“Dare I ask if there’s anything new?” He glanced from Brantley to JJ then back.
“She’s workin’ on the tattoo.”
“I was thinkin’ about that.” Reese perched on the edge of his desk, sipped his coffee. “We can’t see what the design is, but is there anyone we’ve talked to or anyone we’ve noted as knowing her who has a tattoo in that spot? Maybe we can use that as a lead.”
JJ stopped with the biscuit near her lips, then dumped it onto the napkin. “Reese, you’re a fuckin’ genius.”
Yeah. JJ definitely needed to lay off the caffeine.
While JJ’s fingers flew over her keyboard, Reese ventured over to the whiteboard on the wall, studied the timeline they’d laid out, the various names of people who had come into contact with Lauren Tyler before her disappearance. Perhaps they were off base, but Reese was going on the assumption that Corinne’s disappearance had to do with Lauren’s. He didn’t believe in coincidence.
“Did we get anything on the guy the professor mentioned?”
“Jason Montgomery,” Brantley supplied.
“Yes. Him.”
JJ didn’t answer, once again focused on her computer screen.
Brantley shrugged, clearly not having an answer.
Rather than pull JJ from her concentration, Reese headed over to the computer that was connected to the big screen mounted on the wall. He keyed in the name, came up with a good dozen.
“Narrow it down by age,” Brantley said, joining him.
Reese typed in the range he suspected Jason would be, roughly three to four years older than Lauren was his max, her age the minimum.
“Leaves us with three.” Brantley studied the screen, the three images that appeared. “Where did they live at the time of Lauren’s disappearance?”
“Drops us to two,” Reese noted, eliminating the one who resided in Alaska at that time, as well as currently. “Last knowns are…” He tapped a few buttons, waited.
Brantley chuckled. “Didn’t help.”
Nope. Both were in the central Texas area.
“What about social media?” JJ suggested, appearing at Reese’s side.
Because he knew she was far faster at retrieving that information, he stepped aside, allowed her to pull it up.
Side by side on one screen were two Facebook accounts, the other Instagram.
Between the three of them, they skimmed through images, until Brantley held up a hand toward one photo. “This one. Pull it up.”
JJ did, bringing the image into full view on the screen. It was of a man with his arm around a woman, both mugging for the camera. But Reese immediately saw what Brantley had. There, on his right hand, was a tattoo, in the same spot as the one from the image.
“Show me his profile page.”
It appeared on the screen and there it was, hometown: Coyote Ridge.
“Well, that solves that mystery,” JJ said, relief in her voice.
“Not quite.” Brantley instructed her to bring the image back up. “How tall is this guy?”
“Five ten, according to the information we pulled up,” Reese answered.
“And Corinne’s what? Five seven? Five eight?”
“About, yeah.”
“This guy’s not as tall as the one from the video,” Brantley stated. “That guy had a couple of inches on her. Closer to six one, maybe six two.”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of guys who’ve got hand tattoos,” JJ added, her disappointment evident.
Brantley glanced back at them. “How tall is Professor William Dugan?”
JJ began tapping keys, pulling up the man’s information. “Six…” Her gaze shot to Brantley. “Two.”
“What’re you thinkin’?” Reese asked.
“Just that it seems awfully damn convenient that Dugan offers up Jason Montgomery’s name and the guy who takes Corinne’s got the same hand tattoo.”
“You think he staged it? To make it look like Montgomery took her?”
“It’s possible.” Brantley turned to JJ. “Get in touch with this guy. I want to chat with him. I don’t think he’s our man, but we need to rule him out.”
“We should also run through the previous day’s footage,” Reese stated. “See if Montgomery or Dugan came into the building at some point. If either of them is our guy, they’d have to case the place to know where all the cameras are.”
“Good point,” Brantley noted, glancing at JJ. “While you do that, we’ll pay Mr. Montgomery a visit.”
“But you don’t think he’s the guy?” JJ countered.
“No, but maybe he can give us some insight as to why Dugan would want to put the heat on him,” Reese answered, believing he was on the same page as Brantley.
It was something, he figured. Not much, but better than nothing.
***
Cori sat on the concrete floor, legs crisscrossed, staring at the stairs, waiting for someone to appear. From her vantage point, she’d be able to see the person and she wanted to get a good look at the woman, figuring she was her only hope of getting out of here.
Of course, she was also on the lookout for William—or rather Bill, as he had insisted she call him. That was due to self-preservation, of course. She planned to be ready the next time he came in. She had to be. She needed to get out of here but that wasn’t going to happen unless she made the effort.
