“Yeah, thanks.”
Aidan took the files with him back to his hotel, where he hesitated, then gave Jeremy a call. Odd, they were a close family, but they each had a different place in the city where they preferred to stay. He was at the Monteleone, which was family-owned and where the current boss had gone above and beyond for his employees after the storm. Jeremy preferred a small place on the other side of Jackson Square called the Provincial. Zach was especially fond of a certain bed-and-breakfast.
“Hey. How’s it going?” he asked, when his brother answered his cell phone.
“Well, I visited my friends at the police station,” Jeremy told him.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going through the information I got. You?”
“I got what I could from Jonas. I’m about to start going through the files now. Where’s Zach?”
“At the house, with the contractor. He’s been playing on the computer, says he has some facts and figures that might prove interesting. He said we should meet at the house tomorrow. He’s convinced the place can be ready by the end of the month, so we can host that benefit for displaced kids.” Jeremy’s tone showed how grateful he was that at least one of his brothers was embracing his cause.
Strange, Aidan thought. We all look so damned normal and even strong. But every one of us gets obsessed, as if somehow we can erase the horrors of our past.
“Good. We can talk more tomorrow.”
Jeremy agreed. Aidan rang off and started on the files.
Jonas had been as good as his word. He hadn’t held anything back. He had in fact given Aidan far more than he’d needed to. Most of the files were worthless; they were just reports that had gone out, and the person might have been anywhere. Many looked as if no foul play was involved; they concerned people who had wanted to break with the past and start over somewhere else. Some were of people who had apparently disappeared, only to reappear.
But there were a few that seemed relevant, and one of those caught his attention right away.
Jenny Trent.
She’d left Lafayette for New Orleans three months ago, planning to spend one night before heading for the airport early in the morning. Her disappearance hadn’t been reported for over a month, because she was a teacher on summer vacation and had only one living relative, her cousin’s widow, Betty Trent. Betty, raising three children on her own, hadn’t reported that Jenny was missing until the school had called her, as next of kin, to find out why Jenny hadn’t returned to work.
Jenny was described as standing five feet three inches tall and weighing one hundred and ten pounds. At twenty-eight, she’d worked hard and, after six years of teaching, saved up for her dream trip to South America, where she had planned to remain for twenty-eight days. An investigation of her home computer had shown that she’d printed her boarding pass; checking with the airlines had shown that she’d never boarded the plane that was to take her to Caracas via Miami.
No one knew where she had stayed—or planned to—in New Orleans. Her credit card receipts hadn’t led the police anywhere.
If she was dead, it had only been three months. Not time enough for her body to have decayed down to nothing but bone. Unless the process had been given some help. If she’d been cut into pieces, then left out in the intense, baking heat of New Orleans or hidden in a shallow grave, it might just be possible. He wasn’t a forensic expert, but he’d been around enough crime scenes, and five-three would fit the length of the first bone he’d found.
He was grasping at straws, he knew, but he just had a feeling, and over the years, he’d learned to trust his gut. As he read the file, he felt a surge of indignation. Here was a young woman who had done all the right things: she’d studied, landed a good job. She’d worked; she’d saved. She’d planned a long-dreamed-of holiday—and she had disappeared. And with only an in-law—a woman trying to raise a family alone—to pursue what had happened, the trail had grown cold and the case had been shelved.
There were a few other files that appeared interesting, but Jenny Trent’s seemed to be the most on the money.
He picked up the phone and called Jeremy.
“I thought we were meeting in a few hours,” his brother said.
“We are. Do you have anything on a Jenny Trent?”
“Yeah, I have that file right on top, as a matter of fact.”
“What I have says there are no credit card receipts for a hotel, motel or bed-and-breakfast. I don’t have any of the other charge records. Do you have anything?” Aidan told him.
“I have a list of merchants. Most of them we’d have to track down, but…get this. She has a charge from a place we know and love,” Jeremy said.
“Yeah?”
“The Lair of the Undead.”
The name didn’t mean anything to Aidan. “And that is…?”