Page 16 of The Missing Couple

He would be leaving and she wouldn’t have to figure out how to end it. Not that there was an it right now. On top of that, the intensity of the situation had emotions on overload.

“You will when you’re ready.” He said this with absolutely no doubt in his tone.

She was glad one of them was so sure. But she was more glad to be moving on from the subject.

Her attention fully fixed on the reason they were here, she noted that the footage showed Friday was nothing but the arrival of the newlyweds. Saturday was a big nothing reel. But then Sunday revealed the two of them leaving in the white SUV around ten that morning. Coming from the opposite direction gave a better look at their faces. Both were smiling. A few hours later they returned. Then the evening and overnight hours of nothing relevant. He switched to Monday.

“If they used their credit cards—” he glanced at her “—then we should be able to determine where they went on Sunday.”

“Most of the shops are closed on Sunday mornings,” she pointed out. “Considering how long they were gone they may have driven to Scottsboro or just to a local restaurant to have lunch. Maybe they lingered over dessert.” Charly considered the many activities available in the area. “They may have taken a boat ride or gone fishing. Skiing. Parasailing.”

“Any of that,” Billie pointed out, “would make my sister very happy.”

Briana sounded like a fun girl. Charly considered that she had stopped bothering with any sort of fun activity nearly four years ago—after Alex was diagnosed. Cancer sucked. Especially when you were so young. She refused extra help until near the end when specialized care was essential. She had wanted to take care of him. He’d begged her to not spend all her time with him but there had been no changing her mind. Shelly Phillips was happy to pick up the slack taking care of the retreat so Charly could focus on Alex.

The footage slowed again. Charly snapped back to the here and now. This time it was Monday night. Nine o’clock. Tension rippled through her. She leaned closer to the screen. Billie did the same.

The white SUV that Briana and Martin had rented departed the retreat going in that northwesterly direction that took them right past this location and the cameras. Charly’s heart stumbled when she saw a man—not Martin—behind the wheel. There was no one in the passenger seat. Seeing the man’s face was impossible with the bill of that baseball cap he wore pulled so low.

She and Billie sat silently staring at the screen, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The footage sped up again. Charly had just managed a breath when that shoe dropped. The footage slowed once more. At nine-fifty a black SUV, not as fancy as the one Billie drove, more generic, drove through the field of view of the cameras. Again, there appeared to be only the one person in the vehicle. Male, the driver. He, too, wore a baseball cap pulled low so his facial features weren’t visible. If there was anyone else in the SUV, they couldn’t be seen.

Billie made note of the time when the two SUVs appeared on the footage and then he ran through the rest of the footage all the way until Tuesday afternoon when he arrived.

“They had to be in that black SUV,” Charly said, her throat dry, her body tense with equal measures frustration and fear.

“They came from the direction where her heel impressions ended,” he said, his voice quiet, calm…too calm.

“Right.”

“If we can find a camera on that end of Bakers Chapel,” he continued, “maybe we can get a license plate.”

Anticipation had her heart kicking harder into gear. “Maybe. Of course there are all the usual reasons we might not be able to see it on a quick pass-by on a home camera. Like mud or something blocking it. But we can hope.”

He breathed a laugh. “We can.” He turned his attention back to the computer monitor. “Let me download a copy of Monday’s footage and email it to myself and we’ll see what we can find down the road.”

While his fingers flew across the keys, Charly thought of the newly married couple. What had happened to them? Had they been bound and gagged in the back of that SUV? Her heart thumped harder and harder until she wanted to scream. Nearly forty-eight hours. Briana and Martin had been taken approximately forty-three hours ago.

What was it her father always used to say? The first forty-eight were critical. Those fleeting hours could make all the difference. The chances of being found alive reduced dramatically after that.

There were only five hours left in that critical time frame.

Chapter Six

Bradly Retreat

Deep Woods Trail, 7:00 p.m.

The two houses and the church were a no-go for security cameras of any sort. Charly hadn’t pinned much hope on the possibility, but it had been worth a check. From there they had gone to the sheriff’s office and told him what they’d found on the security footage at Vince’s Equipment Rental.

Sheriff Malone had called Vince personally and ordered a copy of the footage from Friday until now delivered to his email so that he could have a look for himself. Seemed a waste of time to Charly but then maybe another pair of eyes was a good thing. He might recognize the black SUV or the driver, though the possibility was highly unlikely. The details were far too vague.

Charly pulled the baking sheet from the oven and checked the status of the bacon. She wasn’t much of a cook. She’d gotten used to Alex reigning over the kitchen. He had loved to cook so she never bothered. She could bake a mean chocolate chip cookie thanks to her mother. The making of good coffee she had mastered, as well as BLT sandwiches. But that was about the extent of her culinary repertoire.

Kind of sad but she didn’t generally let it bother her because she didn’t usually have company who hung around for a meal with her. She was far more experienced in selecting ready-to-eat products for her guests and herself. Life was less complicated that way. And cleanup was a breeze.

Billie appeared at the sink with a large tomato. He rinsed it and grabbed a knife from the block to slice it. Okay, so there was one other thing she was pretty good at. Growing stuff—the easy stuff. Her father had planted an orchard when she was a little girl. It was closer to the entrance since the natural woods were thinner there. Apples, pears, peaches, cherries—all the trees produced an abundance of fruit. Thankfully, in all the years she had been running the place, she had not lost a single tree. On the sunny side of her back deck she planted a few items in pots. Tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and a couple of varieties of peppers as well as her favorite herbs. She kept that going until frost. It made her feel better about her lack of culinary skills. For years now, she had planted lavender wherever it would grow. She loved adding fresh lavender to the cabins between guests. The guests appeared to love it as well.