Page 47 of Best Offer Wins

“I assumed they were, but I guess I don’t know that for sure,” says Chloe. “You calling does have me wondering if maybe something went wrong between them. I mean, if you’re saying you have some kind of dirt on Bradshaw…” Chloe’s voice trails off. I resist the impulse to fill the silence. “Do you think Dottie could’ve known about it? Can you tell me anything else about what it is?”

“I’m sorry, not at this point,” I say. “But I’d like to try asking Dottie about it myself. Do you still have her contact info?”

“I can give you what I have, though I doubt any of it will work.”

Chloe reads off a cell number and a Gmail address. She asks me to let her know if I have any success. I promise that I will.

Before we hang up, she adds one thing: “If you find out that Bradshaw had something to do with Dottie disappearing, you can put on the record that I always thought he was a prick.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll do that.”

My hands tremble with adrenaline. I quickly read back through my notes from this morning’s calls. Then I open the email from nobody.noone97 and the screenshot of the Amazon review saved to my desktop. I type up a list of my findings so far:

Curt and his dad were on good terms as recently as the spring of 2018, and maybe later.

They no longer seem to be speaking.

The messages from Ellipsis and nobody.noone are from January 2019.

Dottie Ross, one of Curt’s favorite students, disappeared in March 2019.

I read through it silently; then I recite it out loud—a trick I sometimes used when I was a reporter to help things make more sense.

“The messages from Ellipsis and nobody, dot, no one…”

“Dottie Ross, one of Curt’s favorite students…”

I look at the screenshotted Amazon review:

…

DO NOT TRUST CURTIS BRADSHAW.

Then I say it out loud for the first time: “Dot, dot, dot. Do not trust Curtis Bradshaw.”

An ellipsis read aloud is dot, dot, dot.

Nobody.Dot.No one.

Dot.

Dottie.

Dot. Dottie.

Dot means Dottie?

Dot means Dottie! Fuck yes! I knew I could crack this.

Whatever happened between them, she clearly wanted Curt to know it was her sending the messages.

All I have to do now is find Dorothy Ross.

17

Chloe was right. Neither of Dottie’s old contacts work. The cell number is out of service. The email address bounces back. Googling “Dorothy Ross Florida” returns dozens, maybe hundreds of possibilities, many of them senior citizens. “Dorothy” does kind of sound like an old lady. Maybe it’s a family name.

What I need is access to LexisNexis. That’s the database of personal information for just about anyone in the whole country, used by places like news organizations and law firms to track people down. It pulls from all kinds of records—court filings, utility bills, addresses on file with the post office—to spit back the details of where someone has lived and how they can be found. Unless someone is long dead or in witness protection, searching for them in Lexis should turn up a result.