"Have you been able to contact her?" Art asks, turning into the freeway. We're heading to Laura Makes home, Joseline's best friend.
However, up until this morning, we haven't been able to contact her.
"She's our last lead," she says, reclining in her seat. I can tell that she's stressed. I am, too. "If she doesn't have anything to say to us, we don't have anything to solve this case."
"If only the police would cooperate with us," I mutter, nibbling my thumbnail, thinking. Thinking.
"What do we do if she doesn't pick up?"
"I think we should go back to the accident site to do an investigation of our own, look for something the cops may have missed."
"You mean snoop?"
I punch her shoulder, trying not to smile too hard. "We have to solve this case somehow. It's been almost a decade, I want to have this car reopened."
•••
As I suspected, Laura's not home. We wait on the porch for an entire afternoon, but she never arrives.
"What do you think this means," Art asks, sitting beside me on Laura's front stoop.
I shrug, scratching my head. "I don't know. Maybe she knows what happened but doesn't want to take responsibility for her involvement in the disappearance of her own best friend."
"I think we should investigate her more," she says. "I mean, if my best friend went missing, I'd do everything in my power to find her. Something seems off about her."
"Yeah..."
We sit there, waiting for something that clearly won't happen. But, I suppose, it was healing being able to sit there and just think about what we were going to do now that our river of information had dried.
"Do you want to grab something to eat? It's almost lunchtime," Art asks, checking her iPhone.
I shrug, getting up from the porch, and dusting off the back of my jeans. "Why not."
"Good," she says, wrapping an arm around my waist. "I'm starving."
"You had like four and a half pancakes and a bowl of fruit."
"It was only three and that doesn't have anything to do with the painful hunger I'm experiencing right now," she says, slipping into the driver's seat.
"Whatever." I get into the passenger seat. Then we're off to Maverick and Marley's, a small café in the central part of town.
•••
We find a seat in the back and order two meatball sandwiches and Sprite.
"I've been talking to two podcasters. They work for the local newspaper. They gave me a tip about some anonymous emailer who has been threatening them. They say that the contents of the emails are pretty bizarre," I say around a mouthful of meatballs and tomato sauce.
Art wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, sipping her drink. "What do you think we should do?"
"We should interview them."
"What does that have to do with Joseline's case, though?" she asks.
"Get this," I say, leaning forward in my seat. "The subject for the emails is all about the disappearance of Joseline Madeline."