In other words, Brantley had lost the battle and he was man enough to admit it.
However, he was also man enough to know he would ultimately win the war.
With coffee in hand, Brantley stepped back into the main room.
The entire space had been rearranged—again—only this time, the desks had been shifted to form a … well, he believed they were aiming for a circle but had formed more of a distorted oval so that everyone could be facing one another in order to openly discuss options for next steps.
From what Brantley gathered, they had yet to actually talk about what those options were because they were still gathering facts.
RT was sitting on the far side of the room talking to Trace Kogan, one of Hunter’s brothers, who happened to be an executive with the company. A few chairs down, Hunter was talking to Kye Sterling, one of his spouses. Their wife, Dani, was in Dallas holding down the fort. Back near the door, Trey, Luca, and JJ were going over something on her laptop. Near the whiteboard wall, Charlie was pacing back and forth on her phone, while Baz, Reese, and Z were skimming through a stack of papers someone had printed out.
“Ah, there he is,” Hunter said when he looked up to see Brantley.
Brantley offered a nod. “Sorry about that,” he said, apologizing for being called away briefly. “That was Governor Greenwood. He was askin’ for an update.”
When RT’s gaze shifted to him, Brantley shook his head, immediately answering his silent question.
“It was personal, not business. He’s close with the Walker family, wanted to see if we had anything yet. Or if we needed anything.”
RT nodded, then addressed the others. “Why don’t we resume now that everyone’s back.”
Figuring he would get more details if he planted his ass, Brantley took a seat across from RT. Reese came to sit at his side.
“We’re already aware Brantley’s opposed to these forums, as he refers to them,” RT said, grinning, “but I figure this is necessary to get everyone on the same page.”
All eyes remained on RT.
“As you’re aware, we’re dedicating a number of our resources to locatin’ Juliet Prince. As of now, we have every reason to believe she’s still in the area. We haven’t uncovered anything to contradict that theory, anyway.”
“I’ve been monitorin’ all the stolen vehicle calls in the area since she seems adept at that,” JJ announced. “We’ve researched all of them so far, and there’s nothin’ that looks to be Juliet, but I will stay on it.”
Brantley sat back, letting the others take the lead on updating the team.
Trey motioned to JJ. “And we were able to pinpoint a route we believe Juliet took since she left Mississippi back in September and arrived here last Sunday.”
They’d been tracking that for months now. As far as Brantley knew, it’d never been fully confirmed, more hearsay than fact, but it was a decent timeline.
“Looks sporadic,” Trace noted, reviewing the image on the television screen. “Do we know if she’s got family or friends who might’ve been helping her along that route?”
JJ was shaking her head. “The only family we’re aware of is her parents. Unless they’ve acquired a burner and are communicatin’ with her on a phone other than the one she used to talk to Marcus, then she hasn’t been in touch with them. I’m still monitorin’ their calls, as well as her mother’s email account.” She held up a hand, as though someone might want to argue with her. “And before you give me shit, yes, it’s a violation of their privacy. Considerin’ the circumstances, I don’t really give a shit.”
No one said anything, but there were a couple of smirks. Ever since Trace had made a comment about intrusive methods of investigation, JJ’d been on the defensive. Brantley was pretty sure Trace had done it to see if he could get a rise out of her, but he didn’t bother to share that with JJ.
“Any word on her social media accounts?” RT prompted.
Luca was the one to speak up. “As far as I can tell, she stopped usin’ her previous accounts prior to abductin’ Kate Walker back in September. Her last communication via Facebook Messenger was three days before, in fact.”
Brantley shifted to face Luca more fully. “Who’d she talk to?”
Luca was quick to respond, clearly having anticipated someone asking. “A woman by the name of Amy Gregson. I did a little diggin’ and she’s a friend of Juliet’s ex-husband’s new wife.”
For a second, everyone seemed to be connecting the dots in their head.
“Figurin’ why the hell not, I reached out to Amy. Accordin’ to her, the only communication she’s ever had with Juliet was that particular message, which she said was basically a bunch of”—Luca looked down at his screen—“‘hate-filled babble from the mouth of a bitter bitch.’ She reported it as spam and blocked Juliet’s account.”
Bitter was certainly an apt description of Juliet Prince.
“It doesn’t give us much,” Brantley acknowledged, “but it’s more than we had before.” He glanced at JJ then back to Luca. “Nice find.”
One of these days, something very similar to that would lead them right to Juliet’s doorstep. It didn’t unearth anything important this time, but at some point, she would fuck up and they’d have her. It meant they simply had to keep digging.
“And we know she dumped the burner and the motel manager’s car,” JJ explained. “All her accounts are frozen, which means she’s either stayin’ in a shelter or she’s still got some runnin’ money.”
“I figure it’s the latter,” Reese noted. “We know she cleared out a couple of accounts before Nicholas cut her off.”
“But how much are we talkin’?” Hunter asked.
“One had a balance of two-fifty, the other five.”
“I don’t suppose we’d get lucky and that’d be under a thousand total?” Kye asked.
“Seven hundred fifty thousand,” Reese clarified. “We do not know how much of that she’s runnin’ with. She has to keep movin’, and in order to do that, she’s payin’ cash for everything, includin’ a couple of cars she’s had.” He glanced from face to face. “If the Mustang she was drivin’ is anything to go by, she’s not bein’ frugal in her selection, either.”
“Nor is she buyin’ from dealerships. Cash transactions only,” Baz elaborated. “I was able to track down the previous owner of the ’65 Mustang. Bill Warren, address in Homer Glen, Illinois. I spoke to him briefly, and he confirmed he sold Juliet the vehicle, only she was going by the name Joan Anderson. Said she was pleasant but twitchy.”
Trace spoke up. “From the profile I had done on her, Juliet’s not lookin’ to go lean. She feels she deserves the finer things in life, and in her mind, Travis had no right to take that away from her. Doesn’t mean she’s not bein’ smart.” Trace motioned toward the screen. “We can see she’s stayin’ in cheap motels, but it’s not to keep costs down, more so to stay off the grid.”
Brantley agreed with that assessment. “He’s right. She’s stayin’ in those motels to avoid scrutiny on an identity. If she doesn’t have one already, I figure she’ll be lookin’ for a fake one soon enough, but only the best’ll do. Until then, she’ll stay where they’ll take cash with no questions.”