Page 12 of Christmas Homecoming Secrets
“He’s not going to show up here, I don’t think. He’d go home.”
“Well, you can’t go there. If he’s truly missing, his house will be treated like a crime scene. Bryce and I were careful, but even our searching may have disturbed something. Don’t add to it.” She knew she sounded bossy, but she also knew Heather might be tempted to throw caution to the wind in her desperation to find Frank.
Heather pursed her lips and looked like she wanted to argue, but finally nodded. “If I decide to go over there, I won’t go inside. I may just sit and watch the house.”
Jade nodded. “If you feel like you have to be there, then yeah…okay. I don’t think we’re going to be doing much of anything else tonight.”
Heather hesitated, then gave a groan and a nod. “Fine. But please stay in touch.”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, so, tomorrow…we need to what?” Heather gave a short laugh. “See? I told you I couldn’t think.”
“We need to find out where he was last seen.”
Heather rubbed her forehead. “No one seemed to be able to tell us that,” she muttered.
“I talked to him on the phone around ten o’clock this morning,” Bryce said. He glanced at the clock. “Or, rather, yesterday morning. So we just need to find anyone who saw him after that.”
“Heather,” Jade said, “why would Frank have Tony Swift’s name written down? Was he meeting with him for something?”
“At the shooting range?” Heather shook her head. “I don’t know. He didn’t say anything to me if he was. He could have just been practicing.”
“True.” Jade looked at her watch. “All right. I need to grab a couple of hours of sleep before we get started looking for him again—assuming he doesn’t show up in the next little bit.”
Heather nodded. “I won’t be able to sleep, but I can make a list of more people and places to check with.”
“Do you want me to stay here?” Jade asked. “I can crash on your couch.”
“No. It’s not that comfortable. We’re getting a new one, but not until after the wedding. Just go home. You have to help your mom in the morning with the kids anyway, don’t you?”
“Kids?” Bryce asked. “Are your parents still taking in foster children?”
Her face blanked for an instant. Then she nodded. “They are.” She rubbed her eyes, then narrowed them at her friend. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
“Yes. Go and help your mom. I think we should get some sleep if we can. None of us will be any good if we’re so tired we get sloppy and miss something. Besides, there’s probably some logical explanation for where he is. Missing sleep isn’t going to help finding out what that is.”
She had a point, but Bryce was itching to keep looking. The only lead they had was the shooting range. He glanced at his watch. Three o’clock in the morning. It had been seventeen hours since he’d talked to Frank, and he needed to know his friend was okay. Even if he went back to his sister’s and tried to sleep, he knew he’d be tossing and turning.
He kept his mouth shut until they were back in her vehicle, but once he clipped his seat belt, he said, “I want to go find Tony Swift, ASAP.”
She gave a slow nod. “I was thinking the same thing. Let me see if I can call him and give him a heads up. No need to wake the whole family.” Using the laptop mounted on the dash to her right, she pulled up Tony’s license and noted the address. Next, she dialed his number.
“Hello?”
The groggy Southern voice came through the squad car’s Bluetooth. “Tony, this is Detective Jade Hollis with the Cedar Canyon PD. I’m so sorry to be calling this late, but we’re looking for Frank Shipman. Can you tell us the last time you saw him?”
Click.
She frowned and lifted a brow. “Well, okay, then.”
“Call him back.”
She did and it went straight to a busy signal. She tried his cell phone and got voice mail. Bryce locked his gaze on hers. “I don’t like the implications of that.”
“I don’t, either. I think we should head over to his house.” She cranked the car and backed out of Heather’s drive.
“You think Frank’s alive?” Bryce asked softly.
