EIGHT

(Day #5: Wednesday Afternoon)

While the search teams headed to Summerton, I headed to Sea Pine’s airport. I parked in the same spot and walked down the same hall as the day before. Sergeant Whistler wasn’t on duty, or at least his door was locked, so I approached Officer Yates. She stood at her post next to the gate area exit.

“I’m not sure if you can help me,” I said. “I’m Elliott Lisbon with the Ballantyne. I was here yesterday looking for a missing person. You directed me to Sergeant Whistler. Is he in by chance?”

“No, ma’am,” she said.

“Will he be available later? Or perhaps there’s someone else I could speak to. It’s about Daphne Fischer.”

“Crazy that girl’s car was here for three days,” she said with a slow head shake. “You’re welcome to wait for the sergeant, over on a rocker, but it’ll be a while.”

“Maybe you can help,” I said. “You know anything about the tickets for parking? The ones you need to enter the gate?”

“Only that the Summerton Sheriff took them.”

“All of them?”

“All of them,” she said. “Including the container. About took all last night to remove it and install a new one.”

“Interesting. Though I guess it only matters if the driver had driven her car out of the lot, not left it here, right? You need to insert the ticket into the container to pay the toll when leaving?”

“Yep,” she said. “Unless the driver had been here earlier that day. Or week, since that’s about how long those tickets been in the box. Maybe scoping out the lot?”

Or a frequent flier.

“Can you help with flight information?” I asked.

“I cannot,” she said. “Barely able to help you with those tickets.” Her stoic look revealed more than her words. Our chitchat was over.

I thanked her and walked outside to a row of rockers, all unoccupied. The next flight wouldn’t arrive for at least an hour. Which meant most people wouldn’t need to leave their beachfront homes and seaside condos to retrieve inbound guests for another forty-five minutes. Even Tod and I usually didn’t head to the airport to pick up the Ballantynes until we heard the plane approach the runway.

I needed access to flight information, and after a few minutes running through my mental Rolodex, I landed on Milo Hickey. He’d long since provided me with introduction to various nefarious underground groups. I assumed he knew a guy who knew a guy who could access a passenger manifest without needing official documents. Like police badges and search warrants.

“Milo, it’s Elliott,” I said. “You have a minute?”

“For you and the Ballantyne, 0f course,” he said. “Though I’m walking into a shareholder’s meeting. You’ll need to be quick.”

“As a rabbit,” I said. “You know anyone who can show me airline records? Specifically, flights?”

He paused for the briefest of seconds. “Air traffic is strictly regulated. Inquiries may be flagged.”

“I’m not planning anything, Milo,” I said. “I’m at the Sea Pine airport investigating the disappearance of a local girl. Woman. Girl woman. She was booked on a flight to Tennessee last week, and I want to see if she had booked any other flights.”

“Ah,” he said. “Give me a moment.”

I listened to cars in the distance. The rhythmic hum of tires on pavement over on Cabana. A mile of brush and trees and blankets of pine needles muffled their thrum. The lunchtime rush as visitors and residents scattered to local eateries and hotels, markets and shops. If I strained, I could probably even hear the ocean. It was closer than the highway, but the waves were lazier in their travel.

“Elliott,” Milo said. “Speak with Jeanine Gurly at the ticket counter. She’s working now. She’ll assist with passenger and flight information.”

“Thank you, Milo,” I said. “I appreciate it. And I owe you.”

“No reciprocity required,” he said and clicked off the line.

Fifteen steps later, I was inside the terminal. Jeanine Gurly greeted me with a corporately trained smile when I stopped at the end of the counter.

“I’m Elliott Lisbon, and I really appreciate this,” I said. My voice was low, but indoor voice low, not conspiratorial whisper low. “It’s about Daphne Fischer.”

“I heard about her car,” she said. “Right there this whole time. Been the talk of the airport all day.”

“Can you provide a list of the flights she was booked on? I’m not even sure which airline she used or her exact destination.”

“Not a problem. Let me see what I can find. I’ll start with a general search for the month.” Her fingers clicked and clacked on keys at a speed that made me question her accuracy. “Here we go…Thursday. That’s this Thursday, tomorrow. Our airline, by the way. To Nashville with a layover in Atlanta.”

“She’s listed as a passenger on a flight leaving tomorrow?” My voice was a pitch higher than normal as surprise leaked in. I distinctly remember the Sheriff saying he’d checked all departing flights. Perhaps he didn’t check this far in advance?

“Yes, ma’am,” Jeanine said. “The 7:12 to Atlanta. First flight off the island.”

“Anything for last Saturday?” I asked. “The day her car drove into the lot?”

“Nope. Her previous flight was the week before. A two-day turnaround. Flew out Thursday, returned Friday.”

“What time again on Thursday, the one tomorrow? You said early?”

She handed me a slip of paper with the flight numbers and departure times. Though with only about six flights a day through a single gate, I didn’t actually need the flight numbers for the Sea Pine Island departures.

“This is weird,” she said. “Huh.” Her fingers clacked and clicked at gamer speed. “She reserved a seat through to Nashville, but…”

“But what?”

“She never boards the second leg,” she said. “She lands in Atlanta. She’s supposed to connect. About a seventy-minute window to catch the leg to the Nashville, but she doesn’t check-in for it.” Five hundred clicks later. “Not for her previous four trips. Weird, right? And I verified. The initial flights landed with plenty of time to make the connection.”

“She only flies to Atlanta, not Nashville?”

“Looks like. Why pay for Nashville if you’re not going there? Each trip, she’s booked and paid in full.”

“Does she fly to Charlotte?” I asked.

“She doesn’t fly anywhere. Just boards the return flight in Atlanta the next day.”

“Can you check one more name for me? Alex Sanders? He travels to Charlotte, and I think he flies about the same time as Daphne. Maybe check the same weeks that she flew.”

Clickety-clack. “Well, isn’t this something?” Tappity-tap-tap. “Not about the same time, nearly the exact same time on the same day. She took the earlier flight. It leaves for Atlanta ninety minutes before his flight to Charlotte.”

“That’s weird.”

“It’s all weird. And he’s also got a flight booked tomorrow.” She handed me a postie with Alex’s flight info on it.

I thanked her and returned to my Mini in the front row. Even though Alex had told me all about it, it still seemed odd Daphne would travel the same day he did. Precisely the same day. Maybe he thought it odd, too. But only in hindsight?

Well, I thought, Alex has a flight tomorrow. Just like Daphne. It was weird and odd and coincidental, and at this point, maybe Ransom was right, and I was barking up the wrong tree. Then again, maybe I wasn’t. Either way, the maybes were starting to get to me.

  

Jona Jerome returned my call as I sailed over the Palmetto Bridge from Sea Pine Island onto mainland South Carolina. Rather than talk on the phone, which with the top down was more like yelling on the phone, she agreed to meet me at the Cake & Shake, since she was already there and I was but a handful of minutes away.

She was easy to identify. She leaned against a sporty two-seater, its top also down. Black oversized sunglasses square on her face, a frothy milkshake in her hand, and a Down the Isle press badge hanging from her waist.

I parked in the spot next to hers, then walked around to join her, leaning against my passenger side, facing her. “You here for the search? It starts over at the Big House.”

“Cute,” she said with a sip of her shake. “I’d heard Daphne was missing.”

“You don’t seem concerned,” I said. “Or even mildly surprised.”

“That girl marches to the beat of her own tambourine. She was not long for this shake shop. I bet she’s already in Seattle or Portland or some northern town like Eureka.”

“We found her car abandoned at the airport.”

Jona tilted her head. “Seriously?”

“Yesterday,” I said.

“Dang,” she said. “I did not see that coming. Well, I’m here now. What is it you need from me?”

“Tell me about Down the Isle. The season with Daphne and Juliette.”

“Best season of tv ever,” she said. “And I don’t just mean for us. I mean on all of tv. Network and cable. It was batshit wild. That’s why I love reality. You simply cannot script something that good.”

“But you can plan something that good, right? You had to know Tucker and Juliette knew of each other prior to filming. That they were basically related, right?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “That’s the only reason we selected Juliette to be on the show. You have any idea how many twenty-two-year-old blonde aspiring somethings apply? It’s a shortcut to fame. Or a husband. It’d make your independent female backbone bend.”

“Oh?” I said, my brow semi-raised.

“I know who you are,” she said. “Research is how I make my living. And I’m very good at it.” She sipped her shake. “We vet all the contestants. We knew Tucker and Juliette were basically strangers. Thought it could be an interesting angle that their grandparents were married, yet they’d never met.”

“Interesting? You mean you were counting on bad blood. Like the Montagues and Capulets.”

“Perhaps. It got even better when Tucker was more attracted to Daphne.”

“Really? ‘More attracted,’ as in he was more attracted to Daphne than he was to Juliette?”

“Look at you,” she said. “Smart and independent.”

“I was under the impression Tucker and Daphne were only friends, and only because of Juliette.”

She snorted. “Not any kind of friendship I’ve ever had. Those two were hot and heavy. Tucker and Daphne had phenomenal chemistry. I swore it was love. Like actual love. Certainly looked like the real thing, and I had a front row seat to watch the whole relationship blossom.”

“Or a back-room advantage. You’re the producer. I imagine it’s your job to make it look like the real thing.”

“Those two didn’t need much producing. Those three, really. Don’t get me wrong, he and Juliette had no trouble steaming up the camera lens. Dang, that Tucker could work it. For those last couple episodes, Daphne and Juliette were neck-and-neck for his affections. My money was on Daphne. But in a twist I woulda sold my soul for, he dumped Daphne and picked Juliette.”

“On camera?”

“On the finale shoot. Brilliant.” She leaned over and tossed her empty shake into a nearby trashcan. “It’s been almost two years, and I still remember it like yesterday. It was magic.”

“True love won out?”

“Something did.”

“Do you keep in touch?”

“Are you kidding? Absolutely. Having Eligible marry his true love that he found on the show after dumping her best friend? And now she works for the bride? Ratings gold. Platinum. Titanium. I set up a photo shoot for the wedding with a spread in a national magazine. The whole ceremony will be shown on prime time tv. Network tv.”

“But not live, because I would’ve heard about it.”

“Not live. Though I tried everything to get them to agree. But I’m filming it, exclusively. Those girls know it’ll blow up the Cake & Shake with that kind of national coverage. Even help Daphne launch her bead boutique. That’s what sold her.”

“You had to sell her on it?”

“She and Juliette may have been bffs, but she was ready to stop taking her leftovers. We’re going to photograph all of Daphne’s bead work on Juliette’s wedding gown and bridesmaid jewelry, and all of Juliette’s cakes from your BBQ and her wedding. Win-win.”

“That’s what Farrah was hollering about at the Cake & Shake. Raising all kinds of holy everything that Daphne and Juliette were getting all the attention.”

“I wasn’t there, but that sounds about right,” she said. “The contestants get a bad rap. Everyone thinks all the girls are backstabbing, clawing, marriage-obsessed drama queens. Some of them are genuinely good girls. Farrah? She’s the ruler of the backstabbing, clawing drama queens.”

“She threatened to sue Juliette, the Cake & Shake, maybe even you.”

“She’s all bark. I’ll toss her a mention about bead collaboration or some such whatever. She’ll calm down.”

“And the new season of Down the Isle? Is that already filming?”

She opened the driver’s door and slid into her roadster. “Not yet, but soon.”

“Oh? I thought the show was a huge hit. Wasn’t it renewed?”

Her smile was more sardonic than social. “It will be now.”