Page 76 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

“Good.”

Grant popped up all of a sudden, huffing and puffing, and I could tell in a glance this was one frustrated man. In fact, I’d seen that reaction before. Was this our guy?

Without fanfare, Grant levered himself up with Alan’s help and announced, “Good news is, this is our guy. Bad news is, I can’t, for the life of me, get a lock on him.”

Well. That was problematic. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?”

Grant blew out a breath like he’d been cursed with this problem even though he hadn’t asked for it, and how dare someone thwart him.

“Yeah. I guess trying again is the answer. How many licks it takes to get to the center of the lollipop, that’s my question.”

“From the looks of it,” Marc muttered, also looking very cross, “we’re about to find out.”

Jon abruptly asked Serena, “What did the ad say? Do you remember that at all?”

“I—oh, no, I don’t—” Then she stopped dead, eyes flaring wide. “I’m a moron. I screenshotted the ad and sent it to my sister! It’s still in our chat history.”

I whipped out my phone, even as Jon hastily stepped several feet backward. “Ma’am, send that to me. In fact, save my number. You can always text me if you hear from him again or if you think of something else.”

“Sure.”

We swapped phone numbers, she forwarded the screenshot to me, and I sent it to Sho.

And with any luck, the guy didn’t put a burner number on the ad, and we’d be able to call him for a party request and lure him out. I wasn’t holding my breath, mind you, because this guy was paranoid as hell. Still. With this many things connecting to him, hopefully we’d get a break soon.

Hopefully.

26

Not sure where to go, we ended up in a hotel nearby. Gonzalez got us three hotel rooms on the off chance we ended up staying here tonight, and Donovan and I ran out and got us all takeout for dinner, even though it was a bit early.

It was quite the sight, seeing Grant lying on a bed, dipping in and out of his dream plane while clutching a cheap child’s toy. Marc sat on the other bed, toy in hand. I could see his lines flexwith pure white as he tried every few minutes to get a lock. We’d have to go take their toys away at this rate or neither man would sleep tonight. They’d already been at this for several hours, only pausing for snacks or bathroom breaks, and showed no signs of giving up soon. I should stop them at the five-hour mark; otherwise, they really would go all night.

Donovan’s phone rang and he leaned away from me in order to answer. “It’s your mom,” he said as he looked at the screen. “Hi, Lauren.”

Mom sounded like she was laughing, a wicked tone of enjoyment in the sound.

“Donovan. Tell me Jon’s nearby.”

“He sure is. In fact, you’re on speaker with him, Grant, Alan, Marc, and Gonzalez.”

“Oh good. The more of a crowd, the better. Phew!Y’all. Karma is a bitch and I love her to pieces.”

I sat up abruptly. This promised to be gold altogether. “What’s happened?”

“Let me fill them in first. Did you all hear how I lost my house during the divorce despite the fact my ex didn’t own it with me the first ten years I had it?”

“Uh, no?” Marc responded. “But that’s shitty.”

“In the extreme. I had to split half my 401(k) with him, too, dirty bastard. Anyway, all the finances and such finally hit an end recently in court. I was disheartened but also willing to pay out that much just to get rid of Rodger. BUT!Something beautiful just happened. Jon, you know how bad Rodger is with paperwork.”

I snorted. “Yeah, everyone knows that. He can’t even pay his bills on time.”

“Well, guess what paperwork he didn’t think was important enough to do?”

A slow smile took over my face because I could tell from my mother’s glee, Rodger had just pulled a Rodger-ism that would go in her favor. “Tell me.”

“The house insurance. It was still in my name only. He’d paid the bill but hadn’t thought to update the company on our divorce.”

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