She added a family photo: parents and two girls with snowcapped mountains behind them—Yellowstone, 2003, according to the caption. Luke was nearly a foot taller than his wife and daughters. There were no obvious signs of stress in the family photo, such as one of the girls avoiding being too close or resisting a parent’s touch, and the smiles seemed genuine.
A helpful cop had added Post-it notes to Jenna’s albums. Evie reviewed images, chose several that seemed the most relevant, and added them to the case board.
Current boyfriend: Steve Hamilton
Former boyfriend: Spence Spinner
Best friend: Robin Landis
Study group friend: Amy Bertram
College friend: Tiffany Wallace
Her first interviews would be with family and friends. Evie reached for the phone and called her preferred researcher at the State Police, gave him the names to track down. Jenna’s college friends would have dispersed across the nation after graduation, but hopefully some were still in the area. The rest she’d re-interview by video. She would wait to contact the parents until the detective assigned to the case spoke with them and conveyed the news the task force was once more taking up the search.
“Will music bother you?”
Evie turned to look at David. It was quiet in here. “Try it. I’ll tell you if it does.”
At another desk he pulled up a playlist of songs on a website, and music filled the office suite at a comfortable volume. She didn’t know a lot about popular music, but she recognized the song currently climbing to the top of the charts. “You like her music. You had that band, Triple M, playing on our drive to pick up the case boxes.”
He dug out his wallet and slipped out a photo, showed it to her.
Evie stared. “Margaret May McDonald? She’s your girl? Are you kidding me?”
David laughed. “She prefers just Maggie. There are dozens more photos on my phone, but this is my favorite.” He slid the photo back into his wallet. “She’s scheduled to be the special guest a week from Friday at Chicago’s charity benefit sponsored by the mayor. She’ll be singing a couple of songs. If you’d like to go, I’ll introduce you.”
“I’d love that,” Evie replied, stunned at the news. “Wow. At our first break here, you owe me the story of you two, how that came to be.”
“It’s more dinner-hour fare, as it’s long, with ripples folding back on each other. But it’s a good one to tell.”
“You’re on.”
“I’m going to find the break room and start some coffee. How do you take yours?”
“Black is fine.”
David headed down the hall. Evie added more notes about Jenna to the whiteboard.
Brighton College
Biology major
Chemistry minor
Junior year by credit count
4.4 out of 5.0 GPA
Her thoughts were no longer fully focused on her case. Her working partner was a celebrity’s boyfriend. How had she missed that? It couldn’t be that tight a secret in the music world. Cops were notoriously low-key about celebrities in their midst, but when the significant other happens to be this famous and dating a cop? Evie was struck by how many comments must have drifted by her and not registered.
No wonder David had smiled at her question about a girl. Oh, yeah, he had a girl. Only one of the most famous singing sensations in the country!
Deal with it, Evie whispered to herself, forcing her attention back on task. She posted a copy of Jenna’s class schedule. She searched out names of Jenna’s professors, TAs, her academic advisor, listed them under the class schedule.
She’d been a bit intimidated to work with David Marshal before this, knowing his official reputation, but now it was on a whole new level. He’d probably been backstage at numerous concerts, met any number of other celebrities in New York. She was going to have to brush up on her music knowledge. She knew what kind of music she liked to listen to, but could rarely remember the title of a song, let alone name the singer or the band.
Something similar happened when Rob would introduce her to someone at a party. She’d say hi and have no clue how important the person was in the greater world of finance and business. People probably thought she was rather self-assured, not intimidated to meet important people, when most of the time she simply didn’t know who they were. Ann did the same, introducing Evie to the governor-elect, to the former vice-president. Ann’s world seemed normal and yet was filled with areas that were anything but common. Ann was comfortable there, but Evie struggled to figure out how to do that. She never wanted to be personally famous. If she had a single goal in life, she just wanted to be a good detective.
The alarm on her phone interrupted her introspection. Evie found the stack of area menus the security guard had provided and scanned through them. “What sounds good to you for lunch?” she asked David as he came through the door with two mugs of coffee.