Page 46 of Night Hawk
Everyone was watching her, so she slipped back into the chair, her emotions on the biggest rollercoaster ride of her life. She had no idea what to feel. First shock. Then grief. Then hope and joy. She wasn’t alone in this world. She had grandparents. Two people who were her blood relatives. Maybe there were more. The family tree at the ancestry site could tell her. She needed to finish it. But not now. Not with so many sets of eyes looking at her and so much up in the air. Tonight. She’d do it tonight. And she’d follow Clay’s suggestion for now, but if anything happened to show her that she’d been wrong to trust him, she would go see her grandparents.
At the moment, she needed to stow her feelings. Remember she was an agent working an investigation with these men, not a woman following her family tree. She was on the hunt for a vicious man who not only trafficked young women but tried to kill her and Clay. Finding him. Finding the girls. That had to be her priority.
She swallowed a few times and balled her hands into fists, then looked up. As expected, the guys were still watching. She gave them the best smile she could muster. “So where do we go from here?”
Clay had stood, and he seemed relieved that she hadn’t tried to race out the door. He grabbed a marker from the tray of a portable whiteboard. “This investigation is getting complicated, and we need to organize the leads.”
He turned to the board and divided it into four sections. On the top right side he wrote:High School. Under that, he addedfire, beds,body,bedpost/Hibbard.
He turned to look at Toni. “Since everyone knows about the school, why don’t you update them on what we learned about Jason and Fritz Rader while I add all the items to the board.”
“I hate to ask this.” Drake scratched his neck in a moment of uncertainty she found odd for his straightforward personality. “But could the body at the school be Lisa?”
Toni gasped.
“I know that’s tough to hear, especially on top of everything else you’ve been through,” Drake said. “But I thought the question needed to be asked.”
“Without access to the reports, there’s no way we can answer that,” Clay said. “We might be able to collect Lisa’s DNA from her grandparents’ to have it processed at Veritas. Or we can simply collect yours, as you’re sisters. This will let Kelsey compare it to the remains. Trent might allow Kelsey to tell us if it’s Lisa or not.”
“Yes,” Toni said emphatically. “Let’s do that.”
“Unless anyone else has something to say.” Clay eyed Drake, who shrugged. “Toni will update you on the Raders.”
Toni launched into the details of what they’d learned but watched as Clay wroteFritz Raderas a heading on the top right and listed below,picture of Toniandoutfit,girls’ pictures,female items/clothing, andBird blood sample.
As she spoke, she made sure to cover each point. “We took pictures of everything we found, including the photos of the girls, some going back to the eighties.”
Clay looked at Erik. “I’ll put them on our server so you can search the internet for matches.”
Erik nodded. “I’ll start with the database for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. However, older records might not be there or anywhere on the internet, for that matter. We might need to ask Trent to give us a list from his database.”
“I’m sure he’ll be doing his own search,” Clay said. “Give me a list of girls you find, and I’ll compare notes with him.”
“I’ll get started the minute we’re done here. I’ll also check in with Nick to see if he has any suggestions for doing a thorough search for the girls.”
“Good thinking.” Clay released an appreciative sigh.
Toni liked seeing the look of respect flash between the brothers. These guys really were an amazing team, and she was thankful they were helping her find her dad’s killer, and now digging into what happened to Lisa too.
On the bottom right of the board, Clay wroteToni’s grandparents and parents. And finally on the left, he addedHibbard Investigation Files.
“Did I get everything?” His gaze traveled from person to person, pausing on Drake.
“We have the pictures Sierra took at the school,” Drake said.
“Right.” Clay marked it down.
“And I noticed twine in the photos of the woman in the wall.” Drake continued to look at Clay. “Looks white, though it’s yellowed some. In reviewing your old case files, I saw twine was recovered when a woman was found murdered at one of Hibbard’s places.”
“Her name was Heidi,” Toni said, the pain from losing the girl still in Toni’s heart. “When we found her, she had a plastic bag around her head, twine holding it in place. Her wrists were bound with twine too, and the rest of her body was wrapped in green trash bags and more twine. Forensics said the twine was common poly sisal often used for commercial packaging and shipping, so it didn’t lead anywhere. The other evidence didn’t, either, and we were never able to connect Hibbard to her murder.”
Drake shifted to look at her. “Common or not, the twine could match the evidence found with the skeletal remains at the school and be a link between them.”
Clay wrotetwineon the board. “I’ll ask Sierra to act as a go-between for the forensics techs who worked Heidi’s murder investigation and the techs working the high school to compare the samples.”
“And you wanted to find and visit the beach house Jason Rader rented,” Toni said.
“Erik,” Clay said, “can you find the address of the property where he was arrested?”
