Page 53 of Vanishing Point
Thomas will, she told herself. And she held on to that belief as hard as she could.
Chapter Fifteen
Thomas hung up with Rosalie. She was going to try some not strictly legal methods of determining Eric Carter’s whereabouts and report back to him. He was glad to have more eyes on this, but mostly felt a sick tangle of guilt over worrying Rosalie. Over all the ways he’d failed this.
Failed.
Where the hell was she? Who was this friend? The only thing that kept him from going absolutely ballistic was that Mrs. Harolds had said the friend, the driver of the car, was a woman.
Not that women couldn’t hurt people, but it wasn’t Vi’s ex-husband. If Rosalie came back with absolute proof Eric Carter was in Virginia and had no connection to this, maybe… Maybe it was all a misunderstanding.
He wanted to believe that more than he wanted to take his next breath.
He tried to stay out of the way of everyone processing the house. He let Laurel and Copeland make the phone calls. He focused on his notebook, writing down a list of everything he could think of that would need to be done. Then he’d go through each piece, one by one, until she was found.
She was going to be found.
Thomas wasn’t sure how many hours passed of seemingnothingness, but eventually Copeland and Laurel came to wherehe’d situated himself at his kitchen table. Notepad and phone in front of him.
He kept checking it to make sure he hadn’t missed a message from her.
“A few updates,” Laurel said. And it was her cop-to-victim voice, so he knew it was only bad news.
“We got the identity of the person who rented the car,” Copeland said. “Dianne Kay. Postal Inspector Dianne Kay.”
The postal inspector was the friend? He supposed the description Mrs. Harolds gave matched, but it didn’t make any sense. Why had she come back after questioning Vi? Why wouldn’t she have gone to the front door? Why would she park on the opposite street? Why would Vi leave out a window to get to her?
He wanted to feel relief, but dread was the winning emotion.
“At least, shewasa postal inspector,” Laurel said. “I called her office, but I was forwarded to a different inspector who told me Dianne Kay put in her two weeks last week. Then didn’t show up to work yesterday.”
“But…she was working by questioning Vi this morning.”
“Apparently not officially,” Laurel said. “I talked to her supervisor, trying to get some information on the case she was working on and what it might have to do with leaving with Vi. He wasn’t very forthcoming. We’ll need warrants and to wade through all kinds of federal red tape.”
“We don’t have that kind of time.”
“We’ve got an APB out on the car. They put out an emergency ping on the postal inspector’s phone, but it’s been turned off. I put Vicky on starting to get whatever paperwork we need to get a hold of her case information, and we’ll be getting a search warrant to get the inspector’s phone location history. Hopefully we find Vi before that matters, but it’s good to have it rolling.”
“All the deputies have a description of both Vi and Kay, and anyone not on a call is going to be on the lookout for either woman or the car. Day and night shift. It’s early to call it a missing person, early to assume this is nefarious, but…”
“But we all damn well know it’s nefarious.” Thomas pushed out of his seat. He went to stand by the front window. The sun was setting. Most of the police officers had dissipated. Some would be running tests on what they’d found. Some would be going home.
And somewhere out there, Vi was… God, he needed her to be okay.
So he turned back to the table, his list. And as he went over it, he realized there was something they were leaving out. “What about Eric Carter?”
Laurel and Copeland exchanged a look.
“What about him?” Copeland asked.
“Where is he?” Thomas demanded.
“We’re still figuring it out,” Laurel said calmly. She held up her hand when he all but exploded. “We called his precinct and it’s his scheduled day off. We asked them to verify his residence, but the person we talked to refused. So, we’re working on getting another agency out to his residence. One we can trust. I’ve got Zach pulling some FBI strings.”
Thomas let out a long, slow breath. FBI strings were good. And it was better this way, because Laurel was right. After everything they’d heard from Vi, they couldn’t trust the precinct Eric worked for.
“If he’s not there, I want his credit card records pulled immediately. And his cell phone pinged.”
