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Elisa set her mug down and sat up straighter. Shelby had her full attention now. “That’s promising.”
“It might be.” Shelby’s pen tapping grew louder. “It’s better than my Rachel news.”
The brief reprieve of excitement passed. Elisa could read Shelby’s tone and it wasn’t good. “What does that mean?”
“How well do you know her?”
“Barely.” Enough to be confused. “I know it sounds insane—”
Shelby groaned. “Don’t do that. You’re not insane. No one should throw that word around. If someone is going to, don’t let it be you.”
“Sorry.”
Shelby switched to laughing. “And stop apologizing.”
The back-and-forth relaxed Elisa. She’d come in tense and scattered. Being there, listening to Shelby’s soothing voice,helped to clear Elisa’s head. “You ever think of becoming a therapist?”
“No, but I’ve had years of therapy, so it’s possible I picked up a few tips.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a card. “By the way, in case you’re in the market for a therapist you might like better than your old one, here’s her card.”
The way Shelby said it, so nonchalant—Elisa ached to have that style. But today wasn’t about her mental health, well, not directly. “So, about Rachel, or maybe her name is Jane.”
“I don’t think either name is right.” Before Elisa could jump in and ask a million questions, Shelby continued. “Let’s walk through what we’ve uncovered. Here’s my Lauren file.” Shelby put her hand on a thick file. “And Candace.” She touched the side of the box sitting next to her then she picked up a regular-size file, full but not bursting. “This one is for Abby.”
“Okay...”
“See this one?” Shelby held up a file that looked like it had a few pages in it but not much more. “It’s Rachel’s. It’s thin because there is nothing to find.”
The visual was interesting but Elisa didn’t get whatever message Shelby was trying to deliver. “I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have a photo of her, which makes searching tough but not impossible.” Shelby flattened her hand on the nearly nonexistent file. “We’ve called in favors. We’ve looked in places we’re not supposed to be able to look.”
“And?” Elisa asked because with that buildup she had to know.
“Jane Dickson clearly was an alias. And Rachel Dunne? She doesn’t exist.”
Elisa had no idea what to say to that. The silence in the room suggested Shelby had the same problem.
Finally, Shelby started again. “I’ve called contacts and more than once pretended to be a potential client looking to hire her, and none of the human relations or staffing companies I spoke to have heard of her or employ her.”
“She made it sound like she doesn’t really have an office. It’s possible she owns her own firm and works from home.”
“If so, there’s no business documents or tax returns filed for it.” Shelby took out a loose page from the file she had on Rachel. It looked like a spreadsheet. “So, we took the long road around. We traced all of the conferences Josh has gone to for two years and cross-referenced those with other conferences in the same hotel or nearby, thinking we’d find her that way since you said that’s how they met. And nothing.”
“But... I mean... tell me what to ask.” Elisa thought about all those afternoons Rachel just showed up. How she seemed not to have work hours. About how she was at the motel in the middle of the day and not at a conference, like she said she’d be.
“There are Rachel Dunne in the Philadelphia area, but not your Rachel Dunne. None of the women fit. Same problem with an extended search of the whole state,” Shelby said.
“It’s possible her company is located somewhere else. A lot of people freelance or work as independent contractors like that.” Elisa looked for any angle that would offer a reasonableexplanation, but she remembered Rachel saying she saw the shooting on the news. That made it more likely she lived close.
Shelby made a humming sound. “Sure, but she drives, right?”
Dread settled over Elisa. “Yes.”
“No record of a license. No sign of a rental agreement. No tax or other identifying records we could find. When we didn’t find her in Pennsylvania, we extended the search and nothing.” Shelby threw up her hands. “As I said, she doesn’t exist. I’m beginning to think she doesn’t have a job at all. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”
Elisa’s mind raced in a thousand directions. She had trouble catching on to one thought long enough to ask a coherent question. “Then who is she?”
“Excellent question.” Shelby opened the file she brought into the room with her. “I have some photos I want you to look at. Since Josh seems to be the key, the photos are of women in Josh’s life or people associated with those women.”
