“Candy was fascinating.” Evie gave him a thumbnail sketch of the interview.
David smiled. “Jealousy with an extremely good memory.”
“It’s the contrast of how she views Jenna and the descriptions from other friends that has me curious. I need to find a few more Candys, those in Jenna’s world who didn’t like her. It could be a long step toward solving this mystery.”
“Use whatever works. About ready to call it a night?”
“I need an hour to enter notes, but then I’m out of here.”
“I was going to order in a pizza and do some more database work. I’ll make it a large if you want.”
“Anything without onions. Thanks.”
Phone tag with Rob about dinner arrangements hadn’t connected yet, and it wasn’t going to come together tonight. It was a rare week they didn’t share a meal, but he was working on something that had left his message sounding particularly upbeat, and she no doubt had sounded similar.
Evie settled at her desk with her notebook and Ann’s, focused on getting the notes of their interviews organized into the laptop.
It felt as if the case had moved forward today, though it wasn’t quite clear yet what precisely she was reacting to—maybe the broadened perspective about the victim. Candy had gone from a person of interest to someone shining a light from a different angle on Jenna. The seeming clarity of the original interviews had gone out of focus. That was the interesting shift. Rather than be bothered by it, Evie thought it might be the key that took her toward her answer. Get the whole truth about Jenna to bring her back into focus again, and the task of finding who would want to cause Jenna trouble would likely solve itself.
She liked days that had movement. This indeed had been a good day.
“More possibles?” David asked. Evie glanced over as David joined her, pulling on his coat. He nodded to the whiteboard. “You’ve put up a couple more pictures.”
She turned to consider the photos and names. “Missing college women. Nothing exact to Jenna, but in the ballpark. I’ve been avoiding this direction, but it feels necessary.”
“It’s been nine years. If he’s not been caught, what else has he been doing? It’s logical, Evie.”
“Thanks.” She studied the board once more. “I do think there is at least one before Jenna simply because of how clean her disappearance is, but I don’t know what I’m looking for—another missing person, a sexual assault, maybe a failed abduction?”
“It could be anything,” David said.
“What I’m hoping is that if Jenna was close to his first, she was also close to where he lives. I think the first ones occur on very familiar ground, where he’d have some comfort with how to get away, hide, a plan if things went wrong, alibis in place, friends who would cover for him. He would have started to branch out only after he got more success, been confident enough to take action in a place he’d never been.”
“Reasonable assumptions.”
“It’s a big field to wander into—the FBI report has a lot of names.”
“You understand Jenna pretty well now. She’s your template. Cases that are a match are going to feel like hers, either in the victim type or case details.”
“Jenna does feel like it’s personal—concert, apartment on the second floor—he chose her, whether it was actually Jenna or a certain type. Seems specific enough that he took risks to get to her. I don’t think you make that kind of connection on a twenty-minute ‘she’ll do’ pick in a random crowd of students. Someone took time with his decision. Anyway, I’m going to be working this approach when I’m not doing more interviews.”
She glanced at his coat. “You’re obviously heading out again.”
David gave a rueful smile. “More interviews, here I come. I plan to pick up the pizza on the way back as my reward.”
Evie laughed. “Thanks again.”
“I’m praying for Saul’s remains to turn up. It would save me a lot of time.”
She blinked, realizing David was serious. “Truly?”
“You’re not praying that same kind of thing?”
“I hadn’t even considered it.” And she was rather shocked that she hadn’t. God certainly knew where Jenna was buried.
“Try it. That prayer can’t hurt. ‘Jesus, what am I missing?’ is also a favorite of mine. He knows the answer to that question too.”
Evie smiled. “Thanks. I needed the reminder.”
David tugged out his gloves. “God appreciates justice even more than we do, so it makes sense that He’d be interested in helping us find it. I like to lean hard against that when I feel like I’m banging my head against a stone wall.”