Hide & Seek - Nicole Edwards Page 0,68
figured.
“Is your dad home?” Brantley asked.
She looked over her shoulder, shouted, “Dad!”
“Ella Mae, you know better than to answer the door,” a male voice said firmly.
A second later, an older man appeared behind the glass storm door. “Yes?”
“Are you Dale Henderson?”
“Yes.”
“My name’s Brantley Walker. This is my partner, Reese Tavoularis. We’re members of the OTB Task Force. You previously spoke to members of my team, Sebastian Buchanan and Trey Walker.”
His shoulders relaxed.
“Sir, if you don’t mind, we’ve got a couple of questions to ask.”
He looked over his shoulder, forehead creasing.
“If it’s easier, you can step out here with us,” Reese told him. “This won’t take but a minute or two.”
Mr. Henderson nodded, then stepped outside, pulling the front door closed behind him.
“We’re lookin’ into your wife’s case,” Brantley explained. “And I need some clarification on a couple of things. Mr. Henderson, you said you were the one who contacted the police to report your wife missing. Is that correct?”
“Yes. After I went looking for her. Why?”
“When you went looking, did you go to the lake?”
He nodded. “I woke my oldest daughter, had her stay with the kids, then took the car to the lake. I got out and walked the path. At first, anyway. I started to get anxious because there weren’t many people out, so I started to jog. Followed the trail all the way to where it disappears back into my neighborhood.”
“Did you find anything of hers along the way?”
Mr. Henderson looked confused. “Like what?”
Brantley took that to mean he hadn’t noticed a cell phone.
“Was it daylight when you went to look for her?”
“It was still mostly dark on my way from the parking lot, but on the way back, the sun had started to rise.”
“But you didn’t find a cell phone or her headphones.”
Mr. Henderson’s eyes widened, his confusion turned to terror. “No. Why? Do you have… Do you know what happened to my wife?”
Reese was the one to speak up. “Mr. Henderson, right now, we’re simply gathering information while we follow every lead we get. We do know that a cell phone and headphones were discovered on the trail the morning your wife went missing. We can’t confirm these belong to your wife because we haven’t seen the report yet. However, we are headin’ over to look at them. We just needed to know if you saw anything, maybe reported it but the details were missed.”
He shook his head adamantly, his hands shaking. “No. I… I… No, I didn’t find anything.”
One thing Brantley knew for sure, Dale Henderson did not have anything to do with his wife’s disappearance. Or if he did, he deserved a fucking Oscar for that performance.
Brantley’s cell phone buzzed at the same time Reese’s did. Since Reese had his in his hand, Brantley let him show the picture to Mr. Henderson.
“Do you recognize this man?”
Mr. Henderson took the phone, brought it closer to his face and squinted. “Yeah. That’s the officer who came to speak to me Friday morning.”
“Do you recognize him from anywhere else?”
“No. Why? Do you think he has something to do with my wife’s disappearance?”
Unfortunately, it was starting to look that way, but Brantley kept the thought to himself.
Son of a bitch.
***
They left the Hendersons’ with a renewed sense of purpose. It was imperative they looked at the cell phones that were taken from the crime scenes. The goal wasn’t to confirm who they belonged to. Reese had no doubt they were the phones of the victims, but he was curious as to the chain of custody that had taken place since they were found.
With Brantley by his side, Reese managed to talk his way to the evidence lockup, but getting past the guard on duty required a little more finesse, so he passed the baton to Brantley, figuring he could get things done faster. He had no problem talking his way through after flashing credentials and informing the officer that they would get the governor on the phone but he would be the one who had to explain to him the problem.
Apparently, Officer Joe Landry had no desire to do that, so rather than interrupt the governor’s evening, Landry showed them the way to the evidence they were looking for. The brown box was right where it was supposed to be, but that was about all that would go right for them after that.
“It’s empty,” Brantley said, tossing the cardboard lid down beside it. “Son of a bitch.”
“Before we jump to conclusions, maybe Collins has them for some