Page 72 of The Attercop

Charlie handed her his card. “If you see or hear from Jules, call me right away. If I need to get a hold of you, what number would I reach you at?”

Abela pulled out a pen, wrote her number on the card, and handed it back to him. “I hope you find her, Charlie.”

She walked out of the coffee shop. Charlie turned back to the counter. Gracie was nowhere to be seen, but Kemberlin gave him a love-struck look. “I’llcall you if I see either of them.”

Charlie gave him a weak smile and a wave then headed back to his car. He needed to get back to the office and see what the others had found out.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Can you please give me some room?” Mrs B asked, nudging Duck away from her feet. “I promise you I won’t float away.”

It had been a busy day and her patience was growing short with the dog. She’d already found contact information for as many of the names on Declan’s list as possible, and forwarded the information to Sam and Gary, cc’ing Charlie to ensure he was fully in the loop.

Her next task was to track down where the payment for Jules’ contract had come from.

She searched her emails and located the e-transfer. It had been sent from [email protected]. She decided she might as well go straight to the source, so she copied and pasted the address into a new email and began to type.

Dear Mr Slate,

It has come to our attention that, due to a miscalculation on our part, you have made an over-payment for services provided by Declan Hunt Investigations with regard to your daughter’s security protection. We will be issuing a rebate on these excess charges.

Would you please provide me with a mailing address to which I can send the cheque? My apologies for not being able to e-transfer you the funds, but our accountant requires a paper trail that a cheque will provide.

Yours sincerely,

Joan Beckerman, Declan Hunt Investigations.

She pressed ‘send’. Almost immediately she received a bounce-back message— ‘Address not found. User unknown’. Mrs B checked her records to ensure this was the email address that had been used to initially contact them. It was. The account seemed to have been deactivated.

Mrs B normally would have gone to Charlie with the problem, but he wasn’t in and she felt sure that she could take care of this herself. She decided to follow another route. Mrs B picked up the phone, called Declan’s bank, and asked for her favourite account manager.

“Emily Rosen speaking. How may I help you?”

“Emily. It’s Joan Beckerman here. Look, I know this request is a little out of the ordinary, but I’m looking for some information about the person who made an e-payment for our services.”

“What sort of information?”

“I need to find out the physical address of the person who sent the transfer.”

“Ooo, Joan. That’s really a bit of a no-no around here. Can’t you just ask the person who sent the money?”

“I tried,” Mrs B said, “but the email they originally used is out of service, and they aren’t answering their phone.” Joan paused dramatically. “Listen, Emily—can I trust you with some sensitive information?”

“Of course you can, Joan. You know discretion is my middle name,” Emily whispered breathlessly.

Mrs B continued. “We’re facing a terrible situation, Emily. It’s a real life-and-death case, and the person I’m trying to find may be involved. The money transfer was on Monday afternoon. It was labelled as being from George Slate. Anything you can provide would be of use. I’d be ever so grateful.”

“Life and death, you say?”

“Absolutely.”

Emily was silent for a moment, then Mrs B heard the sound of clattering keys on the other end of the phone.

“Well,” Emily said, “Ican’tgive you an address. I’d lose my job for that. But Icantell you, since it’s a matter of life and death, that the account the money was transferred from is registered to a numbered company.”

“Can you give me the number?” Mrs B asked. “That would help the situation incredibly.”

Emily rattled off an eight-digit identifier registered in Alberta. “I hope you get the bad guys,” she said, her voice quivering.