Masters, page 8
“And this one client that you didn’t get back, is that a concern for you?”
“Not really,” she replied. “I think it may have been for the best anyway. He wasn’t exactly my … I didn’t get along that great with him. He was old money, and we always must be very polite and considerate and all that jazz,” she shared. “Yet some guys don’t think women belong in the workforce, especially when handling finances, and he always wanted a man to deal with his money,” she shared, with a note of self-mockery.
“Of course. I guess you probably get a lot of that.”
“Finance is still considered very much as a man’s world,” she murmured. “And most of the time I don’t give a crap at all. I just do my work, and I’m good at what I do. And I don’t make waves. Making waves makes life difficult, and I’m not into difficult. Right now, I just want solutions for my brother.”
He smiled and nodded. “Understood.”
“You find my brother,” she added, “and the whole world, my world, will completely change.”
“What if they’re not the answers you want?”
She winced. “Obviously I want him found alive, and every day that passes makes the chances of that seem even slimmer and less possible,” she murmured. “But hope? Hope is everlasting, and I just—I need that hope.”
“Of course,” Masters agreed.
She stared at him. “You come from a very different point of view, don’t you?”
“No, not at all,” he countered. “I agree that hope is everything, but I also know that, way too often, we can have as much hope as we want, and still the results are negative.”
“That’s your history speaking,” she replied, “and it’s probably why it makes you a good investigator. From my perspective that is something I don’t even want to contemplate. But I appreciate that you will be that influence of reality and experience, while I will be the hopeful optimist.”
He laughed. “Being an optimist is a good thing, particularly when your brother’s life is hanging in the balance. If he is alive, we also must consider the fact that he would have been kept as a prisoner somewhere, likely not in the most wonderful of places.”
She stared at him and nodded. “And that’s very disturbing.”
“It is,” he agreed, “not only disturbing, but he’ll probably need medical attention and therapy.”
“I don’t care about that. I’ll sell my house or whatever it takes to get him back on track.”
“Seems your brother has enough money to do that on his own.”
“Yes, he probably does.” She remembered that and brightened. “I contacted one of the companies that he invested in, a dot-com investment into a friend’s venture, and they’ve known each other since grade school. My brother gave him the start-up money, and he had a 50 percent share. So, when the company got big enough, they bought some of his stock to give the guy more of an ownership share, and that’s where some of Nicholas’s millions came from.”
“Good,” Masters stated, knowing this was a huge plus. “That is very helpful and will keep our train of thought away from something criminal going on.”
“It’s not illegal money. That’s what I was concerned about too,” she shared.
“Of course, and you were right to wonder when that much money is involved.”
“But you also know that, when it comes to some of these investments, it can be big money, massive money,” she pointed out. “And honestly it’s been huge confirming that Nicholas’s investment had netted him such a wonderful return on investment. And his friend did know that my brother was missing and told me that my brother still has a bunch of shares in the company, which would all probably come to me in the event of my brother’s passing. He asked if I have any idea what I wanted to do with it. I told him in no uncertain terms that I just wanted to focus on getting my brother home, which, as you can imagine, created an awkward moment. Then we talked a bit more, and I basically just ended the call.”
“Did you feel any sense of relief on his part that you didn’t want to do anything with Nicholas’s remaining shares?”
“I don’t think legally I can do anything unless we find a body,” she shared. “And I don’t think … I think he was hoping that I was correct to hold out hope, back-pedaling a bit, making it sound as if I wasn’t loopy for holding out hope when he’s been missing for so long. However, for me, there will always be hope.”
“I think every family member feels that way,” Masters noted. “And people who aren’t in this position don’t understand.”
When his phone rang just a few minutes later, she jumped.
He held up a hand and said, “It’s just the lab. It’s all right.”
Chapter 6
‡
Elizabeth sank back down and listened, as Masters answered his phone. She didn’t know why she was so jumpy, but that courier at her door had changed everything for her. Yet it also made it seem a lot more possible that her brother was alive. All she could think about now was that she’d missed something. Had there been something that had gone on all this time that she hadn’t seen and sorted out?
Masters had been right when he suggested that, from now on, she would have to exercise more caution. Assuming it was Masters at her door and flinging it open without a thought was foolhardy. While she had thought it was Masters, she also realized it was more than that. Another part of her still raced to the door to see if her brother was coming home.
She waited for Masters to finish his phone call, and, when he got up, she realized that this visit—or whatever it was—was officially over. She watched as he continued his phone conversation on the way to the front door. There he ended the call and told her, “I’ve got to go, sorry.”
She waved him off. “Tell me what you can, when you can, please.”
He stopped and nodded. “That is a reasonable request. Thank you.” And, with that, he was gone.
She stayed at the front door and watched as he drove away, feeling an odd sense of loss, something she hadn’t expected. She didn’t know whether it was because he was the first person who seemed to give a crap about her brother’s disappearance, or because of who he was and the fact that he’d been looking out for her, and had come when she phoned.
So many things were mixed up in her head, and she didn’t want to confuse emotions for something completely different. She liked Masters very much. He was a good man and seemed to care. He was a breath of fresh air when it came to all the other investigators she had dealt with on this case. It had seemed as if nobody had given a crap, and the fact that her brother was part of their own team had been forgotten.
Elizabeth was pretty sure that Nicholas would be heartbroken to think that nobody had considered his disappearance important enough to truly investigate, and the fact that they thought she may have had something to do with it was also devastating.
She understood why it would be considered, but she couldn’t imagine it would have been all that difficult to clear her, if they had only wanted to. Harming her brother, the only person she had in the world, was something she wouldn’t and couldn’t ever do. Nicholas was an important part of her life, and no way would she ever do something to hurt him.
She thought about her own finances, wondering if she would need to free up some money, just in case. If a ransom was suggested, she would pay it in a heartbeat, but she would also have to liquidate some of her assets to do so.
With that in mind, she quickly cleaned up the kitchen first, putting on tea next, and headed back to her computer, then settled in to return to work. Yet, in the back of her mind, she was looking at her options, figuring out what she could do if she was called to do something.
Frowning, she went through some of the investments she held jointly with her brother. She’d convinced him early on to invest in a few things, and she did control those in the sense of being his adviser on them. She checked his account, and everything there looked normal and stable. It was the one account that hadn’t been taken away from her when she had been struggling over her brother’s loss. Her lack of attention to her accounts had not gone unnoticed.
Now she was doing much better, or at least she thought she was. When her supervisor phoned her a little bit later and asked her to step into a group meeting, she stepped in virtually and listened, as the new CEO ranted about some new restrictions and some changes in the company policy.
Her eyebrows shot up as he talked about making people return to work in the bank, and she realized just how that would impact her day. Normally she worked from home and went in sometimes. Up until now, that had been fine. However, the new CEO was talking about making everybody come back in, and with positive attitudes. She kept her face schooled, watching other people’s reactions, noting a couple of them not liking it at all, including her immediate supervisor.
When it was over, her supervisor phoned her, and he asked, “What do you think?”
“I think it sucks,” Elizabeth replied. “I come in when I need to, but I certainly don’t need to be physically in the bank all the time to do my job.”
“And you’re still hoping for changes with your brother’s situation, of course.”
“Sure, of course I am,” she replied, “but that has nothing to do with my work.”
He hesitated.
“Wait. I’ve been back on track and making work a priority.”
“Yes, and it was at least partly my fault for not taking away some of that work earlier. Once I realized what was going on, I should have removed some of those accounts from the get-go, so that’s on me.”
She was surprised to hear him say that, but he’d always been a very fair supervisor, and she appreciated the fact that, when she hadn’t been able to look out for herself, he had been there.
“I guess there’s been no news on your brother, has there?” he asked.
“Actually there might be now,” she muttered. “I just don’t know which way it’ll all go.”
“Oh? … That’s huge, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. It’s nothing’s so huge, not when it’s been this many months.”
“Right,” he replied, his tone deepening. “I’m sorry about all this.”
“Me too, and I certainly don’t need more issues at work, but I’ll deal with it.”
“So you’ll work at the bank now?” he asked.
“The new rule doesn’t take place for a while. Maybe the lot of us will boycott it, and the CEO will change his mind,” Elizabeth suggested, not even believing her own words.
Her supervisor asked, “Or will you … quit?”
“Quit? No, I wasn’t looking to quit,” she replied. “Is somebody saying I am?”
“No, I’m just getting an idea of what’s going on,” he explained. “Nobody seems to be particularly happy.”
“Nobody likes change,” she pointed out. “We can get quite comfy in our own space, and there’s no real reason for us not to work from home.”
“I know. I understand,” he said, “and we start work early.”
“You guys do. I’m not on a stock market bench, like you guys are, so I work a bit later.”
“Right, another point in your favor,” he noted. “Anyway I’ll see how everybody reacts.”
“Will you challenge the CEO over it?” she asked, with a note of amusement. “Or will you consider quitting?”
“I’m considering it,” he admitted. “Yes, it might be a good time.”
“Right,” she muttered. “And this new CEO, being a friend of Fred’s and all, is that how this works?”
“Yeah, they’re friends, and apparently he’s been monitoring our work-from-home situation for a while now, and suddenly he’s decided that we all need to come back in,” he shared, with a note of humor. “I assume he’s spoken to Fred and his dad about it, but I don’t know that.”
“I don’t think any of this will apply to Fred anyway, so he probably doesn’t give a crap. As long as it keeps the money flowing and the business moving in the right direction, he won’t care either way. Interesting tactic though. He may lose a bunch of people.”
“I know, and that’s what I’m sorting out, like just how many will bail,” her supervisor told her. “It’s hard enough to get people now anyway, especially qualified people. No matter what, it’ll be painful.”
“And that will be on your plate too, I suppose.”
“Somewhat, yes. Depends on how many people leave from the various departments and whether I leave too,” he replied. “Anyway, have a good rest of your day.” And, with that, he was gone.
She stared down at her phone, just wondering about life, and its ability to send you for a loop out of the blue. The last thing she needed right now was something like this, but that was also one of the reasons why stuff like this happened.
With a shrug, she settled back in and buckled down to tackle the rest of her workday. She had just finished up when her phone rang. She looked down at it and didn’t recognize the number, but that wasn’t an oddity in her line of work. She often felt she needed to answer phone calls that were not numbers she knew, and so she did. Nobody replied on the other end, and she went to hang up, when a faint voice finally spoke.
“Sis?”
She froze.
“Sis, help me.” With that, the phone went dead.
*
Masters was just walking into the forensic lab to talk to the technician when his phone rang. He looked down, saw who was calling and frowned, but he answered it. “Hey, I don’t have any answers yet, and as I—”
“No, no, no,” she cried out. “I just got a phone call.” She gasped, her breathing hard, clearly rattled.
“Easy, easy, calm down,” he said. “Who called you?”
“My brother,” she cried out, with joy, tears, and pain all reflected in her tone.
“What do you mean, your brother?”
“He said, Sis, help me, I can’t believe it.”
Masters ran his hand through his hair, as he turned and walked back out of the lab, so the conversation was private. “Did he tell you where he was?”
“No, no,” she cried out in hysterics. “The line went dead at that point.”
“Crap,” he muttered.
“I know. I know. He’s alive. He’s alive! Don’t you understand what this means?”
“I understand some of what it could mean,” he replied cautiously.
Suddenly she caught on that he didn’t see this as good news. “I don’t understand why you’re not overwhelmed with joy,” she responded. “I am.”
“I would just like to know for sure that it was your brother.”
“Oh,” she muttered, and dead silence came afterward.
He winced. “Look. It’s the world I live in. I don’t want to kill your joy, but let’s just make sure that somebody isn’t playing you.”
“Right,” she said, her tone more formal but in control.
“I don’t suppose you have a number for that call.”
“I checked right away, but it was a private number,” she explained, “and it didn’t, … it didn’t tell me anything.”
“I’m at the forensics lab. Let me talk to them. Then I’ll get right back to you.” He quickly hung up, walked back into the lab, and asked the techs at the counter, “If you have a recent phone call on a cell, is there any way to track it?’
They instantly frowned. One spoke up. “If it’s a private number, not really, but, if something else, maybe we can deal with it forensically.”
“Meaning what?”
“Just that we might get a location from where the call came from.”
“It read Private Number, but she has no record of it beyond just that the call came through.”
“Right. So, therefore, it was probably fast and short, leaving no way to trace it.”
“Right, that’s what I was afraid of.” Masters sighed. “So … back to the note. What did you guys find?”
“Not a whole lot,” he began. “No fingerprints were on any of it, the note or the envelope—other than Elizabeth’s. We also don’t have any record of this writing anywhere in the database,” he added. “So really, we don’t have anything. I’m sorry. We were hoping for better news.”
“Me too.” He thanked them, then turned and walked back out, calling Elizabeth back. “Did you recognize his voice?”
“I don’t … I don’t know for sure,” she told him, her tone subdued. “It was barely above a whisper and happened so fast.”
“I’m sorry,” Masters said. “I don’t want to stop the hope here.”
“No, but you’re right. If it was Nicholas, why wouldn’t they have contacted me a lot earlier? If it isn’t him, who the hell is playing these games?” she snapped, anger at being played coming through quite clearly.
“We also have to acknowledge the possibility that it was him and that he found a way to get a call out.”
“In which case,” she noted painfully, “chances are, he’s paying for that indiscretion.”
“Unless the kidnappers set it up,” Masters noted. After another long silence, he added, “I’ve just come out of the forensics office, and unfortunately nothing was on that note or the envelope, no fingerprints other than yours, which was to be expected.”
“Hey, wait, when you mean, mine? … Oh, right.”
He smiled. “You’d forgotten that they fingerprinted you to clear you of anything.”
“At the time I wondered if they fingerprinted me to find me guilty,” she murmured.
“You still believe that, don’t you?”
“Can we trace a call?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “They weren’t on long enough, and it was a private number, so it’s probably a burner phone that they’ve already tossed by now.”
“But what would be the point of that?”
“That’s the question,” he muttered. “Does anybody want you to go off the deep end? Does anybody want you to quit? Does anybody want you to do anything in your world that something like this would stir up?” She sucked in her breath, and he winced. “I gather there’s a yes in there somewhere.”
