“Hello?”
“Chance, it’s Destiny. Something weird popped up in my searches, and I’m not sure what to make of it. Well, a couple of somethings actually, and I feel bad I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“Does it have to do with Tina?” Something in Destiny’s voice had him sitting up straighter, and he leaned an elbow on the conference table, and glanced at Rafe.
“In a roundabout way, yeah.”
“I’m going to put you on speaker. Rafe’s here with me, and he probably needs to hear this, too.”
“Alrighty. First, let me say this may not be connected at all with Tina’s disappearance. But I told her about it, and now she’s gone. I was going to tell you, but then I talked to her and we decided not to say anything. It’s only a guess anyway, but my gut’s telling me it’s related, and—”
“Destiny, we don’t have time for a long explanation. What did you tell Tina?”
He heard her deep sigh through the phone, knew she was getting her thoughts together because he’d interrupted her spiel.
“You know I went to see Tina. I talked to her about the stuff I found when I did the deeper dive into her background.”
“I forgot about that with everything that’s been going on. You never gave me the report.” Chance glanced at Rafe, who shrugged.
“Look, I know you’re paying me, but when I dug deeper, I realized Tina wasn’t some bad guy who was trying to take advantage of you or your family. What I found was a woman who’d been taken in by somebody who’s a user and an abuser.”
Destiny’s words stabbed at him like a knife. Though he’d suspected, Tina hadn’t given him any details about her life at Jared’s hands. Had he laid his hands on Tina in anger? Raised his hands in violence to the woman he loved?
“Abuser? Are you telling me Jared Webster hit Tina?” Chance was surprised he spoke so calmly, since inside he was a seething volcano ready to explode.
Destiny’s voice was filled with anger when she said, “I shouldn’t say this with the sheriff listening, but if I ever meet this jackass face-to-face, you’d better pray I don’t have a gun, because I’d blow his bloody head clear off his shoulders.”
“Hold it together, bro. We need to find out what Destiny knows before you blow your stack.” Rafe’s voice held a soothing tone, and he allowed it to seep into his consciousness. He knew Rafe was right. He could hunt Webster down later. Right now, every ounce of his focus needed to be on finding Tina.
“Tell me.”
“Chance, this guy zeroed in on Tina like a heat-seeking missile. I talked to a couple of his former classmates. They said he was a petty little dilettante who was on the verge of flunking out, because his grades sucked. Along comes Tina, who’s flying through her classes, getting the best grades, and he hires her to help tutor him. Things quickly progressed along to seduction, and he swept her off her feet. She helped him ace every class, while her own grades suffered.”
“I really hate this guy,” Rafe interrupted. “Bet he’s a lousy doctor.”
“Actually, from what I’ve gleaned, he’s an amazing surgeon. It was his test taking abilities that sucked. Anyway, he swept Tina off her feet and they married. After that, things started happening. Little things at first, like missing classes, you know what I’m talking about. ER visits for clumsy accidents. But the kicker, the one that brought everything to a head, was when he slammed her hand in the car door. Deliberately.”
Chance sprang from his chair and paced a couple of feet, turned and slammed his fist into the drywall. Dust floated from the hole he’d punched in the wall.
“What was that?”
“Nothing important,” Rafe answered. “Just a problem with the wall.”
Destiny chuckled. “Gotcha.”
“How do you know it was deliberate?” Chance’s voice came out in a deep growl. “Was there proof?”
“If you consider an eyewitness proof. The cops were called, and Tina was rushed to the hospital. She had surgery on the hand. Honestly, she’s lucky she still has use of her hand. At least that’s what I gathered from looking at her chart. Oh, who wants to guess what Tina wanted to do when she graduated?”
Chance stared down at his bloody knuckles. “She wanted to be a surgeon.”
“Bingo.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Destiny, you didn’t hear that. Bro, do not make threats of murder in front of the sheriff in his own office. Off the record, I’ll help you dispose of the body.”
“I think that was the last straw for Tina. She’d already dropped out of medical school, but planned to go back after Webster’s career was established. She even worked in the psycho’s office, helping him build up his patient list. With one deliberate act, Webster took away her dream. Guess he couldn’t stand the competition.”
“You showed the file to Tina? How’d she react?” Chance leaned back against the wall he’d just pummeled, wishing Tina were here. He ached to hold her in his arms, show her she was loved, adored, and she’d never be hurt again. He refused to believe she’d never be in his life again.
“At first, shocked I’d found out everything. But she didn’t care if I gave the file to Chance, left the choice up to me. I decided she’d been through enough, and didn’t need or deserve to have her whole life boiled down to a few pages of information you didn’t really need. You know she’s not a danger to your family. She’s not going to hurt anybody, and I made the call not give you the information. That’s on me.”
“I get it, Destiny. You said there were two things. What’s the other?”
She was silent for several beats, until Chance was ready to crawl out of his skin, when she finally came back on the phone. “This one is pure supposition on my part. When I found out what her lousy ex pulled on her, I assumed the apple didn’t fall from the tree, so I did a little unethical digging into Jared Webster’s parents.”
“And?” Rafe leaned forward in his chair, his gaze meeting Chance’s. “Were you right?”
“Randolph Webster comes from old money, but he didn’t let that stop him from being a workaholic. His employees liked and respected him. Now, if we’re talking about his wife, that’s a whole different scenario.”
“A real piece of work, huh?” Chance kept his mouth shut, letting Rafe lead Destiny where he wanted her to go, though he wished she’d get to the point, because he needed to stop sitting on his backside and get out there and find Tina.
“Let’s just say Mommy dearest makes Ms. Patti a candidate for sainthood. She thinks she deserves everything, and she’s not above doing some pretty shady things to make sure she’s never denied. Jared is a chip off Mommy’s block.”
“What does this have to do with Tina?” Chance couldn’t hold back any longer. “She hasn’t had contact with the Websters for years.”
“True. But I discovered something while I was digging, and I don’t know, it set off my radar. I sometimes get hunches when I’m doing a dark web search or digging for info, and most of the time I’m right. In this case, I don’t want to be right, but—”
“What’d you find?”
“That’s just it. I didn’t find anything. Randolph hasn’t been to the office for weeks. Liliana Webster, who’s known as a social butterfly and never out of the limelight, is into anything and everything to keep her name front and center, hasn’t been to any event in the same amount of time. Randolph was in the middle of some big-time negotiations, and he supposedly went out of the country. But if he’s out of the country, why isn’t he using his credit cards? The only activity on the personal or business cards has all been done by Liliana Webster. Now, the dude could be sick, and the family is covering. Maybe he’s run off with a mistress, though there hasn’t been a whisper of him being unfaithful. Could be he cracked, had a manic event and they put him in an institution. But…”
“You think he’s dead.”
“Yeah, I think he’s dead and the family’s covering it up.” Chance was starting to see a pattern and didn’t like where his thoughts led. Because if he was right—and he really hoped he wasn’t—Tina was in a lot more trouble than he’d first thought.
“I’m kind of following this, but I don’t get the connection between Randolph being missing and Tina. She wouldn’t know anything about her former father-in-law being incommunicado. Why would the family not notify the authorities if Randolph was dead? Unless—”
“Unless they were responsible for his death? That’s my guess too, Sheriff.” Destiny’s answer was met with stony silence. Every implication sped through Chance’s mind, and he didn’t like the way things were adding up. He also hated the fact that Tina had known this information and hadn’t told him.
“We’re jumping the gun here,” Rafe’s voice broke into Chance’s thoughts. “We don’t know anything’s happened to Webster the elder.”
“I know, but I’ve got a bad feeling. Can you have the authorities in San Francisco do a welfare check on Randolph Webster?”
“I can contact the San Francisco Police Department, do an unofficial inquiry. I’ll be right back.” Rafe stood and walked out of the conference room.
“I wish I’d said something sooner. Is there something else I can do? I want to help. I really like Tina, and it’s pissing me off that somebody thinks they can get away with grabbing her practically off the streets.”
“I know, Destiny. Keep checking into the Websters. I know they’re involved in this. I find it suspicious that Tina went for months without Jared getting close and suddenly ramped up his efforts to find her. Why?”
“Good question. Hang on a second.” Chance heard rapid-fire keystrokes, and knew Destiny was working her personal magic on the keyboard. He got that unique feeling he always got when a case came together, when all the pieces fell into place and he knew he’d get a conviction. The instinct that came with finding the missing puzzle pieces to make the picture as a whole come into focus. There was one key thing missing, and if they could find it, they’d figure out where Tina was, and find her.
“Your instincts are spot on, big guy. I’m checking Jared Webster’s bank accounts, and it looks like for the past year he’s had a private investigator on a monthly retainer. Then a month ago he took out two cash withdrawals, one for twenty thousand and one for fifteen thousand. Since it’s cash I can’t track it, but that’s about the same time Tina started having issues, right? Man, I wish I could get my hands on his laptop. I already looked at his office computer, but there’s nothing on it.”
“I still trying to figure out where the connection is between Tina and Randolph Webster, other than his being her ex-father-in-law. As far as I know, she didn’t keep in touch with him after the divorce.”
Rafe walked back in and sat in the chair he’d vacated earlier. “The SFPD is going to do a welfare check, and they’ll get back to me. The inspector I spoke with did remark they’d done a welfare check on Randolph two weeks ago. His wife said he was out of the country on business. Since they’ve been having some problems in the city and are stretched thin, he never followed up.”
“There’s something about this whole situation that stinks. People acting out of character. Webster’s apparent added push to find Tina.” Destiny paused for a beat and added, “Oh, did you know Webster showed up in Portland?”
“Wait—what? When was that?” Chance shot a glance at Rafe, who shrugged. Guess he hadn’t known about that little tidbit, either.
“The morning I met with Tina. He flew into Portland that morning and we all know why he was here. He’s still looking for her.”
“Thanks for all you’ve done, Destiny. I appreciate you going above and beyond what I asked for. Let Rafe or I know if you find anything else.”
“Will do. Call me when you find her.”
Chance disconnected the call and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. All the pieces were falling into place, and if he had enough time, he knew he’d figure it out. He was good at puzzles, and that’s what they were dealing with. Only they didn’t have time to deal with the intricacies of manipulating the pieces to fit them together. His gut told him Tina was running out of time, and if they didn’t find her soon, all would be lost.
“What are we missing, bro? I know it’s staring us in the face, but I can’t see it.”
“So, let’s figure it out while we wait for the call from the SFPD.”
Rafe stood and walked to the white board, picked up a marker, and drew a big broad line down the side not containing the timeline they’d written up when Tina went missing. He began writing down the facts they’d gathered from Destiny’s phone call.
It all lead back to Webster, somehow, some way, and if he could connect the dots, he’d find Tina.
He had to, before it was too late.