by Box Set
“Why? Do you not want me to contact him?” Hearst asked.
“No. Definitely call him. We could use the extra hands on deck.”
He surprised me by going to his backpack and pulling out a burner phone instead of using the phone in his pocket. “He’s off the grid,” he said. “I can only call him from this phone.”
I needed those bank records even if it was a crime. I wasn’t going to halt our progress by refusing to employ a criminal to do it.
Ten minutes later, we had the bank records for both Doug and Greg. Rob had taken the easy way in and logged into the online accounts as Doug and then Greg instead of attacking the bank system directly. “Never would have thought of that,” Hearst said. He sat down and scrolled through the records. “Where should I start?”
“Start with this month and go back. I want to know who is working for him. He has attorneys on both cases. Does he have security working for him as well? I know he’s watching Sharon, and the more I can learn about the surveillance before I go on scene the better.”
“Before Graham goes on scene,” he said.
“Right,” I said.
I finally caught a break when one of our search engines dug out a resume of Sharon’s from 2009 on an old job-finder site. She had listed two references at the bottom of the page. I searched each name and discovered that the first reference was from her job at the insurance company. A woman who appeared to have been a coworker. The second reference was from her previous job at a small business.
The first reference, Camille Ryan, was still employed by the insurance company and continued to live in Dallas. With any luck, she would have the same phone number.
I told Hearst what I was doing and then went to my room to make the call from one of Paxton PI’s burner phones. No chance in taking any risks that the woman could identify me.
After grabbing a blank notebook and a pen, I sat on my bed and dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“May I speak to Camille Ryan please?”
“What is this regarding?” she asked.
“I’m so sorry to bother you on the weekend. My name is Libby Montgomery, and I am checking references for Sharon Lloyd. She has applied for a position with Montgomery insurance here in Tennessee.”
“Sharon Lloyd! I haven’t thought of her in years. I’m surprised she remembered my phone number.”
“Do you have time to answer some questions for me?” I asked.
“Well of course, hon. You can’t go wrong with Sharon. She’s a good one.”
“Thank you so much, Ms. Ryan,” I said. “Can you tell me something about her work ethic?”
“I sure can. Sharon worked harder than anybody else on the floor. She loved crunching numbers. I can’t say I enjoy it nearly as much.” She laughed. “She was a quick learner, and a hard worker.”
“Did she share her goals or career plans with you?”
“She did. She wanted to run our division within ten years. She had things all planned out. She was going to learn everything she could and then leave one day to start her own agency. I didn’t doubt her for one minute either. She was driven.”
“Do you recall why she left your company?”
“Well,” she said. “It’s been a while now, but if I remember correctly, there was a fella.”
I wanted to dig deeper, but I wasn’t sure how. I didn’t want this woman to suspect I wasn’t who I said I was.
Luckily, my silence prompted her to continue, “I remember that I didn’t like him much. I’m not sure what became of him. Maybe they weren’t together too long.”
“Thank you very much for your time, Ms. Ryan. I appreciate you answering my questions.”
“I hope you hire her, honey,” she said. “And if you do, tell her to give me a call. It’s been too long. Too long.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll let her know you asked after her.”
I hung up and stared down at my notebook. I hadn’t written anything out, but it wasn’t hard to remember. She had been a hard worker who wanted to move up in the company and ultimately start her own insurance agency. Instead, she’d moved to Tennessee, married Greg, and never worked again. And then there was the unspoken message about Greg. Camille Ryan didn’t like him, and she hadn’t explained her reasons. I suspected I knew some of those reasons, and that she hadn’t shared them because a prospective employer would not be impressed.
“Hey,” my brother said from my doorway, scaring me.
“Graham!” I squeaked. “Why are you sneaking up on me?” I slid the notebook over the top of the burner phone. Then I got up and moved toward him.
“I’m not. I wanted to check in with you. I’m going to shower and change. Joe’s picking me up around seven.”
I nodded. “Okay. Sounds good.”
“What are you guys going to do to stay busy?” he asked. “You know idol hands and all that.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re working on a project for history, and when we get bored, there are two movies I want to see. Hearst has one he wants to see. We’ll have to flip a coin or something.”
My brother stood there looking at me. “Why do you have Ariana Grande hair?”
I reached up to feel the tight ponytail. “I just wanted my hair out of my face.”
“It’s nice,” he said. “Kind of perky.”
“Peppy?” I asked.
“That too.”
I gave him an innocent smile.
My brother walked out into the living room. “What are you two going to do for dinner? Should we order something? Or do I need to make you something before I get in the shower?”
“We have sandwich stuff,” I said. “Maybe we will order out. Or we could cook. Hearst makes really yummy eggs and pancakes.”
“And you have perfected everything microwavable,” my brother said. “Just don’t burn the place down.”
“Not on the agenda,” I said, moving back to my spot on the couch.
Graham took a twenty out of his wallet and laid it on the kitchen island. “In case you decide to order pizza.”
“Thanks, Graham,” I said.
* * *
I waited until I heard my brother’s shower running to fill Hearst in on the phone call.
“More evidence that she’s in trouble,” he said.
“What did you find out?”
“Quite a bit. Doug keeps a two-man security team on retainer through one of his businesses. I can’t tell what the business actually does, but the guy spends some serious cash on security. He also has used two local security firms for what look to be short-term assignments. The price tags on those aren’t anything to sneeze at either. It looks like they were doing projects for him that lasted two to three months at a time. At least, based on how he was paying them. Then about two months before his brother’s death, he doubled the amount he was paying one of those agencies.”
“Which agencies?” I asked.
“Big Dawg Security Teams Limited and Boomers Security Emporium.”
Neither agency had a good reputation. They didn’t play by the rules. “It’s all consistent,” I said with a sigh.
“It’s looking pretty likely that this woman is in some real trouble,” he said. “Maybe you should talk to Graham before he leaves.”
“He isn’t going to do anything tonight anyway,” I said. “We have hours left tonight. Let’s use them.”
“You don’t actually think I believe that you’re planning to turn this thing over to Graham, do you?”
The sound of running water stopped and saved me from having to argue with him. “He’s out of the shower. We’ll have to talk about this later.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, his voice deadly serious. “We will.”
“Yay,” I said. “Keep working on the financials. I’m going to make an equipment list and map out a plan for securing the house.”
“Graham will be glad to have your plan,” my friend said.
Give it a rest already. I didn’t d
eign to grace him with a response.
* * *
I’d need the radio frequency detector and a spread spectrum detector to search for bugs. I’d also need to take a couple of noise generators to cover our conversations. The threat from cameras was much higher. Doug and his hired thugs probably did have eyes on her. I had to behave as if there were cameras throughout the house. Cameras meant they’d have a picture of me. I should probably change my appearance as much as possible in case they saw through the cheerleader stereotype enough to get an idea of what I really looked like.
It wasn’t going to be easy having a private conversation with the woman if the house was full of bugs. We had to pretend we didn’t know they were there. We couldn’t run through the house locating and destroying them.
Maybe the best plan would be to draw her out of the house. I could present her with an order form for cookie dough and candles. Every school on the planet sold those for fundraisers. Inside, I could have a note identifying myself and asking her to meet me at the closest McDonalds. That would have the added benefit of getting us to a public place where I’d be a lot safer. Then I could sweep her and the kids for bugs, hand her a burner phone, and carry on the conversation by text if necessary.
I added burner phones and a fake catalog to the list.
My brother came out of his room smelling of cologne.
I turned to see that he looked good. The beard was coming in nicely, but it wasn’t overgrown. He wore a t-shirt under a jacket with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of jeans, and his usual motorcycle boots.
“You look great,” I said. “Very hipster chic.”
“Whatever,” my brother said. “Make sure you two don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone. You and me, Hearst, we have a gentlemen’s agreement, do we not?”
Hearst flinched before he answered. “Yes, sir. We do.”
I guess my friend thought he’d broken their agreement by kissing me twice.
“No funny business,” my brother said. “Deal, Townsey?”
“Deal,” I said. “Nothing going on here between me and Hearst other than some purely platonic hanging out.” Not only had I pushed those kisses out of my mind, I had zero room right now for thoughts about anything other than the woman we were trying to help.
“Hands off the sister,” Hearst said. “Got it.”
Graham stopped to glare at my friend, but Hearst was back to working on his laptop and didn’t even notice.
“Have fun tonight,” I said. “You deserve it.”
“I’ll see you guys in a few hours,” my brother said.
* * *
When Graham had left the loft, Hearst said, “He’s worried about us doing something stupid with each other when in reality, you’re planning to do something foolish and dangerous with one of his cases.”
“Foolish is a little harsh,” I said.
He ignored me. “Rob got me into Doug’s email. This must not be his only account though because I haven’t found any messages related to Sharon or either of those security firms. I did find an interesting tidbit. Greg’s half-million dollar life insurance policy paid out to Doug as the beneficiary.
“He made money off his brother’s death?”
“A lot of money between that and Greg’s other assets. Greg’s net worth was around five million at the time of his death.”
“And the only thing his wife and kids get are some tiny little trusts?”
“Looks like it.”
“Maybe Doug did kill him.”
“If he did, and if we could prove it, maybe we could put him behind bars. That would protect Sharon.”
“I’d like to think it would protect her, but even in prison, a multi-millionaire could have some serious reach.”
“We’d be a lot better at this investigation stuff if we weren’t basing half of our information on what we’ve seen in movies and on television,” he said.
“Not half,” I argued. “More like twenty percent.”
“This Doug guy has enough money to easily pay someone to watch Sharon twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There could be a team in the house next door, or down the street. I don’t think you should go anywhere near the woman. And what if you do? What if you talk to her and everything we believe is true? What can you possibly do to help her escape? Is she going to come in to the police? There isn’t enough proof. Is she going to run? With his resources, he will find her. Besides, she has two small children. How is she going to blend in?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “I guess I wanted to meet with her and then go to Graham with everything. Maybe between Graham and Joe… Maybe they can figure something out.”
Hearst sighed. “If you’re going to tell your brother the truth anyway, why not tell him now? Before you put yourself in danger?”
“He knows she’s in trouble, and he isn’t doing anything.”
“He is doing something. He passed the case on to Carol for her to see if the woman’s plea for help was real. And I read the email, remember? He specifically asked her to keep him updated every step of the way. That means Carol has to send him what she’s learned tonight.”
“Carol has every intention of updating him tonight,” I said.
“Does she?” Hearst asked. “I’m starting to wonder if Carol has a few screws loose. Like the one for self-preservation and the other one, common sense.”
I really didn’t like it when people questioned my intelligence. “You don’t have to be rude about it. What do you want me to do? Tell my brother? He’ll probably ask Joe to drive by and check on her. If he does, and if he asks her if she’s okay, what can she possibly say? No? If she says no, then what? He grabs her and the kids and drives them off to somewhere safe? She isn’t safe, and I’m not sure the police can do anything about it.”
He frowned. “You may be right.”
I leaned back into the couch cushion and closed my eyes. “Maybe we can learn something more tonight. Can your friend check her wifi for anything fishy? Maybe the neighbors’ wifi too. If he could hack into one of the cameras that must be in her home, we could get a better idea of what’s going on.”
I opened my eyes to see Hearst nodding. “He should be able to. I’ll give him another call. Do you have her IP address?”
“Yes. I traced it back through the website’s contact page.” I texted it to him so he could read it off to his criminal contact. “When this is over, I want to hear more about this guy.”
He stood and stretched. “Whatever you want.” Then he picked up his phones and went toward the kitchen to call his friend.
Hearst was pretty mad at me. He’d made it obvious in comment after comment all evening. I knew he was worried, and he wasn’t exactly wrong about the risks I was taking.
The very idea that the two of us weren’t on the same page about something so important was disconcerting. We always agreed. The only thing we had ever argued about was his lack of effort with Felicity and Liz. I didn’t like the feeling. Hearst and I made a great team.
At least he was helping me dig into this mess. I would be so far behind without his help.
He finished his call and came back toward me. “I’m hungry. I know you aren’t paying me, but you have to at least feed me.”
Now that he mentioned it, my stomach was empty too. And I was dying of thirst.
“You get so focused,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you worked for days on end without remembering to eat or sleep.”
I wouldn’t be surprised either. “What are we going to eat?”
“Let’s order pizza.”
I had overdosed on pizza a couple of times in the last year. There were times when you ended up eating pizza four or five meals in a row around here. Luckily, I hadn’t been subjected to Death by Pizza in a while. “I can do pizza.”
“I’ll order,” he said, already scrolling for the number on his phone. “Stefano’s?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
He found the number and held the
phone to his ear. “Do we need more caffeine?”
“No. I think we have some Cokes left. And there’s always coffee.”
“Pizza places should deliver frappes,” he said.
They really should.
I decided to stand up and move around for a while. I’d think better if I got some blood flowing. I was hungrier than I thought.
I headed to the fridge for an apple. I grabbed two, sliced them up, and put them on two plates. Then I handed one to Hearst. He was on hold with the pizza place.
I stood at the island and munched on the fruit.
Hearst finally got through to place the order, and I listened just in case he planned any nasty surprises, like anchovies. He finished and hung up. “Forty five minutes,” he said. “We shouldn’t have waited so long.” He picked up a slice of apple and popped the whole thing in his mouth.
His pocket vibrated and he pulled out the burner phone. “Talk,” he said.
I frowned. Was he kidding?
“Got it. Thanks.” He hung up.
Maybe they weren’t friends after all. How could a conversation last only a few seconds?
He went over to grab his laptop from the couch. “He sent us a link,” he said, carrying the computer over to set on the island in front of me. He clicked a few things and then his screen showed a compilation of six camera feeds.
“He found six of them? In her house?”
“Apparently,” Hearst said.
I could make out some of the rooms. One was obviously a playroom. The second was the kitchen. The third was a family room, or possibly another angle on the playroom/family room combination. The fourth was a shot of her house from the front. The next one was from the back.
“They really have her covered,” I said. I shuddered at the sheer creepiness.
Then I focused on the darker camera view. I finally made out a bed in the center of the room. “They have a camera in her bedroom,” I gasped.
“Rob says these are all running off her own wifi signal. She probably doesn’t know how to check it, and she can’t exactly ask anybody for help.”
“This guy is a monster,” I said. Somehow actually seeing his handy work brought it all home in a way that our research hadn’t. “Is he going to know we’re watching it?”
