Page 84 of Crossing the Line
She put her foot against his chest. “Go to bed, X.”
“Sweet dreams, Angel.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
True to her word, Waverly slept late the next morning. Xavier got a solid seven hours before he heard the tender leave taking Robert and Sylvia to shore. He dressed and opened the door to his cabin so Waverly wouldn’t be able to sneak past him.
Instead of setting up at the narrow desk in his room, which would force his back to the door, Xavier propped himself up on the mountain of bed pillows and opened his laptop. He spent the next two hours sifting through Invictus reports and firing off emails to his team, the FBI investigator, and Hansen.
He pulled up the report Roz had put together for him.
Daisy Louchner had been a waitress at the Rail Car Diner, two blocks from Ganim’s mother’s El Plano house. At twenty-two, she was a bubbly blonde according to the Facebook pictures his team had dug up—one of her playing softball with the diner team, another at a local fundraiser wearing a hot pink shirt that rallied readers to Save the Ta-Tas. She shared an apartment with a high school friend and enjoyed baking and a good party. She had her stomach pumped once for alcohol poisoning and a blip for underage drinking when she was nineteen.
She had no family to speak of. Her father had died when she was a kid and her mother when she was seventeen.
Daisy hadn’t posted to Facebook, filed a tax return, or had a single credit card transaction since she left El Plano three years ago.
The roommate, now living in Dallas, had been thrilled to talk to someone who was finally taking Daisy’s disappearance seriously. She’d told local police when Daisy didn’t come home that September night that the creepy guy from the diner had something to do with it. But there had been no proof that she was even missing, let alone abducted. She was probably out partying, the cops had told the roommate. After days ticked into weeks, they assumed she had just left town on a wild hair. Besides, Ganim had been alibied by his mother on the night Daisy disappeared from El Plano.
Tiffani Plotts was a nineteen-year-old dancer at a shithole club called Castaway Dolls on the outskirts of El Plano. She had run away from her Oklahoma home when she was sixteen and ended up in El Plano after a zig-zagging path through Louisiana and Mississippi. She dyed her hair a goth black and wore enough make-up for an entire dance troupe of drag queens.
She dated, frequently older men, but nothing stuck, and usually when one relationship ended, she breezed on to the next man in the next town. She’d lived in a trailer court less than a quarter mile from the club and walked to and from work. She was saving for a car that would get her out of this hellhole, and she told anyone who would listen. Unlike Daisy, Tiffani didn’t have any close friends. So when she didn’t show up to work one day, the only fuss had been which girl had to work a longer shift.
Ganim had visited the club regularly and had gotten creepy enough that Tiffani had finally refused to go on stage if he were there. After an altercation one night in the parking lot involving Ganim and the trunk of his car, Tiffani had filed a complaint. But it was her second complaint since landing in town a year ago, and with her record of a DUI and a handful of possessions, the local cops hadn’t taken the investigation very seriously and a week later, the lead investigator received an email from Tiffani claiming she’d made the whole thing up and was moving back to Oklahoma to take care of her ailing mother.
Mrs. Plotts, too, had been happy to talk to Invictus regarding her daughter. When asked about her health, Mrs. Plotts informed them if it came out of Tiffani’s mouth it was safe to assume it was a lie. Just like when, at fourteen, she chased off Mrs. Plotts’ second husband by making noises about him assaulting her. It was consensual, that much Mrs. Plotts was sure about. As for her daughter’s whereabouts, she didn’t much care. As long as she wasn’t calling and begging for money, Tiffani could live her life, and Mrs. Plotts would do the same.
Xavier made a note to do something very nice for his own parents at his earliest convenience.
As with Daisy, Tiffani had fallen off the face of the earth. No convictions, no taxes, nothing on Instagram. She’d simply vanished.
He tapped his fingers restlessly and then fired off an email to Micah asking him to get the El Plano investigator who handled Tiffani’s complaint to let them have a look at her email. Maybe they could learn something by tracing it.
He had two missing girls that no one wanted to believe were missing and a third target, none of them seemed to have anything in common besides being young and pretty, which could have been all it took to catch lonely Ganim’s eye.
Xavier brought up the photos from the motel room Ganim had abandoned the night of the explosions and clicked through them. Not many clothes, leading him to believe that L.A. wasn’t a permanent destination.
The laptop left at the scene would hopefully yield some useful information. A detailed manifesto with a list of hiding spots, perhaps? It was never that easy, but at least it was a starting point. He wondered where on the priority list the case fell for the FBI. It couldn’t hurt to reach out and offer some of Invictus’ services if it got the investigation moving.
He cued up the video shot from an abandoned TV camera on the red carpet. It had captured the exchange between Xavier and Ganim. He watched it on mute, paying close attention to Ganim’s movements. He’d stopped and slid his right hand into his pocket a moment before Waverly had seen him.
Xavier backed it up, played it again. Was it a weapon in his pocket? Was he reaching for a gun? Why hadn’t he tried for her? Why had he given up when he was so close to what he wanted?
The FBI hadn’t released Ganim’s identity yet to the public, but they had gotten a warrant to search his mother’s house. It was still furnished, and Ganim still had possessions there. They were speculating that he planned to return at some point. But “at some point” wasn’t good enough.
Ganim had been quiet since the premiere. No messages besides the flowers he sent the next day. Maybe things hadn’t gone to plan that night on the carpet? Maybe he’d intended to grab Waverly, and he was off somewhere licking his wounds. But he’d looked too smug, too satisfied, standing there just feet away.
Regardless, they needed a break, and they needed one fast. Xavier felt reasonably safe with Waverly on the other side of the world. However, when her tour ended, she still had to go home. The longer they went without answers, the colder the trail got, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Not with the other timeline hanging over his head. He’d bide his time before telling Waverly that Stanford might not be an option this year. He hated to crush her dreams. That’s why he was dragging his feet. He was hoping for a miracle. That Ganim would slip up and get taken down at a Pinkberry, and Waverly could have everything she wanted.
“You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
And just like that, there she was in his doorway. She wore her hair up in a high ponytail and a very small, very flattering black string bikini. She looked refreshed, rested. Unfairly beautiful.
“Good morning,” he said finally.
“Oh good, I thought you’d lost the power of speech,” Waverly winked. “Want to come up and have breakfast with me? I’m thinking about a swim after.”
