Page 79 of Last Seen Alive

Amanda picked up two coffees from Hannah’s Diner on the way to Central. She was beyond grateful that Trent had let her go home on time yesterday and had volunteered to handle the video on his own.

She set the extra-large cup on his desk, and he didn’t even look up at her. He was staring at his monitor. “Trent?” she prompted him.

“Oh, sorry.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m just right into my work I guess.”

“I see that. I brought you a coffee.” She gestured toward it.

“Thanks. The best too, I see.”

“Only the best. So what are you looking at?”

“Let’s just say I got a lot accomplished last night.” He peeled back the lid on the to-go cup and took a sip.

“Tell me everything.” She perched on the edge of his desk, and when his eyes met hers, he looked exhausted. “You slept, though?”

“I got some. So I watched the video, starting with the times the hotel clerk told us that Claire ordered a taxi. Company’s Benji’s Taxi. I have the unit numbers. Turns out three fares from the hotel but two units. I filed for a subpoena last night—”

“You did all the paperwork too? Not just a verbal one?”

“I did the paperwork.”

“Whoa.” She tried to bury her surprise at his initiative as she didn’t want to insult him.

“The manager at the cab company, a Terrence Phillips, was in this morning at eight. So was I. And so was the approval from a judge. So I’m reviewing the GPS readings from the two units.” He motioned toward his screen.

“And what have you found out?”

“Really? I stayed late, did all that, and you think I have the answers already? I just got the records a minute before you got here.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

Trent laughed and lifted his cup to hers in a toast gesture. “Relax, I’m giving you a hard time.”

She touched her cup to his and took a swallow of her coffee. “What else is there?” It was just something in the way his laughter was cut short, like it stopped before its natural conclusion.

“Friday afternoon around four, Claire left Lux Suites. She didn’t get into a vehicle but walked down the street. I found it because she was at Locked Up Tight at four thirty that day. You didn’t figure she’d walked there.”

“Correct. It’s quite a distance from the hotel.”

“I’m guessing she caught another ride from someplace else. But when I was watching her walk away, I spotted a silver Toyota Camry in the hotel’s lot. There was a man behind the wheel, and he was keeping an eye on Claire.”

A silver Toyota Camry…Amanda set her cup on Trent’s desk and rocked back and forth, just slowly.

Trent added, “And I never mentioned this because I thought I was making more of it than was there, but… the other day, I swear I saw a silver Camry following us. I’m guessing you noticed the same?” He raised his eyebrows.

She shook her head. “Nope, but I saw one pass my house after I got myspecial delivery.” She added finger quotes to the latter two words.

“That does it for me. Whoever is driving that Camry must be connected to Claire’s murder.”

“Did you get a plate?”

He shook his head. “It had one of those tinted covers.”

“As did the one I saw on my street.”

“Has to be the same car, same person. Baseball cap?”

“Don’t remember that.” But she recalled seeing a silver sedan someplace else along the course of the investigation, but she couldn’t pin down where. Maybe she had subconsciously picked up on the one following them like Trent had. “We need to see if anything came out of the interviews with Logan’s neighbors. Maybe one of them mentioned a silver Toyota Camry and got a plate, even a partial.”