“What about Allyson Flannery? Do you think she’s part of this?”
“Hard telling. No one’s seen her in nearly a decade,” he shrugged, then dialed Tatiana.
“What’s a-happening, Hot Stuff?” Tatiana answered on the first ring.
“No,” Flint frowned at the phone.
“Not a fan ofSixteen Candles?” Tatiana chuckled. “The Donger?”
“Still no.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing because I knew T did it just to rile him up. I slapped the table and broke two nails. Dang it. Those joined the others I broke yesterday. It wasn’t that I was allergic to hard work, but this was altogether different. And it was taking its toll on me.
I pulled a nail file out of my purse while Flint filled in Tatiana on the selenium development.
“I need you to use your particular skill set,” Flint explained. “I want you to run a trace on Allyson Flannery. She once held a chiropractor’s license in Mississippi.”
“I’ll have that in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,bossman,” Tatiana clicked away on her end.
Flint shook his head and tried to hide his smile.
“Weird,” Tatiana’s clicking stopped suddenly.
“What’s weird?” I asked.
“I’m not pulling up very much. And I can’t run facial recognition,” Tatiana groused.
“Why not?” Flint sat up straighter.
“There are no pictures of her.”
“How is that possible? There are pictures of everyone, everywhere,” I thought about my phone and all the pictures I took every week.
“None. Zip. Nada. Nothing on social media. No one at the chiropractor’s office had pictures of her on the website or even on their phones,” Tatiana clicked a few more keys.
She hacked into their phones? I don’t know why I was surprised at this, but still.
“What about the University of Mississippi? Any records that might help there?” Flint suggested.
Tatiana clicked and clacked for about a minute, grumbling aboutslow SEC mofosin Mississippi, then grunted. “Nope. Nothing there either. Those Ole Miss idiots purged all their records about a year ago to free up some digital storage space.”
“Hey, now,” Flint warned. “Watch your mouth about Ole Miss! Them’s fighting words!”
Tatiana snorted. “Fine. There are still no records of Flannery.”
“Wouldn’t there be records when she was charged with the death of Stringer Maxfield?” I offered.
Tatiana grunted. “I don’t think you understand. There are absolutely zero records of her.”
“What about yearbooks? Or pictures from before college? Surely we could find some of those. Then you can work your aging magic on them,” I suggested.
“That’s the thing,” Tatiana’s voice dropped. “I found no record of Allyson Flannery before her time at the University of Mississippi. After her brush with the courts and the death of Stringer Maxfield, Flannery disappeared again.”
I slumped in my seat. “I just don’t get it. How is that possible? Not even a mugshot?”
“She wasn’tarrestedwhen Stringer died. Those were civil charges,” Flint pointed out.
“And where the hell is Echo? No one saw her leave the neighborhood with moving vans full of her stuff? That neighborhood is chock-full of Nosy Nellies! I can’t believe no one saw a doggone thing,” I was starting to get royally ticked off about all of this. I was so over this investigation and just wanted to return to my life. I missed how it had been.
