Party Crashers Read Online Free Page B

was gone.”
    “Were there signs that the car had been broken into—glass on the ground, for instance?”
    “No.”
    “Did Mr. Hagan have a key?”
    “Yes. I had locked my keys in the car once, so we made a copy for the sake of convenience.”
    “Was that your idea or Mr. Hagan’s?”
    Jolie squinted. “Gary’s, I believe—why?”
    “Just asking.” She consulted her notes. “You drove a 2001 gray Mercury Sable Sedan, is that right?”
    “Yes.”
    “But you didn’t make an immediate connection between your car missing and Mr. Hagan?”
    “No. After I called the police to report my car stolen, I called Gary, but he didn’t answer his phone. Several hours later, I began to suspect that something was wrong, except I was worried about Gary, not my car.”
    “You called his cell phone?”
    Jolie nodded. “He was never without it. He didn’t even have a land line at his apartment.”
    “And he lived in Buckhead?” The woman turned back a few pages in her notebook and read off the address.
    Jolie nodded. “That’s right. But there was a fire at his complex a few days after h e…disappeared.”
    Salyers heaved a sigh. “It seems like we had an apartment fire every week this summer. We have two serial arsonists in custody. His unit was damaged?”
    “And almost everything in it.”
    “Almost?”
    “I called the manager to tell him that Gary was missing when I saw the news about the fire. The manager called me a couple of weeks ago, said he had salvaged a box of Gary’s things and if I wanted them, I should stop by.” She frowned. “When I got there, he tried to extort the overdue rent but wound up giving me a box of things that probably came from Gary’s fireproof desk—photographs, piled-up mail.”
    “Did you keep them?”
    “Yes, the box is at my place.”
    “The same address listed for you on the missing persons report?”
    “Yes, near Roswell,” she said, and she realized she had repeated the name of the area where Gary’s car had been found.
    “Would it be possible for you to bring the box by the midtown precinct tomorrow?”
    Jolie nodded.
    Salyers made a note of it. “Ms. Goodman, when did you report Mr. Hagan missing?”
    “The following Wednesday, I believe.”
    “That seems like a long time to wait.”
    Jolie bristled at the woman’s accusing tone. “Gary is an adult. I didn’t keep tabs on him.”
    “But you still didn’t believe he had anything to do with your missing car?”
    “No. I thought it was a coincidence. Gary had a nice car—I couldn’t imagine why he would have wanted mine.” Then again, it hadn’t occurred to her that he’d just rolled his own vehicle into the river and needed a getaway car.
    “It didn’t cross your mind that he might simply have sold your car for cash?”
    Jolie shook her head. “He wouldn’t have done something like that.”
    Salyers pursed her mouth. “How long had you been seeing Mr. Hagan when he disappeared?”
    “About four months.”
    “How did you meet him?”
    “I was working for the Sanders Agency. He came in one day to ask for directions.”
    Salyers smiled. “And he got your number instead?”
    Jolie nodded, smiling for the first time. “Gary was very…persuasive.”
    “Were the two of you serious?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Did you date other people?”
    Jolie rolled one shoulder. “We never discussed it—I didn’t date anyone else, and I guess I just assumed that he didn’t either.”
    “In the box of personal effects that the manager gave you, do you remember seeing an address or schedule book?”
    “No, but I didn’t go through the box closely.”
    Salyers frowned. “Really? If my boyfriend was missing, I’d have gone through it with a fine-tooth comb.”
    Again, the censure. Jolie tried to ignore the prickly nervousness that gathered around her pulse points. “Gary had a Palm Pilot, but he kept it with him—it wouldn’t be in that box.”
    The detective studied her as if she were trying to size