“A lot of variables,” Brantley said quickly as he was dialing his cell phone. “Hey, Charlie. You talk to Mrs. Wright yet?”
More silence on Baz’s end, but he could tell by Brantley’s expression that he didn’t get the answer he wanted to that question.
“Yeah, all right. Sit tight for a few more minutes. Maybe she got hung up somewhere. If she doesn’t show, y’all can head on back.”
Baz could see the wheels turning in Brantley’s head when he disconnected the call. His gaze shifted to the burner phone Baz held in the evidence bag.
“Why was he here?” Brantley mused, taking the phone.
“To meet someone,” Baz figured. “Girlfriend said she thought she was dreaming that he got a phone call in the middle of the night. Maybe it wasn’t a dream.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Allison said, far too much accusation in her tone.
Brantley spoke as though she hadn’t said a word. “He gets a call, comes here to meet whoever it was. But if that’s the case, they didn’t call this phone. No incomings for the past week.”
“JJ attempted to trace his main phone,” Baz explained, “but it’s either turned off or destroyed.”
“Same with Nancy’s,” Brantley rumbled. “She didn’t show up at the police station and we need to find her.” Brantley passed the phone back to him. “Take this back to HQ. See if JJ can work her magic. I want to know what he uses that for.”
“We need a lead,” Allison ground out.
“We’ll get one,” Brantley stated, sounding far more certain than Baz felt.
“So you say,” she countered. “This is a wild goose chase.”
Baz wasn’t sure how Brantley was being so cool about her attitude. The woman clearly had an issue with something, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what it was. However, he had to wonder whether or not working for this task force was something she was actually interested in doing.
More importantly, he was starting to wonder whether or not she’d be good for the team.
Chapter Thirteen
JJ looked up from her computer screenwhen she heard the door open below.
She pretended there weren’t chill bumps on her arms and that her stomach wasn’t churning with anxiety. It was the same reaction she had every time she was startled, and admittedly, she’d been so wrapped up in her research, she hadn’t realized she was the only one upstairs at the moment.
Without being prompted, she grabbed her laptop and headed down the stairs, knowing whoever it was would require an update. They’d spent all morning compiling information on the three couples as well as the investment company, coming up with a lot of data, but nothing that would lead them to Cedric Hawkins.
“Where’s Brantley?” she asked when she saw Reese.
“He went to meet Baz.”
“And you didn’t go with him?”
Reese didn’t answer, simply stared at her as though urging her to use deductive reasoning to answer her own question. And fine. She could obviously see he hadn’t gone with Brantley, but her real question was why not?
“What’ve you got, JJ?”
Yep, and that was a flash of temper she heard in his voice.
“Oh, sorry.” She shook off the strange vibe, shot a smile at Evan, then shifted her attention back to Reese. “Very little, to be honest. I just finished a deeper dive of Hawkins’s financials.”
“Lookin’ for?”
“Anything and everything. I was mainly focused on property he owned, thinking perhaps he might’ve gone off to hide somewhere, but, like I said, I found very little. They’ve got several vacation homes, one in Hawaii, one in Cancun, and one in St. Maarten. All of which have twenty-four-hour video surveillance.”
“What I find interesting is that you call three vacation homes ‘very little,’” Evan said with a grin.
“Considering the numbers before the decimal point on his bank statement, it’s actually kinda modest.”
