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.”
She flashed a smile. “Do we have a name? You know, like in Hawaii Five-O? They got a cool name. So much so, the five-o caught on and they started referring to all police that way.”
“Aren’t you a little young to remember that show?” Brantley questioned.
“They remade it. Alex O’Loughlin is smokin’.”
Brantley cut his eyes to Reese, raised his eyebrows.
“Now that I think about it, he is kinda hot,” Reese agreed with a grin. “And the governor’s spiel reminded me of that show. Especially that whole immunity and means thing.”
Brantley had no idea what they were talking about. Then again, he didn’t spend a lot of time watching television. Unless it was the news. He kept up with current events, but even that had dwindled in the months since he returned home.
“Well, we’re not the police,” he told them both.
“No, we’re not,” Reese tacked on. “But we will need to work with them. Closely, at that. I doubt they’ll take too kindly to us swooping in on their jurisdiction, either.”
“We’ll tackle that if and when we come across it. In the meantime,” he told JJ, “I’d like to have that list started by tomorrow morning. We can start trackin’ them down so I can pay them a visit. That way we can put together a timeline of events.”
“A timeline.” JJ’s eyes widened. “That’s a brilliant idea. I can do a timeline.”
She could do a lot of things, Brantley thought. It would just take a little time for them to get her to see that.
“If you don’t need me for anything else”—JJ got to her feet—“I think I’ll head home. I want to get started on that list, and thanks to this trusty new laptop the governor footed the bill for, I don’t have to be locked up in here all day to get things done.”
“See