Page 41 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

“She didn’t even know the coach had made it.”

“But it was in high school?”

Jannie nodded. “When she was seventeen.”

“A high-school coach.”

“She said that part was consensual, but the video definitely was not.”

“And it’s not the coach blackmailing her?”

“Not unless he’s blackmailing himself.”

Bree checked her watch. “And she has that kind of money?”

“Her father was killed in an industrial accident when she was twelve. A jury awarded her and her mother millions.”

“Is that common knowledge?”

“No. I knew Iliana for a long time before she told me.”

“You said she was down here for a meet?”

“She came down early to familiarize herself with the course. It’s at George Mason tomorrow.”

“Where’s she from?”

“Outside Philly,” Jannie said. “Newtown or something. It’s close to the city.”

“On the Main Line, then,” Bree said, shaking her head.

They were quiet for several moments, both scanning the sidewalks on both sides of the street for a girl Jannie said was built like a greyhound and wore her light brown hair pulled back in a long braid. But there was no one like that.

Iliana Meadows was more than an hour and a half late.

“Shouldn’t we report her missing?” Jannie said.

“They won’t take a report until she’s been gone twenty-four hours,” Bree said.

“Twenty-four hours?”

“Do you have any idea where she was staying?”

“All I know is it’s an Airbnb near George Mason. I think her friend Tina has the address.”

“Have you called her mother?”

“Nancy? Iliana says she’s not around a lot. She travels and has boyfriends.”

Bree thought about everything Jannie had told her. She was getting Iliana’s story secondhand, so she knew there had to be flaws in the account. Still, there was no doubt that if even half of Iliana Meadows’s story was true, it was a potentially explosive situation.

“Let’s try the mom and then the friend who knows where Iliana has been staying,” Bree said as her phone began to buzz and chime. She looked at the screen and saw a text from an unfamiliar number that readIn situ. AA 839. Interior front near cockpit.

CHAPTER 39

WE CAUGHT UP WITHCaptain Davis as he was leaving the field house with some other coaches. Fiona Plum walked out of the school building and headed toward him, but we got to him first.

“Find a machine gun in my basement?” he said jokingly. “Here to arrest me?”

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