Page 70 of Pied Sniper

Solomon held back a smile. “Say again?”

I rolled my eyes. “Her parents probably thought it was cute. Here, look.” I turned the laptop so he could see and tapped the photo of the youthful, bespectacled Tiffany. “It’s definitely her. Take off the glasses and braces, give her a makeover, and it’s her. She did go to this school but she wasn’t a rich orphan. She was a scholarship kid and I’m not even sure now that her parents are dead.”

“Given what we already discovered about Tiffany so far, are you surprised?”

I shook my head. “No. Disappointed, I think. Her whole life is just a big lie. One she made up to… I don’t know? Hide who she really was? Impress her fans? Invoke sympathy? I can’t work it out.”

“Tiffany Rose has not been an absolute dead end,” said Solomon. “She hasn’t sold her New York apartment yet but it’s about to go into escrow and she’ll make a small profit. Her car is leased and she defaulted on that. There’s a whole bunch of creditor issues, so Grace is correct there. She also owes a chunk of back taxes. I haven’t found any assets.”

“She has an impressive purse collection.”

“That is not an asset.”

“Not strictly true. Some purses hold their value. Chanel, Hermès and the like. I saw four Chanel purses in her closet.”

“You should call Garrett.”

“I agree,” I said, already scrolling for his name.

“Hey, sis’,” said Garrett. “I was going to call you soon for an update. Tiffany’s boyfriend and assistant just walked in.”

“Sorry for the lack of gift wrap. I suppose you haven’t found her since we last spoke?”

“Nope, even I can’t solve a case that fast, and from what the boyfriend says, he doesn’t sound like he can offer much help but at least we can eliminate him and refocus our investigation.”

“I have some other news for you. Tiffany’s real name is Rose Busch.”

“I know. We found that out already.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, my voice rising a notch.

“The fingerprints only just came back. She had a DUI around seven years ago. Got a slap on the wrist. Seems she changed her name after that.”

“She can’t have changed her name just to hide a criminal record like that!”

“I agree. Plenty of celebrities have arrest records. It’s hardly new.”

“Perhaps she hated the name. It’s kinda cute but I’m sure not everyone feels that way. Not when they’re named after a flowering shrub. Other kids could have bullied her over it,” I suggested.

“I think we’ll only find that out when we find Tiffany.”

“How’s your side of the investigation?”

“We’ve canvassed the whole building but we couldn’t find anyone with much to say about Tiffany. She’s kept to herself since she moved in. No one noticed if she had frequent visitors. None of them knows anything about her career. Our tech team are still working on the video sent to Abigail Swanson but it seems like the kidnappers know something about technology because they used a VPN and masked the metadata.”

“Some planning must’ve gone into that.”

“Or they already had the knowhow. One moment,” said Garrett. He paused and I heard muffled voices. When he returned, he said, “We dumped Tiffany’s cellphone and there’re no unusual calls. Plenty to and from Abigail and Grace. Hardly anything with Jonathan Brett. Various service providers. She did switch numbers recently.”

“How recent is that?”

“Around the time she moved from New York.”

“That makes sense. She might be avoiding her creditors. She’s in a lot of debt.”

“The kidnappers seem to think she’s valuable.”

“Sure, but to whom?” I asked. “She doesn’t have the kind of funds to pay a ransom. She can’t pay anyone back. If anything, she’s under water.”

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