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“I thought I should talk to you first,” Sandra said.
“Keep it under your hat for now. I’ll take care of it.” Naomie thanked her, then disconnected. True to her word, Sandra sent the attachments within a minute of hanging up the call, and Naomie printed them out.
Running her finger down both sets of documents, she compared the contents of each field. Sandra was right, the contents of the second application were identical to the first, word for word—that seemed unlikely unless someone was typing in the responses from the first application. And Madison wouldn’t need to do that—only someone who wasn’t sure of the details would.
But the signatures were definitely a match.
Tears filled her eyes, and she shoved the file away. None of it mattered anymore—Madison was gone, why run her reputation through the mud when she wasn’t there to defend herself? Most likely it was an innocent mistake—pregnancy brain was real, Naomie was learning that herself. Maybe Madison filled it out by hand first but wanted it to be neat and submitted them both by accident. No matter what, the best thing to do was to just let it go. Naomie pulled her notebook back over and reoriented her energy to Madison’s memorial.
But a nagging doubt pricked the back of her mind, whispering to her that something important was wrong.
CHAPTERTWENTY
Jo’s mouth dropped open. “Madison worked at a strip club?”
“The Velvet Volcano over in Springfield. I found emails, calls, texts, digital paystubs, and schedules. But what put it over the top for me was the angry text from her boss when she didn’t show up for her shift on Saturday night.” Lopez held up the phone so Jo and Arnett could see the text.
After peering at it, Arnett dropped into an empty chair. “No wonder she kept her cards close to her chest.”
Jo held up a hand as she paced the room, sorting through the implications. “Let me guess—this started about six or seven months ago?”
“That’s a bingo.” Lopez tapped her nose. “The end of March.”
Arnett picked up her logic. “Right when her mother was placed in the emphysema category.”
Jo’s teeth raked her lower lip. “A lot of things happened right at that time. She also broke up with her boyfriend for no apparent reason.”
“You think she was too embarrassed to tell him she was taking the job at a strip club? Worried that he wouldn’t accept it?”
“I think that’s exactly what happened.” Jo’s mind continued to race. “And—based on what the ladies told me about her due date, she got pregnant shortly after that time. So, a girl who has zero trace of dating anyone starts working at a strip club and turns up pregnant shortly thereafter—”
“Hang on,” Arnett said. “That’s a good point. She’s six months pregnant—she couldn’t have been stripping. At least not recently.”
Jo and Lopez exchanged a glance.
Arnett followed it. “What?”
Lopez gathered her ponytail. “It truly warms my heart that with everything you’ve seen on this job, you’re genuinely unaware that pregnant strippers are a thing.”
Arnett glanced between them, then narrowed his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“I’m afraid not,” Jo said. “Some men pay very well for it. To borrow an expression from my father, it takes all kinds to make a world.”
Arnett’s face dropped.
“But if it makes you feel better,” Lopez hurried to add, “it’s also possible that once she couldn’t hide the baby bump, she switched to cocktail waitressing.”
“Also on the positive side, Laura will be glad to know you’re blissfully naive when it comes to gentlemen’s clubs,” Jo added. “But back to the point I was making—No boyfriend, starts at a strip club, becomes pregnant. Do we think that’s a coincidence?”
“You think she was doing more than stripping?” Arnett asked.
Jo grimaced, and bounced her fist on her thigh. “I don’t know. But that would explain why she hasn’t told anybody who the father is.”
“Damn. Sweet kid with everything going for her—good grades, good heart, just wants to help animals—and life comes along and punches her repeatedly in the face until she ends up dead.” Lopez wrapped the ponytail around her hand. “And I can just hear the jerks who’ll shrug and say ‘she made her choices’ like she had anything to do with the fact that her mother got sick and it’s impossible to earn a living with only a high-school diploma these days.”
Jo nodded for a long moment. It was one thing to know life wasn’t fair, but some situations brought it into heartbreaking focus.
Then she stood. “Looks like we need to take a trip out to The Velvet Volcano.”
