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She hung up the call, then tapped Chelsea’s contact. The phone rang twice, then she answered. “Jo?”
“Chelsea. I just got a call from David. He’s trying to make sure you’re okay. He says he called you?”
“Oh, yeah, right. He called when I was with the doctor and I just now got back.” She sounded distracted.
“Is everything okay?” Jo asked.
“He thinks so. The baby’s heart is still beating, and he said if it was going to trigger labor, it would’ve by now. So they sent me home and told me to follow up with my regular ob/gyn tomorrow.”
“Do they know why you collapsed?”
“They said the same thing Julia said. Low blood sugar and stress. Oh, and exhaustion.”
Jo waited for her to say more, but she remained silent. “Did they do any blood work, anything like that?”
“They always take a sample. I’m not sure what they looked for, though.”
Jo’s teeth clenched. For someone who normally loved the sound of her own voice, Chelsea was being ridiculously closed-lipped. But Jo was tired, and this wasn’t her responsibility—she had a killer to catch. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. Can you let David know?”
“I will. I’m sorry he bothered you,” she said. “And thank you again for getting me the police protection.”
“Let us know if you need anything,” Jo said, still off-balance. When Chelsea confirmed she would, Jo hung up.
Matt’s brows lifted. “All sorts of family drama.”
She rubbed her eyes. “You don’t know the half of it. I’m starting to think I’m inThe Twilight Zone. First Chelsea is calling David every five minutes like a love-sick puppy and it’s annoying him and driving Sophie crazy, so Sophie’s callingmeand drivingmecrazy. Now Chelseaisn’tcalling David, andhe’ssuddenly the one freaking out that he needs to talk to Chelsea, and nowhe’scalling me and driving me crazy. And it’sstilldriving Sophie crazy, because she thinks it’s just another tactic and she’s going all Vizzini trying to figure out what Chelsea’s strategy is. And now I’m fully caught up in it, completely obsessing because Sophie’s got me questioning it all—why would Chelsea go from calling him constantly to telling menotto call him? People don’t just one-eighty their behavior like that without a reason.”
Matt’s brows knit. “She’s been through a lot, losing two friends in as many days, and realizing the killer might be coming after her. Add that on top of the normal stresses of pregnancy and I’m surprised she’s still standing.”
Jo sighed. “Bob said the same thing, essentially. I’m just losing perspective on all of this. Now that she has the protective detail, she has somebody other than David to rely on, and I’m sure it’s just that simple.”
“There you go.” Matt stood up and held her hand. “So, I say we head up to bed. I’m beat, and I know you are, too.”
She took his hand and stood. “You’re right. Let’s hit the hay.”
But as he followed her upstairs, a nagging doubt whispered to her that there was more to Chelsea’s about-face than met the eye—and it left her deeply unsettled.
CHAPTERFORTY-THREE
Jo woke early the next morning after a block of dreamless sleep. Wanting to let Matt sleep as long as he could, she showered as quietly as she was able, made a travel mug filled with coffee for herself, and left another on Matt’s nightstand with a note telling him to have a good day.
When she got to HQ, Lopez was already there. “How early does a girl have to get up to beat you in?” Jo said with a laugh.
“I only beat you by about ten minutes.” She shook the yellow scraps in her hands. “I had a nasty nightmare where these little strips of misery were chasing me through an endless decaying mansion, threading their way around my arms and legs and into my ears and mouth. One even burrowed into my belly button.”
Jo threw up a hand and squeezed her eyes shut. “I haven’t had nearly enough caffeine to be able to process that.”
“Tell me about it.” Lopez turned back to the strips of paper. “But tell me while you’re helping, because time’s a-wastin’. I’m separating out the strips that have nothing on them, and the rest I’ve been lining up so the writing is in the canonical direction. Then we can try to match up strips with writing in the same locations. The white strips seem to be printed documents, while the yellow contain some sort of handwriting.”
Jo pulled on gloves and dove in. Following Lopez’s method, they made reasonably fast progress, and by the time Arnett arrived and tracked Jo down, they had most of the strips turned the right way.
“Holy shit.” He surveyed the stacks of strips in front of him. “You weren’t kidding in your text.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Jo stood up, stretching the kinks out of her neck as she pulled off her gloves. “And I never thought sorting through footage of people standing around at a memorial service would seem like the brighter option for my day.”
“Don’t forget all the hotline slush we get to wade through,” Arnett said.
Jo shook her head. “Still far preferable to this. But Iamsorry to have to leave you on your own, Christine.”
