“No. But he went home to Houston after leaving the military and was seen with a new woman on his arm every weekend.Thatmakes him a playboy. Look it up. I bet he’s the kind of guy who’s so smooth, he says whatever a woman wants to hear. Then when he’s done with her, he drops her.”
What. The. Hell.
Polly grabbed the remaining cup and speed-walked to the kitchen.
She told herself not to. Because she shouldn’t care. Shedidn’tcare…
Dammit. She pulled her phone from her pocket and searched “Joel Dawson from Houston.”
Holy crap. It was true.
He was indozensof articles. Report after report about the son of the CEO of Dawson Energy Services, dating obscene numbers of women. And these women were gorgeous. Tall. Beautiful. With perfect makeup and silky-looking hair.
Hurt wrapped around Polly’s chest even though it had no right doing so. Joel wasn’t anything to her, and he sure didn’t owe her anything. He could date whoever he wanted.
She locked her phone.
Shewasn’thurt. She was angry. At herself, for thinking, just for a moment after the whole cellar incident, that he might be different.
He wasn’t. He was just like every other man. Jumping from woman to woman, never satisfied with what he had.
Joel: Polly?
Her jaw clenched at Joel’s message.
Polly: I can get my own seat. Thanks.
“Are you okay?”
Her head shot up at her best friend’s voice. “Hey.”
Maggie frowned, her hazel eyes worried. “What’s wrong? Is it your mom?”
“No. It’s nothing.” She didn’t want to talk about Joel. She didn’t even want to think about him. “But I did ask you to come in so that I could show you something.”
“Oh, that’s intriguing.”
Polly grabbed her best friend’s wrist and tugged her toward the office. “I found something under the floorboards the other week.”
“If it’s a million dollars, I think it’s only fair you share with your best friend.”
“Nope, it’s—” She opened the second drawer and froze. It wasn’t there. She shuffled around some papers and envelopes. “What the hell? It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?”
“There was a burner phone.”
“Someone put a burner phone in the floorboards?”
“Not just someone, a woman named Eileen. The phone is like ten years old—and this Eileen woman wentmissingten years ago.” She rifled through the drawer some more.
Dammit.
“I don’t understand.”
“Maggie…” She turned to her best friend. “I think this woman was looking into the murder of your mother. And I think she linked the disappearances of two other women to the same case.”
Maggie stiffened. “What was on the phone to make you think that?”
