“So, what exactly are you wanting to find this time?” Cadence asks, he swivels around in his chair next to me. He keeps eying the shelves around us, obviously on the lookout for Risa again.

“Jeanette Waters, anything we can find out about her.” I also want to try looking up the janitor a little more, but I don’t want to let Cadence know about that just yet. I decided on the library computers because I don’t want to leave a trail to our house until I know more of what’s going on. Maybe I’m being paranoid but there’s something weird about all of this.

There’s a nagging feeling in the back of my mind about that janitor too, but I’m not sure why or how it would connect to everything else if it even does.

“Did I miss something? Who’s Jeanette Waters?” I have Cadence’s full attention now. I point to the computer in front of him.

“Google her and get back to me. I think I was investigating her disappearance.”

“Did you… did you remember something?” Cadence keeps his voice even, but that glimmer of hope is still there.

“Not quite, I actually ran into Analise and finagled some information from her.”

“That witch? What did she want?”

“I’ll tell you later, the library closes at nine, so research.”

Cadence lets out a huff, but I hear typing a few seconds later.

I start out with searching the janitor again. Once more, I hit a dead end as far as anything new. The guy’s practically a ghost, not even a social media presence. Other than the small article about his possibly inheriting Desmond Cole’s sizable estate, there’s no other information about him.

According to the article there’s no guarantee that he’ll even inherit anything because Cole’s will disappeared. The last it was seen, everything was going to his partners and any remaining family. So, as his only living relative he stands to gain most of the estate.

But as Reid mentioned the other day, there’s a bunch of speculation about a secret child. The business partners said they are willing to wait for Cole’s “secret heir” to appear before the estate is split up, and there’s quite a bit of legal battling due to the fact that Wright doesn’t want to wait.

I only find one article that talks about the secret heir that Reid and Alto mentioned. Cole told his business partners to be prepared to meet someone when he got out of the hospital. And his lawyer supposedly claimed Cole had recently changed his will and sent it to this secret person.

The whole story sounds a little farfetched, though. The writer doesn’t have any legit sources and only a few reaching quotes from Cole’s lawyer and one of his business partners.

Out of slight curiosity I start researching Desmond Cole instead. I’d already read a little about everything the guy owned, but the guy was seriously loaded. Besides being a wealthy business owner, he was well loved in the community for funding several charities. He had a soft spot for orphans and had been known to foster children when he was younger. He donated to the art programs at all the local schools and was a major contributor to fixing up one of the parks.

The park in question, called The Hill Creek Gardens, is planning on putting up a plaque in one of their gazebos to honor Cole. His funeral was massive, with people flying in from all over the country to pay their respects and even the city’s Mayor made an appearance.

I stumble upon an article right about a month before he was hospitalized that announces his plans to build a new mall. Dated a few weeks before he died of a stroke is another article announcing the postponement of all building plans, pending Cole’s recovery. He was in the hospital for some procedure, but the article doesn’t state what. A picture at the side of the article shows the no trespassing signs outside of a building site.

“Hey Cadence, this is where my accident was, isn’t it?” I ask him.

He glances over briefly.

“Yeah, it looks like it,” he scrolls through the article.

“So, the question is, why were you at the closed construction site for the new mall?”

Yeah, just another weird mystery to solve. As if to add to the situation, I glimpse Evan over the top of the computer smiling in my direction.

Cadence sits back into his seat and motions me to look at the article he’s reading.

“So, Jeanette Waters, 25-year-old nurse at Silver Pines General Hospital. She was reported missing by her sister after she didn’t come home one Thursday night. She was last seen leaving her shift at the hospital around 5:00pm. She had a night class to go to at 6:00 but she never showed up to it. She still hasn’t been found, and there’s a hotline to call if anyone has information about her disappearance.”

Accompanying the article is a picture of a curly headed woman wearing wide rimmed glasses.

I scan the story. “So, she’s been missing for almost four months and the police couldn’t find any leads.”

“You think that the accident had something to do with her disappearance?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Analise isn’t the most reliable source but she said that we were investigating it.”

“So maybe we should reinvestigate it? We can start with talking to the sister.”

“Wouldn’t that be a little crass? Her sister is missing, I doubt she’ll want to talk to a couple of kids.”

But it’s the only lead we have.

***

A little girl with wild curly hair, holding a raggedy stuffed dragon opens the door.

“Auntie Mo!” The girl calls. A frazzled looking woman in her early 20’s comes rushing to the door. She pauses when she sees us. There are dark circles under her eyes and it looks like she hasn’t washed her hair in days.

“You again?” She says with a glance in my direction. “Lyric, right?” That’s probably a good sign.

“You know me? I mean... sorry if this is weird… we don’t mean to bother you or anything but—” It had been rather easy to find Mora Waters address. There was another article that mentioned her name and she was in the phonebook.

She motions for us to come inside.

“Sadie why don’t you show them to the den, I’ll get some snacks.”

She returns a few moments later with a plate of fruit and juice boxes.

“Sorry, not much but water and juice to drink. I read in the paper about your accident. I’m glad to see that you’re okay.”

“So, we came here before?” I ask leaning forward to pick up a juice box. The little kid sits in the floor in front of one of the couches and starts eating some of the grapes.

“Well you and a few others, not him.” She points to Cadence. “But another girl, umm Margaret and two boys. You and Margaret did most of the talking though. What brings you back?” She asks.

“That accident you read about… I lost my memory in it.” I decide to get right to the point. A look of understanding crosses her face.

“The only thing I can tell you is that you were investigating Jeannie’s disappearance.”

“What did we know? What did you tell us?”

“Honestly, I didn’t ask. And I told you kids to leave things to the cops.”

“So, we’ve got nothing.” Cadence says.

She lets out a sigh and levels her gaze on me.

“I admire that you kids wanted to help find my sister. The cops just brushed over it, they tried to find her, they did, I’ll give them that, but when no evidence came to light they just gave up.” She runs a hand through her messy hair and reaches over to grab a juice box.

“It’s still an open investigation, but they don’t have the ‘resources,’” here she uses air quotes, “to continue actively looking for her, but Jeannie would never of just up and run away. She was working hard at the hospital and she was studying to further her career.”

Here she glances over at Sadie who’s moved to the side of the room and is playing with the dragon and a few other toys. “And she never would’ve run off on her daughter.”

The article hadn’t mentioned anything about a daughter, but I can see the resemblance now that it’s been mentioned.

“Was there anything that happened beforehand maybe, or an indication that she was, I don’t know, seeing someone or something?”

She starts laughing suddenly, one of those almost hysterical laughs that happen when a person hasn’t laughed in a while.

“You asked the same thing back then, just like the detectives. You and the other kids sounded just like mini detectives you know, but no, she wasn’t seeing anyone as far as I know… but she was… she was upset about something. She said she was having drama at work but wouldn’t go into any details. Any career in the medical field is stressful, especially when any of your patients die.”

Cadence and I exchange glances, that’s definitely something to look into.

“Wait one of her patients died? Was it Desmond Cole by any chance?”

Her brow wrinkles at the name and she shakes her head no.

“No, it was an aging widow. She only mentioned it once, she didn’t say that it bothered her or anything like that, but I could tell that it was upsetting her. It was the first patient she had that died. And her work issues started soon after. She was stressed, working full time, trying to focus on her studies and take care of Sadie, she never would’ve up and left.”

“So, the work drama, she didn’t go into any details at all?”

“Like I said, she was stressed, she came home later after her classes a few times, and once I found her on the phone angrily yelling at someone, but she wouldn’t tell me what was going on. She just said it was work stuff and that she would deal with it. Jeannie was private like that.” She glances over at Sadie again and gives a wry smile.

“She never even told me who Sadie’s father is. Just said he wasn’t worth knowing. I have my suspicions, of course, but… well that just shows she kept most things to herself.”

“Did you tell the police about any of that?” Cadence asks.

“Maybe it had something to do with the father?” I add in.

She lets out a harsh laugh and adamantly shakes her head.

“Of course, I did. They even pulled her phone records, but the number was from a payphone, can you believe those things still exist? And as for Sadie’s father, I was under the impression that he doesn’t know about her. But I really don’t think it had anything to do with him, because if he’s who I think, then he doesn’t even live in the state anymore. The police humored the idea that she had a secret boyfriend, and maybe she did, but the phone calls I overheard… those didn’t sound like a lover’s quarrel.”

Jeanette Waters had a secret, that much is clear, and I’m going to figure it out.