Butch chuckled. “A different Monroe,” he said. “This one’s right here in Peoria, only a few blocks from here. Listen,” Butch added. “If you want to talk to Larry, it wouldn’t be any trouble for me to find him. He was in for lunch a little while ago, so I don’t think he’s working today. Want me to give him a call and let him know you’re looking for him?”
Joanna stood up, dropping two dollars on the bar to pay for her drink and to leave a tip. “No,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Don’t bother. Could I have that video back, please? I’ve got some errands to run right now. I’ll get in touch with Larry later if I need to.”
Butch handed over the tape. “Here you go. Sure I can’t talk you into having another?”
Joanna shook her head. “No, thanks, but I’ll be back.”
“Sure you will,” Butch Dixon said, looking disappointed. “You and Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Once in the Blazer, Joanna couldn’t decide what to do. For one thing, even though she had learned something important, it was all purely circumstantial. And although she might not be entirely clear on what it all meant, she recognized that the connections she had made were a good starting place.
She knew Larry Dysart’s name, the color of his eyes, and where he lived—the location at least, if not the exact address. She had established a definite link between the guy who had almost knocked Leann Jessup down at the candlelight vigil and Serena Grijalva. She had also learned that there was a link between Dysart and Dave Thompson—a man who might possibly turn out to be as much victim as he was perpetrator.
Even though Joanna’s quick trip to the Roundhouse had garnered a good deal of information, she had failed to accomplish her original purpose—to establish a link between the Roundhouse and the Nortons. Had she been able to find a connection from them to the Roundhouse, she would have automatically ended up with a connection to Dysart as well. Unfortunately, after watching the video, neither Butch Dixon nor his grizzled, permanent-fixture customer had been able to verify such a link with either Rhonda or her husband.
So there are a few holes in my thinking, Joanna thought, leaning forward to turn the key in the ignition. But that’s why there were real homicide cops in the world; why there were detectives like Carol Strong who would know exactly what to do with the vague patchwork quilt of information Joanna had managed to assemble. And as soon as it was humanly possible, she would hand what she had over to Carol and let the detective go after it.
At one-thirty, however, it was still too early for that. Four o’clock would be plenty of time to talk to her.
In the meantime, Joanna returned to the hotel to wait and think and to relieve Jim Bob Brady of his baby-sitting responsibilities. She stopped by the pool and was happy to find that the girls were finally out of the water. If they were spending the afternoon up in the room watching videos, it would give Ceci’s waterlogged braids time enough to dry out before she had to go back home to Wittmann.
But when Joanna stopped outside the door to room 810, there was no sound at all coming from inside. And when she opened the door, the room wasn’t exactly as she’d left it. There were two wet towels on the bathroom floor in place of the girls’ clothing, which was gone. Obviously, Jenny and Ceci had come back to the room long enough to change, but where were they now?
Joanna picked up the phone intending to dial the Bradys’ room, but the staccato sound of the dial tone told her she had voice-mail messages—three in all.
The first was from Jim Bob Brady.
“I don’t know where you two girls have gone off to,” he said. “I thought I told you to stay put. Maybe you’re in the bathroom with the shower on or a hair dryer goin’. Anyway, Grandma and I are gonna run across the street to Wal-Mart and do a little Christmas shopping. You girls stick around the room until your mom gets back, Jenny. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her today, so I don’t know what the plan is for dinner.”
A half-formed knot of worry began to grow in the pit of Joanna’s stomach. She replayed the message and listened again to Jim Bob saying, “You girls stay around the room ...” No, there was no mistake. Jim Bob had left the girls in the room and expected them to stay there. So where were they?
The second and third messages were from Carol Strong. Both of those had come in within the last ten minutes and both said Carol would call back later.
Once again, Joanna searched the bathroom, pulling the shower curtain all the way aside. She expected to find two wringing-wet bathing suits on the floor of the tub, but the tub was dry and empty. So was the sink. The drain plugs were still closed in the exact same way the housekeeper had left them earlier that morning.
Joanna stood in the bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror, trying to ward off a rising sense of panic, trying to think what to do. Don’t overreact, Joanna told herself firmly. They probably just went back downstairs. Strangely enough, the thought of possible disobedience made Joanna feel better.
Resolutely, she headed downstairs herself. In addition to the pool, the hotel’s recreation area boasted a hot tub as well as a sauna. Posted rules indicated that the last two were off limits to unaccompanied children, but that didn’t mean Jenny would necessarily regard that as the final word. In her daughter’s egocentric, nine-year-old view of the world, what she regarded as unreasonable rules were made to be badly bent if not outright broken.
Jim Bob probably got tired of hanging out at the pool and now Jenny’s trying to pull a fast one, Joanna reasoned grimly. Stalking through the recreation facilities, at first Joanna was more angry than worried. As she searched the hot tub and sauna, she rehearsed a carefully phrased dressing down. She couldn’t be all that hard on Ceci Grijalva because she was a guest. Most likely she didn’t fully understand the rules, but for Jennifer Ann Brady, there could be no such excuse.
Except it turned out the girls weren’t anywhere to be found. Not in the hot tub or in the sauna or in the pool itself. Joanna asked everyone she met if they had seen two little girls, one with short curly blond hair and the other with long dark braids. No one had seen them, not for at least an hour. What had started out as a tiny knot of worry in the pt of her stomach turned into a cement block.
Maybe they got hungry, she told herself hopefully, fighting down a rising sense of panic. Maybe Jenny had realized that armed with a room key she might be allowed to sign for food in the coffee shop. Joanna hurried in that direction, rushing along on tiptoe, trying to scan the few busy tables as she approached in hopes of spotting them. Bu none of the tables was occupied by the two AWOL little girls.
“Mrs. Brady,” a man’s voice said quietly at her elbow. “Maybe you’d like to come with me.”
Joanna looked up, expecting the speaker to be some hotel official who had nabbed Ceci and Jenny in the act of doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Instead, she found herself staring into the astonishingly impenetrable blue eyes of Larry Dysart.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Not who are you?” he returned lightly. “That figures. It means you know who I am. Let’s go sit down and have a drink—a drink and a little talk.”
He took her by the arm and guided her across the lobby. Joanna allowed herself to be led toward the massive fireplace. Larry Dysart directed her to the same chair where she had sat the previous afternoon while she visited with Bob Brundage.
“What about?” she asked.
“About what you want and what I want.”
“The only thing I want right now is my daughter.”
“I know,” Larry Dysart said soothingly. “Of course, you do. Maybe you and I can do a little horse-trading.”