Irritated, she wondered if women regularly called Sam at work. "I'm one of his snitches," she said, crossing her fingers at the lie. "Then you should have his pager number."
"Oh, for God's sake! Someone could be hurt or dead – "
She caught herself. "Okay, so I'm pregnant, and I thought he'd like to know."
The voice laughed. "Is this Jaine?"
Oh, my God, he'd been talking about her! Her face flamed. "Um – yes," she mumbled. "Sorry."
"Not a problem. He said if you ever called to make sure you got in touch with him."
Yeah, but how had he described her? She refrained from asking and jotted down his pager number. "Thanks," she said. "You're welcome. Uh – about this pregnancy thing…"
"I lied," she said, and tried to work up a smidgen of shame in her tone. She didn't think she succeeded, because the woman laughed.
"You go, girl," said the woman, and hung up, leaving Jaine to wonder exactly what she meant.
She pressed the disconnect button on her desk phone, then dialed Sam's pager. It was one of the numerical pagers, so she left her number. Since it wasn't a number he would recognize, she wondered how long it would take him to return her call. In the meantime she called accounting. "Has Marci arrived yet?"
"No," was the worried reply. "We haven't heard from her."
"This is Jaine, extension three-six-two-one. If she comes in, tell her to call me immediately."
"Will do."
It was nine-thirty before her phone rang again. She snatched up the receiver, hoping Marci had finally shown up. "Jaine Bright."
"I hear we're going to be parents." Sam's deep voice purred over the telephone line.
Damn blabbermouth! she thought. "I had to say something. She didn't believe I was a snitch."
"Lucky I warned everyone about you," he said, then asked, "What's up?"
"Nothing, I hope. My friend Marci – "
"Marci Dean, one of the infamous List Ladies?" She might have known he'd have the details on all of them. "She hasn't come in to work, hasn't called, isn't answering her home phone or cell phone. I'm afraid she might have been in an accident on the way to work, but I don't know who to contact to find out. Can you steer me in the right direction?"
"No problem. I'll get in touch with our traffic division and get them to check reports. Let's see, she lives in Sterling Heights, doesn't she?"
"Yes." Quickly Jaine gave him the address, then paused as another awful thought struck her. "Sam… her boyfriend was really upset about the List. He left Thursday night, but he might have come back."
There was a slight pause; then his tone turned brisk and businesslike. "I'll contact both the sheriff's department and the Sterling Heights P.D. have her place checked out. It's probably nothing, but it won't hurt to be certain."
"Thanks," she whispered.
Sam didn't like what he was thinking, but he'd been a cop too long to write off Jaine's concern as overreacting. An irate boyfriend – one with a wounded ego, at that, over that damn List – and a missing woman were ingredients in far too many incidents of violence. Maybe Ms. Dean's car had broken down, but maybe not. Jaine wasn't the type to panic over nothing, and she had definitely been afraid. Maybe she had some feminine intuition going there, but he didn't discount that, either. Hell, his mom had eyes in the back of her head and had always, without fail, been waiting up for him and his brothers whenever they had been up to mischief. To this day he didn't know how she had known, but he accepted it nevertheless. He placed two calls, the first to the Sterling Heights P.D. the next to a pal in traffic who could check for victims in any morning traffic accident. The Sterling Heights sergeant he spoke to said they would immediately send a car to check out Ms. Dean's residence, so he held off on calling the sheriff's department. He left his cell phone number with both contacts.
His pal in traffic checked in first. "No major accidents this morning," he said. "A few fender benders is all, and a guy dumped his motorcycle in the middle of Gratiot Avenue, but that's it."
"Thanks for checking," Sam said.
"Any time."
At ten-fifteen, his cell phone rang again. It was the Sterling Heights sergeant. "You called it, Detective," he said, sounding weary.
"She's dead?"
"Yeah. It's pretty brutal. You got a name for that boyfriend? None of the neighbors are at home for us to ask, and I think we need to have a little talk with him."
"I can get it. My lady friend is – was – Ms. Dean's best friend."
"Appreciate the help."
Sam knew he was treading on someone else's territory, but he figured since he had tipped them to the scene, the sergeant would cut him some slack. "Can you give me any details?"
The sergeant paused. "What land of cell phone are you using?"
"Digital."
"Secure?"
"Until the hackers figure out a way to get the signal."
"Okay. He used a hammer on her. Left it at the scene. We might get some prints off it, might not."
Sam winced. A hammer did a god-awful amount of damage.
"Not much of her face is left, plus she was stabbed multiple times. And she was sexually attacked." If the boyfriend had left his semen behind, he was nailed. "Any semen?"
"Don't know yet. The M.E. will have to do tests. He – ah – did her with the hammer."
Jesus. Sam took a deep breath. "Okay. Thanks, Sergeant."