Page 30 of Save Her Life (Sandra Vos #1)

TWENTY-NINE

Sandra ended up filling Elwood in on their recent discovery, and he was going to handle everything associated with Novak. Elwood had tried to talk her into letting other agents take it from here, but she resisted and he eventually complied. Not that she was holding her breath that anyone in the Brentwood neighborhood would talk to them. From a statistical standpoint most of the residents here would have a criminal record or be friends or family with someone who was put away. Suffice it to say there would be few, if any, fans of law enforcement.

Be-on-the-lookouts were issued for the men and Lonnie Jennings’s van, and Lakisha was doing a deeper dive into both Jennings’s and Eaton’s backgrounds. She’d be looking for relatives, known associates, workplaces, other registered vehicles or properties. But given the neighborhood they both called home, it was unlikely they owned anything. It was that thought that scared Sandra the most. There was little likelihood either of them had a property on record, leaving Olivia out there, only God knows where. It was likely someplace isolated and out of state given that they went over the bridge. Her only relief was knowing her daughter was both smart and a fighter. She just hoped the former superseded the latter and didn’t have her taking any chances with her life.

It was one thirty-eight AM when Brice stopped the car in front of the house shared by Jennings and Eaton. There wasn’t a single light on inside or out. In fact, most of the neighborhood was swathed in darkness aside from some dull streetlights and random porch lights. Even the moon was too weak to penetrate the cloud cover, but the shadows had eyes. Amber lights from cigarettes burned and waved through the air from the street corners.

Sandra had called Nigel Morse on the way over, and he was rushing through a search warrant for the home. Chances were something inside might lend a clue as to where they took Olivia. But they couldn’t have been planning this for long. A day, day and a half.

Sandra checked her email and found two new messages. One was from Lakisha, and another from Judge Morse.

“We have what we need?” Brice asked her.

“And more…” She opened Lakisha’s first. “So we have more info on Jennings and Eaton. Jennings is currently unemployed, but Eaton works at Boats N More, a boat factory, where he’s been for the last ten years. Neither of them have any living relatives or other properties linked to them. The address in Brentwood is a rental.”

“Can’t say any of that’s a surprise,” Brice said quickly then held up a hand. “Not what you want to hear, I know.”

“Facts are better than assumptions. The search warrant came through, and Lakisha also included the number for the property owner. She said she tried to reach him unsuccessfully. Guy’s name is Jerald Booth.”

“I say we try knocking first.”

Brice banged the tarnished brass knocker against the door. Chills ran down Sandra’s spine as she had this sensation of being watched and encroached upon. She looked left and right, over her shoulders, her head on a swivel, while Brice repeated the knocking.

“FBI! Lonnie Jennings or Dennis Eaton, open up!” Brice called out. His voice pierced the cold early morning air like a raid siren.

The inside of the house continued to be silent, but the neighbor’s light popped on and the door cracked open.

“What the hell? Some of us are trying to sleep here.” A squat and rotund man in a ratty bathrobe stepped onto his front landing.

“FBI Special Agent Vos,” she said, holding up her creds. “And you are?”

“The property manager.” He put his meaty hands on his hips.

How convenient… “Jerald Booth?”

“What’s it to ya? And what do you want with Lonnie and Dennis?” He came closer to them, and his breath was coming out in puffs of white.

He appeared to be wearing thick pajamas beneath the robe, but his feet were in thin slippers. He must be freezing. They were straightforward observations, but they kept her grounded in the present.

“It’s an FBI matter, but when did you last see either of them?” Brice asked.

The man smirked. “So I answer your questions, and you don’t have to answer mine? Is that it?”

“It’s how it works, Mr. Booth,” Brice said firmly. “That’s if you don’t want to be seen as interfering with an FBI investigation. Personally, I’d suggest you be more cooperative.”

Jerald simpered, crossed his arms, and angled his head. Unless they changed their approach with him, the man wasn’t going to say anything. After all, he had no reason to do so. Threats were often ineffective at motivating people. “Mr. Booth, you look like a standup guy,” she began.

“I try.”

“We’re just trying to protect the neighborhood and people like you.”

“ Pfft . Police, feds, you all forgot about this area a long time ago. That is unless it’s to storm in here and arrest people for no good reason.”

She refused to get sucked into a debate. The truth was bad cops were out there. She’d try another tack. “There was an incident…” She almost said earlier today but caught herself. In some ways it felt like time had stopped, but framing this statement reminded her it marched on. “Yesterday afternoon, early evening, involving Lonnie Jennings and Dennis Eaton.”

“Are they”—the man gripped the front of his robe, clenching it tighter together, seemingly having caught a chill—“okay?”

“We’re not sure and need to find them to know for certain.”

“Oh please.” The man flailed his arms in the air. “You’re playing with me.”

“I assure you I’m not.” Her calm tone alone made the point he could trust her. His shoulders relaxed. “They are potentially in danger,” she added, not stretching the truth by much. Once she found them, they would be. Even more so if they hurt Olivia.

“Let’s say I believe you. What am I to do about it?”

“To start, could you answer Special Agent Sutton’s question about when you last saw either of them?”

“Let me think. I saw them yesterday morning. Lonnie anyhow. Dennis goes to work early and is done around three in the afternoon.”

They’d track down Eaton’s employer tomorrow once the sun came up and find out when they last saw him, talk to his coworkers and boss, see if they had anything to offer. They might even be able to provide another friend’s name who they could question. “Do you have phone numbers for either of them?”

“I should have on their lease. Want me to go find out?” He jacked a thumb toward his house.

“That would be great.” Even if the number linked back to a prepaid SIM card, Tech had ways of tracking it down.

“One minute then.” Jerald ducked back into his house.

“Great job turning that around,” Brice praised her.

“Job hazard, but you should know. We’re wired to see things from the other person’s perspective.” It was certainly embedded in her after all these years. And focusing on this as her job, removing the personal, helped tamp down thoughts of Olivia.

“I have the lease.” Jerald returned holding up a stapled packet of legal-size papers. “Here.” He walked to them, and she and Brice helped close the distance too.

She took the papers with thanks and flipped through as Brice held his phone’s flashlight over the pages. She scanned until she found a number and then juggled the lease with her phone as she punched in the digits. Her breath paused as she waited for the line to ring.

A mechanical voice answered, “You’ve reached a number that is no longer in service.”

Click.

She shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up. Blame that on the mother in her that just wanted this resolved and her daughter safely home. The fed in her realized it was likely the number was tied to a prepaid phone. In that case, it was easy to change them out and switch numbers with new SIM cards. “Is that the only number you have for them?”

“Yeah. I take it no luck?”

She shook her head and handed the papers back to Jerald.

“Well, I hope you find them, and they’re okay.”

“We are going to do our best,” she said, still pulling on her training to remain diplomatic and neutral. It was taking more out of her as the minutes passed standing there. While she was slogging through this minutiae, her daughter was… No, it was best that she didn’t entertain any thoughts pertaining to her welfare. No good would come from that. “You wouldn’t happen to know where they like to hang out, or names of any of their friends, would you?”

“Nah. We’re not chummy.”

Sandra had a feeling that was going to be his response, but she had to give it a go. If they could track down friends of the men, they might be able to get their current numbers and a lead. She brought up a photo of Olivia on her phone and held her screen for Jerald. “Does she look familiar to you?” It was a reach, a long shot, but she had to ask.

The man narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “She’s not from around here.”

“So you’ve never seen her?” she volleyed back.

“No. But what does she have to do with Lonnie and Dennis?”

“You’ve been very kind and generous with your time, Mr. Booth, but I can’t disclose that as it’s an FBI matter,” she said.

“Huh. Okay.”

She closed Olivia’s photo but not before catching a glimpse of her daughter’s beautiful face. But there was no time to wallow in fear or sorrow. Focus was going to be her savior. “We have a warrant to search the residence of Lonnie Jennings and Dennis Eaton.” She brought up the document.

Jerald waved her away. “First you ask about Lonnie and Dennis, and now this young girl… I’m just sickened by my own imagination. I can put things together, Agent. Do what you have to do.” He put his hand into his robe’s pocket and came out with a key. “This should help.” Then he turned to walk back into his house, but she stopped him.

“Just take this.” She gave him her business card. “Call if either of them comes back but don’t approach them.”

Jerald nodded and retreated into his house. The sound of his deadbolt clunking into place could be heard from down his front walkway.

His response did little to settle her stomach. “What did he mean by…?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question. Did the property manager have reason to question the morality of his renters?

“Don’t pay that attention, Sandra,” Brice encouraged her. “People get a bit touchy when it comes to kids.”

“Me too.” Especially when it’s my kid!

“That’s why I’m here. You can lean on me to help you through this.”

She looked over at him, and he raised an eyebrow. She’d never opened herself up to the guy before but that may have been her loss. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They returned to the rental and let themselves inside. The place was stale with the faint smell of bacon. Brice flipped on the light switch and revealed a plainly decorated home with scuffed beige walls, white trim, and little furniture. They went through the house, and for each step Sandra took, her gut curdled to think she was in the home of the men who had her daughter.

It didn’t take long to sweep through the two stories, and nothing gave them any clue as to where they had taken Olivia. What they did have was dried bacon grease in a fry pan on the stove and skinned-over coffee in the pot. She pointed out both to Brice. “They haven’t been here in at least twenty-four hours. Longer than that I’d suspect we could see mold.”

“That fits with what the landlord told us.”

She nodded, though this tidbit didn’t get her closer to Olivia. It was time to talk things out some more. “There’s nothing to indicate they planned to take Olivia for a while.”

“And they couldn’t know about you before the hearing or that the parole would be denied,” Brice weighed in.

“Right, so their decision to take Olivia was impulsive.” It was something she’d considered in passing and feared. Impulsive people were unpredictable and steered by emotion. With that, logic and reason took a back seat. Not good.

“That might not be a bad thing. They could slip up.”

She appreciated Brice’s positive bent on the situation. “We could be looking at this wrong too. They could have prepared some, established a backup plan in case parole was denied. The judgment just came through Thursday morning and Olivia was snatched before five on Friday afternoon. They’d have to know about her, where and how to get to her… Even have a place in mind where they could take her.” Premeditation was somewhat more soothing than impulse driving the crime, but it still didn’t answer the primary question about what they wanted. Were they simply after revenge, or did they want her to do something? Her mind flipflopped the two options. Or was it a blend of both? Either way, the realist in her knew she had to consider that Olivia might even already be… No, she couldn’t accept that she was gone. And, surely, she’d feel it, as she had with her brother.

“Whatever the case, they’ve got some balls going after the daughter of a fed,” Brice said.

“That right there is the part that scares me the most.” If they were that daring, did they have limitations on what they were capable of?

“We’ll figure this out, but for them to take such a risk there must be the possibility of a high payoff.”

“As I said before. But what bearing could Patton’s release have on Jennings and Eaton?”

“Still a mystery.”

She was running this all through her mind and was chilled by a new thought. “We talked about them finding Olivia online, but that doesn’t explain how he knew where to find her in person.”

Brice’s face shadowed. “Well, if Jennings was preparing in advance and latched on to you at the hearing, he could have followed you home from the prison.”

She suddenly felt chilled right through. “But I didn’t go straight home. I had the hostage incident, but before that I— Shit. I visited my mother.” She pulled her phone and realized the time. It was nearing four in the morning.

Brice put a hand over hers. “You can call if it makes you feel better, but I think she’s safe.”

She met his eyes and considered his implication. They had taken Olivia. Her weakest point. And she was much easier to manage than an older woman. But could she be satisfied with assuming all was well? “I need to call.”

She did just that and woke the nurse, who confirmed her mother was safe and sound asleep in her room. She’d even had Dana duck down the hall and peek inside.

“I see her and hear her soft snores, Ms. Vos,” Dana told her.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Good night now.”

She never got into it with the nurse as to why she was concerned about her mother, or brought up Olivia’s situation, so there was no reason to ask that she keep this call quiet.

“So?” Brice said when she tucked her phone away.

“She’s safe. Thing is though, if Lonnie was following me, he’d have hung around at the standoff too. That lasted for hours.” A determined person could never be underestimated, but it still seemed extreme when all that effort might not even be needed.

“Right, and that was a long one, wasn’t it?”

“Until the wee hours of Thursday morning.” She was grateful for sleeping in that day, as she didn’t count on getting much until Olivia was home. Then she’d sleep for a month, and maybe the two of them could take a vacation together. “There’s no way he hung around. An officer would have noticed that. Besides, as we touched on before, people can find things online these days.”

“We didn’t find a laptop,” Brice pointed out.

“Unless it’s with them, but even a phone accesses the internet these days.” She had made efforts to keep her private life just that, but there was only so much she could do being the daughter of a Davenport and the twin sister of a brother who was murdered in a tragic hostage situation. That was all public record. Again, she thought once this was all over, she’d hire someone to make them invisible online.

“True enough.”

The back of her mind waded through the vehicles in the area when she’d first arrived at the hostage incident. There was one thing coming through. “News vans were there when I got on scene at the grocery store. I even had one reporter knock on my window.”

“All right, so Jennings may or may not have planned to take Olivia, or even consider a backup in case Patton’s parole was denied. He might have hatched his plan when he saw you on TV. Maybe during a recap or replay the next day even.”

“Either way, he had from the hearing on Wednesday until Friday afternoon to find out about Olivia and devise a way to take her. But we’re back to why he’s even doing this.” She grimaced, hating unanswered questions.

“Well, we’ve speculated on this already. He must want you to get something out of Patton. Most likely talk something out of him. And now it would seem whatever it is involves Dennis Eaton. But how is he rolled up in all of this? What’s at stake for him? Is he just a friend who wants a cut of whatever it is? And I say cut , but it’s not like we know if it has anything to do with money.”

“The problem is we can’t be absolutely sure what this is about,” she countered as her mind gnawed on Brice’s words. Anything to do with money… Was that what all this boiled down to? But how did that link to her negotiation skills? Or Patton for that matter? Her phone rang, and she fumbled to get a hold of it. Her heart raced at the sight of the text in place of the caller’s identity. Blocked Number. She answered.