“Just asking questions. I’ve got someone headed to her house to get some information from her.”
“Has anyone questioned Brett?”
Aiden nodded. “I sent someone over right after you left last night. He was in his apartment with a few friends. The officer he spoke to said he seemed quite concerned about Chelsea.”
“I still don’t trust him. He hasn’t stopped blaming me for his sister’s death.”
“Possibly, but he has an alibi for all of yesterday and Chelsea wasn’t with him. He insisted we search his place. Honestly, the last prints we found are the ones I’m interested in.”
“Frank?”
“His name’s Frank Haggar. He’s the current CEO of MedLab Pharmaceuticals. His prints were not only in a few spots in the house, but we got a partial on the hammer. The interesting thing is that when I called right after talking to you, he wasn’t in his office to speak with. They said he was on a business trip.”
“He was here Thursday morning, except Chelsea said he wasn’t staying. Did they have any way to contact him?”
Aiden grabbed one of the sandwiches and took a bite. Once he’d chewed and swallowed, he answered, “They wouldn’t give out any information on him, so we did a little digging. First, you mentioned he’d stayed a few times at the West Street house Chelsea’s father had owned. I went there myself last night and asked a few questions. The staff was eager to tell me what a nice, respectable man he was and how he always cleaned up after himself. Seems he’s been there quite a few times in the past three months. Probably more than you realized. The dates matched up to the accidents you’d mentioned.”
“He was here? Where is he now?” God, what was this guy up to with Chelsea? Was he hurting her? The blood rushed from his face, and the room spun. Dropping his head into his hands, he grabbed his hair and clenched his fingers. The pain from pulling didn’t make the ache in his heart any less.
“The staff pointed out his car. It was still in the driveway. A black sedan. Rental. They said he took a taxi when he left Friday mid-day. Checked with the taxi company, and they verified they dropped him at Chelsea’s house. But now her car is missing, so we’re assuming he took that. With her in it.”
“Sure. To make me think she’d left. He must not have figured I’d go inside and look around, hoping I’d believe her texts that she was leaving me.”
“Well, whatever he’s done, it was planned out. The tests came back from the liquid in the cups.”
Theo’s head whipped up as he stared at the chief.
“The tea had a large quantity of a drug similar to ones used for date rape. Tracing it back, we found it’s produced by none other than MedLab Pharmaceuticals.”
“Do you think he plans to…” Theo couldn’t even finish the thought.
“I can’t possibly take a guess on his motives, but I think we’re definitely looking at this Frank guy. Did Chelsea ever say if he was interested in her romantically?”
“No.” His voice hitched, and he cleared his throat. “His name only came up a few times, and it was mostly regarding her father’s business. He wanted her to come back, but Chelsea never made it sound like he was angry about it.”
He was ready to tear his hair out. Where was she? What was happening to her? This was worse than when he thought she didn’t care for him anymore. At least then he’d known she was alive and well. Or so he’d thought. More guilt came flooding back for not pushing harder five years ago.
“Where’s Jordan?” Aiden asked as he finished the sandwich and crumpled up the wrapper.
“Angie took her to her place last night. They took the kittens and left me the dog, in case I need him to sniff out Chelsea. As if he’s a Bloodhound. Any lead on where they might be?”
“We checked her phone, and according to the towers being used, they’re still on Mt. Desert Island. Still working on where. We’ve got people checking out Frank and any connections he has around here. His name and face have been put out as a Person of Interest, so if anyone sees him, we’ll be notified.”
“What do we do now?”
Aiden lowered his eyes and looked away. Theo had a bad feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.
“We wait.”
“What do you plan to do?” The pain in Chelsea’s heart multiplied at the thought of Theo getting hurt or dying.
“I plan to get rid of him.” Frank’s eyes were intense and cold, devoid of emotion. Then, he shook his head and anger seemed to replace the cold. “If only the accidents had taken him out, I wouldn’t have had to resort to this.”
“Accidents? What accidents? Did you cut the roots on the tree?” Is that why it had fallen so quickly?
A sly smirk crossed his face. “I did a lot more than that. Tried to push some rocks down on him shortly after you first got here. Nearly hit him with my car. The tree, though, that wasn’t so easy to figure out, and you almost got in the way.”
“But Theo did get injured.”
