I found the house and stood across the street. There were lights on inside. Was it occupied by the same people six years ago? I couldn’t see the guest house from the street. It was obscured by hedges. I stood there long enough that I started to feel like a stalker. I turned and walked home. I had the feeling that I had lost her all over again.
Chapter Eight
Ethan
“Morning…., damn boss that must have been some party last night you look like death warmed over.” Jared greeted me as I walked into the office.
“Thanks.” I headed for the coffee pot. “You find anything more on our missing schoolteacher?” We had a local schoolteacher and her child that had gone missing and we hadn’t heard from the kidnappers, which had me worried.
“Not really. What I have found is nothing so that is something.” Jared smiled.
“Jared, man I can’t do riddles this morning.” I sat down on the edge of my desk ready to taste the coffee.
“Sorry.” He tapped on his keyboard.
“Angela Posten hasn’t touched her bank account since the day before she went missing.”
“Okay”
“So, if she left on her own, she would probably have withdrawn a large amount of cash or used an ATM card in the past week or something.” Jared explained.
I turned to Logan and began questioning him as well. “Has her cell phone been equally as quiet?”
“Yes, at least in the city. It must be turned off or destroyed because I can’t get a location off the GPS in the phone.”
“Okay, we’ll keep on that.” I instructed Logan and turned back to Jared. “So, if her bank account hasn’t been touched the motive isn’t likely money.”
“No, she isn’t rich, but she isn’t poor either. She has about twenty thousand and change in the bank.”
“She have any other sources of income?” A theory was staring to form at the end of my mind.
Jared began checking. “Not that I can see. Nothing coming into this account.”
“Check and see if she had any other accounts.”
“On it.” He continued searching.
I sat down and started combing through the tips we had received on her sighting. The family was wanting to put out a reward and I knew that would bring in more tips and some of them would be people just seeking the money. I wanted to get through as many of the tips we had already before the onslaught of new ones came with the promise of a reward. We were going to have to route some of them to other offices as we weren’t going to have the ability to go through them all.
Stephanie came in all smiles. Stephanie was cursed with the morning person gene.
“You look extra happy this morning.” Logan teased.
“Have you seen the paper this morning?”
“No, why?” Jared looked up.
“There a very dashing man on the society page.”
Logan frowned. “So, what else is new?”
“What is new is that this dashing man is one we know!” Stephanie pulled a copy of the paper from her bag.
“Really? Who?” Jared asked.
I suddenly had a feeling I didn’t want to know. I concentrated on the computer screen.
“Whoa! Is that you with the Vice Mayor?” Jared looked up from Stephanie’s paper.
“Probably.” I still stared at my screen. I was struck with a thought, what if the picture caught the woman, I was chasing last night.
“Can I see that?” I asked.
Jared and Stephanie exchanged looks.
“Sure.” Stephanie handed me the paper.
I looked at it carefully. “Is this the only picture?”
“No, there are a few more on the next page.” Stephanie looked at me curiously.
I flipped the pages quickly. I scanned the pictures. I saw nothing. No beauty in the green dress.
Jared came over and leaned on my desk.
“You were working a case, weren’t you? Looking for someone?” He turned to Stephanie and Logan. “I knew you wouldn’t just go to some fancy party for the heck of it. You were working.”
“Something like that.” I nodded at Jared.
“I knew it!” Jared pleased with himself punched the air.
“Does it have something to do with our current case?” Stephanie asked.
“No, it’s a cold case from a long time ago.” I lied. I didn’t want to explain Kay to them.
“Oh.” She looked slightly disappointed.
The room went quiet and I handed Stephanie her paper.
Maybe I had imagined it all. Maybe that bourbon was stronger than I thought but I didn’t think I was that drunk. I was just over worked. I’d hadn’t taken in vacation in over ten years. Maybe I should take some time off.
“You okay?” Jared asked.
“Yeah.” I went back to combing through tips on the computer. I couldn’t get the woman in the green dress out of my mind. Could it have been Kay? I really couldn’t tell, the hair was shorter, of course, but that didn’t mean anything. She could have had it cut. There was nothing else to make me think it was her other than the way I felt. Kay was the only woman who had ever made me feel the way I did right now, and I couldn’t imagine there could be two women like that in the world. And what if it was her? Why hadn’t she looked me up? She knew where I worked. In fairness she had no way of knowing I was divorced; I just needed to find her and tell her myself.
I had
