Page 54 of The Perfect Hosts

“Jamie, we’ve got something,” Sheriff Colson says, poking his head around the doorway.

“If I remember anything else, I’ll call,” Laura says as she moves toward the door.

“Thanks,” Jamie says and watches as she skirts past the sheriff and out of the room. He turns his attention back to Colson. “Whatcha got?” he asks.

Colson steps into the room and holds out an evidence bag filled with what appears to be white rice. “It’s the phone that was found near where Johanna Monaghan died. It was soaked from the rain, but it looks like the rice might have worked. It’s turned on again.”

Jamie takes the bag and examines the contents. The cell phone has indeed turned on again and glows dimly through the rice. “Are you sure it’s Johanna’s?” he asks.

“Pretty sure,” Colson says. “The screen saver is a picture of the Monaghans’ dog.”

“Well, let’s see what we can find,” Jamie says. “Do you have any gloves handy?” Colson leaves the room briefly and returns with a pair of latex gloves. Jamie slides them on and then opens the evidence bag, reaches inside, and pulls out the phone. It’s an older iPhone, and surprisingly the screen wasn’t shattered in the explosion. Jamie presses the Home button and not surprisingly gets the prompt to enter a four-digit code. “Any ideas?” he asks, and the deputy shakes his head. Without the code, opening the phone could take months. Cell phone carriers are known for being stubborn when it comes to providing cell phone data without a court order. “Did anyone find a list of passwords during the search of the Monaghan home?”

“No,” Colson says. “Whatever their passwords were, they died with them.”

“Let me spend a little time with it, and see what I can come up with,” Jamie says, rubbing his eyes. If worse comes to worst, he can send the phone to Cellebrite, a company that law enforcement often contracts with to aid in extracting digital data from phones and computers.

“Sure thing,” the sheriff says. “I’m heading to the courthouse now, but why don’t you stop over tonight? I have something I’ve been meaning to give you, and we can catch up.”

Jamie looks up from the phone and examines the weathered face of the man who brought just about the only semblance of comfort to him after Juneau disappeared. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds good,” he says. “See you tonight.”

Jamie returns his attention to the phone and tries the most common number combinations: 1234, 1111, 0000, 1212. Nothing. Next he finds Johanna’s birthday in his notes, December 15, 1985, and tries a variety of combinations of those digits. It doesn’t work, and the same goes for Dalton’s birthdate. He has one more try before the phone will lock him out. He refers again to his notes, and his eyes snag on her home address, 3308 Mountain Creek Road. He types in 3308, and bingo, he’s in.

The phone’s battery life is in the red, so Jamie goes to the lobby and asks Ruby if there’s a charger lying around that he can have. She hands him her own personal charger.

“Keep it as long as you need, hon,” she says. “I’ve got another one in the car. Oh, and Wes Drake has been trying to get ahold of you. He wants you to stop at the ranch this afternoon.”

“Did he say why?” Jamie says, absent-mindedly as he punches Johanna’s code into the phone again.

“No. Just said he expects you at the ranch at three thirty,” Ruby says. “It wasn’t a request.”

Jamie pulls his eyes from the device. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. He was adamant. Want me to tell him to come here?”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll meet him. I want another look at the scene, anyway. But let him know I’ll be there at three.”

“I’ll let him know,” Ruby says, and Jamie goes back to the contents of the phone. The first thing he notices are the thirty-two missed calls Johanna has after six thirty, the reported time of the explosion. Jamie counts twenty-five ofthose as coming from her husband. There are two from someone named Katherine Logan and another three from a string of numbers with no names attached. Jamie jots down the information in his notebook and then looks at the call log before six thirty.

At 6:12 p.m., Johanna received and answered a call from another number. The call lasted less than twenty seconds. Jamie compares the number to the ones received after the explosion. No match. He adds this number to his list, then navigates to her text messages. Again, there are several from Dalton asking Johanna to give him a call. There’s one from Madeline sent just before the explosion asking where she is, saying that the reveal is about to begin.

Jamie scrolls back through the mundane communications between husband and wife.

What time will you be home tonight? Will you grab a gallon of milk on your way home?

Interspersed with these are plenty of shared videos from TikTok andI love yous. There are also several texts from Dalton demanding to know where Johanna is.

Where are you? You said you were going to be home at 7. I went by the hospital—your car’s not there.

There are dozens and dozens more like them.

He thinks of what Madeline mentioned about the tracking device Dalton put in Johanna’s car, and indeed, the crime-scene techs found one when they checked her vehicle. They were still looking for any direct evidence connecting Dalton to the IED. They found double-headed nails in the Monaghan garage and a copy of a biography of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Not near enough evidence. The computertechs are still scouring through Dalton’s computer and his search history.

As Jamie skims through the texts, he sees nothing of interest until he hits a thread sent three days before the party. The messages are initiated from a number with no name.

555–0110:We need to talk.

Johanna:There’s nothing left to say.