Chapter 13

THIRTEEN

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Saturday, September 21

8:52 p.m.

"Any sign of her?" Hope and a pool of dread combined at the base of Leigh's spine.

The officer handed off the file. "No, ma'am. We'll keep looking."

"Thank you." Leigh closed the hotel room door on the uniformed Gulf Shores PD officer. Elyse's original case file in hand.

Getting access to the incident report had taken longer than she'd hoped, but Detective Moore had other things on her mind. Grief. Anger. Guilt. All the things Leigh had felt in the first few days of realizing her brother hadn't just disappeared. He'd been taken. Detective Moore had a lot more ahead of her. It was true that grief came in waves. Hell, despite the fact she'd gotten her brother back and her father had been released from prison, she'd been holding on to all of it for so long, she still felt that intense gravity in her heart sometimes. Like a habit she couldn't quite kick.

Damp hair soaked through Leigh's T-shirt at her shoulders. She'd managed to get most of the sweat and decomposition smell off her skin with a hot shower, changed her bandages, and pounded one of the pain prescriptions Elyse had insisted she fill. Now she was riding that slight numbness that made her feel a little bit out of control. No more pain. A lot more anxiety. She wanted to be ready. If the detective called her. If there were reports of another body. She didn't trust herself to make the hard decisions when the time came like this, but the pain from surgery a little more than two weeks ago would only slow her down. She'd had to pick her poison. On the plus side, the barbecue pork nachos she'd had delivered from a surfer-themed restaurant nearby provided a slice of relief.

No signs of Elyse. No blood trail to follow from the house. No body to examine. No word from her friend. It was like she'd simply bled out on the floor of her living room then gotten up and walked out. Except forensics hadn't concluded the blood belonged to Elyse yet. Patrols would keep making their rounds, looking for anything suspicious along the shoreline and dunes. Gulf Shores PD reported a dozen bodies discovered on these beaches every year.

Leigh would do whatever it took to ensure Elyse wasn't one of them.

"What happened to you?" She pulled the rolling desk chair from beneath the narrow hotel room desk and slid into it. Opening Detective Moore's case file from the assault that'd taken place six days ago. The report was written in first person, past tense language. Thorough. Though Leigh hadn't expected anything less from the detective's attention to detail. "Responded to a report of an assault at 1030 hours at South Baldwin Regional Medical Center at 3590 Gulf Shores Parkway."

According to the detective's notes, Elyse had first gone to the urgent care. She had head trauma, and bruising along one side of her body. Detective Moore had taken her own set of photos to add to the file, and Leigh's insides jerked at the depth of injuries. Elyse—every ounce the compact brunette who'd harassed her into taking drastic steps to stop the cancer from spreading—looked more gray than Leigh had ever seen her before. Her hair had been slicked back, accentuating the half inch of natural roots at her scalp. Slightly lighter than the rest of her hair. Dark circles took up residence beneath Elyse's eyes. So contrary to when Leigh had woken from anesthesia to find Elyse at her bedside, Leigh's hands sandwiched between her own. As though Elyse hadn't slept since. "Mild concussion. Sprained left wrist. Shoulder impingement. All congruent with signs of a fall. Not indicative of an assault as Mrs. Portman claims."

Air lodged in Leigh's chest. She stared at that last sentence, read it multiple times. This was why Wesley Portman had accused the detective looking into his wife's case of not believing Elyse's claims. Congruent with signs of a fall. Where would Elyse had fallen from? The detective's notes didn't specify. Only that Elyse stated she'd been out running. In fact, there seemed to be a lot of details missing from the report. Elyse's clothing had been bagged for the responding officer by the hospital staff, and Leigh made a mental note to follow up. On that, and Wesley Portman's claim the scratch behind his ear had come from the kitchen cabinet.

Leigh shoved the case file off to one side of the desk. The respect she'd garnered for Detective Moore over the past twelve hours—the sympathy—waned. Assumptions in an investigation usually ended up getting people hurt. Or worse. Dragging her laptop closer, she opened the internet browser and navigated to Instagram. Elyse used the platform to keep her brothers updated on events in the family's life. Ava's birthday parties—which they hadn't bothered to attend or acknowledge with anything more than a "like"—date nights with her husband, the occasional scenic post of Elyse out running. There was a chance Elyse had posted something recently.

Except the search was inconclusive.

Elyse's entire account had been deleted.

That didn't make sense. Despite her views on how social media was warping the rising generation's minds and creating mental health disorders, Elyse enjoyed following friends and family online. She commented, liked, and direct messaged at a daily rate.

Maybe Elyse had changed her profile name. There was a way to find out.

Leigh did a general search for Wesley's profile. The results came up almost instantly. A professional headshot of Wesley Portman. Over three hundred posts filled the grid. Highlights included food photos, read books, chess matches, and links leading to Wesley's consulting website. But she wasn't interested in any of that. Wesley Portman was not the kind of man to use his social media profile to post photos of his personal life or family. Instead, these were photos and posts that lead viewers to learn more about AI, desk setup videos with affiliate links, and data science as a profession—something Leigh had experience with herself reviewing crime statistics, self-report surveys, and statistics. For all viewers knew, Wesley Portman was an unmarried bachelor working out of a financial firm in Clarksburg and consulting as a freelancer. In fact, his latest post centered him in a sunny photo out on the vacation house's upper deck, a drink in his hand. The ocean splayed out behind him, with a palm tree encroaching from the bottom corner. Posted a couple days ago with the caption, Do not disturb . Over a hundred likes, a few comments.

Not the same man she'd met today.

Leigh set her sights on the followers list in the middle of Wesley's profile. While Elyse didn't entirely understand what her husband did for a living—she'd made it clear more than once in their phone conversations how she'd have to get a data science degree to translate conversations about his work day—she supported her husband. Leigh scrolled through the followers list. Hundreds of names. Each more confusing than the last. She searched for Elyse's photo in each of the small circles to the right of the handles. In vain. Elyse wasn't there.

Had she deleted her account?

Leigh took one last shot in the dark. Ava's profile. Fourteen-year-olds lived for connecting online. There was a mask of anonymity and perfection achieved they couldn't attain in real life, and Elyse's daughter hadn't been immune to the temptations. Elyse had shared her worries that her daughter had become addicted to her phone, that predators might ensnare and manipulate Ava into putting herself at risk, or that—heaven forbid—Ava herself was bullying another girl. As far as Leigh knew, none of these things were true, but that didn't stop Elyse from following her daughter's activities online.

Except Ava's name wasn't coming up either. And no profile photos that Leigh could identify as the young woman Elyse described as a perfect teenaged copy of herself. A sick feeling threatened to upend the nachos still sitting in the pit of her stomach. What on earth would convince a fourteen-year-old girl to delete her Instagram account? Why had Elyse shut down hers as well?

"What happened to you?" While social media platforms were the easiest way to get a snapshot of someone's movements and lifestyle, they weren't the only option. Leigh closed out the browser tabs. And used her credentials to log into the FBI's mainframe.

Her ring finger on her right hand hovered over the return button. It was a risk. She was supposed to be on medical leave. Banned from investigating potential cases—even ones she'd already been in the middle of, including tying up the threads of the Chris Ellingson case—by Director Livingstone herself. But the lack of detail in Elyse's incident report on the assault had raised a red flag.

Detective Moore wasn't new to the department. At least, not from what little Leigh had been able to learn about the detective in the past few hours. Over a decade of experience on the force. Not in missing persons, but that wasn't what gave Leigh pause. It was the fact Detective Moore had kept a vital piece of information from her superiors. Even worse, she'd continued to work additional cases despite the compounding grief for her missing niece. Elyse's case. Mistakes had already been made. Filling out the incident report, following up on Elyse's claims, trying to pinpoint where Elyse had been attacked—it'd all been half-hearted. Leigh could tell just in the lack of additional reports. Detective Moore had taken Elyse's statement and moved on.

So Leigh logged into the FBI's mainframe. She ran Elyse's name. Elyse Baker Portman. Born Elyse Baker, no middle name, on March 5, 1985, to Sara and Zach Baker in West Virginia. Parents both deceased. No outstanding warrants. No prior arrests or charges. Same address in Clarksburg, West Virginia for the past fifteen years. Steady employment at United Hospital Center for the past ten. Married Wesley Dean Portman eighteen years prior. Taxes filed jointly and up to date. Everything fit from what Elyse had divulged over late night calls and simultaneous TV watching in the past six months.

But there had to be something Leigh had missed. There had to be something here that made Elyse a target. Exhaustion dug into the back of her brain, and the words on the screen blurred for just a moment. The pain meds were doing their job. Trying to get her to relax. But if Detective Moore wasn't interested in putting the pieces together, who else would?

Her phone vibrated from the TV stand where she'd plugged it in. Leigh shoved to stand—slower than she wanted to go—and checked the screen. Director Livingstone. Her gaze cut back to her laptop. "Damn it."

So much for her brother running interception.

She answered and raised the phone to her ear. "Director."

"Agen' Brody." The Behavioral Analysis Unit's director accentuated her O s each time she said Leigh's name. At first, the accent—coupled with the woman's severe ponytail, skirt suits, four-inch heels, and impressive resume—had intimidated the hell out of her. But the past few months and Leigh's determination to apprehend Lebanon, New Hampshire's resident serial killer had put them on even ground. "I'm calling to check in on your recovery. How are you feeling?"

"Antsy. And pissed." Both were true. Though for very different reasons. She recentered herself back in front of the laptop. If the director was about to sever her access to the database, Leigh was going to get as much as she could. She couldn't request a geofence warrant for Sensorvault to obtain Elyse's GPS information. Not without Detective Moore or the director submitting a request to a judge. Neither of those were an option right now. She'd have to find another way. "Staying still has never been one of my strong suits."

"I can see that, but I hear Gulf Shores is nice this time of year." Director Livingstone let her words sink in for a moment. Just before Leigh was logged out of the database. "Enjoy the beach, Agen' Brody. We'll talk when your medical leave is over. Oh, and by the way, Chandler is a terrible liar."

The call ended.

Leigh tossed her phone across the desk. More frustrated with herself than anything else. She'd known the risk, and she'd accepted it. She'd just hoped she'd have a little more time. But she'd already made the choice. Medical leave wasn't going to stop her from finding Elyse.

She brought up the warrant request template stored on her laptop and filled it out.

Then hit Send.