Page 15 of All He Takes
But there was no license plate at all.
Nicky squinted, but she was definitely seeing it right. No license plate.
And the car was in rough shape. It was rusting and looked like it hadn't been tended to in years, which was nothing like the car Nicky's father had restored all those years ago. In many ways, her father had cared more for that car than he had Nicky.
But this one was clearly in rough shape, which told her a few things about the owner:
To him, the car was a junker. Not worth taking care of. Either that, or he was a low-income individual and didn’t have the money for the upkeep. But other things felt more deliberate:
It had no license plate, which meant he knew he didn't want to get tracked.
It had a cracked windshield, which meant it was even harder to identify him.
In fact, even when Nicky zoomed in--there was no clear picture of the driver at all.
"We'll have to go through more cameras in the town and see if we can get an ID on his face," Nicky said. "The good news is, we can identify the model. That's a 1998. It's one of the last ones they ever made."
"So, we have a car make, a year, and a location," Ken said. "That's a start."
She turned back to the computer. "We should start checking other intersections around town."
"That's going to take a while," Ken said. "How many intersections are there in town?"
"I don't know," Nicky said. "Enough that this is going to eat at our time."
Just then, Nicky's phone rang in her pocket. She pulled it out--Chief Franco. Her heart dropped.
"Hold on, Walker," she told Ken. "It's the chief. You keep looking through security footage."
"On it."
Nicky stepped away and answered the phone. "This is Agent Lyons."
"Lyons," the chief said, "I wanted to call you myself and let you know we've got an ID on the second victim."
Nicky swallowed, hard. "And?"
"Her name is Francine Gibbons. Like Paris Conner, her parents are powerful people with great standing—and a lot of money. I'm sending you over her file. Review it carefully."
With that, the call ended. Nicky sighed and faced Ken.
"What's up?" he asked. "What did the chief say?"
"They identified the second victim," she said.
"And?"
"It was Francine Gibbons. The chief is emailing me her file." Nicky pulled out her laptop and set it up on the table.
She skimmed the file, and she could see why the chief had called her personally. Francine Gibbons, who went by Frankie, had a very privileged upbringing. She was the child of a Senator and a wealthy socialite, with two older brothers and a sister. She'd grown up in a large, secluded, and gated mansion in the hills, and was a regular on the town's social scene from a young age. She'd grown up in a small, wealthy community not far from Jacksonville.
Nicky scrolled through the file, reading about all the important events in her life:
She had graduated from the Rosewood private school, and then gone on to study at the prestigious Harvard University, where she'd majored in English. She'd been quite the bookworm--but she'd also been quite the party girl. She drank and smoked, but she'd never been in any serious trouble. She'd had a handful of scandals, but nothing that got her in deep.
That was, until, she'd been reported missing about two months ago.
Nicky paused. She grabbed her bag and pulled out Paris Conner's file.
