Not a bad idea at all.
Chapter Two
“Tell me again why we’re meetin’ on a Sunday night? Is this when you plan to kick off our week?” JJ inquired as she took a seat on the black leather couch she’d bought for the barn, a paper plate with a slice of pizza and one breadstick in her hand. “Because I was under the impression the workweek starts on Monday.”
“Until Reese is workin’ with us full-time, it’s the best time slot,” Brantley explained, taking his own plate over to the desk she’d assigned to him. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it did appear to be new. On the top sat a laptop computer, a single notepad, and a jar of pens. It was the mirror image of the desk set up for Reese, neither having been used for work up to this point, but it did make a damn fine dinner table.
“You get a replacement yet?” JJ asked Reese.
“Did. Yeah.”
Brantley discreetly watched the ridiculously sexy man. At least he hoped he was being discreet. For whatever reason, when the guy was in the same room, Brantley wanted nothing more than to look at him. Okay, not necessarily true. He wanted to do a hell of a lot more than look, but he was keeping his lust under control. Mostly.
“Who?” JJ asked. “Do I know him?”
“Her,” Reese clarified. “Autumn Jameson. One of Lorrie’s nieces.”
“She qualified?”
“More so than I am. Got her degree in business, was doing the corporate thing, decided she wanted to slow her pace.”
“She live here?”
Brantley watched the exchange, chowed down on pepperoni, sausage, and green peppers.
“No. Closer to the city, but she’s keepin’ her eye out for real estate in the area. She’s willin’ to rent if it comes down to it.”
“Not easy to come by.” Brantley knew from experience. The house he’d purchased had been on the market for three hours before he managed to swoop in and snag it thanks to a rather aggressive Realtor referred to him by none other than his cousin Travis. Timing was everything when it came to buying in Coyote Ridge.
“Don’t you have an apartment?”
Brantley frowned over at JJ, curious as to where she was going with this.
“What?” she asked around a mouthful of pizza.
“You want Reese livin’ on the streets?”
JJ chuckled, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Of course not.”
Her eyes glittered with mischief, a sure sign she was about to venture down a path better left untraveled.
“Don’t go there, JJ,” he warned.
Another smile, but she nodded. “I won’t. Promise. Any plans to bring on anyone else yet?”
“Let’s get through our first case,” he told her. “We won’t know what we need until we’ve dug in deep, exhausted the resources we do have.”
JJ set her plate aside, leaned forward, and grabbed her Pepsi from the table. “Where do we start?”
Finally getting down to the business at hand, Brantley gladly shared his thoughts. “I need you to get me a list of people the police talked to back when Lauren first went missing along with their current contact info. Family, friends, teachers. Whoever’s still around. I want to get a clearer picture of what was going on at the time she went missing.”
“This girl simply vanished,” JJ replied.
“No one simply vanishes,” Reese countered. “It might look that way from the outside, but Lauren went somewhere. Whether by choice or by force.”
“And what if she did run away?” JJ’s gaze bounced between them. “She was fifteen years old. We have no idea what was going through her mind at the time. Maybe she had a boyfriend. Older guy. He could’ve convinced her to run off with him.”
Brantley had considered that angle, would definitely be digging deeper to rule it out. “Anything’s possible.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“Right now, the only thing I think is that a young girl went missing nine years ago. That’s all we’ve got to go on.”
“Which is exactly the problem,” she said on a sigh.
“No, the problem’s the girl is missing.” Reese stood with his empty plate, grabbing Brantley’s and carrying both to the trash can in the kitchen before returning. “And it’s up to us to trace her steps and figure out where she went.”
Brantley could sense JJ’s nerves, knew she was still trying to wrap her head around how this would work. Interesting considering how smart she was, but it seemed to him, she’d somehow created a box where she felt her skillset fit. It would take some work, but he knew JJ would find where she fit in. Her skills were unrivaled, and she would make a huge impact on whatever task they took on. It was just a matter of building her confidence.
“Out of curiosity, how will we learn about new cases?” JJ settled back against the cushions.
“The governor’ll contact us initially, until he can get the word out to all departments and branches of law enforcement who deal with missing persons.”
