Chapter 22
Jamie
Jamie wakes up on Monday morning with a start. He hates this, the disconcerting feeling of not knowing exactly where he is.
Bleary-eyed, he takes in the bland surroundings, the drab curtains, the scratchy comforter that he kicked to the end of the
bed during the night, the digital clock on the bedside table squawking obnoxiously at him. Six o’clock. Dread washes over
him.
Not all the memories from his time in Nightjar are bad, but it’s difficult to sift through the horrible ones to latch on to
any of the good ones. There were the times, when their mother was crashed out on the pullout sofa, exhausted from cleaning
rooms all day and working the front desk all night, when Jamie and Juneau would flip on a flashlight and pull bags of flour
and sugar from the cupboards and eggs and lemons from their dorm-size refrigerator in the tiny kitchenette. It was nearly
impossible to be quiet in such a small, cramped space, but that was half the fun. They would hunch together, heads bent over
a faded, limp recipe card trying to decipher their grandmother’s elegant handwriting, and toss together the ingredients for
lemon squares without speaking. Inevitably, they would collapse into spluttering bursts of laughter and would present the
overly browned, overly tart lemon squares to their mother when she awoke.
Jamie doesn’t linger too long on memories like these because they always lead to the night that Juneau disappeared.
Instead, he replays the events of two days earlier in his mind, and he wishes he could have done something to prevent Dalton Monaghan’s death.
Second-guessing himself is like playing a futile game of what-if.
It does nothing but keep him from focusing on the case in front of him.
Wes and Madeline Drake, Dalton Monaghan, Sully Preston, Mellie Bauer—all pointing fingers at someone else. Then there is Lucy
Quaid. The threads swirl around his head, none of them connecting, and leaving Jamie even more confused. He needs coffee.
He pushes himself up from the bed and checks his cell. A missed call from Tess. He should call her back, but Jamie can’t stand
another conversation about how she hates their new home, hated giving up her career, and hated that Jamie had talked her into
moving. He wants Tess to be happy, he really does. And in the end, he knows they will most likely move back to DC. But first,
he knows he has to come to terms with his sister’s disappearance, to bury the ghosts that have been haunting him for twenty-seven
years.
Today Jamie is going to visit the seven hardware stores in the area that carry the items found in the IED blast. It’s a long
shot, but he’s hoping one of the clerks will remember someone purchasing double-headed nails, PVC piping, duct tape, and ball
bearings in the weeks leading up to the explosion. He starts in Nightjar at the local hardware store. The clerk, who is also
the owner, isn’t much help and explains that this is ranch country and everyone buys these items at one time or another. He
moves on to Jackson City, and while more successful, he runs into the same roadblocks—dozens of each of the items on his list
have been sold the two weeks before the gender reveal party but none to the same person. He gets back in his car, disappointed
but not surprised. They are going to have to widen their search.
He drives back to the sheriff’s office, and the first thing Jamie does is cross-check the guest list with the names of possible men who might hold a grudge against Wes that Mia Preston sent him.
They aren’t listed. Apparently, they didn’t get invited, or the husbands didn’t want their wives anywhere near Wes.
Still, this doesn’t mean they didn’t plant the bomb.
He calls one of the deputies over and sends him on his way to question the men and find out where they were Friday night and the days leading up to the explosion.
“Be discreet,” he advises. “Just tell them we are interviewing everyone in the Drakes’ orbit.
Verify their alibis, and let me know what you find out. ”
Jamie turns his attention to the clear plastic evidence bag that holds the piece of paper with frayed edges that Dalton was
holding when he was shot. Now it is black with dried blood, the writing nearly impossible to decipher. Dalton said that Johanna
had written something down. Something that implicated Wes. But what did it say? Unfortunately, Dalton and Johanna Monaghan
are both dead and can’t answer these questions.
After they finished at the Drakes’, the forensic team went directly to the Monaghan home and executed a search warrant. They
found nothing related to the explosion—no double-headed nails, no ball bearings matching the ones left behind at the crime
scene, though Dalton had an impressive cache of firearms in the gun safe. The Monaghan computers have been packed up and sent
to experts who will do a digital inspection, looking for evidence that Dalton had researched how to make an IED. The techs
did find a journal belonging to Johanna that looks like it could be the source of the now-bloody paper.
Jamie slips on a pair of gloves and begins thumbing through the journal and opens to a page that looks as if a sheet was roughly ripped out.
He aligns the bagged paper with the journal’s inner spine and finds that the ripped edges match like a puzzle piece.
The entries before and after are about the clients she served as a midwife or the mundane details of an ordinary life.
Johanna mostly wrote fondly of her husband and regarded Madeline Drake as her best friend.
What Jamie doesn’t find are notes documenting Johanna’s deepest, darkest secrets or an affair with Wes Drake or anyone else.
What had Dalton said? “What I don’t understand is why she would be with you, knowing what a monster you are. ”
He checks the date of the torn entry. Two months ago. What was so important about this particular page? It’s odd that Johanna
was so careful not to mention an affair on any of the other pages but seemingly poured out her soul on this one. He has an
appointment with Wes later this afternoon, and he’ll ask him that very question. His phone vibrates, and he’s relieved to
see the caller isn’t Tess but Greta. “Whatcha got for me?”
“Well, good morning to you too,” Greta says. “No, don’t worry, Greta. I’m just fine after my near-death experience the other day.”
“I am fine. Now, tell me what you found out.”
“A few interesting tidbits. Where do you want me to start?”
“How about with Dalton Monaghan?” Jamie says, reaching for a pen. “Anything new?”
“I was able to contact his supervisor at the wind turbine company he worked for, and he said he was an okay employee but a
bit of a hothead. He wrote Monaghan up a few times for getting into it with a fellow coworker, but nothing too serious. Said
he was more likely to punch a wall than a person. I also talked to his former lieutenant at the army recruitment center. Said
he liked the guy well enough but mentioned that Monaghan was obsessed with firearms and munitions. And that obsessed is a direct quote,” Greta says.
“That explains all the guns found in the home,” Jamie says, rubbing his forehead.
“Are you thinking Monaghan planted the bomb?” Greta asks.
“He certainly was angry enough, but we need a lot more than that to close this case,” Jamie says. “What else do you have for
me?”
“How about another angry person?” she says, lightly. “Lucy Quaid, thirty-eight years old, owned a small horse farm in Lone
Tree, Iowa, where she and her stepsister, Madeline Drake, were raised. Lucy is in the middle of a contentious divorce, no
kids.”
“No kidding?” Jamie says. “Lone Tree, huh? Madeline and Wes Drake named their ranch after the town where the sisters grew
up. Interesting.”
“No kidding,” Greta repeats. “And she’s broke. Not a little bit broke but had-to-sell-off-all-her-worldly-possessions broke.
Lucy’s father died last month, and in his will Madeline was named the executor. Lucy has to go through her stepsister to get
a penny. To top it all off, he left all his horses to Madeline.”
“So Lucy’s dad made his stepdaughter in charge of his daughter’s trust. That would be cause for hurt feelings. Maybe she’s
come to Wyoming to ask her sister for more money?” Jamie muses. “Or maybe she came all this way to blow Madeline up and Johanna
stepped on the IED by accident. If Madeline dies, who does the money go to? Does it revert to Lucy or go to Wes?”
“I’m still waiting for the Drake financials to come in, but I’m on it,” Greta says.
“Perfect,” Jamie says. “Anything else?”
“This may be a coincidence, but nonetheless interesting,” Greta says. “Before moving to Nightjar nine years ago, Johanna Monaghan née Mills moved around some. She lived in Ohio, Mississippi, Minnesota, and West Virginia. And guess who else lived in West Virginia?”
Jamie sits up straighter in his seat. “Who?”
Greta pauses for dramatic effect. “Mellie Bauer.”
“The waitress?” Jamie asks.
“Yeah. At one point, they lived only about twenty miles away from one another.”
“You’re kidding.” His heart begins to thrum the way it does when he gets that one piece of information that might be the break
in a case.
“Not kidding,” Greta says.
“How long ago?” He needs to have another chat with Mellie. He hears the shuffle of papers.
“Johanna moved there twelve years ago. Stayed for just under one,” Greta explains. “That’s when she moved to Ohio.”
“Twelve years,” Jamie repeats, his excitement extinguishing. “Mellie Bauer would have only been about nine years old then.
Any other connections between the two of them?”
“Not that I can find. Yet,” Greta emphasizes. “But I’m still digging. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Anything on Sully and Mia Preston?” Jamie asks.
“I was saving the best for last,” Greta says. “At first glance, they appear richer than God—the house, the ranch, their business,