Page 36 of Backwater Justice
“For now,” Izzie teased.
“Oh, shut it.”
“You should have seen her on the plane,” Izzie mocked. “Annie, you’d better tell the flight crew they’re going to have to stock up on snacks.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “And beverages. Geez. I’ve been here for what, like four minutes, and it’s dogpile on Maggie.”
Everyone laughed. It was an ongoing joke. You’d think they’d get tired of teasing her, but it was just too easy.
“As long as you wash your hands first.” Annie shot her a look.
“Oops.” Maggie dashed toward the bathroom. “I used to be so vigilant during the pandemic, but everyone seems to have slacked off, including me. Be right back.” She brought the grapes with her.
Several minutes later, the phone rang, informing Annie that their lunch was being delivered. Myra opened the door. “Oh, my. Is all of that for us?” She stared at the tray piled with boxed lunches.
Annie cleared her throat and jerked her finger toward the bathroom.
“I heard that!” Maggie called from inside.
“I didn’t say a word,” Annie chided.
As soon as Maggie returned to the seating area, Annie and Myra fired up their laptops. Myra spoke. “Girls, you may want to log in, as well. We can catch Kathryn up when she gets here.”
Maggie and Izzie followed suit and pulled their laptops out from their tote bags.
Everyone logged in to the VPN, and within a few seconds, all of them were connected to Charles and Fergus via a secure chatroom. They exchanged greetings; then Annie ran the meeting.
“This morning we located Vanessa Rowan, the missing fourteen-year-old. She’s doing okay.”
Gasps of excitement filled the cyber airwaves. “Where? How?” Maggie’s journalist instincts kicked in.
Annie explained how she’d discovered Vanessa in the hospital stairwell. The girl had managed to escape the night before and was found by a woman in the woods. The woman brought Vanessa to her house, where she and her husband decided to take her to the hospital. But Vanessa noticed the truck had an S.E.I. logo, the same logo she’d seen when she was abducted. She panicked and ran off through the hospital. “I spotted her as she was about to exit onto the floor where Milton’s room was, but she bolted back into the stairwell. I was able to convince her that I was there to help. Myra and I smuggled her out of the hospital, phoned her parents and her PCP. She explained that she was hitchhiking and got into a pickup truck. There was a box on the seat, but it caught on something and the top ripped off, exposing bags of white pills. The man punched her in the face, and when she regained consciousness, she was being held in a basement room.” Annie went on to finish Vanessa’s story of her escape, explaining that she and her family have been reunited and are en route to Lake Tahoe.
“So she ran from the couple because she saw the logo.” Maggie was taking copious notes.
“Yes, she didn’t know if she could trust them.”
“But they brought her to the hospital,” Izzie mused.
“Keep in mind she had been terribly traumatized. I probably would have done the same thing,” Maggie added.
“True.”
“Has anyone notified the police that she’s been found?” Izzie asked.
“Not yet. We think there is more to unveil, and if the Spanglers are involved, they may have their tentacles everywhere,” Myra replied.
Charles chimed in. “Fergus is running some background on the sons. So far, Benjamin has come up clean as a whistle, but Oliver seems to have been able to get his hands on a lot of cash over the past two years. We don’t believe it’s due to genius investing, as there is no paper trail. Just lots of receipts for high-end goods.”
“Not surprising,” Annie said.
“We’re also taking a look at the company’s transactions. There are some questionable purchases that do not appear to be in accordance with their business enterprises,” Fergus added.
“What do you mean?” Myra asked.
“There’s an invoice for four-piperidone hydrochloride,” Fergus replied.
“What is that exactly?” Myra asked.