Dragon Lost
Page 12
Damn. Cináed knew there had been something he was missing. He slid around as Ryder sat up and swiveled his chair to start typing. Within seconds, the pictures filled two of the many screens.
Ryder clicked on each one, letting it fill an entire screen so they could get a closer look. It didn’t take long for Cináed to realize that this was no cut-and-dried case.
“Would a woman leave something that is obviously an antique behind?” Cináed asked as he pointed to the broach in one of the pictures.
Ryder shook his head. “I doona think so. No’ on purpose, at least. Look at the bedrooms.”
Cináed inspected each one. “They’re messy. Drawers half opened. In all except this one,” he said, pointing to what was obviously Gemma’s room.
“I suppose the parents could have tried to get away without her knowing.”
“On an isle with no one else about? And Gemma had a dog.”
Ryder’s lips twisted. “I forgot about the dog.”
“The only way on or off the isle was by water. Is there a boat in Ben Sinclair’s name?”
“Is he the father?” Ryder asked as he typed in the name.
“That’s the name listed as the owner of the isle.”
Ryder grunted. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
“There are many Ben Sinclairs, but none of them are the one who purchased the isle.”
Cináed turned to Kinsey’s computer since she wasn’t there and began digging into the name. Between him and Ryder, it didn’t take long for them to discover that Ben Sinclair wasn’t a real person. Through several shell companies, the isle was in fact purchased by a Daniel Atherton.
“The father,” Cináed said with a frown.
“There is a boat in the name of Ben Sinclair as well.”
“Why did he buy both under a fake name?”
“No one does that unless they’re hiding from something. Or someone.”
Cináed recalled something he’d read in one of the papers. He did another hunt and found there was a storm that had hit the west coast of Scotland three weeks before Gemma was found.
“I’ll be damned,” Ryder mumbled. “Do you think she fell overboard and managed to get back to the isle?”
Cináed shrugged. “I’ve no idea, but I’d like to find out.”
“Why is this important?”
“I can no’ explain it,” he said, meeting Ryder’s hazel gaze. “I just know I have to find her.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than his computer dinged. He looked at it to discover that the search had finished.
“That was quick,” Ryder said with a frown. “Too quick.”
Cináed pushed his chair back to the computer and quickly ran through the photos of Gemma. There were only a few, and then nothing for several years. There were more recent ones of her going back about eight years.
“This is why you look for names as well as faces,” Ryder said as he tapped his finger on the screen.
Cináed looked to discover that she had changed her name to Gemma Clacher. That was odd enough since that surname was linked to Henry and Esther North, a brother and sister who recently discovered they were adopted and their names changed to hide the fact that they were the JusticeBringer and TruthSeeker of the Druids.
“That has to be a coincidence,” Cináed said.
Ryder blew out a breath. “Is it? Or does it mean something else? Look where she’s living.”
Cináed scanned the screen until he saw it, shock rushing through him. “She’s here. Right here in the village.”
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