Page 43 of Pied Sniper

“Anything.”

“Call Tiffany’s assistant and tell her I need to speak to her urgently.”

“I already have. She’s on her way back to town.”

I felt a spark of guilt at leaving Abigail alone in the hotel room but I also knew I really didn’t have any choice. She wasn’t paying me to babysit her; she hired me to find Tiffany and there was still a lot of work ahead of me.

I thought about Tiffany’s appearance in the video all the way to the agency via the store for an emergency donut pickup. As soon as I walked in, my mind still focused on Tiffany’s bloodied body, Delgado stopped me. “I reviewed the video but I didn’t see anything you didn’t.”

“Good to know,” I said. Delgado had a keen eye. If I’d missed something, he would have seen it.

“Lucas said to head up to his desk when you returned,” he continued. “Solomon is already up there.”

“Great. I’ve got a big development in the case.”

“So do we. It’s not good.”

I frowned, uncertain of what he was referring to. If Tiffany were found dead, surely Garrett or Maddox would have already called me? Since they didn’t, I followed Delgado upstairs into the big office Lucas shared with the rest of the team Solomon hired. Lucas sat behind his desk, Solomon leaning over it, and both were studying the screen intently.

“Did you crack Tiffany’s password?” I asked, noticing the open laptop. “Hi, boss.”

Solomon glanced up and winked; my heart fluttered.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Lucas, pointing to it. “I wrote her password on a sticker. It was her dog’s name and birth year. Not exactly the smartest code.”

“Is that the big development?” I asked, placing the donut bag in front of him

Lucas shrugged and peeked into the bag. “I didn’t look through her stuff. I figured you’d want to do that.”

“The latest development is what Lucas found in the comments section for Tiffany’s videos,” said Solomon, reaching for a spare chair and pulling it on its casters until it rested alongside him. I sat down, and Delgado leaned against the wall behind us, looking over our shoulders. “Okay, so we have one list of threats made against Tiffany here,” said Lucas, pointing. “Some of them are vile, some are just plain nasty. Then we have another column where things get more serious, for example, her previous New York address was posted a bunch of times, alongside information about places she hangs out or frequents, like her manager’s office building and her hairstylist’s. Even her place here in Montgomery has been exposed now. Then there’s another column, which could be fairly ambiguous except for the fact that a large percentage of the volume come from the same few commentators. They claim she’s lying, double-crossing people, and defrauding, alongside pieces of information that indicate they might have had a closer relationship with her than just strangers. We could, of course, dismiss those as gossip, or perhaps they’re just particularly diligent online trolls, but I don’t think so. The level of information they have suggests any one of them could be a disgruntled ex, a relative, a former friend or an employee.”

“What do they say she’s lying about?” I asked.

“Her background, for one thing. Not the rags to riches story she claims. Also, there’re accusations that she and her boyfriend, Jonathan Brett, have split up and they’ve both been seen with other people. Several messages say they were never really a couple at all.”

“The stuff about the boyfriend could be true,” I said. “There’s definitely something awry there. We think Brett is still in town because the manager at her apartment spotted them arguing. I don’t know if Garrett and the taskforce have located him yet.”

“The fraud stuff is more interesting. Apparently, Tiffany left behind a string of debts before she wound up here. Restaurant bills, membership fees, designer clothes, you name it, she owes it. More than one commentator confirms that. Some of them say she owes money to friends too.”

“Could they all be to the same person, but using different handles?” I asked.

“I checked their IP addresses. All are different.”

“She’s supposed to be wealthy. Why would she do that?” I asked, frowning as I thought about her sudden, swift move from an exciting city like New York to the far sleepier, much smaller Montgomery. If she lied about her finances regarding her apartment, could she have lied about more? Was she running away from a series of bad debts?

“Entitlement, maybe. Or maybe she’s not as wealthy as she wants her followers to believe,” suggested Solomon.

“She did claim to own the apartment she’s renting, but the super insists that’s not the case and even sent me the rental agreement to prove it,” I told them. “But there’s been a more serious development.” I reached into my purse for my flashdrive, but couldn’t find it, so I blindly patted around with my hand, bypassing a tissue packet, a flyer advertising a new cupcake bakery, three lipsticks, my favorite lipgloss and, inexplicably, a spare pair of socks, until I found it. “Plug this in and play the video on it,” I told Lucas.

Lucas did as he was instructed and opened the flashdrive folder. “Which is it? The one that reads “Upside-down Lily keg party” or the one with the random string of numbers?”

“The second one,” I said, sighing. “Please don’t download the other one.”

“I have questions,” said Lucas.

“No, you don’t,” I countered. “This video was emailed to Abigail, Tiffany’s manager, not more than an hour-and-a-half ago. Play it.” I waited for the ransom video to fill the screen, then Lucas hitplay, and we watched silently until it came to an end.

“Let’s focus on what we know,” said Solomon. He pulled over another chair and sat in it, steepling his fingers under his chin, visibly deep in thought.

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