Page 50 of A Billionaire Dom

Linsey

Yahtzee!

I’d found him. Nearly fifteen straight hours and I’d finally found Mark Titan. Or, rather, I found Mark Biggs. After leaving Houston, he’d traveled to Dallas and then had left Texas altogether. He’d vanished for a few years, then had popped up in Minnesota where he’d filed for a legal name change. Even though it’d been the late 90s by then, he couldn’t have known just how big tech would get and how easy it would eventually become to track his progress around the country.

Since the name change, he’d had two ex-wives, one while he’d lived in Safety Harbor, Florida, and the other during more than a decade in Greenville, South Carolina. The first ex had filed a restraining order and had made accusations of domestic abuse. Nothing had come to fruition with those charges, but the divorce hadn’t been contested.

The last wife had stayed for ten years, eight of which had been filled with numerous hospital visits and questionable excuses. After she nearly died, he went to jail for thirteen months, and she filed for divorce.

Now, he was in Walhalla, South Carolina, where he owned a junkyard and had a couple drunken disorderly charges. He liked to spend money at a strip club in the closest city, and for the past couple years, that city had an increase in reports of prostitutes going to ERs with serious injuries. Broken noses, jaws, arms, ribs. Far from a smoking gun, but I didn’t believe in coincidences. Mark Titan was an abusive asshole, and assholes like that didn’t change their spots, so to speak.

But was he a murderer?

I picked up the burner phone I’d bought for this case – I always used these sorts of phones to keep anyone from tracing calls back to me and to keep people from learning my phone number – and I punched in the number listed for Mark Biggs.

Since most people didn’t answer calls from unknown numbers, I already had a voicemail prepared. As soon as the automated message ended with a beep, I used my best ‘professional’ voice.

“Mr. Titan, this is Debbie fromCrime Solvers, a blog where we focus on old, unsolved cases and get to the truth. I’d like to hear what you have to say about the disappearance of your wife, Heidi. We know that those in power have silenced you in the past, and we want to give you the opportunity to say your truth and hold the proper parties responsible. And, of course, we’ll provide compensation for your troubles.”

I hung up and went to get myself something to drink. If he didn’t return my call in twenty-four hours, I’d call again, but I had a feeling he’d call right after he got the message. The promise of getting to accuse Judeandget paid for it would be too much for him to pass up. That was, if he was the type of man I believed him to be. Everything I’d learned about him painted a pretty compelling picture.

Less than ten minutes later, the phone rang with Mark’s number on the screen.

“Hi, this is Debbie. Am I speaking with Mark Titan?”

“It’s Biggs now.” He still had an accent, but it wasn’t pure Texas anymore. “You want me to talk about what happened with my wife?”

“I do.”

“It’s gonna cost you.”

I held back a sigh. “Of course. We wouldn’t expect you to revisit such a painful memory without compensation. Once you tell me your story, I’ll write a check. How does a thousand sound?”

“Two,” he shot back. “And if it goes national, I want a thousand more.”

“Done.”

I would’ve agreed to any number. It wasn’t like I actually planned to send him money. I saved that for actual victims. Sure, if he was innocent of having killed Heidi, he’d been wrongly accused, but I didn’t really have much sympathy for him even if that was the case. I didn’t help abusers.

“You coming here or we doing this over the phone?”

“Let’s get started now, and then we can decide if a face-to-face interview is necessary.”

“If you’re talking to me twice, I want to be paid twice. I mean, I’m missing work for this.”

He was determined to put my self-control to the test, I decided. He wasn’t ‘missing’ anything. Still, I kept a smile in my voice.

“That’s reasonable.” I took a beat, and then asked, “Why don’t you start wherever it is you think the story begins?”

“I knew a couple months before that she was fucking around on me.” He jumped right in. “Working late. Spending time out of the house when I knew damn well her friends weren’t with her.”

She’d probably wanted to stay away from his abusive ass, but I kept my opinion to myself.

“It didn’t take long for me to figure out who she was sneaking around with either. Jude Holden.” He practically spit the name out.

“How did you figure out it was Mr. Holden?”

He barked a laugh. “Wasn’t hard. I followed her a couple times, and every time, her car was at Holden Enterprises. Right there next to his. All cozy.”

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