Chapter 45
forty-five
COLL BARR
“Thomas,” Coll barked into the phone, “we got a hit.”
Coll and Thomas’ security firm had put feelers out on Hannah Todd since the moment the woman’s mother contacted his niece, Mirren.
Thomas had gone to Edinburgh to question the psychiatric hospital where Hannah Todd had spent so many years of her life, the woman clearly fooling the staff about her progress. Thomas hadn’t approached the staff or her doctor directly.
Yet.
But it looked like that was about to change.
“What did you find?”
Coll ignored his best friend’s terseness. Both men were frustrated that a woman who might possibly mean their family harm had become a ghost.
“She’s on the move. Back to Edinburgh, I imagine. Bus, train, and ferry tickets were purchased under Hannah Keels.”
“She screwed up,” Thomas stated, relief evident in his voice.
“Yes. Finally.” According to one of the gallery’s patrons, the night of Mirren’s artist’s show, the artist’s girlfriend spoke to a woman matching Hannah Todd’s description.
It had been a stroke of luck that Todd had given Jina Turner the alias. Coll had put that and several variants of her name and family’s names into the search engine that would notify Coll or a member of one of his teams when one of the names was used. It had felt like a needle in a haystack.
Until now.
Thomas exhaled a harsh breath. “I’m calling a detective I know on the force here.
I’ll have him meet me at the hospital. I think it’s time to speak to Dr. Portman.
I looked over Todd’s finances, info that her mother provided.
The woman wouldn’t have had enough from the stipend her mother allotted to her psychotic daughter to live, when you consider food, rent, and transportation. ”
“Someone gave her money and circumvented the review of her mental health to release her. Portman is the likeliest person. It would be unlikely that a nurse would have the ready cash.”
“I agree. It’s the why of it all that flummoxes me,” Thomas admitted.
“I have no doubt when Dr. Portman is sitting across from you, his secrets will spill out right along with the piss in his pants.”
Another question that still alluded them was why the crazy woman had gone to Dublin. Surely, she hadn’t known one of Mirren’s artists would be putting on an exhibition. That would mean that Todd had been tracking Mirren’s career, which, after so many years, was creepy as all hell.
Dangerous.
To their knowledge, Todd had never attempted to make contact with Mirren or, for that matter, Margaret.
“You’ve got people ready to apprehend Todd?”
“Of course. We’ve got a tail on her now with orders to stop her if she veers off course. Otherwise, we want the woman to make it to Edinburgh on her own. It will make it much easier for the local police to arrest her.
“Her little adventure is over.”