Page 123 of Hidden Nature

Sitting again, she gave a push on social media accounts and managed to find some wedding pictures, some new parents and baby shots.

From there she jumped to the ex-wife’s social media. Jenny Malloy—she’d taken back her maiden name—had accounts primarily, it appeared, to hype an organic skin care line—she was one of the top salespeople thereof. But she personalized it with chatty videos.

Busy single mother—how the line’s tincture added to water every morning helped keep skin glowing even under stress.

A photo, looked recent, of her building a snowman with the little boy. With commentary about the importance of sunscreen even in the winter and the miracle of the overnight mask restoring the moisture winter stole.

She clicked through the lists of friends and finally landed on one with an open account with a huge chunk of social posts.

Including one with Jenny Malloy and two men all posing in cocktail-type wardrobe.

At last! Double date time with my honey, my bestie, and her new beau!

Who actually used the termbeau? Well, Sloan thought, apparently Jenny Malloy’s bestie Dani did.

The post was dated February second.

So the ex had a boyfriend, and that could have tripped Zach back into depression.

Had to factor it, Sloan admitted. But she’d be damned if that explained the car. Or the fact she now had three missing persons cases, all with abandoned cars left in parking lots.

Then the time frame, she considered. The end of November, the end of December, and the first week of February.

She pushed up to finish the laundry, and to let it cook in her head.

She beefed up the fire, then, remembering those four pounds, heated up another bowl of chicken soup.

As she ate, she wrote down more questions.

Part of her wanted to contact Joel, brainstorm it with him as they’d used to. But these weren’t DNR cases.

They were, she admitted, just a pebble in her shoe. The only way she’d remove it would be to find some answers.

She couldn’t drive to Uniontown, interview his ex, his family, his coworkers. That crossed a line.

In any case, those leading the investigation would have done so.

But nothing said she couldn’t work them on her own.

She moved everything into the tiny office space.

She printed out photos, newspaper articles, search results.

Slowly, meticulously, she built a case board on a wall someone for some reason had painted Barbie pink.

Since she had no intention of keeping it that way, she used a marker to add times and locations of last-seens, the make, model, year of the cars left behind.

She added spouses, residences, the distance between residence and last-seen.

With her mind focused on possible connections, she answered her phone absently, and in police mode.

“Sergeant Cooper.”

“Detective Frank O’Hara, Uniontown PD. What can I do for you, Sergeant?”

“Detective O’Hara, thanks for getting back to me. And on a Saturday.”

“No problem. I’ve got some curiosity why the NRP in Maryland have an interest in a missing persons case in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.”

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