Page 22 of The Madman's Nightmare
“Freddie, you want to join me downstairs” Skid asked, and he gave a nod and stood from his seat.
Freddie was the second employee we hired at Callahan Cyber Security, behind Skid, and he was loyal to us and our families. I trusted him and he knew we accepted him and his husband with open arms. I didn’t give a damn who you loved or slept with, as long as you were a good person and a faithful friend.
They left the room, and I took a seat and grabbed a computer to get busy. There were cameras everywhere, but somehow, none captured Elise’s kidnapping, so my mind started to race as where she could be.
No traffic cameras showed unusual movement or a tell-tail sigh of her in a vehicle, so I started to think she was closer than we originally thought. But between her and the Flats of Portstill, there were over twenty miles of thick forests and deep ravines.
I couldn’t let the fear of her lying out there, hurting, into my head, or I’d never be able to get it out.
Letting my thoughts shift, I started to think about all the details Timothy gave me before I killed him. He couldn’t remember where the warehouse he dropped the rental van at, and that could lead us directly to who took Elise.
Lifting my eyes, I asked Lucian, “Did you bring the broken cell phone with you?”
He pulled it from his pocket and showed it to me, asking, “What can we do with it in this condition?”
“Is the cim card intact?” Regan asked from her seat at the end of the table. Lucian shrugged and handed it down the table until it was placed in Regan’s hands. “Let me see what I can do with it. Maybe there’s something on the GPS that will tell us where he went.”
She pulled the broken phone into her computer and started typing as she stared at the screen. Seeing everyone so busy, I started to feel useless. I needed to figure out where the unknown man might have taken her, so I pulled up a satellite map of the park and began to scroll through the images. I could see paths and trails crisscrossing the park and felt like Tomothy saying the man started walking through the woods meant something.
I still didn’t know what, but I wasn’t going to sit there and do nothing. I tracked every trail I could see and began to pull back,making the map bigger in area so I could see what was around the lake.
The private houses on the other side of Pierce Lake, a few of which were owned by Amaya’s family, appeared. She didn’t know she was the only child of one of the landowners of Pierce Bluff until she and James started dating. I was looking at the overhead images of the houses, hoping something stood out to me when my phone rang.
Looking at the screen, I saw it was James and pressed the button to answer it. I lifted the phone to my ear and answered, “What did you find?”
“I called Amaya’s father, Preston, and asked him about the people living on his side of the lake,” James responded, and I sat up straighter in my chair. Lucian lifted his eyes and watched as I listened to my brother speak. “He said there is a house on the edge of the property surrounding the Lake that has been vacant for a number of years. The family all died in an accident, and no one’s been there for over ten years.”
“Why does that matter?” I inquired, wanting to see where his mind was going.
“Timothy said the man who took Elise carried her into the woods, and we haven’t found any images of a car racing away, correct?”
“Correct,” I responded, knowing he and Skid had been corresponding since we left to find Timothy.
“I’m coming up the elevator,” James explained before the call dropped. The elevator was a known dead zone for phones.
A minute later, James walked into the conference room and immediately took a seat next to me, turning the laptop to face him. He smirked when he saw me looking at an overhead map of the lake area. He and I were so much alike, it was scary sometimes.
He pointed to a smudge on the map and said, “Here. Look at this house. I think this is the one he’s speaking about. He said to call him when I got back here while he went to speak with his mother, Eleanor. She’s better acquainted with the family and the happenings then he was.”
“You think that maybe they are using this house to hold Elise?” I asked and everyone lifted their heads to listen to us.
“It’s a possibility. We can at least cross it off the list if it’s not feasible.”
I gave a nod, and he pulled his phone out and placed it between us before dialing a number. The phone was in speaker as the ringing began to fill the room.
A moment later, a voice came over the phone. “James, I’m here with my mother.”
“Thank you for speaking with me Eleanor,” James replied.
“When Preston told me about Elise, I just started praying. Will you tell Devlin we’re keeping them in our prayers?” An older voice said, and I nodded as he replied.
“I will and thank you.” James paused before asking. “What can you tell me about the family that used to live in the house on the edge of the lake property?”
“Oh, that poor family.” Eleanor started with a tsking sound. “I felt so badly for them.”
“Mrs. Pierce, this is Devlin. Can you tell me who they were and how they died?”
“Devlin, I can, and again, I’m so sorry.” She cleared her throat and began to explain. “They weren’t a part of the landowner’s trust, but the Greene family moved in during the early nineties. They were a sweet family and welcomed two children while they were living there.”
