“You’re fucking kidding me. And no one reported her missing?”
“Husband goes hunting a lot. He went on a trip with their sons the day before the incident, came home, and thought Margaret was at work, so he waited. By nightfall, he got worried and called around friends and family, and then realized she was missing.”
I’d like to think that if I were in his shoes, I’d realize Naomi was missing the second I got home. I’d also like to think I’d never leave her alone for that period of time to go hunting.
“Jesus, when did he get back?”
“Two days ago.”
Gripping the railing, I ground my teeth together with frustration. I wanted to yell and hit something, but I couldn’t risk waking the sleeping occupants of the house up. I didn’t know how I was going to explain this to Naomi.
“What now?”
“We’ve checked everywhere we can think of for McGill, but the fucker’s good at hiding. I was hoping if I laid it out for you, Detective Lane, that you’d have some suggestions on what to try next.”
I couldn’t blame him. I’d stared at the case file on Ainsley Lewis for hours, trying to see what was missing or had been overlooked for so many years. It had gotten to the point that I could recite verbatim what’d happened and the routes the officers working on the case at the time had taken.
Now that I was away from it, I could see that, although we’d been going down the correct route ourselves to find him, we could have done a lot differently. The problem was detectives and police officers were human, and humans made mistakes. Sometimes our choices led us to the answer, and sometimes they didn’t.
Staring blindly into the darkness, I mulled it over. “Okay, you’ve done a property search on Teddy McGill, correct?”
Hearing his affirming grunt, I suggested, “Do a search under his parents and the wife’s parents. See what’s in their names that hasn’t been sold. Even if it’s land, you want to know about it and have it as a potential location.”
“I guess even a postage stamp sized plot of land can be a good place to hide.”
I snorted. “I’m currently surrounded by acres of land around what my grandmother owns. I know of four people who own tiny plots on the boundaries, and who live on them full time in trailers and bizarre shacks made of anything they can get their hands on. Trust me, people can hide anywhere, even on a hunting platform.”
“Right. I’ll get onto that.”
Now that I was awake and aware of the situation back home, I felt frustrated that I couldn’t go into the department and boot up my computer to do some searching of my own.
“Keep me updated. If I think of anything else, I’ll text you.”
“As soon as I find anything, I’ll give you a shout. Sorry for waking you up, man.”
I heard the voice of his soon-to-be-stepson, Cody, in the background, asking if he could come with him, and smiled. Maybe one day that would be me with Shanti.
“It’s no problem. Thanks for working so hard on this for me.”
“My woman might kill me for waking her up, but aside from that, I don’t have any issues doing it. Reid, Logan, Raoul, and Garrett got rid of the writing on Naomi’s wall. Rose and Colette have fixed the damage to the backyard, and Jack’s gotten the locks changed and updated on the doors. There was nothing wrong with what was on there, but he took personal offense at someone being able to break into the house,” he told me with a chuckle.
“He was talking about getting doors with one of those steel bars that go into the walls either side put in until we assured him what he’d replaced them with was sufficient.”
I frowned, hearing a door opening inside the house. “What do you mean by ‘them’? How many doors did he replace?”
“Front, back, and both bedrooms.”
“Carter?” Naomi’s voice whispered as the front door opened. Spinning around, I smiled at the picture she made wearing one of my t-shirts, the material falling to just above her knees. “Is everything okay?”
“I’ll let you go, man,” Alex said as keys jingled from his end. “Let me know if you have any other ideas.”
Thanking him one last time, I hung up the phone and held my arm out for Naomi. Like she always did, she buried herself against my side, her arms wrapped securely around my waist.
“Is everything okay? I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I was worried you’d had a nightmare.”
It should have been me asking her that question. “Everything’s good, baby. That was Alex asking me about something and also telling me that your house is back to normal. Jack’s upgraded the doors.”
“I thought he might do something like that,” she sighed. “I did tell him not to worry about it, but this is Jack Townsend we’re talking about.”