Page 53 of Lost Hours
Ah, such sensitivity.
“My team is investigating,” Nolan said. “We’re working on it full-time and doing everything we can to locate her.”
“You’ll let me know the minute you find her?” He worried his lower lip between his teeth. “I mean, I ain’t never gonna have any kids, and she’s the closest thing I’ll ever get. I couldn’t lose her.”
“We’ll let you know,” Mina said. “If there’s nothing else you think we should know about Becca’s disappearance or the mayor’s death, we’ll be going.”
“Nothing that I can think of. But I think I might head home in case Bex has shown up there for some reason.”
Mina got out her business card and handed it to him. “Call me if she’s there. And if she is, it’s up to you whether you want to tell her about her father or if you want us to.”
“Man. Man.” He ran a hand over his head and clamped it on the back of his neck. “I’ve never much liked you cops, but now I see you have a tough job telling people that someone they love has died. Still, I think I’d like to tell her. She’ll take it better from me than from you.”
Mina nodded and climbed over the side of the boat to the dock. Wade Collins wasn’t a man that she could highly respect, but at least in the end, he showed that he wasn’t in everything for himself alone. He appeared to care about his niece, and perhaps that said more about the likelihood of him being a killer than anything else.
Nolan had never attended an autopsy, so he wasn’t certain how he would react. He thought he could handle it, but then he couldn’t be sure. Mina, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be nervous at all and marched right through the doorway of the hospital morgue. She paused in the vestibule outside the exam room. Nolan kept at a slower pace, adding the facial shield to his white suit provided by Dr. Osborne.
Nolan wasn’t eager to enter the autopsy suite. His phone rang, giving him a reprieve. “Hold up.”
He dug his phone out from inside the white suit and looked at the screen. “Hayden. Good!” He accepted the call. “Putting you on speaker so Mina can hear what you have to report.”
“I did a background check on both Becca and the mayor,” Hayden said. “There was nothing in either one to suggest something troublesome. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything to report that can help find Becca. She hasn’t used a credit card or debit card since the mayor’s death.”
“But you have something to report, or you wouldn’t waste time calling me,” Nolan said.
“Yeah, the mayor’s finances are sketchy.”
“Sketchy how?” Mina asked.
“He’s deposited large sums of money for the last four months. Most of it coming from an auction house in Medford. Other deposits are electronic payments from PayPal for what looks like the sale of eBay items.”
Mina blinked. “He’s selling things off?”
“Looks like it. Then he’s turning around and taking the money out in multiple cash withdrawals just below ten grand. Likely to stay under the threshold over which banks must report cash withdrawals to the feds.”
“So he didn’t want Uncle Sam to know about the money and perhaps question it,” Mina said. “But he needed cash.”
“That’s the odd part,” Hayden said. “He has a healthy balance in both his savings and checking account, and if you add up all the money he’s received and withdrawn, it wouldn’t even touch the amount in his accounts.”
“So he didn’t need to sell things to get this money that he was using for something.” Nolan shook his head. “What if someone was blackmailing him?”
“Over what?” Mina asked. “He was squeaky clean, and no one likely had anything to blackmail him about.”
“Everyone has secrets,” Nolan answered.
“And I just have to find out what his are, but nothing as of yet.” Hayden sighed. “I have several algorithms that are scraping the internet right now. Maybe they’ll turn up something actionable. Also should reveal any properties he might own that we don’t know about, but so far that’s been a bust too.”
“Thanks for your diligence,” Mina said.
“Have you thought about checking out our phones to see if Smythe put trackers or cloned them?” Nolan asked.
“Already checked mine out and a few of the other ones. Nothing, but I’d like to examine them all.”
“Perfect. I’ll give you mine when I see you again. Let us know what else you find.” He ended the call.
Mina looked at him. “Maybe the autopsy will give us the insight we need.”
She entered the room. Nolan lowered his shield as if it could protect himself from the upcoming sight and trailed her into the sterile space. An antiseptic smell laden with death hit him, and he swallowed hard to keep nausea at bay.
