people in law enforcement. Your computer geeks and white hat hackers.”
Rae texted a message on her cell. He assumed it was to this Reggie person.
She swiped at her eyes. “So, I’d rather let’s stay on focus.”
Her cell buzzed. She glanced at the screen. “Speaking of which, this is Reggie.” She answered the call. “Reggie, hi. I’m here with Liam McKade, who I’ve hired to protect me and help me investigate. I’m putting you on speakerphone. What do you have for me?”
“Nice to meet you, Liam.”
Liam noticed the distinctive British accent. “You as well.”
“I’ll get right to it, then. It took me longer than I thought today. Had to put out a few fires, as it were.” Reggie tapped on a keyboard. “Here goes. Tawny Davidson, also known as Zoey Dumont Burke. Tawny Davidson was born to Samara and Mark Davidson and attended school in Jackson. She worked with the heli-skiing business founded by her parents, managing all the financials and billing.”
“Wait,” Liam said. “How do you find this stuff out?”
Reggie chuckled. “I have a lot of practice at searching efficiently. I know which archives to look into, and I feed that into a custom knowledge base. Why don’t we skip to the fun parts, shall we? I’ve fed into the knowledge base all the information from Tawny’s life in Jackson Hole and her life as Zoey Dumont and then Zoey Burke up until her disappearance. There’s been no credit card or phone activity since her disappearance, by the way. Cross-referenced that with news or anomalies to find any possible correlations.”
Impressive. “And?”
“You told me of her disappearance five years ago, Rae. Using an algorithm, I cross-referenced disappearances that occurred around that time to find any possible connections. One in particular was flagged. Simon Astor. He hails from Arizona, but his family owned second homes in the Jackson Hole region where Zoey grew up. I also noted that his remains were recovered this week, the very week that Zoey disappeared again. Could be coincidental. Or there could be a link.”
“There is. He stalked her,” Rae said. “He’s the reason she moved. But he’s dead, so he couldn’t be responsible for her current disappearance. But the fact that he disappeared five years ago, too, and didn’t resurface until his remains were discovered recently raises a lot of questions.”
“Indeed, it does. And there’s more. Simon Astor’s brother is Enzo Astor, the wealthy son of a real estate mogul, now the mogul himself. Enzo Astor owns multiple properties in Jackson Hole, Colorado, and Utah—mainly hotels and ski resorts. What do you think now?”
“Wait,” Liam said. “What about the newly opened Saddleback Mountain Ski Resort?”
“Yes. That’s one of his investments.”
Interesting. Brad had mentioned there was more than one investor. Who else?
Rae stared into space, probably lost in thought, then her eyes brightened. “Okay. What if Simon the stalker found Zoey in Denver while she was in college, and he took her. She killed him. Then five years later his remains are discovered, and Enzo believed Zoey was responsible, so he abducted her. There’s no hard evidence, but we have to start somewhere. I’m just trying to figure it all out.”
“There could be a possible connection there, but as you say, you have no hard evidence, just conjecture,” Reggie said. “In journalism, we know to follow the paper trails, the digital trails, as well as the facts. Our mantra is ‘follow the money.’ I’m working on that end of it. I’ll continue to funnel the information your way.”
“You’ve done so much already, Reggie. I can’t begin to thank you,” she said. “Please keep working. We’re already past the forty-eight-hour mark.” Rae explained about the rest of her day and that, using her tablet, she’d already changed all her passwords.
“In an effort to find your laptop,” Reggie said, “I’ll be monitoring all possible access to your social media or emails, anything that could give me an IP address or something to follow, in case they were accessed before you changed your passwords. In the meantime, I’ll email a copy of what we discussed tonight so you can refer to the data, and we’ll be in touch tomorrow. And Rae?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you’ve hired Liam. Liam, please keep her safe at any cost.”
“I’ll protect her with my life.” He shrugged. He’d already proven that, hadn’t he?
“That’s fair. Sayonara.” Reggie ended the call.
Liam had to laugh. “That’s fair?”
Rae chuckled too. “He’s a character.”
“If your father had access to this guy, I can see why he won awards, though probably it had