Page 60 of Wine Whiskey & Lipstick

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It was pouring rain when Ben and Lucas pulled up to their house. They were beside themselves with worry and had spent the better part of four hours trying to locate Selah before finally filing a police report.

“Fuck!” Ben yelled to no one in particular as he got out of his truck and slammed his car door. “Selah’s not answering thegaawdamnedphone, and the address Thomas gave us is bogus.”

Lucas was equally worried and frustrated. “Those idiot cops didn’t even want to report her as missing. You know they’re sitting on their asses eating donuts.”

They turned in the direction of blinding headlights pulling up behind Ben’s truck. They couldn’t see who it was because of the rain and lights. Both prayed it was Selah only to realize that it was Dillyn.

She hopped out of her truck along with Cat and Palmer. They’d raced over to the house as soon as Ben called looking for Selah.

“I think I might be able to help.” Dillyn came prepared with her special bag.

Ben had no idea how Dillyn could help in this situation but was willing to cling on to any hope from any direction. He nodded.

As soon as they went into the house, Dillyn headed straight for the dining room and started setting up her equipment.

Everyone watched in awe as Dillyn went to work. Cat and Palmer knew Dillyn was a digital forensics investigator, but they didn’t know what that was. And they had never actually seen her work. Lucas turned to Ben, and they both had the same looks on their faces.

Dillyn had her monitors set up in no time flat. Her hands began flying across her keyboard. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the screen, but they had no idea what they were watching.

Finally, Ben asked, “Dillyn, what are you doing?”

Dillyn didn’t miss a beat as she signed into her systems. “I programmed a tracker on Selah’s phone. If she still has it on her, we can pinpoint almost her exact location.”

“What’s on that other monitor?”

“Thomas was stupid. They FaceTimed in the truck with me.”

“What does that mean?” Ben asked. Confusion and worry clouded his features.

Dillyn explained as she worked. “Everything is out there. I just have to type in the right information to grab it.”

“Make it make sense, Dillyn,” Palmer said.

Dillyn’s fingers froze for just a second. “Thomas called Selah’s phone. I can pull a lot of information about him from that single phone call.”

“What if he used a burner?” Lucas asked.

Dillyn went back to typing. “Doesn’t matter. He’s been calling her from that phone for the past couple of weeks. It might take a little longer to gather all the pieces, but I still should be able to put them together.”

“What if they tossed the phone?”

“There would still be information I can gather.”

If Selah still had her cell and it was on, Dillyn should have already picked up a signal. She wasn’t but didn’t say that part out loud. She was also worried that whatever was going on with Selah was connected to Steven.

Dillyn now had multiple screens running. “Okay. Let’s see what we know so far. There are one-hundred and fourteen thousand Thomas Markum’s. Let me narrow the search.” Dillyn typed in more information. She spoke to herself. “Catholic. Iowa.”

“Why’d you type in Iowa?” Ben asked. “He said he was from New Jersey.”

“That’s what he said, but he had a Midwestern accent, specifically northern dialect.” A notification popped up on her screen. She clicked on it to enlarge it.

“What is that?” Ben and Lucas leaned in closer.

“I programmed a backdoor into Selah’s phone. Even if I can’t get a signal, I can get her last known whereabouts before it stopped tracking. I can also get any photos, emails, and whatever else they may have exchanged.” Dillyn leaned in closer. “Like that.” It was a selfie ofThomasleaning up against something that looked like a car.

The image was blurred.

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