Stalked

“Here we go,” Amber said, picking up a remote and rewinding on the tiny screen mounted beneath the desk.

Evelyn glanced at Sophia, who nodded.

“We have live picture surrounding the station. Amber can go back and look at anything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. After that, it automatically backs up. It’s a good system.” She leaned closer to the screen. “Stop!”

Evelyn leaned forward, too, as the mail carrier suddenly pitched forward at the edge of the camera, and a hand darted out and steadied her.

“There!” Sophia shouted, making other officers glance their way.

“What?” Evelyn asked as Sophia rewound once more, then hit Pause and pointed.

“He bumped her on purpose, then grabbed her arm to steady her while he slipped an envelope in the stack with his other hand. Sneaky bastard. Not quite pickpocket good, but that was pretty ingenious.”

“He?” Evelyn pressed. “All I see is an arm, in a dark sweatshirt. Do we have another angle on this?”

Sophia glanced back at Amber, who frowned and shook her head. “This is at the far side of the station. We have cameras mounted on all sides of the station, but not just out on the street. And the person who did this was standing in the alley. Probably waiting for the mail carrier to come by. There aren’t cameras there, not even from other businesses.”

“Are you sure?” Sophia pressed. “Maybe the bank has an angle that we can—”

“I’m positive,” Amber insisted. “We had a couple of muggings there a year ago. The station took a lot of heat because it was so close and it took us a long time to identify the person.”

“I remember,” Sophia said. “But I also remember you pushing to get cameras in there.”

“That’s a battle I lost,” Amber said. “We barely have the budget for this.” She gestured to the screen still on pause below the desk. “Sorry.”

Sophia handed over the remote and leaned against the wall. “We can’t catch a break. And this can’t be dumb luck, the guy being so perfectly positioned.”

“If whoever took Haley is from around here, he’d probably know about the muggings,” Evelyn said. “If the police took heat for not having cameras there, I’m guessing it was in the press?”

“You’d be guessing right,” Sophia said. “Amber, I want you to get a hold of our mail carrier. Get her in here and ask her to describe this person as soon as you can find her.” She looked at Evelyn. “And since we already think Haley’s abductor is someone she knows, let me introduce you to a guy who wears a lot of sweatshirts.”

Evelyn followed as she headed for the door, glancing back to see Quincy step behind the desk. “Who?”

“His name is Jordan Biltmore.”

“Haley’s boyfriend? The one everyone saw drive away after he dropped her off at school?”

“That’s the guy,” Sophia replied, not slowing down as she left the station and got into her car, parked in front. “Let’s go for a ride.”

* * *

“School is in session,” Sophia said unnecessarily as she drove onto the Neville University campus.

They’d driven across a ridiculously ornate bridge over a man-made pond to enter campus. Students’ tuition money at work apparently, because Sophia told her the university had put it in at a cost of several million. It made for a hell of an entryway, but the whole thing seemed a little ridiculous to Evelyn, who’d never before been on the relatively small Neville campus.

Now, they were moving at ten miles an hour as they wove down narrow cobblestone streets lined with hickory and maple trees. Students darted out in front of the car in laughing groups as they chatted and hurried to their next classes.

“Aren’t any of them worried about getting hit by a car?” Evelyn muttered.

“At Neville U? Probably not. On campus, pedestrians think they have the right of way no matter where they are. You’ve got to be careful driving through here, especially at night.”

“So, tell me more about Jordan Biltmore,” Evelyn said as they drove along at a maddeningly slow pace, deeper and deeper into the small college campus.

All Evelyn knew about Neville U was its reputation as being the go-to college for kids from wealthy Virginia families with decent-enough grades. To balance out the rich kids, there was a hefty scholarship fund that brought in out-of-state students with fantastic grades and not-so-fantastic funds. A degree from Neville wasn’t quite Ivy League level, but that didn’t matter for top-level job hunting if you had the right last name.

And Jordan Biltmore, a sophomore and Haley Cooke’s boyfriend, had the right last name. The son of billionaire CEO Franklin Biltmore, Jordan probably could have gotten into Neville with grades bordering on dismal. But according to the brief stats she’d seen on Jordan, he was actually close to a straight-A student.

“Jordan and Haley had been dating for about six months when she went missing. Apparently they met when Haley went to a party on the college campus,” Sophia said, making a slow turn into the parking lot of a building way nicer than any frat house Evelyn had ever seen.

“Haley’s friends seem to like him—or seem to be jealous that she’s dating a billionaire’s son who’s in college. Her mom seems lukewarm, but isn’t so crazy about the idea of her high school junior dating a college kid.”

“What about Bill? And Pete? What do they think of Jordan?” Evelyn asked as Sophia squeezed her sedan into a parking spot meant for a coupe.

“Pete grunts about the age difference and what college boys are really after when you ask him, but otherwise, he doesn’t seem to have anything bad to say about Jordan specifically. Bill—as far as I could tell—had never met Jordan. To be honest, I’m not sure he even knew Haley was dating this kid until she went missing and Jordan’s name was in the news.”

“Hmm,” Evelyn mused. “That says a lot about his relationship with Haley if she’d been dating Jordan for six months. And yet, he’s acting pretty damn certain that she wasn’t abducted. Kind of strange for someone who doesn’t seem to know as much as he should about her life in general.”

“Yep,” Sophia agreed, shutting off the engine. “I can’t be sure he didn’t know. Bill acts as though he was aware they were dating, but just hadn’t met Jordan. But the impression I got? He was lying. He wanted me to think he was a more involved father, especially with the news attention. But today, I’d love your take on Jordan. He’s been extremely cooperative, and honestly, since a squad full of cheerleaders saw him drop her off and then drive away that day, I’m not sure how he could have done it. But he’s just—” her lips pursed, and finally she settled on “—too smooth.”

Evelyn shifted to face her. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s just the rich-kid, son-of-a-CEO thing, but the vibe I’m getting is someone who’s happy to help, because he’s sure we’ll never catch him.”

“Huh. All right.”

“I mean, his alibi is solid. But he just bothers me. Have you ever gotten that feeling about someone in a case?”

“Oh, yeah.” Plenty of times, with her job.

“What happened when you got the vibe?” Sophia asked.

“Sometimes you get that feeling for the obvious reason—because they did it. Other times there’s some other thing they’re guilty of, related to the case or not. And sometimes it’s just a person who’s using what happened to get in the limelight. The bad feeling we get is because they feel guilty they’re enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame—which they wouldn’t have gotten if a person they loved wasn’t missing or dead. Let’s go chat with Jordan and see why you’re getting that impression from him.”

She followed Sophia up a well-groomed pathway to the front door. When Sophia knocked on the door, it swung open by itself, revealing an interior as ornate as the outside. Except that there were brightly colored bras hanging off the enormous crystal chandelier in the entryway, empty pizza boxes piled on the antique table in the living room and a pair of frat boys curled up asleep, one on each end of the dirty but obviously expensive couch.

“Here we go,” Sophia said. “Neville’s most notorious frat house.”

“What are they notorious for?”

“Being awesome, mostly,” someone said from much closer behind her than anyone should have been able to get without Evelyn sensing a presence.

She spun around and craned her neck up at the college student giving her an “aren’t I charming” grin. His dark blond hair was perfectly groomed, his low-slung jeans and Neville U sweatshirt just a tiny bit rumpled and his dimples were on full display. He held a cup of coffee in one hand and tucked a pair of keys with an Audi key chain into his pocket with the other.

As Sophia spun around, the flirtatious grin dropped off his face, replaced by sudden worry. “Detective Lopez. Do you have news? Did you find Haley? Is she okay?”

“We don’t have anything new,” Sophia said.

“Jordan Biltmore?” Evelyn guessed.