by Kendel Lynn
Alex Sanders was busy behind the counter helping a customer, handing two bicycle helmets to a woman. Another guy, about the same age as Alex, perhaps late in college, maybe graduated, spoke to a couple near a side door. I waited for Alex to finish, then reintroduced myself.
“You have a minute to talk?” I asked.
“Brad, I’m gonna check the locks on the cruisers,” Alex said to the other guy, who gave a chin tilt in return.
I followed Alex through the shop and out the way I came in. We stood near the row of bikes. Blue beach cruisers with wire baskets were chained to a steel rack. Sunshine filtered through the heavy shade from the old oak trees. Lazy traffic rolled by, headed to the Sugar Hill Plantation gates.
“You don’t seem overly worried about Daphne,” I said.
“It’s not unusual for her to go out of town,” he said. “She’s been visiting Nashville regularly. Like every week almost. She really misses it. Plus, buying trips for more beads and, I don’t know, whatever. She just had to finish that dress. And the head veil thing. And jewelry. She was way stressed out.”
“About the wedding?”
“About everything. Juliette asked a lot to help her make all those cakes for your party. She’s only part-time. Juliette expects way too much from her. I don’t think she really understands what makes that girl tick. Wouldn’t be surprised if Daphne went to see Bo. She’s always looking for reasons to get away.”
“Did it bother you she traveled so much?”
He glanced at me. A slight hesitation, then answered anyway. “No. I go to Charlotte all the time to our corporate office. It’s the perfect time for her to go to Nashville.”
“Because she gets so lonely without you? So she leaves when you leave?”
He fiddled with a lock, then moved on to the next beach cruiser. He squeezed the plump white-walled tires, then continued down the line. “Yeah, I guess. You’d have to ask her. Truth is, it’s not so surprising she left. She was acting funny these last couple weeks. This whole wedding is messing with her head.”
“When did you last speak to her?”
He finished examining tires and locks, one cruiser after another, then stalled on the last bike before finally standing. “Saturday afternoon. But only for a minute to say I couldn’t talk. Look, we haven’t been talking much, and when we did, well, it’s just that I don’t know where it’s all going. She texted me later that day, and then I didn’t answer her last call. I just ignored it. Didn’t want to deal with more wedding drama.”
“She didn’t text you or leave a note? Anything to say she was leaving, if only for the week? Certainly you must think it odd she packed up her car and left without a word to anyone, especially you?”
He brushed past me to the shack entrance, then turned back. “Maybe that’s why she called me. I’m sorry I didn’t answer. I’m sorry she didn’t leave a voicemail saying she was outta here. She’s with her brother. It makes sense. I mean, it’s Sedona. That has to be the homemade jewelry capital of the Southwest. I’m sure she’ll call or text someone, but I doubt it’ll be me.”
FIVE
(Day #4: Tuesday Morning)
The flyer hanging team grew to about thirty people, including Zanna. We hung posters until after ten, which went pretty much exactly how it sounded. A large stack of bright white papers, each depicting a large photo of Daphne, plus one of her car and a close up of her license plate (a Photoshop mock, courtesy of her friend, Tess). In smaller print, the details of her last known whereabouts, where she might be headed, the $10,000 reward for information, and a contact number. We’d divvied up target areas, covering all roads from Savannah to Charleston, and then up and down I-95. We taped them to poles, windows and doors (with permission), and posts. Several volunteers passed them out at shopping center entrances, whether mall, grocery, or big box retailer. Afterward, we regrouped at the Cake & Shake. Four more Bankers Boxes of flyers, plus two cases of packing tape, would be delivered by eight a.m.
I spent Tuesday morning the same as I had done the day before: A bowl of cereal and my notebook on the patio. I’d spoken to Daphne’s friends, all of whom showed up to search. To a person, they all conveyed the same push/pull: Yes, she often took off on her own; yes, it was slightly strange she wouldn’t tell at least one of them she was leaving. They were worried, but not panicked. They launched a Find Daphne Fischer webpage and posted links on every online social site they knew of, half of which I’d never even heard of.
With Daphne now missing sixty hours, I felt a slight shift in the urgency. The initial “Daphne’s missing!” had melded into a “Where could she be?” and was currently teetering on “Did she want to be found?”
As someone who required a significant amount of sanctuary time to recharge, I fully understood the latter and wanted to respect it. However, there wasn’t much wiggle room between going off the grid and being taken off the grid. I simply didn’t know which situation applied to Daphne. Only she knew. As long as she was still alive. And I wasn’t sure if it was too early to entertain that thought or too late.
I needed to talk to the Sheriff. Which felt wrong. I usually needed Ransom or even Parker. This case being outside their jurisdiction put me outside my bubble. Ransom and I had both worked late the last several days. Our relationship had become a series of random texts. I missed him. I missed his voice, his touch, his laugh. It was disconcerting and it unsettled me. I liked to be settled, ensconced in a routine I could count on.
Though I didn’t like counting on Ransom. A faint old fear of him disappearing in the night still lingered.
I called the Sheriff.
A brief two-minute conversation later, I knew that an additional investigator had been assigned, bringing it to three, plus Sheriff Hill himself. They’d also begun notifying various highway patrol departments from South Carolina to Arizona, distributing detailed bulletins and the scanned flyer. Her license plate number became a BOLO notice that morning.
Alex had sounded earnest when we spoke at the bike rental shop. Perhaps almost too much so? But he did admit their recent troubles and that he had ignored her calls.
All the texting and calling made me think of phone records. Not the cell tower pings Sheriff Hill tracked, but the actual calls.
I hit a drive-thru cheeseburger (ketchup only), fries, BBQ sauce, and Coke (though I always preferred Pepsi) on my way to Juliette’s. As I gobbled my perfectly delicious first lunch, I called Ransom. I received a text in return.
Ransom: In a meeting. All good?
Me: Nothing new. Can’t call it good.
Ransom: Can I help?
Me: Not sure. I feel disconnected.
Ransom: I’m here. Me, Parker, the DEA.
Me: Showoff.
My phone rang.
“No progress, huh, Red?” Ransom said.
“It’s now been two solid days since she missed the brunch. Her mother, who was so insistent to the Sheriff, and to me, that Daphne absolutely drove to Arizona, had flown here, not there. At this point, I fear any news is likely to be bad news.”
“I’m meeting with the Sheriff sometime this week. Perhaps I’ll find out something I can share.”
“I met with him yesterday.”
“How’d that go?”
“I think he likes me being in the middle of a case as much as you do.”
He laughed. “I bet. Where you off to now?”
“Let’s just leave it at you won’t like it any more than I do.”
I tossed the wrappers in the parking lot trashcan and sped the five miles to Daphne’s apartment complex. Once inside, I drove around until I located a pair of commercial dumpsters near one side of her building. In the last ten years, I’d gone dumpster diving twelve separate times in search of evidence in ten different cases. Two of those twelve dives netted me something useful. Not the best odds, but enough that I continued considering it a
resource. Much as I loathed to do so.
With my Mini sufficiently parked in the loading zone, I reached into my trunk to don my standard garbage gear. First, a plastic poncho, complete with a hood tied tight with a string tab. Second, knee-high rubber rain boots with thick soles. Third, a pair of welder’s goggles, ski style. Fourth, a high-end medical mask. Finally, and most importantly, yellow gloves. Not the kind for washing dishes. These were nuclear waste grade. So thick they stood up on their own.
Like I said, I’d done this before.
I waddled over to a concrete block carelessly tossed near a low brick wall bordering the dumpster enclosure pad. I dragged it over, only having to rest twice. It was late September, which in the South still meant summer weather. The sun was climbing toward high noon and warmed the air to a perfect beach-ready seventy-seven degrees. But I wasn’t at the beach. I was covered in non-breathable plastic surrounded by heat waves radiating from thick metal, gritty asphalt, and oven-roasting brick.
The concrete block booster gave me just enough additional height to be able to see inside. I flipped the ridiculously heavy lid. A powerful stench hit me full in the face. Sour and pungent. Rotted food meets decaying animal. I peered inside. It was empty save for random disgusting food glops stuck to the bottom panel and side ridges. Trash pick-up must have been earlier that day. I dropped the lid with a clank and returned to the Mini.
As I sprayed my gloves with industrial-strength cleaner from a spray bottle, I contemplated the original theory that led me to dive the dumpster. Neatniks, like Daphne, become neatniks by throwing things away. However, maybe neatniks who feared hoarding didn’t bother getting things mailed to them in the first place. They probably conducted a majority of their transactions online.
I stowed the protective gear in its large duffle and drove around to the front of the building. I texted Juliette, asking if she could meet me at her apartment, or perhaps she had a hide-a-key I could use. She replied immediately that she was already here changing her shoes, so I ran up the stairs.
“Great timing.” She finished tying her running sneaks. “Finally had to ditch the sandals. These are way hotter, but my feet can’t handle all the endless walking.”
“I’ll make it quick,” I said. “Did Daphne have a laptop? I don’t remember seeing it earlier.”
“It’s more of a tablet.”
“Do you mind if I take a minute to look through it?”
Juliette hesitated and I understood. She probably felt the same unbalanced shifts in the urgency as I did. “Go ahead,” she said. “But you better not take it. Daphne’ll kill me if I let a stranger take her tablet.” She opened a wicker basket doubling as a table next to the sofa and pulled out a slim black leather zippered case. She turned her back and typed on the screen. “She knows I know her password. It’s not a secret. From me, anyway. She knows mine.”
“Isn’t it unusual she’d leave town without her tablet?”
“Maybe? She didn’t use it all the time. Like not every day or anything. She has her phone, right?” She bounced in her shoes, then sighed. “Listen, I’m going to change again real quick. I think I need socks. Maybe cargoes, not shorts? No-see-ums are getting to me. Then I’m heading out. Me and Tess are going to drive out to Isle House, look around. Maybe she’s crashing there?”
I tapped on the tablet’s browser icon and checked the web history. There was none. “Great, a history-conscious web surfer.”
“Did you say something?” Juliette hollered from her room down the hall.
“Just to myself,” I hollered back.
I understood password-protecting access to the tablet itself, but clearing her browser history? Who’d she think would snoop? Alex? Juliette? Let’s see if Daphne really was texting and calling Alex that night, I thought. I typed different phone carrier names into the search bar, checking each site’s home page. On the third one, a local carrier with cheap rates, the login information was partially pre-filled. Daphne’s username was saved, but not the password. I snapped a quick pic of the screen, then clicked the settings in the browser menu to check for saved passwords. A long list of saved sites appeared. I saw all the usernames, but the coordinating passwords were strings of asterisks. I clicked the little eyeball symbol to reveal the hidden data. Another window popped up requiring the master browser password to view them.
I closed that window, then quickly scanned the long list of saved websites, trying to find one that belonged to a smaller company, one that might be less secure. Man, that girl saved every website she’d ever logged into. I opted for two mom-and-pop bead wholesalers and got lucky on the second one. The login name was auto-filled, along with the password. It was hidden behind asterisks, but there was also a little eyeball symbol to show the password. I clicked it. The asterisks spelled out “pearlkn0t,” with a zero for the “o.”
Another quick snap from my camera phone of the password from the bead website, then another of the browser menu’s master list of websites and usernames. I closed all of the browser windows and returned to the tablet’s home screen.
I pushed my luck and it continued to hold. The email icon on the bottom row opened without issue. Only a handful of messages, some spam, and three generic email blasts from bead sites. All unread since Thursday afternoon. I took a pic of the inbox and turned off the screen. When I hit the button to turn it back on, it was locked. I quickly entered the password I’d discovered. It worked. Looked like Daphne used a master password for everything. Convenient for us both.
“The tablet’s back in the basket,” I hollered. “Thank you, and I’ll see you later at the Cake & Shake.”
I drove to the Big House. I needed to dig and I wanted to do it on my own turf. The search was beginning to feel a little fruitless. Three days since the last cell phone ping and no calls. Well, there had been plenty of calls. The reward made sure of that. But none of the calls led to Daphne. And none from Daphne herself.
The Ballantyne Beach BBQ was Saturday. In five days. As I was a peripheral planner and not central to the event, it left me plenty of time to concentrate on Daphne and my investigation.
In my office, I transferred the phone photos I’d taken of her tablet to my laptop so I could see them properly. My screen was too small to see with my forty-year-old eyesight. I peered close and zoomed large. My first search was of the phone carrier website. I entered the master password from the mom-and-pop bead site, pearlkn0t, and I was in.
Three clicks later, I saw her latest phone activity. Nothing beyond Saturday evening at 10:47, around the time of the last ping, according to Sheriff Hill. Though it wasn’t listed on the activity report as a call, it was data. It didn’t tell me what type of data, like an app or internet search, only her usage.
From a different screen, I saw her call list with inbound/outbound numbers, and her messaging list with sent/received numbers.
It didn’t take long to create a directory of sorts. It was shamefully easy to determine who owned what number when you belonged to the right databases and knew the wrong kind of people. And I did, via Milo Hickey—CEO of a prestigious asset management firm, proprietor of underground poker games, and Sid’s adoring beau.
I recognized the names of Daphne’s family, friends from the search, beading companies, the Cake & Shake, and even Jona Jerome, Down the Isle producer. The directory I’d created was crazy long. Daphne made more calls than I did, and I ran events for a billion-dollar charity.
Even so, nothing unusual popped, save two things:
Two phone numbers, one of which recurred daily, were nearly sequential and untraceable to any owners; and a third number belonged to the same Charlotte rental car company from the receipt hidden in the macramé tube.
Pressing *67 to block my own number from appearing on Caller ID, I dialed the two nearly sequential numbers. I received two identical voicemails. An automated female voice informing me I’d reached a voicemail box (in case
I’d time-traveled and didn’t understand what was happening) and instructing me to leave a message after the tone (on the chance I’d be confused as to what to do when I heard it).
Rather than leave messages on the mysterious voicemail boxes, I made a note to investigate them further, along with the rental car company. Though I did leave one message. With Jona Jerome. I’d heard Juliette’s take on Down the Isle, and because she was showrunner, I needed to hear Jona’s.
Next, I scanned Daphne’s social media. At least the major ones I’d heard of. Plenty of pretty cake pictures, beautiful beaded things, Daphne and Juliette at the Cake & Shake—though that particular photo had been posted a while ago. The most recent was a comment on Daphne’s Insta about needing to get away.
Again the pull. Missing on purpose or missing in danger?
It was closing in on seventy-two hours, and no one in her family or circle of friends had heard from her.
I called Sheriff Hill.
Expecting to leave another message, I was surprised when he came on the line three minutes later.
“Elliott, how are you?” he said. “Your ears must’ve been burning.”
“Oh?”
“We’re organizing an official search party for this afternoon. We’ll start small. Take a portion of the people meeting at the Cake & Shake.”
“Yeah, don’t want everyone panicking over the word ‘search,’” I said. “Do her parents know?”
“I’ll talk to Mrs. Fischer when I get there. Explain we’re exercising an extra layer of attention is all. We’re not expecting to find her, just looking for information.”
“At least, that’s what you’re telling the family, right?”
“Will I see you there?” he asked.
“I’ll be on my way shortly. And Sheriff—”