Page 6 of Bring Them Home

Cochran shook her head. “I don’t have a lockout kit. You don’t have one, do you?”

Trent pulled a lockpick kit from his pocket, one meant for house doors and padlocks. “All I have is this, so unless the car has tumblers…”

Amanda knew it might work on some older vehicles, but not on this new Charger. This one would need an air wedge tool. “We’ll need to wait on the tow truck driver.”

As if on cue, one pulled up and parked in front of the Charger. Kyle hopped out of the cab, and Amanda smiled and shook her head.

“Mandy Monkey, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he razzed her.

Amanda shoved her brother’s shoulder and gave him a glare that urged him to ditch the family nickname. Her four sisters rarely gave her any grief, but the eldest Steele lived for teasing her. She was the next in line before their younger siblings, but it wasn’t like they had spent a long time together alone. Their sister followed her only two years later. “Nothing pleasurable about it, Kyle. I’m here on police business.”

“Come on, you can’t deny it’s a beautiful evening.” Kyle swung with his arms out.

“Just get us in the car,” she told him.

Kyle put his gaze on Trent. “You too, eh? You go everywhere my sister does?”

Not that the men didn’t get along, but Trent was intimidated by her brother. She’d tried to tell him before that the teasing he’d received was just Kyle being Kyle, but she didn’t think Trent knew how to accept that. There was also a history there that time had softened. “Kyle.” Amanda kept her tone firm and level, and Kyle smirked and grabbed the back of Trent’s neck and squeezed.

“Relax, little sis. I’m just messing with both of ya.”

“Get us in the car. Please,” she stressed.

“You sure you’re allowed to do that?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, not about to explain the law to her brother. Even though he saw fit to educate her on anything with an engine whenever he got the chance. But they were legally authorized without a warrant under what was termed a community caretaking protocol since they suspected the registered owner may have come to harm.

“Yes, ma’am.” Kyle gave her a mock salute and set off to the cab of his rig and returned a moment later. “You want to do the honors or…?”

“You can do it.” Amanda stepped back, and Kyle approached the driver’s door, worked the air wedge, and was moving out of the way a few minutes later.

“It’s all yours,” he said.

“Thank you.” Amanda snapped on a pair of gloves and ducked inside the car to look. It was just as Cochran had told her. The purse on the passenger seat and the cell phone in the console. Amanda snapped some pictures. “We’ll seize these personal items as evidence,” she said as she backed out of the vehicle with them.

She turned around to pass them to Trent, and as she expected, he was standing there with two evidence bags.

And so the chain of custody begins…

The thought roiled in her stomach. Hearing that Cochran couldn’t reach any of the Archers was one thing, but somehow being here, Amanda felt a foreboding in the air. “Thanks.” She dropped the phone into a bag but held on to the purse.

It was an over-the-shoulder, inexpensive one from a department store or Amazon. The first thing she pulled out was a small wallet. Inside, she found all the usual things such as identification cards, medical insurance, and credit cards. A few receipts were wedged in there. One from Caffeine Café from a week ago, a parking receipt from the hospital in Woodbridge for Saturday morning, and one for a McDonald’s meal from the same day around noon. All paid with credit card. “Valerie Archer is organized and meticulous.” She filled him in on the receipts.

“That’s someone dedicated to tracking their spending.”

“You could say that again.” The best she did was scan her statement for anything that stood out.

Amanda returned to the purse and fished out a nail file, a compact, and a hairbrush. In a small pocket was a key fob and a gemstone in a small red satchel pinched closed with a drawstring. “That’s it for the purse,” she said. Since they didn’t know Valerie Archer’s fate, they had no legal right to go digging around in her phone without a warrant. Considering the circumstances, the request would be granted. They’d just need to wait until it was. Though this didn’t stop her from grabbing the phone again and pushing the button to wake the screen. She shared her observations with Trent. “It has little battery life left, just enough to light the screen. There’s notice of unheard voicemails and a text message is visible on the screen. It’s from her son, Landon, sent yesterday, asking where she is.”

“Then he doesn’t know. Yet, he didn’t file a missing person report.” Trent’s lips pressed in a firm line. “No follow-up text…”

The implication was the text had been to cover himself, that a teenage boy had hurt his family. It was sickening. But they needed to consider Landon a person of interest. “Well, we’re not going to find any answers hanging around here.”

Trent nodded. “We’ll get Valerie’s phone over to Digital Crimes and ping the phones belonging to the rest of the family.”

“Hate to interrupt this thing you have going,” Kyle began. “But am I good to hook this up or not?”

This thing…? She’d try not to read more into that than just two partners in sync while talking out a case. “Have at it.”