SHAKE DOWN

by Kendel Lynn

  “It will be of the highest standard by the time the guests arrive,” I said. “Do your best to keep the layout as close to our original plan as possible. Use the front lawn for the table rounds and buffet, plus the brisket smoker. We’ll use the porch for the shake machines.”

  “You’re the boss,” he said.

  “Please tell that to Jane,” I said.

  The time-consuming part of moving an entire party wasn’t finding a new locale or repositioning tables, tents, and chairs for three hundred people. It was notifying those three hundred people.

  As I made calls, repeating the same cheery statement about a slight mishap and the good fortune of a rare opportunity to dine and dance at a local treasure, I made notes.

  I still had a case to investigate. I needed to find Farrah and get an alibi for Juliette’s accident, and while I was asking, also for the day of Daphne’s disappearance. I needed to talk to the Sheriff, and heaven help him if he didn’t return my call soon. And mostly, I needed to figure out that burner app.

  Notifying party guests was going to take even longer than I had originally anticipated. Which demonstrated how distracted I’d become. As island gossip was more popular than golf, tennis, and mahj jongg combined, my prepared statement was met with questions, comments, and concerns.

  My phone buzzed with two texts between my first two calls.

  Jona: Crews confirmed. Done by early afternoon. Sending the invoice shortly.

  Tod: Side door.

  Happiness washed over me. I wrapped up the current conversation, then hurried down the hall toward the sunroom, avoiding the crowded foyer. Clear blue Carolina skies greeted me once I hit the patio. The sun’s brilliant rays sparkled the pool and shimmered against its surface. I followed the pavered path through the vegetable garden, English rose garden, and finally the canopy of hydrangeas covering the porte-cochere.

  Tod parked an enormous ’85 Rolls Royce Corniche, and I bounced on my toes like a kid waiting to see Santa.

  Vivi rode shotgun. Her smile was genuine and kind and just for me. I opened her door, extending my hand to help her out. I hugged her tiny body, she weighed ninety-eight pounds max, and she squeezed back, then kissed both my cheeks. “Elli, my sweet dear, I missed you so.”

  Mr. Ballantyne emerged from the grand backseat. He was six feet tall and Jimmy Stewart handsome. He held two leashes and out galloped my favorite things on planet Earth: Colonel Mustard and Mrs. White. A pair of pug puppies so vivacious and adorable, I sat on the ground right in the drive so they could greet me proper.

  Sufficiently loved by snarfling kisses and curly tail wiggles, I accompanied the whole lot along the same pavered path to the rear entrance. In their seventies, the Ballantynes traveled extensively to promote their life’s mission: Caring for humanity and the environment. I knew their work was important and kind and they did so many wonderful things for humankind, but dang, it was always better when they came home.

  They entered the kitchen to access the private staircase to their third-floor residence. Chef helped Tod with the luggage, while Jane reassured them the BBQ was hitch-free.

  “Let me help you unpack,” I said.

  “Elli,” Zibby said, with a waddle and a shake from the doorway. “Sheriff Hill is on the telephone. Well, hello, Miss Vivi, let me grab my hat. It’s a flamingo!”

  “You take the call, dear,” Vivi said to me. “We’ll come down after a spell.” She threaded her hand through Mr. Ballantyne’s arm, and they slowly climbed the steps.

  I rushed to my office. I did not need the Sheriff to quit me before I could pick up the line. “Sheriff Hill, I’m surprised you remembered my number. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten my name.”

  “I’m not likely to forget you, Elliott,” he said. “Hear you have your hands full this morning.”

  “I guess it’s the one thing you’ll confirm. That Alex Sanders did not vandalize Oyster Cove Beach last night.”

  He laughed. “I can confirm that. I’ll go on the record with it, too.”

  “How about Daphne’s tablet? You know where that is? Is Alex working on a deal? Is he talking? Do you need me to ask specific questions, or can you just assume I’d like to know everything that’s happening?”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “Of which I am a part.”

  “Not as far as the DEA is concerned.”

  “What about Juliette’s car accident?” I asked. “Anything you can tell me?”

  “It’s an—”

  “Ongoing investigation,” I said. “Yes, I’m familiar with the term. You’re not much into cooperation for a cooperating officer.”

  “I’m always here if you need me.”

  “I need you.”

  Silence stretched from seconds into a minute. “Well, then, good talk. I better get back to it. I have a party to move to your backyard.”

  “My backyard?”

  “Isle House on Thatch Island,” I said. “Your backyard, remember? They started renovating it, conveniently working in our favor.”

  “Convenient, I’d say. Right when the house was never going to see use again.”

  “So you think,” I said.

  Tod stuck his head in the doorway. “The Ballantyne’s guests will arrive this afternoon.”

  “Sheriff, you’ve been of no assistance,” I said into the phone. “Let’s not do this again sometime.”

  “Always a pleasure,” he said.

  I tossed my phone on my desk in frustration. “You know, Tod, a PI-in-training under the mentorship of law enforcement is code for figure everything out on your own.”

  “If you define ‘on your own’ to include me, Sid, Milo, every person the three of us has ever met, the Ballantyne name—”

  “Fine, I hear you, but it’d be so much easier if the other investigators would simply tell me what they already know.”

  “Easy is for amateurs,” he said. “Can we discuss the Ballantyne’s guests now, or do you require more time to complain?”

  “I totally forgot about them,” I said. “Didn’t they want to fly on the Ballantyne jet?”

  “They have their own.”

  “Of course.”

  He pushed away from the doorframe to leave. “I’ll be in my office calling guests. Where’d you leave off?”

  “Wait,” I said. “How can I get access to Daphne’s burner app? Her phone and her tablet are unavailable. Should I call Smithson, that business name I found on her credit card bill? Any chance they’ll talk to me? This is new territory.”

  “No chance they’ll talk to you,” he said. “And don’t even look for someone who knows someone. Privacy is paramount. That’s the point of an app like that. Their customer records will be basic. Name, payment information, phone number. And you’ll need nothing less than Supreme Court access to get the kind of warrant that will even get you that much.”

  “The Supreme Court may be a stretch,” I said.

  “What other charges did she make on her card?”

  I opened my laptop and logged into Daphne’s credit card provider. “Clothes, boutiques, beading wholesalers.” I scrolled through the last six months, then the six months beyond those. “Here’s two I don’t recognize: GlamWidget for $12.95 and Nimbostrat for $49.95.”

  “GlamWidget is a photo filter. The other is likely a cloud.”

  “A cloud?”

  He leaned on the chair across from my desk. “You know, even without access to the actual burner app, you could probably find the calls and texts she made from it. Daphne probably backed it up to her cloud.”

  “Her cloud?”

  “If you know which cloud service, then you might be able to log into her account. The info should all be there. Texts, calls, everything.”

  “What’s this cloud you keep mentioning casually as if I’m supposed to know
even though you know I don’t know?”

  “It’s like a backup computer stored off-site.”

  “Obviously not in the literal clouds.”

  “Obviously. If Nimbostrat is a cloud service, then Daphne could’ve used it to store a copy of her data, maybe even the burner app data. She would want to delete those texts and calls from her phone so no one would know about them. That’s the point of a burner. But later, if she wanted to read them again, she could access an off-site copy.” He walked to the door. “How many guests did you notify about the change in venue for the extravagant annual BBQ that takes place in less than five hours?”

  “Not nearly as many as I hoped,” I said. “But I emailed Ransom the list of protestors.” I opened my email and attached the growing list of protestors we kept handy and zipped it off to Ransom as I spoke.

  “Zibby, my dear,” Mr. Ballantyne said. His booming voice echoed across the foyer and down the hall to my office. “Vivi is asking about your hat.”

  “Let’s just get the BBQ moved, then work on finding Daphne,” Tod said. “It doesn’t seem like a party should take priority, but there are hundreds of people working on finding her. And this party isn’t frivolous. It recognizes the host families for the homeless, something we all believe is noble and necessary, especially to raise more funds.”

  “Right,” I said. “One crisis at a time.”

  SIXTEEN

  (Day #8: Saturday Early Afternoon)

  After I downed the last of my Pepsis—it was a two Pepsi kind of day—Zibby arrived with lunch. Most of the volunteers were in the field searching for Daphne. A small crew stayed behind in the Big House to continue making posters, bundling flyers, and assigning teams. Tod and I spent the entire morning re-routing attendees, which meant I’d made zero progress locating Daphne.

  With thirty minutes before I needed to go to my cottage to get BBQ-ready, I turned on my laptop for a quick search of Nimbostrat.

  As Tod predicted, it was a cloud service. In the top right-hand corner of their webpage in teeny type, I clicked the login link. I entered Daphne’s email as the username and her universal pearlkn0t as the password.

  Red text informed me I’d entered the wrong username and/or password.

  I clicked the reset password link using Daphne’s email address, then switched browsers to login into her email service. I refreshed the screen eighteen dozen times in three minutes until, finally, a reset password link arrived. I considered simply using her universal password for the new one, but then decided to create something unique. I wanted to keep unwanted eyes out of her cloud. Ignoring that I was probably also unwanted eyes. But my unwanted eyes were for good purposes, not nefarious.

  The reset worked.

  Daphne’s Nimbostrat account held only one folder. It was named HushHush. Inside were two additional folders, each with a seven-digit number as its name. The phone numbers from her cell bill.

  I opened the first folder to reveal another folder named TEXTS. No folder for voicemails or call lists. I clicked the TEXTS folder and it was exactly as advertised. A list of texts arranged like a spreadsheet with four columns: Two left columns displayed one side of the conversation, one column indicated the phone number and the other for the actual text messages, and then the other two columns for the other side of the conversation. Daphne’s number on the left side, and the HushHush number on the right. I quickly scrolled through the content searching for names, but not a single one appeared. I wasn’t surprised. Who texts and mentions their own name? Or the name of the other person?

  From the brief scan, I determined this particular HushHush phone number must’ve belonged to Jona. It made sense. They’d need to talk about the whole next Eligible on season three and keep it confidential. I wondered if Jona had given Daphne the idea for HushHush to begin with.

  The text exchange was short and intermittent. The columns listed bursts of texts, three or four at a time, over a four-day period the week she disappeared.

  Monday afternoon:

  JONA: Don’t be dumb. Get what you deserve!

  DAPHNE: I told you leave it. Seriously.

  JONA: Meet me at IH. I know you miss it.

  DAPHNE: ?

  JONA: You go every week. Time for you to be center. Crash heard round the world. Fans miss you!

  Thursday afternoon:

  DAPHNE: Maybe

  JONA: I knew you’d do it.

  DAPHNE: I’m not doing it.

  JONA: Meet me Sat

  DAPHNE: Can’t

  JONA: You chicken out now you’ll regret it. Don’t be a wuss. Its win-win. Make a mark. Get your mate. Stop being 2nd.

  DAPHNE: Maybe. Call me tonight.

  That was the last message, two days before she disappeared. It sounded as if Jona pushed hard to get Daphne to be the next Eligible. I wondered what finally swayed Daphne to accept her offer. Money? Publicity? Love?

  Jona alluded to Daphne getting a new mate, but she already had Alex. Was Alex going to be on the show? Well, if he was, he certainly wasn’t anymore. It’d be hard to film him from jail.

  Or maybe Daphne had told Jona that Alex wasn’t long-term potential because she’d thought he was cheating on her. But then that assumed she thought a tv bachelor would be? And after getting dumped on national tv for her best friend, would she really be so open to doing it all over again, even if she was the one in the driver’s seat?

  What if Jona lied about Daphne accepting the offer to be on the next season? Maybe Jona’s actual agenda was to stir up trouble, build excitement right before announcing the new Eligible. The kind of trouble where someone vanished? Bad luck or good that Daphne wasn’t here to confirm or dispute Jona’s claims?

  Their text exchange made things more confusing, not more clear. At least to me. I took notes, then opened the folder with the other HushHush phone number. Again, no names. Just the four columns of numbers and texts. These, too, were terse bursts. With such short exchanges, and the long lines of incoming/outgoing calls to both HushHush numbers on her phone bill, I assumed Daphne was paranoid about someone reading her texts.

  And rightly so, as I was reading all of them. I considered whether the cloud deleted older files, because just like the previous text exchange, the only exchange listed occurred the week she went missing. Perhaps the cloud only stored a week’s worth of data?

  The first burst was the previous Friday.

  UNKNOWN: Take my call

  DAPHNE: It’s over.

  UNKNOWN: Don’t say that

  DAPHNE: I can’t do this anymore. I’m over it.

  UNKNOWN: We can still do this.

  DAPHNE: Stop calling! I’m done!

  The second and final burst took place on Saturday, the day she disappeared.

  UNKNOWN: Meet me

  DAPHNE: I’m not going to do it.

  UNKNOWN: Please. We’ll leave tonight, she’ll never know.

  Thirty minutes passed before she replied.

  DAPHNE: I don’t think I can go thru with it.

  UNKNOWN: It’ll be worth it. You’re worth it.

  DAPHNE: Ok. Call me tonight.

  This exchange was more telling—and more confusing—than the first one. Daphne was plotting something with someone. But what? And with whom? Alex? He said they fought. Why the burner? And if you’re on a burner app, why so cryptic? Though it was probably only cryptic because I had no idea what they were talking about. Was she also caught up in Alex’s Charlotte drug scene? Maybe she was the whistleblower? “We’ll leave tonight” implied an escape. Were they absconding with something?

  “It’s time to go,” Sid said from my office doorway.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Hello to you, too,” she said.

  I glanced at the last line of the text message. Whoever called Daphne “worth it” had called her that night, and she was neve
r seen again. I closed my laptop.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Hello, Sid, my very best friend in all the land. Why are you here at the Big House?”

  “To get you. Carla said you’d probably stay too late. And surprise, here you are.”

  “She could’ve gotten me,” I said. “Or I don’t need getting. I’m a grown woman capable of getting myself.”

  “Everyone left an hour ago, and you should’ve left with them. You needed to be at the BBQ thirty minutes ago.” Sid held out an outfit on padded hangers. Wide linen pants and a flowy embroidered top. “Change and let’s hit the road.”

  I did as requested, only taking ten minutes to spritz and tame my hair and slap on a fresh coat of lip gloss. “I discovered two interesting tidbits today. I found Daphne’s text messages from her HushHush burner phone app. I’m pretty sure one’s about Jona. The other? Daphne was planning something nefarious. Said she didn’t think she could ‘go thru with it.’ Possibly with Alex. Or a secret boyfriend. It’s a secret somebody.”

  “Oh? From Atlanta?”

  “I don’t know. If so, he drove down the day she disappeared. The last message was Daphne asking him to call her, and she sent it about six hours before her cell phone last pinged.”

  I dialed Sheriff Hill as we walked to the Mini. “Sherriff, it’s Elliott Lisbon. Remember me? I’m the one helping with the Daphne Fischer disappearance. I found—discovered, um,” I paused, unsure how to continue. “Well, just call me, kay? Or pop over to the BBQ.” I disconnected and turned to Sid. “I’m not sure how flexible he is.”

  “With?”

  “Law things. Like me using a pilfered password to access Daphne’s personal cloud service to read private text messages from a burner app backup account.”

  “Could be a gray area.”

  “But also could involve the last person to see her alive.”

  “Solid point,” Sid said. “Maybe leave out certain details.”

  We sailed over the bridge to mainland South Carolina, speeding along with the top up. No sense tangling Sid’s long mane before a prominent party. It may have been a BBQ near the beach, but everyone who was someone was going to be there. While we were honoring the host families who routinely housed the homeless, the island’s wealthiest patrons had ponied up significant dollars to sponsor the tables, contributing to the Housing First Initiative Fund.