Hiding Within The Betrayal

Chapter Eight: Sign of a dead end

"Wouldn't be the best time for me to tell you that Jessy's mother gave us some leads to follow?" Harper asked me from a safe distance.

My eyes widened, "Now would be a perfectly good time actually Harper."

Thankful that the two guys saved her ass, Tess was free to continue with her job. Returning the phone to the hook, she acted as if nothing had even happened between us. I ordered the pair to come over to join us. Around the first desk, we gathered like we were having a mother's meeting.

Before I let them say anything, I had to make something clear, "In future, if something like this happens again you come straight to me. Not to Tess. She's here to deal with people outside this company: you guys must bring issues to me. Understood?" There was a brief agreement between us all. I then turned my attention to the two who had just arrived, both the closest to Brileigh's age and even they were barely scrapping thirty, "Okay, so what have you got for me?"

Harper, the chattier of the pair, who had substantial history of being overly flirty with anything on legs, including myself, smugly grinned, "We had a successful interview with the mother. We gained a list of names of those she suspects. Proud of me Detective?"

I thought for a brief moment, "Depends if those names are any good. What about the jacket, did you get anything from it? I assume you went by the lab to get those results right?"

Jessy had been snatched from her garden. The mother, had been outside with her but returned to the kitchen to get dinner ready. She could see into the garden from the kitchen window but admitted paying little attention as she knew Jessy wouldn't move from the swing. The last thing she expected however was for someone to come into the yard and take her. This was our running theory anyway. Her jacket had been discarded by the swing, the last time her mother looked out of the window she was wearing it. Why the Lawson's didn't see it as evidence is beyond me, they had been running near enough three times longer than my company and had a larger number of employees and yet we found something they hadn't.

"We did get the results Detective." The other responded, with half the confidence of Harper.

Andrew could sense it, "Was there no readable source?"

The boys shook their heads in union.

I sighed, "Spit it out one of you!"

Harper groaned, "The mum took the jacket from the yard. They tried to get the dry skin off but even if there was part of it that could have had DNA traced  from it-"

"The mother's DNA was all over her daughter's jacket?" I queried in sorrow. 

My question was taken in. Returned by a nod. Shit...

I couldn't let them know how conflicted I was at the sign of a dead end. I thought about what else we had, what else we could look at. Forgetting about the jacket, I looked at the boys, "What did you get from the mother? You said she put forward some names?"

"I wrote them down, one second," he lent down to his hideous satchel and plucked out a notepad. The four of us waited in apprehension until finally he handed it to me open. I lingered over the names on the page, "Right okay, so what specifically did you ask from her to get these as a response? You need to give me more information."

He pushed his hand back through his hair before looking towards Harper who in turn looked at me, "So she comes in, all nervous as if we were able to arrest her for what happened to her child even though we have no reason to suspect she has any idea what happened. We ask a few things. Nothing really gets said. Until the moment we mention having spoke to her neighbors."

"Seems that they don't get on very well. She assumed that they would all accuse her of being shifty, that an elderly couple across the road had already made comments about her dating habits with a young child still at home."  Harper intervened.

Martha turned to them, a thought springing to mind, "Her dating life? So there were other people in and out of Jessy's life?"

Harper nodded, "Apparently so. Just by asking about the neighbors it made her put forward names that we hadn't heard until then. For starters, her most previous romantic relationship.  I don't know how likely it is though Detective Degarmo, do you think it's worth looking into?"

I wasn't sure. It was a very thin area but we had nothing else to go on.

I swallowed back, "Of course it is. What else do you know about these men?"

"Detective Degarmo?" Andrew intruded.

My attention diverted by the sound of my name, "Yes Andrew?"

"If the Lawson's are back working on this, do we really continue with our investigation?"

I was taken back by the question, "I have never once given up a case. They shouldn't have done what they did in taking it back so if anyone gives it up it should be them!"

We went back and forth between the four of us about it. Brileigh didn't want to get involved, she was the only one who didn't breath a word.

"The best thing we can do is combine forces." Andrew stated, "You might not like it Detective Degarmo but it's that or we are competing with the Lawson's. Surely that will cause you more of a headache than is needed?"

I scowled, "I hate to admit it, but for her sake, maybe you're right. I'll go to their offices as soon as someone gets me a file with everything you have on it. Get today's notes on it." I handed back the notepad, "I would prefer that we got this case closed ourselves but at the end of the day, finding Jessy is the priority.  If this is what it takes then so be it."

"What so that's it?" Martha denounced, "You're going to handover all our hard work to a company who gave up on it in the first place?"

I did admire the way that Martha called things out but there were often times that I didn't appreciate hearing it. She was the only employee that dared challenge how I ran things. Not the same cocky way that Tess did, instead she would state things as she thought them. It often lead to heated discussions.

Brileigh near enough jumped out of her skin as the woman sat beside her raised her voice.

Thinking how best to explain the situation, "Not hand it over. Join forces."

"Just you? what about the rest of us huh?"

I rolled my eyes, now wasn't the time for an argument, "Look Martha, this kind of situation rarely happens. I wholeheartedly understand why you're so passionate about it. I just don't see the point in competing, the longer we leave it, the harder it's going to be to find her."

"Why don't you demand that they gave us what they've found? They handed the case over to us, doesn't that mean anything?"

Wishing it wasn't so, honesty came forward, "They are a bigger firm. They wouldn't lower themselves to that. Even so, I'm not prepared to give this up and neither are you Martha. Neither are any of you."

She huffed. No come back,

I stood up, "I'll get in touch with the Lawson's. Bring me everything you can."

I wasn't sure what I was doing. in fact, I had no clue what I was expecting to happen.

Maybe it would be easier to let Tess deal with them.