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“Listen, forget all that. We’ve got work to do.”
Now he was willing to collaborate. Because he needed her.
“Hunsacker and I have our hands full here,” he went on. “I’d be tempted to believe this Julia is merely a figment of Dean’s imagination. He’s psychotic, so that has to be considered a possibility. But—”
“Paris talked about her to Butch, which proves they know her—or know of her—too.”
“Ah, the crack in the ‘he’s making up imaginary friends’ hypothesis.”
Just because Julia was real didn’t mean Dean’s perception of her situation was. He wrote about Butch being a threat. But it was possible that Dean had hurt her himself and blamed Butch for making him angry enough to do it, or used some other convoluted justification for his actions.
“A first name isn’t a lot to go on,” she said.
“But it’s all we got. Can you do it? Can you find her?”
She couldn’t offer any guarantees. No woman named Julia had been reported missing from this area in the past twenty years. They didn’t have a body—at least, not one they’d positively identified. And her name hadn’t come up in any other context—just the letters Finch had found and what Francesca had overheard Paris say.
“I’ll do my best,” she replied. “But I need you to do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Give me the date of the very first letter.”
Paper crinkled on the other end. “Assuming they’re all here, and it certainly looks that way since they were all shoved in the same box under his bed, he wrote the first one on—” a few seconds of silence ticked by “—May 15, 2008.”
Two years ago… “Okay. I’m coming to get them,” she said. “Maybe there’s a reference or a name in one that could start a chain for me to follow.”
“Daylight’s wasting,” he said. Then he was gone.
* * *
Francesca’s call came in when Jonah was about thirty minutes from Prescott. He sped up as he answered, even though he was already at risk for a ticket. What if I can’t hate you? He’d been hearing her voice in his head ever since he’d hung up with her earlier, when he was still in California, had been telling himself not to invest that question with more meaning than he should. Not hating him was a far cry from loving him, or being willing to give him a second chance.
“Almost there,” he told her. “What’s going on?”
“I wanted to let you know that you can go straight to the salvage yard, if you like.”
“Don’t tell me you’re heading back to Chandler.” He didn’t like the sound of that, didn’t want her to be alone.
“No, I’m not sure where I’ll be. I’m hoping to find Julia.”
He couldn’t recall who she meant. “Julia?”
“The woman Paris mentioned when I was in the salvage yard. Finch feels she’s important to the investigation.”
“What’s changed? He didn’t seem too interested before.”
“He found a box of love letters written to a Julia under Dean’s bed. Now he’s convinced that whatever role she played might be significant.”
“I’d say that’s more likely than not,” he mused and turned down the radio. “Any sign of Dean?”
“No. None.”
Knowing how much he’d worry about Francesca if Dean remained at large for any length of time, how impossible it would be to leave the state and go home, he cursed. “Not the answer I wanted to hear.”
“Not the answer I wanted to give you,” she responded.
He slowed for a light, thought again of their earlier conversation in which she’d hinted that she still cared for him—and purposely avoided asking if it was true. “Where do you plan to start your search for Julia?”
