“I know. I just want to help find him, Shawn. Nothing else matters.”
“True.” He took in a deep breath. “It didn’t mean anything to Jeremiah. If memory serves, that was the night he discovered the Julian because one of them was booked in there for the retreat. After that though, he kept going there for a while. The grounds are big and fenced off, and it’s far enough away from the city that there were no photographers around. Even if they followed him, they wouldn’t have been able to get close enough to get a good shot of… anything.”
“Do you think it meant something to Jannie?”
He considered my question before answering. “It’s possible. They hooked up once. If anywhere would be ‘special’ to her, it would probably be the place where it happened.”
A mix of emotions turned in my gut, but the dominant one was hope. The most dangerous of them all. My heart started beating faster. I might have found him.
“Thanks for your help. I’ll call the cops and give them the information right away. It may be the best chance we have at finding him.”
“Keep me in the loop,” he said before hanging up the phone.
Pulse racing, I called and told the police what I found. Officer Harrison wasn’t nearly as grateful or excited as I thought he might’ve been. “We’ll look into it soon, Ms. Donavan. We’re following up on a few leads at the moment.”
“Jannie took him,” I insisted, my voice slightly louder than usual. “Please send someone to the hotel. I’m a woman. If I was going to try to make someone remember something about a relationship, I know I would’ve taken them somewhere I thought was special to us.”
“I’m sure,” he replied. “Ms. Donavan I had some more questions for you about this Jannie. It turns out there are no records for her. We’re waiting on information from Williams Inc., but so far there’s no Jannie popping in his background.”
The feeling that he didn’t believe me started creeping up on me, making my fingers and toes feel ice cold. “She’s real. When you get her employee records from Williams Inc., you’ll see that she was his secretary for years before me.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But it’s more likely that he was taken for ransom. His family is well known and very wealthy. It’s slightly more credible that someone took him for the payout.”
“Who suggested that?” I asked, though I had a pretty good idea. “Jance?”
Officer Harrison didn’t answer me, which was all the answer I needed. Jance didn’t believe me, and now it looked like he was actively leading the police investigation in the wrong direction. I knew all the way down to my bones Jannie was responsible for this.
“He didn’t even believe his son was kidnapped this morning,” I reminded the good officer. “He thought he was drunk and being a Class-A idiot. Thanks for believing that guy.”
I hung up on Officer Harrison and released an angry huff as I tossed my phone down. If the police wouldn’t do something to find Jeremiah, then I would. Fuck them.
They could sing along to Jance’s tune all they wanted. I didn’t care about Jance. I only cared about getting Jeremiah back. Less than a heartbeat later, my phone was pressed to my ear, and I was waiting for Shawn to answer again.
When he did, I got right to it. “My car is in the shop. The police don’t believe Jannie took him. Is there any chance you could come get me and take me to the hotel?”
If Shawn was surprised by the request, he didn’t let on. “I’m on my way.”
And so was I. I’m coming Jeremiah, just hold on.