Page 6 of Three Girls Gone
As she walked toward the parking lot with Trent and McGee, Amanda made a quick call to her boss, Sergeant Malone, to confirm the body was that of Hailey Tanner. She also told him their next stop was to deliver the news to the girl’s parents. When she got off the phone, she spotted a security camera in the lot. She pointed this out to Trent.
“I’ll follow up on the footage,” he said.
“Let’s hope it gets us somewhere because there isn’t any CCTV on the nearby streets.”
They’d had some luck with doorbell cams in the past, but they weren’t an option here without homes across from the park.
Trent sat behind the wheel of the department car, and Detective McGee got comfortable in the backseat. Amanda rode shotgun. Her vantage point afforded her a clear view of thePWC Newsvan as it nosed into the mouth of the parking lot and was turned away. Diana Wesson was looking back at Amanda from the front passenger seat. As they passed, Wesson swiveled around and smacked the dash. Despite the horrorAmanda had just seen, that brought a smile to her face. She’d escaped the nosy, unscrupulous reporter. She checked her phone and made sure Wesson’s number was still blocked.
McGee spoke up with directions to the Tanner house, and she looked back at him. “Tell us anything you think we should know before going in. Prime suspects in her disappearance, details of when she went missing…”
“You know she was taken after her dance lesson last Friday evening,” McGee began. “No employee at the studio witnessed anyone suspicious or saw Hailey go off with a stranger. I also spoke to the parents of the other students. No one saw anything. No cameras outside the studio or neighboring buildings. As for suspects, the family, their friends, and relatives were ruled out. The primary focus has been on the Tanners’ live-in nanny.”
“Her name?” Trent asked while making a left turn.
“Mara Bennett. She’s been with the family since Hailey was born and came home from the hospital. This was her second job as a nanny. She only left the first when the family had a change in their financial situation and had to let her go.”
“Why suspect her?” Amanda imagined the woman would have a close bond with the girl.
“She usually drops Hailey at her ballet lessons and picks her up. Not last week.”
“Why not?” Trent said, looking in the rearview mirror.
“And she didn’t stick around while Hailey had her lesson? Was that normal? Hailey was just six years old.” That was where her mind went first.
“I’m feeling a little tag-teamed here.”
Get over it…That was Amanda’s instant thought, but she censored herself. “Lots of questions are typical with a fresh case.”
“I get that. As for Bennett not hanging around, that was encouraged by the studio. The thinking was it would be less of adistraction during the lessons. Sometimes Bennett would use that time to pick up groceries for the family. I verified that was the case last Friday.”
“All right, then, back to Trent’s question. Why didn’t she pick her up on Friday?”
“She got a text from Jean Tanner. That’s Hailey’s mother. Only Jean was adamant she never sent it and the phone records from her provider backed that up. This text wasn’t sent from her phone to Bennett.”
“I don’t understand,” Amanda said. “Jean would have been in Bennett’s contacts.”
“And she is. But the sender ID’d themselves as Jean with a new number.”
“I assume you forwarded this to Digital Crimes?” This unit of the PWCPD had detectives who specialized in technology. Her main contact, Detective Jacob Briggs, was a miracle worker.
“That’s how I found out this much.” Spoken on the defensive, like he took her question as an accusation he hadn’t done his job. She hadn’t made that assumption, but he hadn’t earned her trust yet either. “That number is no longer in service,” McGee added.
“It could still be tracked down,” she pointed out.
“It was. All the way to a dead end. It was a prepaid number and came from a block serviced by Universal Mobile. Digital Crimes found out it was activated on the first of December and where it was purchased. It was some convenience store in town, but a trip there didn’t net a thing. No video, and the owner has a strict cash-only policy.”
Disappointing. “What else did this message say?”
“It was straightforward. Just thatJeanwas going to pick Hailey up from the dance studio on Friday.”
“Getting Mara out of the way.” Trent came to a stop at a red light. “Whoever took Hailey was familiar with her schedule.But you said family and friends have been cleared. What about affairs, or coworkers? Were any of those considered?”
Family and friends…This time it stuck out to her. “It wasn’t just her schedule they knew about. McGee, you said the tutu looked like ones Hailey had?”
“It did. Obviously, I can’t say for sure.”
“Fair enough,” Amanda conceded.
