“Turn out the lights, and I’ll slip outside. Wait by the door, and if you see or hear anyone else, call the police. Give me ten minutes, and if I’m not back, you dial 911.”
“Ten minutes? That long?”
“I want to see if there’s any activity.” Jo squeezed the woman’s arm, now noting a rapid pulse. The reality that she’d faked before. “It’s okay. Lock the door behind me.”
Sabrina stood by the door as Jo let herself out, and then a click sounded as Sabrina locked the door. Jo ducked down and let her eyes adjust to the dim moonlight. She believed what she’d said—that there was no imminent threat at the moment—but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She crouched down and sneaked around the side of the house.
Jo checked the street, then went to the backyard and checked the alley, staying low. There were the usual sounds of traffic on neighboring streets, and someone spoke for a moment in a yard a few houses away. However, there were no signs of anything suspicious. Jo surveyed her car next, until she was confident that no one was watching it. Finally, she crept back into Sabrina’s yard, approaching the house from a different direction. She reached the corner, pressed herself against the wall, and again paused. After another minute of only the neighborhood sounds, she tiptoed to the back door and tapped on it.
“It’s me,” she called out softly.
She heard the knob rattle as Sabrina unlocked the door, and then it swung open. Jo slipped inside and relocked the door. Sabrina breathed a sigh of relief as Jo flipped on the light.
“It’s safe,” she announced.
Sabrina nodded. “Let’s go into the living room.”
Jo followed her and sat on the couch, while Sabrina took the loveseat. She still held her phone, and she kept looking at it.
“Why won’t Holton call back?” she asked.
Jo shrugged. “He’s in the middle of a big investigation, so he’s busy. At this point, feds will be involved, too.”
Sabrina paled. “This whole thing is bigger than I realized.” Jo nodded, and Sabrina said, “I really blew it.”
“Yeah. But you can make it right.”
They sat for a few minutes in silence, Jo listening all the while for any unusual sounds. Then Sabrina looked at her again.
“What if Holton doesn’t call back tonight?”
“I’ll stay with you, like I said.”
“You would do that?”
“Yes.”
“You can sleep in the spare bedroom.”
Jo glanced around. “I’ll stay here, where I can hear everything.”
Sabrina got up. “Let me get you some blankets.”
“I don’t need much.”
The woman went into the other room and returned with two blankets and a pillow. She handed them to Jo and smiled wanly.
“I’m going to lie down. If Holton calls, I’ll let you know.”
Jo nodded and watched her leave the room, her shoulders stooped, the weight of the world on them. The bedroom door closed. Jo stood in the front hallway and familiarized herself with the noises of the house—the refrigerator turning on, ice clinking in an icemaker. No sound from the spare bedroom. Some small noises emanated from the main bedroom, Sabrina moving around. Finally, that stopped. The woman had looked exhausted, and she’d probably fallen asleep right away.
Jo checked the time. After nine. She’d hoped Holton would call, but as the minutes rolled by, she didn’t hear the phone, or Sabrina’s voice. Jo was tempted to call Dack, but it would be closing in on midnight on the East Coast, and she didn’t want to bother him so late. She walked around the house on soft feet, peeking out windows and looking into the backyard. Nothing drew her suspicions, so she returned to the front hallway to research the three people Sabrina had mentioned.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jo sat on the floor, away from any line of sight through the front window. That way, if someone was outside with a gun and possibly a scope, they wouldn’t have a clean shot at her. She turned on an end-table lamp, then turned down the brightness on her phone screen, both ways to obscure where she was sitting. Once she was comfortable, she got on the internet and began researching.
First, she looked up David Lebow. He wasn’t hard to find, as he was a hedge fund project manager at a large firm in Dallas. Jo didn’t know a lot about hedge funds, but a little googling told her that in his position, Lebow was probably making several million dollars a year.
She found a couple of articles on him, profiling his work in Dallas. He was in his early fifties, bald, with wire-rim glasses and a thin mustache. His LinkedIn profile was full of accolades from associates. He’d gone to Stanford, and had lived in Dallas since graduating college. He was listed on a few people-search sites as well. It appeared he was married with three children, all grown. All in all, there seemed nothing noteworthy or odd about him.
Jo found an address for him in University Park, an upscale area north of Dallas. She used Google maps to view the house, a large two-story mansion set back from the street. Lebow was obviously wealthy, which explained the need for a safety deposit box. But what did he have stored in it that the thieves might’ve wanted?
Before she moved on to Jane Dinkle, Jo got up, stretched, and tiptoed through the house, carefully peering out windows to see if she spotted any unusual activity outside. The house was still quiet; no noise from Sabrina’s room. Jo listened at her door, then turned the knob and eased open the door. The room was dark, but Jo could make out the woman, prone on the bed, her breathing steady. Finding a bit of peace in sleep. Jo didn’t disturb her, pulling the door closed and heading to a different spot in the hallway. She hunkered down again and began researching Jane.
From what Jo could tell, Jane didn’t work, didn’t have a LinkedIn profile, nor was she listed as an employee on any company website. However, she appeared to be a socialite, with a few articles mentioning her at social functions and parties around the Dallas area. She was married to Winston Dinkle, a successful lawyer. One article had a photo of the couple. Jane was a beautiful woman, with wavy brown hair and matching eyes, looking stunning in a dark dress. She had what appeared to be expensive taste in jewelry, with one photo showing her wearing a diamond and ruby necklace, which could have been fake. Jo had heard that although some people might actually own expensive jewelry, they’d still wear fake items in public, due to the risk of damage or theft. Maybe Jane had kept anything real in a safety deposit box—had the thieves been after something like that?
Jo pondered that for a moment. There had to be other people who had jewelry and valuables in the safety deposit boxes at the bank. Had the thieves stolen items just from the Dinkles’ safety deposit box, or others as well? She had no way of knowing.
She turned off her phone and listened again. It was after midnight, and a car was driving slowly down the street. Jo crept into the living room and sneaked up to the side of the front window. She peeked out between a crack in the blinds and saw a dark sedan moving along the street, headlights on. It turned into a driveway down the block and disappeared into a garage. Jo watched the shadows and didn’t see anyone. She again checked the house and ended up back in the hallway. Once she was settled, she looked up Trent Fontenot.
When she googled his name, the first thing that came up, of course, was an article about his murder. Trent had been thirty-six at the time of his death, and he’d been a local reporter at the Dallas CBS station. He’d been shot in the head inside his house, sometime Sunday evening. His girlfriend had expected him for dinner, and when he hadn’t shown or called, she’d driven to his house to see if he was there. When he didn’t answer the door, she let herself inside, found his body, and called 911. The police were asking for the public’s help to see if anyone had seen or heard anything at his house around the time of his death.
Jo read a few more articles, all short on details, like how he’d been shot, if anything had been stolen from his house, and if the police had any suspects. The girlfriend would be an obvious choice, but the articles didn’t mention that. Jo read a couple more articles about the murder and watched a few reports from the local news stations as well. Again, any specifics of the murder were in short supply. Rather, everything focused on Trent, how he had been a freelance journalist before taking a position at the station, and how he’d been well-respected in the journalism field.
Next, Jo found social media sites where Trent had posted clips from the station, focusing on the crime beat. She studied him as she watched some of the stories. He appeared to be average height, with short brown hair neatly parted at the side, brown eyes, and an engaging smile. He was articulate, and his back-and-forth with the station anchors was good.
She scrolled through his posting history and discovered several older articles he’d written when he’d still been freelance. They focused on crime as well, him doing a series on several stabbings in the Fort Worth area, where he delved into the unsolved crimes, concentrating on the victims and their families. He was a good writer, and she could see how his freelance work could have been a steppingstone to his getting a job at the station. However, she didn’t find anything that might lead to a reason for his murder. She mulled over her research on him. A local journalist wouldn’t make a ton of money, where he might have jewels or other valuables in a safety deposit box. Unless he’d acquired something like that somewhere else, possibly an inheritance. She looked to people-search sites again and didn’t see any indication that he’d ever been married or that he had children. He lived west of Dallas, in a single-story house with a small yard. The neighbors were close by, and she wondered if any might have seen or heard something the night he was murdered.
