Amanda fixated on her last showing. Since no one had seen or heard from her since Friday, had something gone wrong there? “We’ll need to know where her seven o’clock appointment was on Friday and if she made it. Could you call the homeowner or the client to see if she turned up?”
“I have the cell phone number for the homeowner. One minute.” Sierra fielded an incoming call, and then moved on to verifying the appointment. She hung up less than a minute later. “Yes, Christine was there for about thirty minutes.”
They could find out the location of that listing, go over there, and see if they could determine anything from the area. But Amanda’s mental wavelength took her somewhere else. “A moment ago you said sometimes Christine adds appointments or viewings to the calendar. Do you know if she ever showed a house without doing this?” Amanda imagined Christine would be eager to reclaim her title as agent of the year. In a rush to meet a client’s schedule, maybe she failed to record a last-minute appointment.
“It is protocol to call in all viewing appointments or add them to the calendar. It’s a safety measure.” Sierra leaned forward and spoke at a lower volume. “But Christine has missed that step once or twice.”
Amanda pointed at the framed photographs on the wall. “I’m sure Christine was eager to get her title back. Is there a specific property that might help her do that?” She was thinking if her disappearance was at all connected to a listing, having this knowledge might help.
Sierra sat back and nodded. “It’s a luxury listing for over a mil, and Christine has been focused on moving it. This is thelargest listing held by Best Homes at the moment. And Christine would have done anything to sell the place to prove herself to Mr. Beasley. She showed it more than any other listings last week.”
One word Sierra used stuck like a burr.Anything…It wasn’t a stretch to think Christine went ahead and booked a showing without following procedure. Possibly one last minute. “Could you contact the homeowner and find out if Christine showed the home over the weekend?”
Sierra got on the phone and hung up a few seconds later shaking her head. “There’s no answer. Should I call back and leave a voicemail?”
“No, that’s fine.” They would go over there. “Where is this listing?”
“Charmed Court.” Sierra gave them the house number just as a stout man sauntered up to the desk.
“What’s going on here?” His beady brown eyes ran over them.
“Detectives Steele and Stenson.” She held out her hand to him but drew it back when he never shook it.
“Art Beasley. We spoke on the phone. We still haven’t been able to reach Christine. I’m starting to worry that…” His words petered out as his gaze traveled to Sierra.
The young woman’s cheeks were a bright red, and her eyes were full of tears.
Amanda respected the man was trying to shield his employee by letting his sentence dangle. Not that it was difficult to guess what he was about to say. “We’re doing our best to find her, Mr. Beasley. Until we know more, there’s no reason you should stress yourself.”
“Too late for that.”
Amanda could understand his side. She had her own grave suspicions. “We might need more information from you as we continue to look for Christine. If you and youremployees would continue to be cooperative, that would go a long way.”
“Yes, of course.”
“To start, if we could find out the homeowner’s name and number for the Charmed Court listing,” she said.
Art motioned toward Sierra. “Give them the listing sheet, and the owner’s phone number.”
Sierra handed a piece of paper to Amanda. She scanned down to see it covered all the details of the house, including the name of the current owner. Dominique Sharp.
Sierra’s pecking on her keyboard was short-lived before she rattled off a phone number, which Trent scribbled in his notepad.
“Thank you,” Amanda told her. “And as I said on the phone, Mr. Beasley, please call me if Christine calls or shows up here.” She handed him her business card to stress the point. He already had her number from earlier.
Art nodded. “We will.”
Amanda gave Sierra one more look before leaving the firm.
Back in the car, Trent glanced at her. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” She assumed she was reading his mind correctly, and their next stop was Christine’s luxury listing. Was he also thinking the same as her? That there might not be a happy ending waiting for them on Charmed Court?
FOUR
The Agee subdivision was well-established, attractive to families, and catered to people with a high income. All the houses and properties in this area were quite large and meticulously maintained. From reading the listing sheet for the house, Amanda learned the place was only twenty-two years old, but it possessed characteristics of the colonial style with its redbrick facade and black shutters. “This place has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a three-car attached garage. That’s a lot of house for one person.” Amanda lowered the piece of paper as Trent parked on the street out front. She stiffened at the sight of the red Lexus RX 350 in the driveway. They had pulled a simple background on Dominique Sharp, and she had a Cadillac Vistiq registered in her name. “Don’t tell me that’s…”
Trent entered the plate into the onboard computer. “It belongs to Christine Lane.”
