Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Cliff
“Cliff,” Sue said. “Have you slept at all?”
“Sue, no, I can’t sleep,” I replied.
“I know you still love her and always have. That’s why I am confident that you will find her and bring her home safely,” Sue said.
“You are right about me still loving her, and I will find her. I just pray I am not too late. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happens to her,” I said.
Sue walks over and gives me a hug as Charles and Derrick walk in.
“Hey, everyone,” Derrick said. “I just got word from Wolf that he has spoken to the right people about Thomas, and he will be home in 24 hours.”
“I will leave you guys alone and go make us some breakfast,” Sue said as she touched my arm on the way out the room. I noticed a look that she gave Charles that was weird as she did. But I am sure it is a husband-and-wife thing.
Charles, Derrick, and I sat down in the living room when Hill walked back in from doing rounds outside the house.
We had each taken turns through the night just to make sure no one was trying to come back for something that they may have been looking for, since there hadn’t been a phone call for a ransom.
We are all holding on to the fact that the kidnapping is about money, but the more hours that go by without contact from them, it looks more and more like it is about something else, but what?
As we sat down for breakfast, the doorbell rang. Derrick went to answer it. I heard Jim’s voice as he said hello.
I went to get up, and Sue stopped me, saying, “There is no need for you to get up. Derrick will bring him in here, and you can all discuss the files over breakfast.”
“Okay,” I said and sat back down.
Derrick walked into the dining room with Jim, and Sue added another plate to the table. He sat two boxes down on the floor beside his chair with the files we requested.
“Did you find anything interesting when you started compiling the files?” I asked Jim.
“No. I didn’t really go through the information.
I just printed out the list of names of those still in the Middle East and those who came home within the last six months.
They printed out their backgrounds. It is really not my area to look for things that would cause them not to be hired, Human Resources takes care of all of that,” Jim replied.
“Then we will each take a stack after we eat breakfast and make a pile of those that look suspicious. The suspicious stack, I will take to the office and have my guys start running deeper backgrounds, and then we can all go through that information to try and narrow down who this could be. But we also need to think about the fact that it may not have anything to do with the company, but something else,” Derrick said.
After we finished eating, Sue cleared the table, and then Derrick, Hill, and I divided up the boxes. Jim and Charles were there if we had any questions about anyone in their contact with Charlotte or Ryan.
Six hours later and Derrick had a good start on who to run more information on and he headed out to fax the information to his office. Hill and I continued to go through the rest of the files and Jim left to go home. Sue cooked us a big dinner since we all had worked through lunch.
We had made some progress on the files, but I was still very frustrated. Nothing so far has gotten us any closer to finding Charlotte, and still no contact from the kidnapper.