Chapter 4
FOUR
Amanda updated Malone on the situation, and she and Trent submitted Valerie Archer’s purse into evidence intake.
Next, they got started on the warrant process that would grant them full access to her phone and requested pings on the rest of the family’s phones.
Since they had Valerie’s device on hand, they’d be able to view texts and call logs, even app and location data as soon as the approval came through.
If it didn’t provide enough of a picture, they could request the carrier records, but that would require a separate warrant.
Since they were looking at a high-risk situation, the warrant to look at Valerie’s phone came through in an hour, and they were headed over to East Station for the Digital Crimes Unit.
Amanda’s favorite detective there was Jacob Briggs, a man dedicated to the job and to getting the truth.
His work ethic had long ago earned her respect.
He smiled at her and Trent when he came out to greet them at the front desk, after the officer manning the post called him up. “What brings you two here?”
Amanda laid out the situation and added, “It’s like the entire family just vanished.” She handed over the evidence bag containing Valerie Archer’s phone. “We already have a full-extraction warrant.”
“Wonderful. About the warrant, not the family, obviously. Do you want to stick around for a bit, see if we find anything that might help right away?”
Amanda’s phone pinged with a message. She read it and said, “We’ll need to leave you to it.” She turned to Trent. “We just got some leads to follow.”
Briggs waved a hand, gesturing for them to leave. “Go. I’ll work my magic on this thing and let you know what I find.”
“Thank you.”
Briggs dipped his head and left for his office.
Amanda and Trent headed for the door, which he held for her. She updated him on what she’d just learned. “The husband’s phone last pinged along Interstate 66 on Saturday afternoon.” That gelled with what Traci said about it ringing straight to voicemail when she tried reaching him.
“Okay, and the daughter’s and son’s phones?”
“The last time the daughter’s phone was active it connected to a tower near Potomac Mills mall.”
“That’s unlikely to be a coincidence since that’s also where her mother’s car was left.”
“Agreed.”
“Okay, so…” Trent left his sentence to dangle.
Amanda’s imagination took over from there.
Would they find the teen’s body in the vicinity, or just her abandoned phone?
She shook it aside and shared the rest of the update.
“Now, the son’s phone hit a tower near Woodbridge Medical Center within the hour.
” It was the general hospital in Woodbridge with an emergency department. “It’s still active.”
“Get in the car, and I’ll get us there as fast as I can.”
Amanda hustled to the passenger seat, relinquishing the wheel even though she had a heavier foot than Trent.
But the drive gave them time to think and talk.
She couldn’t read Trent’s mind, but she was wondering if Landon was injured or dead, his personal possessions being held until the medical staff could reach the family.
And even if he was a patient there, it didn’t mean he was innocent.
He could have been hurt during the orchestration of the kidnapping of his family.
The text being nothing more than a cunning tactic to make him appear innocent.
He’d only sent the one text. No follow-up messages when she didn’t respond.
Her work in law enforcement had taught her that blood ties don’t necessarily mean anything.
Often, they are the source of conflict and violence.
One only needed to look at the news to see people killed members of their family every day.
It was nearing ten thirty when Amanda and Trent walked into the emergency room and headed straight for the registration desk. There were two lines of sick people ten deep, and two clerks scrambling to process them. They shot to the front of the line.
“How can I help you?” The woman’s eyes landed on their badges, which they both held up. Her shoulders dropped, and she let out an exaggerated sigh. “Listen, it’s a crazy night, as you can see. There’s nothing I can tell you about a patient, which is what I assume brings you here.”
“There’s a family we believe may have been taken, but one of their phones pinged back here.
” It was a bit of a stretch since it wasn’t like they had an exact GPS location on Landon’s device.
It was a ping off a nearby cell tower, which just put it in the vicinity.
“The last name is Archer. First name, Landon.”
The clerk shook her head. “I’m sorry, but HIPAA doesn’t allow me to give out any information.”
Privacy laws were good when they worked, but in cases like this they became a tricky challenge to navigate.
But they had a work-around. Amanda didn’t expect that the administrative employee would know the ins and outs.
“Since the person we’re looking for is part of an active missing person case, you may disclose whether or not he is in this hospital. ”
The other clerk finished up with a registration, sticking a folder in a sorter, and looked over at her colleague instead of summoning the next person in line up to the counter.
She was older than the woman Amanda was speaking to, with some gray roots sprouting on the crown of her head.
“In this situation, you can tell them if he registered in the ED.”
“You’re sure?”
“Uh-huh, but I’ll look him up if you wish. I happened to overhear. Landon Archer?” The woman looked at Amanda.
“Yes.” Amanda was impressed by how this woman could track that while registering a patient. But in a busy emergency room like this one, staff needed to be on high alert and tuned in to everything going on around them for their own safety.
The clerk tapped on her keyboard and shook her head. “He doesn’t show as coming in here. You could try the patient information desk in the main lobby. We can’t access that part of the hospital’s system.”
“Thanks.” Amanda walked off with Trent following. She didn’t need directions.
The clerk at the new counter struggled to rouse a smile. Not that Amanda could blame the woman. She was likely overworked and underpaid. She’d have to deal with egotistical doctors and nurses, all while managing stressed-out patients and their families.
Trent stepped up and ran through what Amanda just had with the clerk in the emergency department.
The one here grimaced. “I’m sorry, but I can’t disclose that information.”
Amanda was about to explain that she could when she heard someone calling her name.
“Amanda? What are you doing here?” Carter, or Dr. Paulsen to his patients, came walking over. “Everyone all right?”
It was a question that seemed to fall from his lips a lot. She’d say it was his line of work, if she didn’t know better. It was her job, and his knowing that it attracted misfortune, including trips to this hospital. It was on one such occasion when she’d met Carter. “Do you need to ask?”
Trent cleared his throat.
“Trent,” Carter said, acknowledging him for the first time.
Her partner didn’t respond.
“Right,” she said, “well, we’re in the middle of a missing person investigation and it led us here.”
“Oh?”
“We just need to know if Landon Archer is a patient here,” she told him.
“Which I can’t tell you, Officer,” the clerk stressed.
“Detective.” Amanda and Carter corrected her in unison, and Amanda smiled at him.
The clerk rolled her eyes.
“You can confirm that under these circumstances.” Carter walked over to the desk and leaned casually on the counter.
The woman’s cheeks flushed, which Amanda sensed had more to do with her feeling undermined than the proximity of Dr. Handsome—the nickname Amanda’s best friend, Becky Tulson, had given Carter just hearing about him. Amanda had never even shared his picture with her.
“That’s about all we can confirm, unfortunately, without a warrant,” Carter elaborated.
The clerk typed on her keyboard and, a moment later, looked up at the three of them. “He’s a patient here.”
“For how long? For what?” Amanda asked, disregarding what Carter had said a moment ago.
The clerk looked at Carter for direction.
“You can say when he was admitted, but don’t disclose anything about his medical condition.”
“He was admitted three months ago.”
“You’re sure?” The question left her lips without thought. It received a scowl from the clerk.
“That’s what the computer says.”
“Thanks.” Amanda turned and took a deep breath, and Trent stepped up on her right side.
“I take it that wasn’t what you were expecting?” Carter asked as he came up on her left.
“Not at all.” Her mind was trying to unravel this new mystery.
If Landon had been here all that time, wouldn’t he have wondered why his mother hadn’t responded to his text?
What the hell was going on? Then again, they didn’t know his medical condition.
It couldn’t be ignored that he was a long-term patient.
He must have a serious health issue that made him bedridden, completely unrelated to the disappearance of the rest of his family.
“We’ve got to move, Amanda,” Trent prompted her, adding a not-too-subtle brush against her elbow.
“Yeah, I get it.” She smiled at Carter and walked away, but he caught her hand on the backswing and reeled her to him. Trent kept walking. She heard the soles of his shoes hitting the floor.
“I need to leave.” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder to emphasize the point.
“Just one thing first.” Carter touched her chin and planted a smoky kiss on her lips. She would have enjoyed it more if Trent weren’t in the vicinity.
She pulled back and smiled at Carter, despite waging war with herself on the inside.
It was time to end things with him. She wasn’t doing him or herself any favors.
There was no way she was ready for anything serious, and then there were the feelings she had for someone else.
It might be better to be alone than coupled when it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Detective,” Trent said, “are you coming?”
Amanda held up her arm between her and Carter. “He’s right. It’s time to go.”
“Okay, well, I’ll be in touch. We could get together later this week, if it works for you.”
She spun and smiled at him. “Sure, I’d like that.
” It was the right thing to say, but it had her feeling like a fraud.
Their get-together wouldn’t be a pleasurable one.
It was time to have the talk with him. She’d find no joy in hurting Carter, but she had to be true to herself.
A book she’d read said that if you want something, you need to make room for it to appear.
Considering she rarely had five seconds to sit still long enough to read anything that wasn’t a case file, the fact that message had gotten through must mean something.
Her phone rang, saving her from stumbling over her next words.
“It’s Briggs,” she said just before answering on speaker.
She got into the passenger seat while Trent got behind the wheel. “You have something,” she told Briggs.
“Yes, though I was hoping to deliver that line. I got into Valerie Archer’s phone, and I’m just getting started, but I thought you might want to know this sooner than later. The last text she received was from her daughter.”
“When was this?” Trent asked.
“Two forty-five this past Saturday afternoon.”
“What did it say?” Amanda volleyed back.
“‘I need a ride home. Pick me up at Potomac Mills. Near the Cheesecake Factory.’”
This text, along with the ping on Brooke’s phone, placed her at the mall on Saturday, just like her mother.
Briggs continued. “The message isn’t strange on its own, but the punctuation is a different story.”
“How so?” she asked.
“It strikes me as too proper for a teenager. Most of them avoid punctuation in texts altogether. They use acronyms and emojis as much as possible. There was none of that.”
“What are you suggesting?” Trent asked.
“I’m not entirely sure. All I can tell you is from a look at this girl’s other texts, she typically ascribes to the norm for her age group.”
“Okay, thanks,” Amanda told him.
“Don’t mention it. I’ll be in touch with more once I have anything to share.” Briggs was gone before she could say goodbye.
Trent looked over at her. “First, Brooke’s phone pings off a tower near the mall, and now the text from Saturday… We need to get officers searching the lot and dumpsters on the property.”
“Uh-huh, and we have to contact the mall’s property management company and get something set up with their security. It’s time to see if their security footage caught anything.”