Mitch sighed, the breath creating static against the mic on his phone. “Ever since I did that delivery, I couldn’t stop thinking that something didn’t add up. I’ve done this long enough to trust my gut, and something just didn’t fit. A man like that, he doesn’t just move on.”
“So…?” Garrison said, trying to prompt Mitch to get to the point.
“No onenever misses a day of work in five years, especially the sort of rich prick his record showed him to be. I’ve found that if someone’s alibi is too good, it’s a sure sign it’s fake. I went back today, sat outside and didn’t see any sign of him. Nothing. When he opened the door, I saw pictures on the wall. Didn’t know who it was, not until I researched more. They were of Sunny.”
Trent cursed, as if he didn’t care for the thought of that asshole having anything of Sunny.
“Not a shock he’d be obsessive,” Connor said.
“No, you don’t get it. I thought they were old at first, but it wasn’t until I got back home, and I thought about it. That dog Sunny owns, the one who got hurt, you told me about him. Is he a big black mastiff?”
“Yeah,” Garrison said, his throat tight.
“Well, there were a good four pictures up of her with that dog.”
Which meant Tanner had been close enough to Sunny in the past few years to get pictures of her and Spike…
“Where is he now?”
“Well, when I went to his house and there wasn’t any movement, I bent some rules and took a tour of his place myself. He’s not here and everything is locked down like he won’t be coming back for a few days.”
“If he hasn’t missed work, and he hasn’t taken any flights, how could he be coming here?” Connor asked. “Even if he managed it, if he drove for sixteen hours out here, spent a few here, then sixteen back, he couldn’t have done that and made it back for work after the attack.”
Papers shuffled through the line, then the creak of a drawer of some sort. Mitch cursed, muttering about locks, before a metal-on-metal click that sounded like a cabinet opening.
“Fuck,” Mitch said, the curse odd from the man. “On his desk is a picture of him and some guy in front of a small plane.” More sounds, the rustling of papers. “There are check stubs in his desk made out weekly to someone named Harron Kyle.”
Garrison pulled his phone out, typing the name in.Ah, social media, the easiest way to riffle right through someone’s life.A man showed up in the results with that name. “Gray hair, receding hairline and a hell of a mustache?”
“That’s him,” Mitch answered.
Garrison clicked on the image, bringing up the person’s profile. A lot of it was locked down, but as he scrolled more, older posts showed up, as though the man hadn’t learned how to hide things until later.
And eight years ago?
A post where Harron Kyle celebrated getting his pilot’s license. It meant Tanner had found a way to get to Sunny. He’d called her, he’d been there on weekends and could make it back home by Monday to keep up appearances. He’d escalated things, going from phone calls to a break-in and attacking her dog, and now he had to be in California again.
Garrison met gazes with Connor as all the pieces fit together.
They needed to get to Sunny.
Now.