SEAL’s Redemption by Leslie North

4

Acouple of days later, Hope was settled at her kitchen table, ready to start a video interview for her book project. Making the transition from the gang article to working full time on the Lauren cold case had been harder mentally than she’d imagined. She wasn’t sure if it was because of all the stress of the past few days, or the fact that Logan was still hanging around her house, true to his word. In fact, she could hear him down the hall now, working in her spare bedroom that he’d commandeered and turned into a makeshift office, his fingers tapping furiously on his keyboard as he messaged with his security firm colleagues.

Her computer dinged and she refocused on her task. Onscreen, a woman’s face appeared. Late thirties, blonde hair, green eyes, Jennifer Rees vaguely resembled what Hope would expect Diana Lauren to look like now, if she was still alive—which she very well might be. They’d been roommates back in colleges, and Hope had her fingers crossed that Jennifer might provide some new details that could lead the decades-old investigation in new and more productive directions.

“Thanks so much for agreeing to talk to me today,” Hope said, smiling. “I appreciate you getting up so early, with the West Coast time difference and all.”

“No problem,” Jennifer said, raising her coffee. “We’re three hours behind you guys, though, so I can’t attest to how sharp I’ll be.”

“I’m sure you’re fine.” Hope picked up her pen and got ready to take notes. “Okay. Let’s get started then. You and Diana both lived in a house on Franklin Street while you were attending Johns Hopkins, correct?”

“Yep. There were a bunch of us in the house. Crazy times.”

“I remember.” Hope chuckled. At Jennifer’s curious look, she said, “My family lived down the street. I remember all of you girls. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to work on this case. Not sure if you remember, but Diana even babysat me a few times.”

“Oh, wow! No, I don’t remember that. Sorry. But we all babysat a lot, to make ends meet.”

Hope asked some more questions—just background information about what life was like back then, the things that Jennifer and Diana used to do together. It helped Hope get a general picture of what life was like before the disappearance—but hopefully it also got Jennifer digging into that part of her memory bank so that she’d be able to share as much as possible about what had happened surrounding Diana’s disappearance.

“Do you have any idea why Diana went missing?” Hope asked.

“No, I don’t. Even now, it all seems so nuts. She was the last person you’d expect that from. Diana was always a great student. She wasn’t a wild partier. Didn’t do drugs—barely even drank. We had fun, sure, but she was totally responsible. Not at all the type to run off without telling anyone where she was going.”

“What about boyfriends?” Hope tried next. “Any chance she ran off with someone?”

“I mean, I guess there’s always a chance—but she definitely wasn’t seeing anyone that I knew about. And it didn’t seem like she was sneaking around to meet anyone either. Besides, why would they run off like that? People asked us that back then—if she might have gotten mixed up in some kind of crime, something that made her want to get away from the police. But that wasn’t Diana. No way.”

Right. Basically, exactly what the cops had found, and the newspapers back then had reported. She tried a different tack. “What about any strange occurrences or odd happenings around the time she disappeared? Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, nothing you’d report to officials, but now looking back it sticks out?”

Jennifer seemed to consider that a moment, frowning into her coffee, then said, “Not really. I mean, nothing from back then at all. But I did just talk to one of our other sorority sisters a couple days ago. She used to work in the financial aid office part time, and she mentioned that Diana’s scholarship was created just for her. I never knew that until now.”

“Huh.” Hope scribbled that down on her legal pad. “That does seem odd.”

“Yeah. When I asked Sally where the money came from, she said it was donated by some rich guy. Apparently, he just called up the financial aid office one day and said he wanted to set up a fund to pay for Diana’s expenses completely. Tuition, room and board, everything. The only condition he had was that he wanted to remain anonymous.”

Hairs prickled on the back of Hope’s neck, both from her journalistic instincts and also from the fact that Logan had come into the room, meeting her eye over the computer’s monitor. Goose bumps of awareness prickled up her arms despite herself. Hope did her best to ignore him and concentrated on her interview instead.

“So, no one except the financial aid office knew who this mysterious donor was?” Hope asked, tapping her pen against her pad to relieve some of the rising energy inside her due to the nearly tangible sensation of Logan’s eyes on her. He’d always had that effect on her, darn him, even after everything he’d put her through. Like shaken, corked champagne, ready to fizzle over. She cleared her throat and narrowed her gaze on the screen. “That seems hard to believe.”

“Yeah. Turns out Sally couldn’t keep her mouth shut and blabbed the guy’s name to Diana a couple days later.” Jennifer shrugged. “I’m surprised Diana didn’t tell me about it herself, but I guess she didn’t get the chance. Right when Sally told her was when our landlord had to do some emergency repairs on the house, and we all had to move out in a hurry. I was staying with my boyfriend and didn’t have a chance to catch up with Diana for a couple of days. That week we were gone was when Diana disappeared.”

“Did Sally tell you the donor’s name when you talked to her a few days ago?” Hope pressed.

Jennifer hesitated, then shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. Sorry. It was a long time ago when that happened, and Sally couldn’t be sure she remembered it correctly anymore anyway.”

From the way Jennifer was squirming and avoiding eye contact, Hope was pretty sure she was lying. Sally had remembered the name and had told it to Jennifer—but Jennifer didn’t seem to want to divulge it. “Hmm.” Hope wasn’t about to give up that easily. “Even if she’s not one-hundred percent sure, a name could prove to be the lead we need to figure out what happened.”

“It’s just secondhand,” Jennifer said. “What if she remembered wrong? I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

“And you won’t,” Hope promised her. “I’m not looking for some exposé, I just want to figure out what happened. Maybe it won’t even lead anywhere; who knows? But seriously, any name at all would help so much.”

“Well…” Jennifer set her coffee mug aside and leaned closer to the screen, lowering her voice, like she was afraid to say anything too loud. “Sally said it was Desmond Jones. He’s the one who paid for Diana’s scholarship.”

Yes!

Hope hurriedly wrote the name down on her pad, then thanked Jennifer again before ending the call. Desmond Jones was the last man Diana had been seen with at a hotel bar before she’d disappeared. Hope closed her laptop, then turned and gave a mighty fist pump of triumph, feeling like she might finally be getting somewhere with this case. It felt like a gift had dropped right into her lap.

“That good, huh?” Logan asked, walking over to the fridge to grab an energy drink.

“Better.” Hope grinned, taking her now-empty tea mug to the sink to rinse it out. “I love that moment when a lead pops up. So satisfying.”

“Sure.” Logan leaned his hip against the edge of the counter, watching her. “What made you take this case on anyway?”

She shrugged. “All of my books have been about true crime. A disappearance fits the bill. Especially since this case was never resolved.”

He crossed his arms, looking not quite convinced. “But there are hundreds of missing person cases in the US you could’ve dived into. Why this particular one?”

“Well, like I told Jennifer on our call, my family lived down the street from the house Diana and her friends were living in. Diana even babysat me a few times. I guess I felt closer to the case somehow because of that. I figured that connection might help me write a better book, choosing someone I actually knew, even tangentially.” There was a bit more to the story, but Hope wasn’t sure she wanted to share it with Logan. Maybe he’d let it drop at this.

No such luck.

“Is that all?” Logan asked, his dark gaze far too perceptive for Hope’s comfort. He had a dark brow raised at her, and he looked cocky and concerned and far too handsome, darn him.

Hope sighed. “Fine. Truth is, I started thinking about doing this book when you were overseas last time. Things between us seemed more distant than ever, and I kept remembering how much Diana loved Baltimore. She loved the sports teams and the history. I remember how she could answer any trivia question about this city and inserted all these facts into her conversations. I wanted to know what made her fall out of love with this place—enough that she decided it was better to go. How do you just stop loving like that? What makes a relationship like that end? I thought there had to be more to the story.”

Logan blinked at her, silent, and Hope looked away. The parallels between her situation with Logan and Diana’s disappearance weren’t lost on her, and she felt exposed and raw and far too vulnerable. She shrugged and walked past him out into the living room. “Anyway, I felt like I owed it to Diana to figure out what really happened all those years ago, so that’s what I’m doing.”

As she sat down on the sofa and clicked on the TV, Hope heard Logan rustling around in the kitchen. His low voice sent a fresh shiver of unwanted warmth through her when he said, “Thanks for telling me.”