“Yes.” I told them about the photos and texts on Jamie’s phone, which I’d backed up, and that I still had the nanny cam saved in a drawer in my apartment. I also gave them the name of the police captain who had taken my report about Melanie Daniels.
Roth and Harris bent their heads together, conferring quietly. I used the pause to ask the question that had been burning on my mind. “Please—what’s going on with Jenna? What did you mean when you said she disappeared?”
The two detectives shared a look. Finally, Harris spoke. “Tell us how you know Jenna.”
“We met five or six months ago at the farmer’s market. We started talking about pregnancy stuff—we both had morning sickness. One thing led to another and we became good friends.”
“When was this?” Harris asked, pen poised over her notebook.
“Around the middle of May. I remember I had just reached the end of my first trimester.”
“And she said she was pregnant at the time?”
I frowned in confusion. “Yeah.”
The door opened, and Barrows, my arresting officer, poked his head in. “Got something you should see.”
“Excuse us for a minute, Ms. Mitchell.” Roth and Harris stood up and exited the room.
I sat there, my heart pounding and my mind racing, for at least ten minutes before the two detectives came back in. Their expressions were noticeably more grim this time. Detective Harris was holding a folder under her arm. They sat down across from me again.
“Ms. Mitchell—tell us what you know about Jenna Martin,” Harris demanded.
“Like I said, we haven’t known each other very long. She doesn’t like to talk about herself a lot. I know she has a mother in Walnut Creek … I know her dad passed away recently … and she never said much about the father of her baby, other than that things weren’t going so well. She said he seemed to be losing interest in her and the baby. Whenever I would ask her about it, she got really quiet.”
The two detectives shared a look. “Do you know who the father of Jenna’s baby was?”
Was?“Uh … no. She never told me his name.”
Harris took the folder under her arm and set it down on the table. She opened it, took out a photo, and placed it in front of me.
It was a grainy, blown-up photo of Jenna’s face, maybe a driver’s license photo. She then set down another photo next to it. This one was a full-body shot of Jenna with her arm around an older woman standing out in front of a cozy-looking suburban home—her mother, perhaps?
“Do you recognize this person?” Harris tapped on Jenna’s image.
I frowned. None of their questions were making sense. “Yes, that’s Jenna.”
“And you say you don’t know who the father of her baby was?”
“Why do you keep saying ‘was’?”
“Well, according to Jenna’s medical records, Jenna suffered a miscarriage in the beginning of January, when she was about ten weeks pregnant.”
My eyeballs popped. “What? I don’t understand. I met Jenna in May … and she said she was about ten weeks along at that point.”
My mind was whirling. Images of Jenna the last few times I’d seen her flashed through my mind. I was always amazed at how she was barely showing, even at twenty weeks. I was so jealous of how thin she looked. “Are you saying … she was lying to me? That she wasn’t really pregnant?”
Roth and Harris shared another loaded look.
“Ms. Mitchell, Jenna has been reported missing by her mother, Sandra Martin. Mrs. Martin says the last time she spoke to her daughter was over two weeks ago.”
“Oh my God.”
“And her roommate, Kelly Schaefer, a flight attendant, said it’s been nearly that long since she has received any messages from her. She said the last time she was home, which was for …” Roth consulted his notes, “… a day and a half last week, she didn’t see or hear from Jenna the entire time.”
“When was the last time you spoke to Jenna?” Harris asked.
“I’d have to check my phone … a couple of weeks? And it’s been a while since I got a text from her.”
