There was a line drawn to the name Drew Beamer, whom Jake had met downtown last night. Dani planned to speak with Drew again today to see if they had missed something about his interaction with Jake. There was a thread drawn to the dead guy, Judd McGee. Dani had been able to confirm through both the stepdaughter and two neighbors that Judd had been home all night and couldn’t have been involved with what happened to Caitlin Kingston.
So why was Jake searching for him?
How had Judd McGee become a player in all this?
And why was he now dead?
Dani had drawn another line to the private plane that had landed in Austin early this morning carrying Logan Gervais—and then she’d drawn an arrow pointing from Gervais back to Judd, whom she felt certain the infamous hit man had killed. Why had Gervais been pulled into this? Did Jake know something that someone else didn’t want him telling the police about?
Over on the side of the board, she’d scribbled the name Piper Slater, Jake’s thirteen-year-old daughter. Dani had been checking in with different Kingston family members throughout the morning, and still no one had heard a peep from the girl. Where was she? The police search had turned up nothing. Did someone really take her last night? If so, who and why? How was this all interconnected? It made no sense to Dani that all this had begun to snowball last night because Jake had been upset about his niece’s involvement in a custody battle over Piper that had been resolved five months ago. Something bigger was at play here, and she was determined to figure it out.
Turning around, Dani picked up a photo of Piper that she’d printed off social media. Piper was a beautiful young girl with the brightest smile, and she had Sarah’s green eyes. Dani set the photo of Piper down on the conference table and picked up a photo of Caitlin Kingston. Another beautiful young woman. Such a tragedy that her life had been stolen. Dani had already spent an hour reviewing various files of paperwork Caitlin had been working on the last few weeks for the FBI. It was basic low-level administrative material. She couldn’t find a single connection yet that made her believe that what happened to Caitlin last night was somehow connected to the FBI. So if this wasn’t about the FBI, and it wasn’t about a family custody dispute, then why had this all happened?
She again stared at the board, hoping something would pop out and give her new direction. But it wasn’t happening. And she was growing frustrated.
Her phone buzzed. A number she didn’t recognize. She answered.
A man’s voice. “Agent Nolan?”
“Yep.”
“This is Carl Kingston, Caitlin’s father.”
Dani had given her number out to the Kingston family members. She wondered why the father of the victim would be calling. “Yes, Mr. Kingston. How’re you doing?”
“Not great. Didn’t sleep last night. Just feel numb all over, you know. I still can’t believe this is real.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine it.”
“Look, I won’t take up much of your time. But I thought about something this morning. Not sure if it has anything at all to do with this but wanted to pass it along anyway. After the birthday party ended yesterday, Caitlin showed me a photo on her cell phone of one of the catering-crew guys who had handled the setup and teardown. She said Piper told her she thought she recognized the guy from the night when her mother was killed in the car accident last year.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m honestly not sure. Caitlin said Piper thought she remembered a guy being there right after the crash. Piper was kind of freaked out about the whole thing. My daughter wanted to know if I knew anything about the guy.”
“Do you?”
“No, I don’t. Didn’t recall ever seeing him before. But my brother Steve was standing there with me when this happened and might know something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He acted like he might recognize the guy and said he’d look into it.”
“Have you talked to Steve about it?”
“I tried calling him a few minutes ago but didn’t get him. I doubt it’s anything, but you said to reach out if we thought of anything, big or small.”
“Correct. Do you happen to have the photo Caitlin shared with you?”
“Yes, I do. You want me to text it over?”
“Please.”
“Sending now.”
A few seconds later, Dani was staring at a guy probably in his twenties with a goatee who wore a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. The photo showed him carrying a stack of folding chairs. He looked kind of rough around the edges.