dared take her in. All were afraid. She was going through garbage or taking the occasional half-eaten MREs the soldiers had stolen from the US-trained troops of the junta government and offered to her for her favors. She had done plenty of favors, but still she almost starved.
Twenty-Two
Ronnie hit pay dirt with one of the phone numbers in the address book from Monique’s house. Mr. Bridges was a widower; his wife had been killed in a carjacking. A witness said it was two young women who came up to Mrs. Bridges’ car while she was stopped at a light a block from the hospital where she worked in the ER. The same one where she would be pronounced dead ten minutes later. The witness was in the car behind her and said one girl ran into the street waving her arms like she needed help. Mr. Bridges’ wife, being a nurse, started to open her door and was yanked out by the second girl, stabbed, kicked and the car was taken. The witness was so shocked, she didn’t notice the license plate and was unable to give an accurate description to police when they arrived.
Mr. Bridges joined the advocacy group when he saw it on the Internet and made friends with Monique. Monique had dozens of names in that book and I have no doubt all the stories will be full of needless violence and death.
“His number comes up once on the burner Mrs. Delmont had,” Ronnie says. “A week ago he said she called him to give him the number in case someone had an emergency. He was like her second-in-command, and if one of them couldn’t reach her, they would call him.”
“He’s a pretty frequent caller on her personal cell phone too,” I say. “Once or twice a week, and the calls lasted thirty minutes or more. I’m glad she found someone for comfort.”
“Yeah. It must be horrible to have your daughter murdered. Mr. Bridges told me that’s why she started the victim’s group.” Ronnie’s quiet and I think I see tears form in her eyes.
“Makes you appreciate our sad little lives, doesn’t it? She was helping with morale and maybe financial support, pushing police departments to do deeper investigations, hounding city officials. But we’re tracking the assholes down. We bring peace to them.”
“Yeah, we do.”
“Did she tell Mr. Bridges she was in Port Townsend looking for an old friend that she thought needed her help?” I ask.
She nods her head. “He said it’s not unlike her to do something like that. Sometimes a couple of people in the group will travel to wherever they’re needed. Monique always footed the entire bill. I asked him if she rented a car to do this. He thought that was unusual.”
“Does she always get a burner phone for these things?”
“I forgot to ask. I’ll call him back.”
“Not necessary. If it was unusual for her to rent a car and not tell him more than what she did, I think we can safely say it wasn’t normal for a woman her age to buy a burner phone, or even know to do it.”
“He made it sound like she was afraid for her friend. He blames himself for not insisting he come to help her. I think he was a little more than her second-in-command.”
I do too, but I’m really glad that she finally came out of her shell enough to trust another man. I haven’t fully done that yet. I once thought I could with Caleb, but when he found out what I’d done to my bio-father and watched me take down another killer, he was sickened. He will always associate his minor part in that with me. I destroy monsters, but I’m a monster to Caleb.
Dan Anderson is the closest thing I have to a boyfriend, and we’ve only been out a couple of times in the last month. I don’t know why, but my gut is telling me to call him to see if he’s okay. If he’s also been getting crank calls.
“Mindy is going to go through the rental car. Are you still calling people from the advocacy group?”
“Yeah. I’ve only got a few left. Then I’m going to call Gabrielle and see how things are there. Do you want me to check in with Clay and see if she told him anything she didn’t tell us?”
I don’t know why, but I tell her I’ll call Clay. Maybe I don’t want her doing all of my work. Maybe I