“You’ve known the family for a long time.” Nikki waved Liam over from the computer. “You remember Agent Wilson.” Mindy nodded. “Did Amy ever give you the impression she was afraid of John?”
Mindy tugged at her graying hair. “Afraid, no. But John’s a powerful man. He likes to put on a certain façade for everyone, and he would certainly get frustrated if she didn’t go along with everything he set out.”
“Bobby told me about the argument over John’s heroics the night Mark attacked me.” Nikki worked to keep the venom from her tone. “It sounded like Amy embarrassed him.”
“That’s right,” Mindy said. “I’d forgotten. She said something about his embellishing every time he told the story. My husband took John outside to calm down. Things were never the same between them after that, and they just got worse.”
“What happened between your husband and John?” Miller asked.
“John convinced Bobby to come work for him at Roan. He promised him a guaranteed number of clients, which meant the opportunity for large bonuses. That’s not how it worked out, and Bobby felt he’d been misled.”
“John didn’t agree?” Had he ever liked to admit when he’d been wrong? Nikki wondered.
“He said Bobby wasn’t the salesman he’d once been. Bobby suffered from severe depression, and that just made it worse. He couldn’t afford to just quit his job since he hadn’t worked at Roan long enough to have much severance. And then he was gone. He couldn’t take it anymore.” Mindy wiped the tears off her cheeks. “John and Amy came to the funeral, and I was cordial. But I’d only spoken to her a handful of times since, until Madison went missing.”
“Did she ever talk about John hurting their daughter?” Nikki had suspected Mr. Vance had died by suicide, but how much of his decision could be attributed to the secrets he might have kept for John?
“My God, no. John Banks is a lot of things, but he loved Maddie like his own. She called him Daddy and thought the sun rose and set on the man.” Mindy’s lips pressed into a tight line. “But you said he hurt Amy, and I never would have imagined him doing such a thing. Why do bad things always happen to good people?”
“I wish I had an answer,” Nikki said. “Can you think of any place John might have taken Bailey?”
Mindy twisted a stray sweater thread around her finger. “Well, the boys always liked to camp. Fishing, not hunting. My husband didn’t like guns, and John wasn’t going to get that dirty.”
Nikki glanced at Liam and Miller and knew they were both thinking the same thing. A freezer for the fish. “What kind of fishing? Lake fish? Bluegills, that sort of thing?”
“Sometimes, but they used to get a charter and go out on Mille Lacs. They wanted to catch the big trophy fish.”
“That’s up in Aiken County, off Highway 169,” Miller said. “People fish for muskies and walleyes. Big ones in there, too.”
“Did they stay at any of the resorts?” Little fishing resorts were scattered along 169 all the way into the Boundary Waters.
Mindy made a face. “They never liked staying in those places. John said they weren’t clean enough. The three of them went in on a cabin just north of Lake Mille Lacs. I don’t know if John still uses it.”
Nikki looked sharply at Miller, who looked like he’d just won the lottery. “Do you remember where the cabin’s located?”
“Maybe, if I look at a map. I haven’t been up there in a long time, but all three families took the kids a couple of summers when they were much younger. Bailey wasn’t even born yet.” She glanced from Nikki to Miller. “He’ll be okay, won’t he? Parents are supposed to protect their kids at all costs. John wouldn’t hurt his own child.”
“Let’s hope not,” Nikki said. “Would you help me locate the cabin? Whatever you can remember will be a huge help.”
Liam quickly pulled up a detailed map of the area on his tablet. Mindy put on a pair of reading glasses and studied the screen.
Nikki pulled Miller aside. “He took the girls to the cabin. Is there any chance the security footage from this house and the surrounding ones were altered?”
“Not according to my tech people.”
“Liam said the county judge is hedging on the warrant because Roan’s such a powerful company. Can you update him? Maybe he’ll sign the warrant for the emergency exit footage when he learns a child is missing.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Agent Hunt.” Liam’s voice was sharp with excitement. “I’ve got the cabin’s location. We can make it in two hours if we haul ass.”
Forty-Two
It felt like they’d been on Highway 169 for days, and they still had at least fifteen minutes to go. “I can’t believe the main route to all the fishing resorts up north hasn’t been widened. Traffic is even worse than it was when I was a kid.” Nikki cut into the left lane and gunned past a slow-moving vehicle.
“It’s January,” Liam said. “Are all these people ice-fishing?”
They’d been stuck behind a trailer carrying two small ice-fishing shanties for the past five miles, and passing zones were few and far between thanks to the many curves and villages the road ran through.
