There were a few that he wrote down; then he assigned out the questions to people. “We need more data points, people. We need to find out when these people arrived in Sedona. When and if they left, well, besides Mason. We have that information.” Jonathon stared at the board.
“Let’s each take one person and fill in all the blanks for Jonathon. Well, he’ll have to make us a checklist of what to find out. Then we can bring them back and compare them. Maybe we’ll find a hole that way.” Shirley put her knitting away. “I’m choosing Talia. Holly should have this guy, Bret. The rest, you all can divvy up.”
“I’ll take anyone but Tyra. She already thinks I’m too nosy,” Rarity said as Jonathon made a list of people they needed to talk to about either of the two mysteries. Then he assigned them out. Rarity had Jane Carey.
Before Jonathon could dismiss the group, Rarity raised her hand and asked, “Why this one? She was his assistant. She’s really quiet and now she’s looking for a new job.”
Jonathon nodded. “See. You know so much about her already. This will be a piece of cake for you. I’ll email everyone the question list. Hopefully you either have the information already or can get it using creative conversation techniques. You guys can do this. I have faith in you. Besides, we always close our cases.”
“That’s true, but we’ve never had Hollywood stars in the mix,” Malia added with a grin. “Okay, maybe not A-listers, but everyone has to start somewhere, right? What if one of these actors is someone who might make it big soon? And we become friends and they invite us to the screening of their big movie and then an after-party, and we find the love of our life?”
“At an imaginary after-party for a movie screening that hasn’t even been made yet.” Holly stared at her friend. “Why not just fall in love with this imaginary actor you’re becoming friends with instead. Then you can have the big house, the yacht, the Italian villa, and the fancy parties.”
“I’m not asking for the moon here. Just a little help in the dating pool. I’d even be happy with a writer. I’d have lots of time to shop,” Malia pointed out.
Jonathon chuckled. “Maybe lots of time, but the money thing might be an issue.”
“He can be from a wealthy family.” Malia glanced around the room. “Seriously, don’t you guys ever think about your dream guy? How do you know what you want, then?”
“You kiss a lot of frogs.” Holly glanced at her watch as she stood. “Sorry, I’m working tonight. Let me know if you need some help researching online. I need to do updates on all the city servers, so I’ll be just hanging around waiting for software to load all week.”
Jonathon held out a hand. “Hold up a minute, I’ll give you a list of people and places to check out.”
“Okay, while Jonathon’s setting up Holly with some work, anything else we need to talk about? Is Malia right? Is the fact that Mason Pike was an actor and a director getting in our way here? What can we do about it if he is?” Rarity asked the group.
“We had that famous doctor once and we found out what happened. I think if we keep our heads on straight,”—Shirley aimed the comment at Malia—“we just need to treat them like they’re normal people.”
“With really big houses and fancy cars,” Malia added.
“A big house doesn’t mean you’re not a killer,” Darby said.
Rarity’s lips twitched, but Malia said it before she could. “Right? Look at you. You have a huge house and you still could be a killer. Maybe you killed Mason when he tried to get to second base.”
Shirley giggled. “I haven’t heard that term since high school. Seriously, girls, there’s no way Darby could be a killer.”
“No? Why are you so sure?” Rarity wondered where her friend was going with this.
Shirley nodded to where Darby sat. “She cries at the end of romance novels. I’ve seen her do it when we’re slow here at the shop and she gets some reading time.”
“In my defense…” Darby held up a hand. “It was a really sweet ending and they’d both gone through so much to earn their happily ever after, they deserved a little emotion.”
As they got ready to leave, Rarity wondered if the romance or even reading test would predict if someone was a murderer. Just have them read the most romantically satisfying book and see if they cried. If not, something must be wrong with them.
Chapter 15
Probably because she worked in the movie industry, Rarity started her research on Jane Carey on a job networking site, LinkedIn. Jane’s account had a lot of connections, but she hadn’t even updated that to show she was looking for a new job. Her résumé showed she’d worked for Mason as a personal assistant for close to twenty years. Rarity kept going down rabbit holes on the site with Jane, but it never seemed to amount to anything. On Google, she found a page that said she was an assistant to Mason, then went off on all the things Mason had done.
Jane was invisible in real life, looking like she faded into the background with mousy brown hair and dull eyes. She was almost invisible in the virtual world. Rarity wondered if she was married or had kids. Rarity needed to dig deeper into other sites, like Facebook and Instagram.
A shadow fell over the laptop and Rarity looked up to see Shirley watching her. “What?”
“You’ve been on your laptop for almost two hours; what are you working on?” Shirley emptied the box she’d been unpacking, then cut the tape so she could fold it down and put the cardboard in the back. “Are you working on Jonathon’s assignment from last night?”
“Yeah. I guess I should wait for his questions. She has a LinkedIn account she hasn’t updated, even though she’s looking for a job.”
“She’s networking in person here. I saw her at the showings the other night. She flits from one group to another, like a bee collecting pollen but she’s looking for referrals.” Shirley leaned against the counter. “I’m sure she’ll be at the theater tomorrow. You should go and try to talk with her.”
“I guess that’s an option. I could take her the tape for the movie since she never came to pick it up. I know she’s trying to get herself set up again, but she told me the attorney is paying her to deal with Mason’s effects. So she should deal with them, right?” Rarity was a little annoyed at the woman. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a thousand things to do. Now, she was going to have to go to the theater and see if she could track Jane down. Sure, it would be easy, Jonathon had said, but he’d lied. She frowned, looking at his empty seat. “Where is he, anyway?”
