Page 131 of State of Alert

“There’s nothing I can do. This isn’t an unreasonable request.”

“Then get out of here. You’re fired. I don’t need your kind of ‘help.’”

Dunning got up and left the room.

“Can you please confirm for the record that you’ve fired your counsel, Roland Dunning?” Sam asked.

“I fired Roland Dunning.”

“Are you planning to retain new counsel?”

“Yes.”

“While you arrange that, please call your daughters.” Sam engaged him in a stare-down that she won when he reached for his phone. “Put it on speaker.”

He called Zoe first. The call went right to voice mail.

“This is Zoe. You know what to do.”

“It’s Dad. I need you to come to the police station right away. They have more questions for you. Call me.”

Next, he called Jada, got her voice mail and left the same message.

“Why would their phones be off?” Freddie asked.

“I… I don’t know. They’re chained to those phones.”

“Are you able to track their locations?”

He shook his head. “Elaine did that.”

She turned to Freddie. “Can their locations be tracked if the phones are off?”

“We can see where they were most recently.”

“Go get Elaine’s phone from Archie, please.” After he leftthe room, Sam said, “We were told that Jada was going to her friend Ali’s house. Is that correct?”

“Yes, she wanted to spend some time with her best friend.”

“Do you have the number for Ali’s parents?”

Again, he shook his head.

“Good thing I do.”

That shocked the shit out of him, but he tried to hide that from her. He failed.

She sifted through the pages of her notebook until she found the number for Trina Gauthier and made the call on her phone, with the speaker on, staring down Frank as she waited for Trina to pick up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Trina, this is Sam Holland.”

“Oh, hi. Have you found the person who killed Elaine?”

“We’re working on that. I wondered if I could speak to Jada.”

“To Jada? She’s not here. Did you call her phone?”

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