Page 49 of Dead Man's Hollow
Jordana hurriedly adds, “But we’ll call them messages.”
“Good call. Well, let’s listen to it.”
Jordana clicks on an icon to open the app on her laptop and selects the message.
“Allo,” a male voice begins in clear, faintly accented English. “Err …I mean, hello. My name is Bastian Tremblay. I live in Quebec City. I listen to your podcast, and I believe I have information that might interest you.”
Maisy’s eyes are about to pop out of her head, and Jordana lets out a whoop as she pauses the message. “It’s our Quebecker!”
“He sounds more like a Quebecois. Can you start it over?”
“Allo.Err … I mean, hello. My name is Bastian Tremblay. I live in Quebec City. I listen to your podcast, and I believe I have information that might interest you. I’m calling because I—we—my wife and I, listened to episode two, and you mentioned a pink plastic pager. As impossible as it seems, my wife Chloe has a pink plastic pager with a glittery capital letter C sticker in the lower left corner. She does not know Heather Ryan and does not have any information about the girl’s sad disappearance, but she does have this pager. We thought it might be important. I’ll attach a picture of the pager to this voice note.
I’m sure you’re wondering how Chloe came to have this pager, and I’m afraid we do not know. She had a difficult childhood and was abandoned or left to fend for herself as a teenager. As a result of the trauma, she doesn’t have any memories of those years. She entered the child welfare system in Montreal as a … in English, you would say she was a Jane Doe. She was placed in foster care until she reached the age of eighteen. This pager was one of the handful of possessions she had when she showed up in Montreal. She chose the name ‘Chloe’ for herself because of the C sticker. Until today, she believed it belonged to her. So she won’t be able to tell you where she got it. Thank you, and thank you for the work you’re doing.”
The message ends, and Maisy whoops. “This is fantastic!”
“Is it? Or is it just another dead end?” Jordana wonders. “What good is the pager if this Chloe Tremblay woman doesn’t know where she got it or how?”
“That’s how tips work, sugar. This man called us because he heard about the existence of the pager. Someone else might call us because they know Chloe and have details about the pager that she doesn’t remember.”
Jordana’s flagging spirits rise. “Okay, that makes. So what’s our next step?”
“Print out the photo of the pager. We’ll show it to Kristy, and if it matches, which I suspect it will, I’ll head up to Quebec City to interview the Tremblays.”
“You mean we.”
Maisy gives her a sad smile “Sorry, darlin’, someone needs to stay here and work on the Allderdice angle.” Jordana opens her mouth to argue, but Maisy keeps rolling. “And interview Shannon Marshall.”
“Wait, you want me to interview Mrs. Marshall? To air it?”
“You have a rapport with her. The interview is always better when trust has been established, you know that.”
“But, me? On the air?”
“You got this.”
Maisy knows she’ll knock it out of the park. Besides, it’ll take the sting out of being left behind while Maisy goes to Canada.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Diana,Amy, and Kristy jump up from their chairs and hug each other when Maisy delivers the news about the pager surfacing in Quebec City. Maisy’s savoring the delicious feeling of giving these people hope, when Rich says in a flat voice, “It’s a scam.”
The mood in the conference room shifts and the celebration fades. The sisters return to their seats.
“What’s a scam, Rich?” Maisy asks, adding a little extra sugar to her voice to cancel out the utter rage she feels.
He looks around the table in disbelief before answering. “The whole thing’s a scam. None of you realize that? You really think Heather’s pager happened to turned up in Canada thirty years after she went missing? Really? This weirdo listened to the podcast and went out and got a pink pager.”
Amy shifts in her seat to give her husband a baffled look. “Why would anyone do that? And even if he wanted, where would he find a thirty-year-old pink pager with a rhinestone C sticker on it?”
“I don’t know. The internet? And as for why, that’s easy. People are evil. They do all sorts of demented things. Maybe he gets off on seeing people like you getting your hopes up and then dashed. Maybe he thinks he’s going to get some money out of us, string us along so you’ll pay him for more information. It’s very convenient that his wife has no memory of how she got the pager. I’ll bet a couple thousand dollars will bring back her memory.”
Amy is shaking—with rage, Maisy thinks. She needs to nip this in the bud before it blooms.
“Rich, obviously Jordana and I will vet the Tremblays’ story. But this is a lead, the first lead you’ve had in three decades. It’s worth celebrating. And I disagree that people are evil. People are complicated, but everyone is the hero of their own story. So it’s quite possible this man just wants to do the right thing.”
“Oh, come on,” Rich scoffs.
