Never Let Go, page 4
"We'll prioritize it for you and get it done today if we can," the tech said.
Rushing out of the forensics department, she got back in her car, this time with Owen in the passenger seat beside her.
Now, they had a tough job ahead of them, and one that she wasn’t looking forward to.
It was never easy breaking the news to parents that their daughter had been a victim of crime. And all the more so in such puzzling and strange circumstances. But May hoped that with the information she had now, Chloe’s parents might be able to shed more light on their daughter’s disappearance.
Now that they knew for sure that she’d been taken, there might be recent events that they were ready to speak about.
CHAPTER FIVE
Half an hour later, in the pouring rain, May and Owen pulled up at the offices of Tamarack Talent Agency to unleash the bombshell that she knew would shock Chloe’s parents—and possibly provide them with a much-needed lead.
She’d been surprised to learn that this was the business that the Terrys ran, and May guessed it had helped to pave the way for Chloe’s modeling success.
Showbiz, talent, modeling, and stage work were clearly in the family’s blood. Set in the outskirts of Chestnut Hill, the offices looked to occupy two floors, and included a model training center on the upper floor.
In this smart, upmarket place, May hoped they would get the answers they were looking for. But first, she’d need to break the news to them.
They rushed to the entrance, May acutely aware that she didn't look her best. With her drenched clothes and bedraggled hair, she looked very far from the average person who walked through these doors, she was sure.
But she was walking through them on a mission. She was looking to hunt down a criminal. The memory of Chloe’s terrified face, caught briefly on that camera, was haunting. Arriving looking like a drowned rat, and with no discernible trace of make-up, was a small price to pay, May thought firmly. At least, with his neat hair and height, Owen looked more of the part.
The receptionist, who looked as if she might do part-time ramp work herself, raised her mascaraed gaze to May as she walked in, trying not to drip on the red carpet that led from the door to the reception console. On either side, along the flashy white walls, were posters of models on the ramp as well as magazine covers and pictures of VIP gatherings. Immediately, May knew that Tamarack Talent was both established and influential.
"Good morning," she said to the gorgeous receptionist, who was pushing back her mane of dark hair and regarding May curiously. "I'm Deputy Moore, and I’m looking for the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Terry."
"The Terrys are upstairs." The receptionist looked even more curious now. "Is this in connection with Chloe?"
"It's police business," May said shortly, not wanting to say anything until she and Owen had spoken to the parents.
"I'll call Mr. Terry now." Quickly, she got on the phone. "He'll see you right away," she said. "Please go upstairs."
The bright white staircase wound its way to the second floor, and May and Owen hustled up it.
Upstairs, in another spacious reception area, they saw a door open at the far side. An anxious-looking man in his forties, with a sharply cut hairstyle and wearing a bright scarlet jacket, walked out. At the same time, from an adjoining office, a pretty blonde woman who looked like a twenty-years-on version of Chloe herself appeared.
“Good morning,” May said politely. “Deputy Moore and Lovell. We need to speak to you privately.”
The Terrys looked at each other with horrified expressions.
“This is about Chloe, isn’t it?” Mrs. Terry asked. “Has something happened to her? Is it bad news?”
The two of them clasped hands. Since May couldn’t see anyone else in these upstairs offices at this time, she guessed the reception area was a private enough place to continue speaking.
“If it’s bad news, tell us. We’ve been so worried. We’d rather just know,” Mr. Terry emphasized.
“Last night, a photographer left a camera in the woods, a couple of miles out of Fairshore,” May explained. “And in the morning, there was footage of your daughter caught on it.”
“What?” Mrs. Terry sounded appalled. “She was in the woods? But . . . but how’s that possible? What was the footage of?”
“She seems to have been running from someone,” May said.
She wished there was an easier way to say this. Mrs. Terry grasped her husband’s arm and burst into tears, burying her head in his shoulder.
“How . . . how do you mean?” Mr. Terry asked over his wife’s sobs.
“She was clearly being pursued. She was barefoot. The footage shows her looking scared.” Feeling like she was the worst person in the world to have to give them this news, May opened her iPad and showed them a couple of the shots. They’d avoided the ones where her daughter looked the most scared. Seeing this footage was traumatic enough.
The Terrys both stared down at it, Mrs. Terry sobbing violently.
“It’s her, without a doubt. Our baby girl. In the woods? Does someone have her hostage there? Did you see who it was?”
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t visible from the footage,” May said.
“But surely if she’d been kidnapped there would be—I don’t know, a ransom demand or something like that?”
“Have you had nothing like that?” May asked. “No strange phone calls, no notes, no anonymous emails?”
“Absolutely nothing. And because we have been worried about her, we’ve been very aware of all incoming calls and mail,” Mr. Terry said.
So, it was not a kidnapping attempt with a ransom demand. At any rate, not yet.
“We think she is being held. We are making it a top priority to find out where.” May paused. “There was a tree not far from the scene, where two locks of hair were tied. One blond, one dark. We’re getting the DNA analyzed to see if the blond hair belongs to Chloe. Do you have any samples you could give us? A hairbrush, a toothbrush, anything with her DNA on?”
“Her curlers. She always curls her hair with heated curlers before a shoot,” Mrs. Terry said. “Those would have hairs on them, I’m sure. They’re in the storeroom.”
May felt pleased that they were going to be able to provide a sample to match up with.
“And do you know of anyone with dark hair who the other sample could be from? Was she with a friend at the time of her disappearance, or did she have a close friend with long, dark hair?”
The Terrys looked at each other blankly.
“No. No, I can’t say I do,” Mrs. Terry said.
“What we need to know, now that we’re sure she has been taken, is whether there was anything at all happening in her life that could have led to this. Any trouble, any issues, any threats that were made against her. Maybe someone was jealous she was going to enter the big beauty pageants? Anything you know, but you haven’t yet told us, might be really helpful,” Owen said.
The Terrys stared at each other, but May noted that Mrs. Terry looked away first.
"I don't recall any trouble or jealousy,” Mr. Terry said. We run a very tight ship here, all our models are supportive. Chloe worked hard and everyone knew she earned her place when she got assignments. There was no possibility of favoritism just because we owned the agency. It’s the client who decides."
May thought hard. "Any other issues that might have caused a problem? Anything at all?"
Now, it was Mr. Terry’s turn to look down.
"Well?" Owen pressured. "If there was anything going on, we need to know!"
Mr. Terry mumbled something to his wife, but in such a soft voice neither May nor Owen could hear. They exchanged a confused glance.
"Say again?" May asked.
"She was into botany," Mr. Terry elaborated. “I don’t know how that could have gotten her into trouble, though. It was just her sideline business.”
"How do you mean?"
"She enjoyed growing things. She had a little plantation behind the cottage."
May wondered what that meant. It might have meant that Chloe was a passionate gardener who was growing specific plants or herbs, for enjoyment or wellness or maybe even to sell. But there was another possibility, which was that Chloe might have grown weed. If she'd done that, it could have gotten her into trouble. Perhaps she’d got on the wrong side of a local dealer.
There was only one way to find out which theory was correct, and that was to spell the question out.
"Do you mean weed?" she asked baldly. "Are you talking about growing weed?"
She thought that she'd asked a fair question, given the circumstances. But she had not expected the irate comeback that she got.
"What?" he exploded. "I meant no such thing!"
"When you said growing things," May began, but there was now no stopping Mr. Terry.
"How can you insinuate such a thing? That my daughter was into something illegal? And you think I would have turned a blind eye?" he raged.
"Of course not," May assured him. "I only meant that it would be useful to know this. That's all."
"What kind of father do you think I am, to let my daughter grow weed?"
"She might have done it without you knowing, or else not thinking you knew," Owen tried.
"I knew everything going on in her life! Everything, young man," Mr. Terry raged, now directing his fury at Owen.
But May noticed that Mrs. Terry was now sidling away. She was heading for the back offices. Something about this conversation had clearly made her uneasy, May realized. She didn't know if it was the mention of weed or something else. Her money was on something else.
Now, finally getting some control of his anger, Mr. Terry was elaborating still further, wagging his finger in Owen's face. "I'm a good father! We raised our daughter well! You're insinuating that she was moving in drug dealing circles? That's not so! She was very gifted in herbal knowledge, and she was trying to create a new type of herbal supplement that would help with health and wellness and weight loss."
While he and Owen were embroiled in this emotional discussion, May sidled past and tiptoed in the direction that Mrs. Terry had gone.
This seemed like a good time to find out what she didn't want the police to know.
Especially if it also happened to be something she didn't want her husband to know.
CHAPTER SIX
May quietly eased herself away from the two arguing men and followed Mrs. Terry, feeling intent on finding out what had suddenly made her so uneasy, and why she was retreating to the back offices.
She paced after her, down the immaculately polished white tiles, and when Mrs. Terry veered right through an open door, May veered too. She caught the woman just as she was about to close the door.
With a sharp intake of breath, Mrs. Terry stared apprehensively at her.
Deciding that discretion would help her here, May closed the door, putting them both on the inside of it.
"I noticed you walking away," she said gently. "I was wondering if perhaps you'd thought of something else to say and would rather share it in private?"
She waited, hoping that Mrs. Terry would feel more confident with the door closed and say what was on her mind. But the woman seemed reluctant. She shook her head defensively.
"Really, I just wanted to get away," she said at last. "For a moment."
May could see that she was feeling agitated. She was rubbing her hands together in a distracted way.
"But what if there is something weighing on your mind?" May pressed her. "You might think that it's not important, or that it isn't worth mentioning, but perhaps it is?"
Mrs. Terry looked away, and May could see she was struggling. Still, she didn't speak up.
"Tell me," May urged her. "If you think of anything that might help, don't think twice about it. Just say it. It might be something that doesn't seem important to you, but it could help solve this case. We're trying to find out what happened to Chloe, and we need all the help we can get, especially seeing she may be in danger now."
But it seemed that at last, her logic had gotten through to her. Mrs. Terry sighed. She stepped back until she was right on the far side of the small office, which contained a brilliant white desk, a bright crimson office chair, and a few fashion sketches on the walls. The view from the window looked onto treed suburbia.
"Look, it's probably nothing, but it has been worrying me," she said. "It's nothing to do with the botany, by the way. My daughter really wasn't growing weed. She really was trying to formulate herbal supplements for slimming."
"Okay?" May said in a soft, encouraging voice.
Mrs. Terry paused. And then, in a lower voice, she added, "I don't want my husband knowing what I’m about to say. He will be furious. And if . . . if the worst happens and she's not found alive, he'll probably end up blaming me, and I can't handle that!"
"For now, we'll do our best to keep things confidential," May promised.
Mrs. Terry took a deep, shaky breath.
"Okay," she said. "It's an ex-boyfriend of Chloe’s, but I think they might have gotten back together recently or be closer now than they have been."
"An ex? And you didn't mention this when you saw she was taken? Did you not think it was a possibility?" May asked.
"No. I didn't think so at all. Jacob Hargreaves is an old ex of hers. They bust up a long time ago. Many months back. And I thought they'd fallen out of touch. But last week, when I was going through her things after she disappeared, I saw a couple of signs—a book she'd borrowed recently with his name inside, a note to her that looked to be in his writing—just small clues that made me wonder. I thought maybe they were still close or trying again. And that made me worry." She gave another long sigh, biting her lip. May thought she looked highly worried and stressed. She was stressed about the entire situation and about spilling out these facts.
Now, May needed to find out who Jacob was, and why associating with him was a bad idea.
She was sure they still had some time. Outside, she could hear that Mr. Terry was still in the full throes of his rant. Owen was encouraging him to be calm and sit down, which was making him even angrier.
May had a feeling that her perceptive deputy had seen her pursuing Mrs. Terry down the corridor and was trying to buy them some time without Mr. Terry realizing that his wife was no longer around.
"Tell me about Jacob," she said.
"He is—I guess as a parent, my impression is that he’s an unsuitable character. Very anti-everything you can imagine. Anti-establishment, anti-government, anti-rules. And as one might expect, he lived off the grid. But the one thing he wasn't was anti-social media. He actually makes his living filming his off the grid life. He does how-to videos on various subjects. He's a minor celebrity online and has a big following on a few channels. He gets income from various sources, I think, and a lot of stuff for free."
May thought she could understand his type. But she couldn’t yet understand why Mrs. Terry was so worried. Perhaps there was something more.
"Was there any specific reason you thought he was unsuitable?" she asked, needing more detail. "Anything in particular that worried you?"
"Look, I . . . I heard from one of my friends that he'd been in trouble in the past. With the law. That he had a criminal record. I don't know more than that. I never found out more, because it was just after that when Chloe broke up with him. So, I never bothered to find out more."
"Where does he stay? Do you know?" May asked.
Mrs. Terry shrugged reluctantly. "I don't know at all. But I can send you links to a few of his videos. And I know he has family who live locally, but I’m not sure who they are, it’s something I just remember hearing via the grapevine. That’s all I can do, and I hope it helps."
"I think it will help us a lot," May said. "Shall we go back now? I'll try to keep this confidential if I possibly can. And I'll keep you updated."
"Yes," Mrs. Terry said. "We'd better go back."
May pushed the door open, and they walked quietly back down the corridor. She was glad to see things were calmer now. Mr. Terry was pacing up and down, smoking a cigarette. He turned, looking surprised when he saw his wife appear.
"Where'd you go, honey?" he asked.
"I felt emotional. I needed to sit down for a while," she said smoothly, impressing May by her ability to lie. She hoped that she'd been told the truth. At any rate, she'd gotten a lead it would be important to follow.
"I know, it's been a crazy time. But I won’t have my daughter being unfairly accused. I don’t want her reputation besmirched."
"Please, do everything you can to find her," Mrs. Terry said, giving May a pleading glance.
"We'll be in touch," May said. "Thank you for your time. I hope that we are able to bring you more news soon."
She was scared to say more. She didn't want to give the parents false hope. Because there was no guarantee that Chloe was still alive.
As she turned and walked out with Owen, he muttered to her, "Did you manage to get anything more? I saw you following Mrs. Terry."
"I did," May said, feeling pleased. “We're now on the trail of an off the grid ex-boyfriend, with a history of violence, who was recently close to Chloe again. His name's Jacob Hargreaves, he's a minor online celebrity, and we need to track him down urgently."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Being off the grid, and at the same time all over the online world, presented them with an unusual challenge, but May hoped that because of his digital presence and high profile, Jacob Hargreaves would not be invisible, and it would be possible for her and Owen to locate him.
They drove straight to the Fairshore police department, where May rushed through to the back office. Sitting down at her desk, she began the important business of research.
Firstly, she wanted to learn more about Jacob Hargreaves. Who was he, and what had he done? Was there, in fact, any history of violence?
"I'm going to see if he has a record," she told Owen, opening her laptop. "First things first, I want to know if he's had any charges laid in the past."
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