Page 44 of The Wolves Come at Night
Heather reached out and touched her husband on the knee. “Kurt. It’s not all on you. We were all trying to get her out.”
“Could she not have left of her own accord?” Taylor asked. “Was there a physical component to this? Was she being held somewhere, detained?” At the look Heather Wray gave her, Taylor followed up. “I need to ascertain if she was being held against her will, because that changes the complexity of what we’re dealing with here. Travis Bloom being a Svengali isn’t illegal. Holding her against her will, that I can maybe work with. Drugs, of course, complicate things, depending on what they were, but if you didn’t see him give them to her…”
Kurt sighed. “She could have left. She was trying to handle things herself. She was trying to save her career. She loved singing so much. And she was so headstrong. She thought she could handle him.”
“Have you spoken with Mr. Bloom?”
“We left word, but he didn’t return the call. He’s already back in LA, looking for his next mark.”
His next mark. Damn. That got Taylor’s back up. Young women being taken advantage of pissed her off.
“This is very compelling. I will look into Travis Bloom, I promise. But I have to tell you, there is no indication anyone but Justin was involved in her death. He was on the trail with her where she died, and we have a witness who saw him moments after the gunshot. All the forensics prove he shot the same weapon that killed Georgia.”
“Justin didn’t kill her,” Heather said. “You’ll see.” She rose from the chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go to bed now.”
When it was just the two of them, Kurt said, “She’s holding up remarkably well, considering. That’s where Georgia got her strength, from her mom. I know this is a lot. I know you think we’re just grieving parents, unable to believe the truth. I’m telling you, when you read the texts, you’ll understand.”
“Do you have any idea where Georgia might have stashed her phone? The one she was using to send texts? I don’t recall anything like that on the evidence sheets.”
“She said she hid it in the bathroom, under the lid of the toilet. It wasn’t there when we got here. We searched the whole house. She must have had it with her.”
“Okay. One more thing. Are you going to go public with these accusations, Mr. Wray?”
“Will I need to?”
Taylor smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “I can assure you we will look at every bit of evidence. The girl who witnessed the murder has gone missing, and that has my attention. Finding her is my primary goal right now. I don’t want another dead girl on my hands.”
Wray flinched.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah. Are you asking me to be patient?”
“I’m asking you to talk to me before you go to the press. I understand your frustration, I truly do. Georgia’s case has been declared a murder-suicide by the preponderance of evidence found by both our team and the medical examiner. I’m going to have to get the case reopened, which has some technical back end, and is going to cause some chatter. And in the meantime, I’ve got a missing girl. The pressure to find her is intense, and now, even more so.” He started to speak, and Taylor held up a hand. “I promise you, I am going to look into reopening the case. I just want to do it very quietly, and only with my people. If Georgia’s murder and the witness’s disappearance are tied together, I don’t necessarily want to broadcast that to the world. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”
Kurt looked her over for a moment, then stood. “I do.”
Taylor stood as well, handing over her card. “Then let me do this my way. You’ve given me a lot to work with here, Mr. Wray. I will get justice for Georgia, I swear it. If there’s anything else, don’t hesitate to call me.”
He nodded. “I’ll be in touch. And I’ll echo my wife’s sentiments. It wasn’t Justin. He’s as much a casualty of Bloom as Georgia was.”
In the car, Taylor turned on the interior light and flipped through the printed pages. Text after text of Georgia detailing all the things Bloom was doing and saying to her. If this was for real, it was incendiary.
She called Lincoln. “Oh man, do I have some stuff for you to play with. The parents think Bloom was somehow responsible for this mess. And I’m starting to wonder if they aren’t on to something.”
“The head of the record label? Travis Bloom?”
“Yeah. Georgia was trying everything she could to nix her contract. Allegedly he was isolating her, pushing her into decisions she wasn’t comfortable with, offering drugs, et cetera. She had a burner phone she was using to connect with her folks, and I’ve got a stack of texts her dad printed out for us. I haven’t gone through them all yet, but the gist is certainly there. It’s your basic nightmare scenario for a young female artist. She wanted out, and her parents were trying to help her. They are 100 percent convinced Justin didn’t murder her.”
“All right. Where’s this burner phone?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. We need to find it, though. Corroboration of these claims would be helpful. Her parents aren’t as rocked as I might expect. Granted, they’re in shock, and they’ve had a couple of days to process, but it’s almost as if they thought this might happen. There could be something to their testimony.”
“Damn. Just when I thought things were going smoothly.”
“No kidding. We’re going to have to reopen this case. Can you do it under the radar? If the press gets wind of any of this, or worse, Travis Bloom thinks we’re looking at him, this could spin right on out of our control.”
“I hear you. I think we can do some digging into Bloom without raising the red flags. Especially since he’s in and out of town. We can be discreet.”
