Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
A frown wrinkled Esther’s forehead, and she huffed a soft sigh as a chime penetrated her dreamless sleep. Blinking slowly, she stared at the wall across from her couch, disoriented for a moment before her brain registered the noise. It was her phone, which she’d left on the coffee table after she’d come downstairs, unable to sleep. She didn’t remember nodding off.
Esther sat up and reached for the phone. Her sister’s face was displayed on the screen. She answered the call. “Hello?”
“So, we have a bit of a problem. Well, not a problem. Not exactly. More a change in plans.”
Leaning forward, elbows on her knees, Esther scrubbed a hand over her face. “What?”
“The guys are back, but they’re all getting sick.”
“Sick? What?” She groaned. That was just… great.
“Yeah. It started with Max. A bit of a cough, fatigue. Now he’s spiked a fever. Sam has one, too, and the rest of them are starting to get that throat tickle that says it’s coming. Margot and Annabeth think it’s the flu.”
Esther groaned. “How did they get the flu?”
“Probably from Margot’s girls. With the clinic build in full swing, she’s had them with a sitter. They aren’t the only kids there, and they were sick last week. Max thought he’d avoided it, but apparently not.”
“Great. So what are we going to do?”
“I have a plan. Ezra’s not sick. He didn’t go on the fishing trip. Amy’s pregnant again, and her morning sickness is ten times worse than mine. Margot’s not sick, either, so she’s going to keep an eye on her and everyone else while he flies the rest of us up there to you.”
“The rest—” Esther paused, frowning. “Who are you talking about?”
“The girls. Me, Audra, Brooke, and Annabeth.”
Esther groaned. “I know you’ve done some bodyguard stuff, but this is different.”
“And it’s nothing we can’t handle. Audra’s a former spy. Brooke has resources coming out her ears. Annabeth can be our go between with Dean and his investigative prowess while he’s laid up. We’ve got this. Now, I need to go pack. We’ll be there in less than twelve hours. Probably like nine. It’s close to eight hours in the air and we’re leaving very soon.”
“Um.” Esther ran a hand over her face and through her hair, her still sleepy brain trying to process everything. “Okay.”
“Everything is going to be fine, Essy. We’ll find them. Oh, one more thing. Audra said she’s going to call someone to help us with the tech side of things, so that person might call you while we’re in the air.”
“Oh. All right. Do you have a name or anything?”
“No. Just answer your phone, no matter what.”
A yawn stole over Esther’s face. “I will.”
“Good. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yep. Thanks, Edie.” An ache bloomed in her chest. She didn’t know what she’d do without her sister.
“You’re welcome.”
They bid each other farewell and hung up.
Esther set the phone down and leaned on her elbows, covering her face. She liked Edie’s confidence, but she also knew that the guys worked as a well-oiled team. Audra and Brooke might have great resources, but the issue was lining up those resources in a timely fashion, so the investigation didn’t stall.
She huffed and dropped her hands. There was no use worrying about it. She couldn’t control any of it or magically make the guys feel better. The circumstances were what they were, and they needed to use them the best they could.
Pushing to her feet, she went into the kitchen to make some coffee. Sleep wasn’t an option, and she couldn’t sit around and do nothing. But she wasn’t sure what to do, exactly.
What Asher said about how Rob Tyler couldn’t be Leah’s father rumbled around in her brain. Maybe she could dig into Connie’s past. And Leah’s. There were probably news articles about the girl. She remembered hearing about fundraisers for her—had contributed to some. She’d start there. It might end up being a dead end, but she couldn’t just sit idle.
While the coffeepot gurgled, she ran upstairs to grab her laptop. Computer and steaming mug of coffee in hand, she parked herself on the couch again and opened her web browser.
And stared.
She didn’t know what to type. Information gathering wasn’t her thing. Not like this. She surfed the web for art projects and gourmet coffee. Not dirt on a past someone didn’t want found.
Esther sucked in a breath and held it for a moment. What would Asher do? Where would he start?
She let the air out of her lungs and tapped the keyboard with her nails. Social media?
It could work. If Connie had a presence there.
Only one way to find out.
Esther logged into one of her social media accounts and typed Connie’s name into the search bar. A list populated, but none of the profile pictures looked like Connie Tyler. She tried Leah’s name, hoping there was a page dedicated to supporting her transplant journey.
An icon with a ribbon around a heart caught her eye. “Bingo.”
She clicked on it. Leah’s smiling face stared back at her. Esther cruised through the list of people following the page; most were teachers or other people in their community. There were some she didn’t recognize.
She set the laptop down and got up to retrieve paper and a pen. She’d go through them and write down the ones that might warrant further investigation.
Once she finished with that platform, she logged into another and did the same thing. On the third and fourth ones, she didn’t find any info on Connie or Leah. But she’d gathered a small list from the others. It probably wouldn’t pan out to anything, but she felt productive.
With the social media platforms scoured, Esther paused, tapping at the keyboard again. She wasn’t sure what to do next.
The AI button in the corner of the page caught her eye, and an idea struck her. Couldn’t those things search by picture?
She clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip. Maybe she could find a family photo.
Pulling up a search engine, she typed Leah’s name and their town into the search bar. A local news article popped up, and she clicked on it.
“Yes!” she hissed, seeing the image that appeared. Saving it to her computer, she cropped it so only Connie’s face appeared, then went back to the search engine and used the AI image search tool. It was a long shot, but she could get lucky.
Her phone chimed.
“Oh!” She jumped, startled by the sudden noise, jostling the computer. At least she hadn’t been taking a drink.
Esther leaned forward and picked up the phone, her heart hammering in her chest. An international number appeared. “Whoa. Who did you call, Audra?” She slid her thumb over the screen and answered it. “Hello?”
“Hi. Is this Esther Campbell?” The lilting, female British voice sounded pleasant and kind.
“Yes.”
“Brilliant. My name is Jo Richardson. Audra asked me to call you. Fill me in. I got the basics from her, but she said you have all the particulars.”
“I guess so. What do you want to know?”
“Start from the beginning. It’ll help me build a picture of what’s going on and where I need to focus my search.”
Esther gave a weary sigh. She was getting tired of recanting this story. But she did it, anyway, starting with what she first told Edie and going all the way through what she heard from the Tinsdales at the pizzeria tonight.
“I was just about to look through the results of the image search I did on a picture I found of the Tylers from a news article,” she finished.
“Send that to me. I’ll get better results than those pathetic excuses for AI searching.” She gave Esther her email address.
Esther chuckled. “I think I like you,” she said as she opened her email.
Jo laughed. “While I don’t aim to please anyone but myself, I’m glad.”
That was a good philosophy to have. It was impossible to please everyone. The only person whose opinion should matter was one’s own. Esther felt that if she couldn’t live with herself, it was hard to expect others to do the same.
Attaching the full image to an email, Esther clicked send. “There, sent.”
“Cheers, thanks. All right, let’s see what we’ve got.” A short pause came over the line. “Nice looking family. Poor kid. How’s she doing? Health-wise, I mean. I know she’s in a spot of bother right now.”
“She’s been doing well. Her doctors are happy with her progress.”
“That’s good to hear. My sister had a kidney transplant when she was seventeen. Lupus. It’s rough. Okay… let’s see.”
Esther scrolled through the images on her computer while she waited for Jo. It was a lot of pictures of blonde women. But none of them matched.
“Hmm…”
The note of curiosity in Jo’s voice piqued Esther’s attention. “What?”
“I’m sending you a picture. Look at it and tell me if you think it looks like Connie Tyler.”
“Okay.” Esther clicked into her inbox. A moment later, a message arrived. She opened it and clicked on the attachment.
“Did you get it?”
“Yes.” Esther tipped her head, staring at the young woman on the screen. And she was young. Late teens. But she looked like Connie. “It looks a lot like her, yes. Who is she, and where did you find that?”
“It’s from a social media post on a school web page. She was in a group. There aren’t any names. It just says ‘French Club.’”
“What school?”
“Pierpoint High School in Pennsylvania.”
Esther typed it into her browser and found the web page. “I wonder…” She opened a new tab and let her voice trail off.
“What?”
“So, I have a subscription to a website that contains an online archive of yearbooks. I’m on the reunion committee for my class. Anyway, I’m wondering if her yearbook is on there.” She logged into the website.
Jo let out a soft snort. “Love, you missed your calling. That’s good thinking.”
“Thanks.” Esther typed the name of the high school into the search bar. “Is there a year on that post?”
“Yes.” Jo read it off.
“Perfect, thank you.” Esther added it. Her heart thudded as the screen went blank while the search started. When it refreshed, a list for the school appeared. She let out a soft squeal. “We’re in business. Okay. Going back fifteen to twenty years…” She scrolled, then clicked on a year. “We’re lucky. This isn’t a large school.” It would still take her a little time to look through all the grades, though.
“What’s the name of this website and what’s your login information? I can use my software to find a match.”
“Oh. That would be faster, yeah. Okay.” She gave Jo the information. Through the phone, she heard a flurry of typing.
“We just need to give it a minute to work. The news article picture is a good one, so hopefully—wait.”
Esther sat up at the note of interest in Jo’s voice. “What? Did you find something?”
“I think so. I’ll send you this. It looks like her name is Lindy Nieman.” More typing ensued, then, “Hmm… That’s interesting.”
“What is?” Jo was killing her with all the vague lead-ins.
“Her parents were murdered almost eleven years ago. She disappeared, and the police assumed that whoever killed them killed her too.”
A deep frown pulled Esther’s eyebrows down. “Whoa. They didn’t suspect her of doing it?”
“No, it doesn’t look like it. Hang on. I’m reading news articles on it.”
Esther huffed. She could do that.
Annoyed at being out of the loop, she typed “Nieman murders Pennsylvania” into her web browser and clicked on the first article that came up.
“This says they found blood from a third person at the scene. Lindy’s. Enough of it for the cops to think she’d been gravely injured.”
“Hence the theory she was killed too.” Esther skimmed her article. It didn’t mention the blood, but it talked about how the mail carrier found the bodies the next day. Apparently, the front door had been left a jar and there was blood smeared on the doorjamb.
“So, maybe she witnessed the murders, was wounded herself, and then ran?” Jo surmised. “This article says they dredged the lake behind her parents’ property for her body, but didn’t find it. Doesn’t mean it’s not there, though. If she was disoriented from blood loss, she could have stumbled right into it.”
“Maybe.” But Esther couldn’t help but think about how Rob Tyler wasn’t Leah’s biological father. Who was? Did that person have something to do with Lindy’s parents’ deaths? News articles weren’t going to tell her any of that. Detective Stroud wouldn’t like it, but she needed to talk to Connie.
“I’ll keep digging into this girl. See what else I can turn up,” Jo said. “Is there anything else you want me to look into?”
“Um, not now, no.”
“Okay. If you need me, call me at this number or send me a quick email. I might not answer the phone if I’m busy with something, but I will let you know right away that I got your message.”
“All right. Thank you, Jo. I appreciate it.”
“Of course. Asher’s my friend too. I want to find him as much as anyone.”
Esther highly doubted that. What she felt for Asher went far beyond friendship. So, unless Jo and Asher had a similar relationship in the past, Jo’s concern didn’t hold a candle to Esther’s. Her heart was bruised and bleeding. Every moment without him was another chunk of it being lopped off.
Clearing her throat, Esther tried to make herself sound not so depressed. “He’s lucky to have so many friends who care. I’ll let you know—or Audra will—if we need anything else.”
“Sounds good. Please keep me updated on things?”
“Of course.”
“Cheers, thanks. Bye.”
“Bye.” Esther hung up. Taking a moment to process the conversation, she stared blankly at her computer screen. A smiling Lindy Nieman stared back at her. Dressed in a yellow cap and gown, she was sandwiched between her parents. They looked like a quintessential happy family. Esther couldn’t help but wonder what went wrong. How did the parents end up murdered? Why did Lindy run?
She sat back, bringing the computer with her and balancing it on her thighs. Jo wouldn’t be the only one doing some digging.