here tend to be conservative. She was doing some sort of project for him.”

I stood up and glanced around. If Joanne was on the game then it made sense that she probably kept an appointment book. “Where is her laptop?”

“She took it with her the night she went missing. For the last month or so, she took it everywhere because she’d gotten so behind she had to work whenever she got a few minutes.”