“The envelope was tucked into a book at the bottom of a desk drawer,” Paige answers.
“It stood out to us because it was hidden and because Ashley doesn’t have pictures of any other guy in her room. She’s got pictures of her and her girlfriends on a big collage on the wall, but she’s not with a boy in any of the photos,” Astra elaborates.
I look at the photo of Ashley with our mystery man on the right side of the monitor as Nina’s facial rec program scrolls through a myriad of faces beside it on the left side.
“That kind of fits with what Violet was telling me,” I tell them. “She said Ashley doesn’t really go out or party, and the only boy she was interested in is named Tanner something or other.”
“I think that would be Tanner Hicks,” Paige says. “And that’s not him in those pictures.”
Paige turns her laptop around so we can see the photo of Tanner Hicks from the Weatherton Academy’s class pictures.
“He’s the only Tanner in the entire school directory,” Paige explains.
“Violet says he doesn’t even know Ashley exists,” I say.
“Didn’t she also say Ashley wasn’t seeing anybody?” Astra replies. “These pictures kind of make it seem like Auntie Dearest isn’t exactly in the loop.”
A chuckle bubbles out of my throat. “Doesn’t sound like it.”
In the pictures Astra and Paige found, Ashley is wearing shorts and a bikini top and is holding hands and kissing a boy on the cheek at what looks like a pool party. The boy appears to be a little older than Ashley—eighteen or nineteen maybe. He’s got wavy hair the color of dark chocolate that falls to his shoulders and light brown eyes. His features are sharp, his physique is lean and wiry, and he’s got a cool, pale complexion.
I’ve always tried to avoid judging a person by their appearance, but I’ve been doing this job long enough that I trust my initial reaction to a person. And what I see confuses me. He doesn’t seem like a bad kid, necessarily, but he does not seem like the kind of guy Ashley Barlow, this girl with drive and plans for her future, would hang out with.
“Paige, what can you tell me about this Tanner Hicks?” I ask.
“Eighteen. A senior at the Weatherton Academy. He’s the eldest son of Samuel Hicks—”
“Defense attorney to the stars,” Astra says.
“One and the same,” Paige says. “Tanner gets good grades, is slated to attend Georgetown, and from what I can see, seems to be popular and well thought of. And he’s got no criminal record that I can see.”
“We’ll have to follow that up later,” I say. “Like I said, it’s questionable whether he even knows her.”
“We have a hit on facial rec. Mystery boyfriend’s name is Tyler Mayhew,” Nina announces. “Graduated—barely—from Weatherton last year and is the only child of Bradley and Maya Mayhew. Bradley is a successful wealth manager who started at a top firm on Wall Street but hung out his own shingle twenty years ago and has been raking in piles of cash ever since. Tyler, though, doesn’t go to school and doesn’t have any work history that I can see.”
“What does he do?” Astra asks.
Nina shrugs. “Well, there’s no indication of a job, or school, or anything else… so maybe nothing.”
Paige is instantly scrolling his social media. “Nice car. Seems to live at home. Expensive clothes, expensive trips. Lots of parties.”
She turns and hits the play button on a video of Tyler and a bunch of his friends jumping around and partying like animals. They bellow tunelessly along to a rap song and spill their drinks on each other.
“Ick,” Astra says.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” I say. “This doesn’t seem like the kind of guy Ashley would hook up with. She was driven and motivated. What’s she doing hanging around a deadbeat with zero ambition like this?”
“Tyler also has a sealed juvie record,” Nina says. “I can’t unseal it without a court order, but it looks like somebody forgot to delete all the paperwork because he was detained by Maryland State Police four months ago for transporting marijuana across state lines. Not surprisingly, charges were never filed, and he was cut loose.”
“I’m guessing daddy greased the right wheels,” Astra says.
“That’s my guess,” Nina says. “But perhaps somebody who didn’t appreciate being strong-armed left that detention report in the system for others to find out of spite.”
I shake my head. “This doesn’t make sense. What is Ashley doing hanging out with a guy like this? What could she possibly have in common with him?”
“Opposites attract?” Paige offers.
“She’s going somewhere in life. He’s not,” I say. “It doesn’t add up.”
“The better question is, why would he abduct her? What could he possibly gain from it? He’s a party boy,” Astra points out.
“Maybe she told him she didn’t want to see him anymore and he couldn’t handle it. Didn’t want to be without her?” Paige poses.
As I look at his photo, though, and juxtapose it over the video of the abduction in my mind, the pieces don’t line up for me. We still need to do our due diligence and talk to this guy, but already, doubt about his involvement creeps in at the edges of my mind.
“I don’t think he’s our guy,” I say.
“Why do you say that?” Astra asks.
“Our offender is methodical. Organized. He had a plan, had Ashley’s schedule down pat, and had the audaciousness to execute it. Even when things looked like they might go sideways, he remained in control and was able to snatch her up in broad daylight,” I say. “Tyler Mayhew doesn’t fit the profile. I mean… look at him.” I take a look at more photos of the party that Paige pulled up and shake my head. “He doesn’t seem like the sort who’d be able to keep his cool under that sort of pressure.”
“Yeah. I can see that,” Astra says.
“We’re still going to have to talk to him just to be thorough,” I add. “But my gut’s already telling me that he’s not our guy.”
“What about Tanner Hicks?” Paige asks.
“Same thing. He might be smarter and more organized than Tyler, but I don’t think this abduction was carried out by a kid. I think this is somebody older,” I reply. “This abduction was bold. It was organized and well thought out. To me, kids their age don’t have the sort of patience or ability to keep their cool under pressure. Teenage boys are notorious for their lack of impulse control. And that part of the video when Ashley broke free from the guy, I tend to think boys Tyler and Tanner’s age would have flipped out. Maybe they would have run off, or maybe they would have done something worse to Ashley. But our guy kept his cool, tased her, then carried her off. To me, that profiles like somebody older and more experienced with being able to keep their heads while they react and adjust to setbacks on the fly.”
