“This will probably sound crazy to you, but since Spencer and his family think it might mean something, I’m going to fill you in.”
“I’m ready.”
“About eight years ago, there was a man in my diver training class in the Navy who for some reason took an instant disliketo me. He taunted me for a while, but when I didn’t give him the satisfaction of getting spooked, he ended up tampering with my diving computer so my timing was off coming up from a deep dive. I got pretty sick because of it, and had to stay in the hyperbaric chamber for two days.”
Spencer felt the anger rise in his chest, even hearing this for the second time. He could tell his brothers were pissed-off, too.
“And?” Tex prompted, clearly the only cool head in the bunch.
“And he got caught on video. He was brought before a board and was court-martialed, then dishonorably discharged.”
“Name?” Tex didn’t waste any time on niceties.
“We called him Ghillie, but his full name was Benjamin Gilliard.”
“I’m on it,” Tex told them, and hung up.
“You really think…? Tabitha trailed off.
“It’s a possibility,” Spencer said, covering her wringing hands with his own. “And why not turn over every rock? It can’t hurt. Are you up to listening to the call again? Maybe you can pick up some kind of cadence to his sentence structure, even with the voice changer engaged?”
Tabitha shook her head, regretfully. “I would, but… Seriously, I didn’t detect anything the first few times, so I don’t think it will help. The whole incident with him happened so long ago, and at the time I really had very little to do with the man. He skeeved me out, so I kept my distance.”
“That’s okay, Tabitha. We’ll wait to hear what Tex finds,” Mason asserted. “In the meantime, dig deep and see if you can think of anyone else who might have a problem with you.”
After a few minutes of give and take, it was determined that Tabitha was squeaky clean. She hadn’t made any more enemies along the line, and Spencer wasn’t surprised. It followed from the open and cheerful way she conducted her day-to-day life.
Two hours later, after a lot of pacing and more ineffectual calls to bus stations, airports, and ride-share companies to see if anyone had spotted Sheila, Spencer’s phone rang.
“It’s Tex,” he alerted, looking at the ID. “I’ll let you all hear what he has to say.”
“Hey, Tex,” Spencer greeted. “You’re on speaker.”
Tex wasted no time. “First, I just got another call from our suspect. This one has instructions. Have a listen.”
There was a brief pause before…
“Okay Tabitha. I’m finished with following your sister. I’ll be grabbing her very soon, then here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go to the bank and withdraw a hundred-K in unmarked hundreds, and put it in a duffel bag. I’ll call with instructions for when and where I want it left.”
“Tex?” Mason posited, once the recording ended.
“Again, the lines were too scrambled to trace the connection, but I did find something interesting previous to his call. Your man, Ghillie, lives in New Jersey. He works construction on and off, but other than that, it doesn’t seem like he’s got much of a life. His social media is all about his dissatisfaction with his situation and ‘the man’, and he has an extremely active account with OnlyFans, so that’s a bit telling about how he views the female sex. I went on to check out his address, then I hacked into a camera that’s outside a pawn shop right across the street.”
“And?” Spencer prompted, thinking it sounded like the guy was a loser.
“And he’s not at home.”
“You know this, how?” Mason asked.
“When he didn’t show up on camera any time this morning, I sent someone I know who’s local to check out his place. They, uh, might have gone in once they ascertained he wasn’t there. There was no sign inside of him having Sheila, and nothingthat pointed to where he could be. But the place was definitely empty.”
“How long do you think he’s been in the wind?” Mason questioned.
“Unfortunately, I can’t tell.” They could all hear the frustration in Tex’s tone. “The pawn shop has the only surveillance in the area, and it’s on a twelve-hour loop that scrubs everything then starts over. Our man could have been gone for days, or he could have left last night right after your post.”
Tabitha moaned. “So,I might have alerted him to the fact that Sheila was out there somewhere, all alone, and he went to find her.”
“Or not,” Everlee told her. “Our suspectcouldbe someone else, completely. Someone random. Don’t blame yourself for this.” Everlee used her therapist’s tone to keep Tabitha centered. “We all agreed to work with the tools we have available, and putting out that post was one of them.”
