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“Can you show me that folder?” She clicks around and opens the folder. “Can we see the date she saved these articles?”
All of the dates are clustered over about a two-month period of time, right before Cassandra died.
“Interesting.” Did Cassie divorce Jack because he cheated on her? But Cassie specifically said they grew apart. If he cheated, wouldn’t she tell me? Of course, this folder was created ages after the separation. Maybe it has to do with another friend’s parents. Or a school project.
“You’re a professor, right?”
“I am.”
“You know, this is all on the network. I don’t know why they have us load everything if no one checks it. Same thing with this stupid project system they installed. Only the peons follow it.”
I suppress a smile. “Let’s get back to those photos.”
Shiloh and I develop a system. She shows me a photo, and I tap the folder in her bottom corner of her screen if I deem it a businessperson. If it looks like a young friend, I’ll point to the friend folder. Although there aren’t many of those coming through the front door.
“Did you see any women?” I ask after the fourth middle-aged male visitor we place in the executive folder.
“No.”
All the names of the board of directors for Sullivan Arms had been masculine. He’s a weapons manufacturer. Perhaps it’s simply a male-dominated industry. Or maybe he’s not friendly enough with any female colleagues for them to stop by the house.
“Do you know how many kidnapping victims there are in the US each year? And runaways?” Shiloh’s focus is on the monitor as she plays video and halts for an identifiable screenshot.
“Depends on the data source, but most estimates are around five thousand kids go missing each year.” She smiles with approval at my answer.
“Yep. And forty-four hundred unidentified bodies found.”
“You are just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you? But, you know, those numbers don’t align. They find most of those of the missing kids, and most of the unidentified bodies are adults.”
“True. Do you know what percentage of abductions occur by strangers?”
“About point-one percent,” I answer, wondering why she’s asking these questions. “You’re good with facts, aren’t you?” She knows all the answers. She’s quizzing me.
“Useless facts queen. If we ever do a team trivia night, stick with me.” She smacks her lips. “Okay. That’s it. By the way, we reviewed the photos in order of frequency. Those first two men came by the most.”
“What about cleaning service? Or yard service?” I suppose the pool guy would never need to come up to the house. That might be true for the yard service, too.
“Cleaning service uses the side door. The only people who use the side door are Sophia, her friends, and her dad. There’s no video inside the garage. If anyone arrived by car, parked in the garage, and came in the house that way, we wouldn’t know. Erik confirmed that with the Wolf man yesterday.”
“Right.” I cross my arms and look at the last photo on her monitor. She said they are on the network, and she is texting me, but I like tangible material. “Can you print those for me?”
“Trees are crying all over the land,” Shiloh says, but she hits print.
The typical kidnapping perpetrator profile doesn’t fit this case. Unemployed with drug or alcohol problems doesn’t fit anyone within Jack Sullivan’s circle that we met so far, but we need background checks to confirm this. Male between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five is too broad to be helpful. Once we get the frequent visitors identified, we can confirm employment status and search records.
Someone went to a lot of effort to pull off this abduction. And according to Jack, his personal life comprises Sophia and work.
“Hey, Shiloh, can you also send me everything you find on Sullivan Arms? All the financial reports you gathered for Mr. Wolfgang?” I’ll review those later.
“Yep.” She rolls her chair back in front of her desk and types. “So, you doing the Wolf man?”
“What? No.” I playfully shove her shoulder. She’s as bad as Sabrina.
She giggles. I met her all of twenty minutes ago, and she’s teasing me like we’re mates.
“I met him two days ago.”
Ryan steps out of his doorway and motions for me to join him.
