Page 101 of Sycamore Circle

Seth got down on a knee. Then, to Bo’s surprise, looked up. “Here ya go.” He yanked down a key attached to a magnet. “It’s a clever spot. Foolish as all get out, but clever.”

Bo slipped it in the door and turned it easily. “First thing I’m going to tell Joy when I see her is to stop hiding keys outside her door.”

As he feared, the house looked as it might if someone expected to come back before too long to straighten up. A cereal bowl sat in the sink, along with a coffee cup and a spoon. A box of cereal and a loaf of bread was on the counter. Shoes were in the middle of the living room.

“I’m going to take a look around, Bo,” Seth said.

“Good idea.” He didn’t want to invade Joy’s privacy, but they knew too much about crimes to not check out her house.

While Seth did his tour, Bo located the calendar on the wall. Sure enough, Chloe had dance and there was a notation that Joy would pick her up. The only other note was that Joy was tutoring that morning at Sacred Grounds. Blessing her organized, detail-oriented mind, he read the name of her student. Anthony.

He closed his eyes, picturing the man in his head.

“Everything looks like you’d expect, I reckon,” Seth announced. “The master bed is made, the girl’s ain’t. Nothing looks rifled through or disturbed though. If something happened to her, it didn’t happen here.”

“I think it happened at the coffee shop. At Sacred Grounds.”

After locking back the door and returning the key—on the off chance that one of the women would need it—they hopped back in the truck and drove the short distance to the coffee shop.

It was now close to five and Sacred Grounds was closed. He and Seth looked in the windows, but nothing looked out of place.

Until Seth clasped the back of his shoulder. “Ain’t that Joy’s car?” He pointed to a back parking lot.

Feeling like he was walking through mud, Bo stared at the vehicle. Heart pounding, he approached and looked inside. It hadn’t been broken into. It simply looked abandoned.

Joy had come to Sacred Grounds for her 9:00 a.m. appointment with Anthony and never made it back to her car.

“I think we’ve got a problem,” he murmured as he strode back to his truck. “Is Lincoln gone yet?”

“I’ll call him and see. You gonna call Chloe?”

He nodded, though he felt like he already had a lead weight around his neck. He dreaded even the thought of upsetting that girl. It was the right thing to do, though.

“I will. I’ll call Kevin too. Something happened, Seth.” Besides, if Chloe could reach out to Finn and both of them could summon the nerve to call him, he knew he could find the strength to call her and deliver the bad news. It broke his heart, though. He suddenly wished he lived just a block away from his momma. One phone call would send her over to Chloe like a torpedo. Though she wouldn’t be able to make everything better, his mother would soothe and comfort the girl.

In the distance, they heard a faint crash. Both men looked around, actively attempting to find the source of the noise. The area seemed completely empty, though.

“Must have been a cat or something,” Seth muttered.

“Yeah,” Bo replied.

Neither of them believed it.

CHAPTER 35

Joy wasn’t sure how long she’d been in Anthony’s small room in the basement of Sacred Grounds. Her brain was a little fuzzy and her back and side hurt from knife wounds. Her entire body felt weak and sluggish. And she was freezing, lying on his underground brick floor for who knows how long.

She was alone.

As seconds passed and her throbbing head cleared, she slowly became aware of her surroundings. It was a dark place, with only two narrow windows near the ceiling letting in a bare sliver of natural light. Instead, a single light bulb illuminated the space. It cast a strange glow in the room, giving everything a faint yellow cast.

It seemed that Anthony lived in an efficiency apartment. The single room was likely not any more than three or four hundred square feet. An unmade twin-size bed sat in one corner. An old, gray metal card table holding a computer stood next to one wall; and a chair in front of a small television on a crate sat near the opposite one. In the back corner was a small kitchenette—nothing more than a hot plate and a dorm-room-sized refrigerator. Just behind her was a door, likely leading to the bathroom.

It really was a cold, depressing space. Not because of the size and the location but because there was nothing personal, nothing homey or comforting in it. Honestly, it looked like Anthony had set himself up in someone’s unfinished basement.

And then she saw all the photos.

Dozens of pictures of herself were taped to the wall just to her left. Photos of her alone, with Chloe. In her car. Walking. With other clients. When Joy noticed that her hair was highlighted in one of the photos, she gasped. She’d gotten highlights two years ago in a misguided attempt to freshen up her look. All that had happened, of course, was that she had blond streaks slowly growing out over the next two years. She’d only recently gotten the last of them trimmed out.

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