Page 43 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

“Let’s go,” Bree said as her phone buzzed with an incoming text. She got up and saw it was from FBI Agent Franks. She opened it:Still processing luggage, trying to match to Maggie Fontaine in seat 2A.

Thanks,Bree replied as they went out the door.TSA?

When she did not get an immediate reply, she shifted her attention to Jannie and her missing friend, wondering how she’d gotten herself into two missing-person cases in two days. “Address?” Bree asked.

“On Fairfax Boulevard in Fairfax, unit twenty-one B,” Jannie said. “I’ll pull it up on Waze.”

They got in Bree’s vehicle, picked up I-66 across the Roosevelt Bridge, drove south past Falls Church to Fairfax, Virginia, and were soon rolling slowly through a condo complex looking for unit 21B.

“Got to be that building up ahead,” Bree said.

“Hey, that’s Iliana’s car,” Jannie said. “Right there! The green BMW.”

Bree pulled in and parked near the little sedan. It was even chillier here than it was in Washington and the leaves were falling. There were wet leaves on the BMW’s wind-shield.

“She hasn’t been out since last night,” Bree said. “That was the last rain.”

They went to the door of unit 21B and knocked. There was no answer.

“We’ll have to search for a manager,” Bree said.

“Wait, wait, this is an Airbnb,” Jannie said. “Do you have the app?”

She did have the app and signed into it. Jannie had her search the address in Fairfax and quickly came up with the listing.

“Two hundred and ninety a night?” Bree said.

“Look at the contact — there’s definitely a messaging thing to the owner and maybe also a phone number or something.”

Bree found both and phoned the owner in Reston, Virginia. Margaret Holmes didn’t seem interested until Bree explained that she used to be Metro PD’s chief of detectives and the young woman who’d rented the condo had gone missing.

“Missing?” she said. “For how long?”

Bree said, “About three hours.”

“Three hours? Isn’t that jumping the gun a little?”

“I can’t get into it, but she was being threatened, blackmailed. That’s why she rented the place from you, to get away from that threat. All we want to do is enter and see if she’s there.”

CHAPTER 41

AFTER A LONG PAUSE,Holmes asked Bree to send a picture of herself and her private investigator’s and driver’s licenses. Bree did. The owner directed her to a lockbox in a utility closet beneath the staircase and gave her a digital code.

Bree punched the number in, got the key, thanked the woman, and climbed back up to unit 21B, where Jannie was waiting nervously.

Bree said, “I told the owner I would be the only one going in, and I have to video the place as I find it.”

“That’s okay,” Jannie said. “I don’t know if I want to go in there.”

Bree got out a tissue from her purse and held the door handle with it as she inserted the key in a dead-bolt lock. She turned it, heard it slide, and pushed the door open.

Her phone buzzed with a text. Ignoring it, she turned on her phone camera and started videoing the short-term rental. Nice main room with new furniture and television. Everything neat and tidy. Several textbooks piled neatly on a glass table.

“Jannie?” a female voice called. Bree looked over her shoulder.

“Tina’s here,” Jannie said. “Iliana’s teammate.”

“Both of you stay out while I clear it, please,” Bree said and she quickly did just that.

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