Chapter 10
TEN
Amanda headed straight for her desk instead of Malone’s office.
She wanted to dive into Valerie’s lover before speaking with Malone.
While she brought up the background for Phillip Daily, Trent made a call to the bowling alley.
She hadn’t expected he’d find anyone there this early, but he started speaking to someone.
She pulled various reports and confirmed that Phillip didn’t have a criminal record, but she learned that he was never married, and didn’t have children.
He had a Volkswagen Jetta registered to him.
He could have borrowed or rented the van that took Valerie and Brooke. But who was his partner in crime?
Trent wrapped up his call and updated her. “So no luck with the bowling alley. Their cameras don’t cover the pay phone, only the counter and front doors.”
“We could still see if the same person enters around the time of the calls, once Briggs sends that over.”
“We could if their cameras hadn’t gone down this past weekend.”
“That’s some bad luck right there.”
“We’re just assuming the calls are connected to this.”
“We’ll still ask Daily about them when we catch up with him.” She proceeded to fill Trent in on what she’d unearthed about Daily.
“The lack of a criminal record doesn’t make him innocent. What does he look like?”
She brought up Daily’s license photo. Staring back at them was a good-looking man in his mid-forties, graying at his temples with otherwise black hair. His resting face was pleasant, and his eyes appeared soft.
“Well, the guy doesn’t look like a criminal, but what do I know?”
“If anything, you can’t go by how a person looks.”
“I get that. Receive anything from Briggs yet?”
“Knowing him, something is sitting in my inbox. Just one second.” She opened her email program, and a few messages filtered in, including one from Briggs.
But she opened one from the Crime Lab first. The investigator said they were reaching out to her since she was the assigned detective on the Archer case.
A search of the Dodge Charger didn’t turn up anything that flagged.
Amanda didn’t share the update since Trent was leaning over her shoulder reading it from her screen for himself. She inhaled his woodsy cologne.
Next, she clicked on the email from Briggs. The subject line was Valerie Archer’s Phone. Inside was everything that Briggs had promised, including the times of the calls made from the bowling alley.
“Did you guys come see me, and I just forgot that it happened?” Malone stood in the doorway of her cubicle.
Amanda spun her chair to face Malone, glanced at Trent, but she fielded their boss’s question. “We were just checking a few things out first.”
“And…?” Impatience coated Malone’s tone of voice.
She told him the Archer house was tossed and all the electronics were missing. Next, she filled him in on talking with Valerie Archer’s parents and not finding any reason for the family to be targeted. “The grandparents confirmed that their grandson, Landon, is safe in the hospital.”
“Good news, but that still leaves three Archers unaccounted for.”
“It does, but Detective Briggs from Digital Forensics just gave us a solid lead. That’s what we were digging into a bit more. We know you value information over hypotheticals.” She briefed him on the burner phones, the calls from a pay phone, and Valerie’s lover.
“You should have led with that. It sounds like it’s time to have a chat with this Phillip Daily, see what you can get out of him. You told me you suspect that more than one person is involved. He could have roped someone into this.”
She nodded. “Our next step will be talking with him.”
“Have you reached out to any other family members besides Valerie’s parents?” Malone asked.
“Not yet. We were wanting to keep the circle tight on this until we had a better idea of what we were dealing with,” she explained.
“I get that. All right, keep me posted on any further developments.” Malone turned to leave but stopped when his phone rang. He answered and told his caller, “I’ll get detectives out there immediately.” Malone returned to Amanda’s cubicle. His expression was pinched when he pocketed his phone.
Amanda inched forward on her chair. “What is it?”
“A man’s body was just found in a farmer’s field out in Haymarket. Didn’t you tell me last night that the father’s phone tracked back to Interstate 66?”
She had in the voicemail she’d left for him. “I did.”
Malone raised his eyebrows, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Well, one way of getting to Haymarket is by taking that highway.”
“Time to move.” She stood and signaled for Trent to join her.