Evie lightly crossed off number two—Missing by her own choice, though it remained readable. What she knew about this college girl indicated that was unlikely.
5. Boyfriend Steve Hamilton did something?
6. Former boyfriend Spence Spinner did it?
7. Abduction for ransom that went bad, with no ransom call made?
8. Anyone out there who would want to cause Jenna’s family grief?
She needed a deeper look at the family. Brighton College was a private school and tuition would be expensive, suggesting either numerous scholarships and grants or the parents had money. Evie made a note to research that topic. Cops would have looked at the boyfriends closely, but she’d take another look there too.
9. If killed in her apartment, where did the body go? Hauled out when/how? Friday night? Saturday morning? Not a solitary sign of violent death?
10. Killed in another apt in the building?
11. Any other abductions, disappearances of women from this college?
12. Someone else sent that last text, not Jenna?
Evie stopped when she wrote down twelve, feeling an interesting tug. Maybe killed somewhere else and then someone takes her apartment keys, goes to the apartment, maybe to steal some cash (hard to know) or remove a connection that cops would otherwise find, photos on her phone or laptop, or to retrieve a gift given to Jenna. He (or she) sends text to her mother to misdirect when and where Jenna had been. I’m back at the apartment, sent at 11:42 p.m., only it’s not Jenna sending it. Evie circled number twelve. She’d learned through experience to find areas not yet explored, or only glanced at, and spend more time there. She thought the cops had probably not pursued this particular idea.
13. Jenna was grabbed on the block before she reached her building, killed in some other building/apartment on the block? (But her keys were there—she would have had them with her . . . killer returned them?)
Evie would need to know who had lived not only in Jenna’s building, but in every apartment in the neighborhood—a whole lot of data to dig up and a lot of backgrounds to look into. Evie felt hope begin to rise that this case could be solved. Cops already would have looked at guys living in the area, but had they really drilled down? Systematically, building by building, across that block and others nearby? She could dig in with the benefit of hindsight. There could be a record of something off about the person she was looking to find. Kill one girl, odds were good you had committed other crimes in the last nine years. Evie put a star beside that idea.
What else? What other theories could fit the facts?
14. A good student. Was she writing papers for other students to make extra money? Helping someone cheat, now wanting to stop? Or she’d said no to someone who asked for her help to cheat?
15. She was a good student because she was the one cheating, buying papers and getting advance looks at tests from a TA?
16. She saw something she wasn’t supposed to see and was killed to keep her from talking. A drug deal? A fight? What else happened that night in the area?
Okay, now she was finding herself in the weeds. Evie put down her pen and read back through her lists. She’d add more in the coming days, but enough was here that she might already have brushed up against the answer to this case.
Evie retrieved the photos cops had taken of the apartment and began to sort them out by area and room. She was interrupted by the front desk calling to say their lunch order had arrived. Evie walked down to get it, carried the sack to the conference room. “Mind if I join you?”
David turned from his whiteboard, smiled, and pointed to the clear end of the conference table. “I’d welcome the company. I’ll be paused here in a minute.”
It would be good to step away from Jenna for a bit. Evie divided the lunch order and pulled out a chair. Piles of folders filled the rest of the table, two laptops were open, and the PI’s phones were neatly lined up. She watched David writing more notes on the long whiteboard, building his case overview. She started her lunch. “You’re not linear,” Evie remarked, intrigued by what he was doing. Client names, family members, neighbors, and friends all radiated out in various circle clusters.
David paused to unwrap his sandwich, gestured to the board. “It’s people who interacted with him who can tell me his life story. And one of those people likely killed him. I’ll deal with the timeline when I’m ready to break the alibi that’s spun.”
“You don’t think he could just be missing, that he took himself off the grid and disappeared for some reason?”
David shook his head. “I find it easier to assume the worst. Then I ask the tougher questions.”
“Interesting point.”