Darren let the word settle in his head. It seemed an extreme assessment of the situation, seemed statistically improbable that there were two missing-persons cases in Marion County. He considered the situation. He had a notary’s admittedly alarmist fears, fueled for all Darren knew by the fact that she hadn’t been paid, and he had a woman he’d hardly glanced at who had apparently vanished. Assuming the drunk woman with Sandler Gaines and Monica Maldonado were one and the same, Darren couldn’t have given a sketch artist anything more than the dark shade of her hair. He was almost tempted to believe that he’d made this whole thing up, that Monica Maldonado had never been to Marion County, or had never checked into the Cardinal Hotel, or maybe didn’t exist at all. Almost. But there were two things that rushed at him the second he ended the call with Gail Combs. One, he remembered her first call, when Lisa had just left this room, how he’d sat for a while trying to understand what the name Monica Maldonado meant to him, why it tickled some recessed corner of his brain, like he was holding his breath for a sneeze that wouldn’t come. And two, he remembered where he’d seen the name of that law firm. That’s what ultimately put it together. The names Chafee, Humboldt, and Greene had scratched at his memory because he’d seen them earlier today, in black ink on the bent business card that was taped to Leroy Page’s kitchen wall. Darren hadn’t seen the Virginia address on the card, but he’d seen the name. It was Monica Maldonado.

Part Four

Part Four

17.

17.

HE COULDN’T get into the room until the next morning, so he spent a good portion of the night looking for information on Chafee, Humboldt, and Greene on various search engines, coming up with precious little about the firm save for their Alexandria, Virginia, address and a note on Martindale.com, the legal directory, that theirs was a general civil practice, which meant that Leroy Page was not in fact a criminal client of Monica Maldonado. After only a few hours’ sleep, Darren woke up even more confused; he had no idea why the woman had been in the town of Jefferson, let alone what her current whereabouts might be. Neither the receptionist at her office nor the managing partner he’d asked to speak with after several calls (the second it hit nine a.m. on the East Coast) would even confirm for Darren that Monica Maldonado was in Jefferson, Texas, much less tell him why.