No Show

I hated missing persons cases...Nine times out of ten , the people who are missing are dead and that winds up being a whole nother basket of worms...and one percent of the time...the people are missing because they want to be missing or they were kidnapped.

I didn't say it around my wife Sepia or Robert and Bonita...but my thinking was that either Gary and Lisa Hughes were kidnapped and being held for ransom or they were dead. I was thinking one or both of them were dead.

Their office was unlocked, unattended to....Lisa's purse ,full of credit and debit cards and about $800.00 in cash was on her desk....Her cell phone was on the table...and her car was in the parking lot!!   At their house, nothing was disturbed...All of their personal effects...Except for Gary's Lexus! was in place, nothing disturbed and again...The door was opened...

Just didn't look right.. These two were prompt and precise ..Always made their appointments, always on time..Everybody that knew them personally who I talked to and I'd talked to close to 200 people in the two days since the Hughes went missing said the same thing.  That they would have never just left and left their doors open and all of their things out in the open like this...

I took Clerow , Owen Todd and Chance Howard back to the Hughes office and we went over it with a fine tooth comb...I found client lists....Future appointments..The whole works...The four of us divided up the lists and interviewed close to 75 people within the next day....We found out nothing...,

I talked to people in the general vicinity and in their neighborhood....One lady was up at around 4:30 in the morning...She had had company and her company was leaving...She remembered seeing a man getting into Gary's Lexus and pulling off...She said that she didn't get a good look at his face, but that she could tell by his build that it wasn't Gary , who was tall and athletic...She didn't recall seeing Lisa at all...

Peeping Tom and Lockpick Johnson took both of their home computers and their laptops and was doing a forensic investigation of the computers...He said that he would call me when he got something...Another search of their office turned up nothing.

With the help of the building supervisor....I got to look at the video surveilience of the entire area....And here it was..Something of interest!

I saw Gary's Car driving and parking in the lot at 5:35 am....on the morning the Hughes went missing.  On The tape ,I see Gary and Lisa getting out of the car and going into their office, There is clearly someone with them, but I can't make out his face...He is wearing huge shades and a black trenchcoat....I keep watching..and watching watching....I never see Gary or Lisa leave, but I see the man in the trenchcoat leaving and driving off in Gary's Lexus.....About an hour later I see another car pull up...and old Ford Fairlane, like the one my father used to drive.

Two different men get out and walk in...One has a cup of coffee..The other has a box with what looks like cleaning supplies...A little while later they both come out carrying a huge trash bag each or is that a body bag?  It is huge and it's tied up...They put the bag in the trunk of their car...They go back in, and come out with another bag and put that in the trunk of their car.. One guy goes back in and gets the cleaning supplies and gets back in the car and pulls off.  That's it.


I inquire about a night watchman!!  I was told that he goes off duty at 3:00 am and that his replacement doesn't come on until 6:00 am and on this morning, his replacement was late...Didn't come on until 6:20 am.  Which gave these guys time to come in and go God knows where and do God knows what.  I don't know where these guys went when they entered the building.

What I did know was that Lisa and Gary came here with another man and walked into this building and never left!!!!!  Since this was early in the morning, There was no one to witness anything.

I questioned shop owners along the route to the office...I was wondering if anybody fitting any of the descriptions I had stopped for coffee, cigarettes , anything...Nobody remembered anything. Chance and I looked at hours of videotape..and we found nothing!

Lisa and Gary and whoever had walked into their office and vanished into thin air!!!

II-

Later on, Owen, Clerow, Chance Howard and Lockpick Johnson all met up at Peeping Tom's house.

"Kevin...The hard drives on all of these computers have been wiped clean....It's as if they are brand new..." he said.

"You didn't find anything?" I asked.

"Nope...and I should have found something...Personal emails...something...All wiped clean.." he said.

"Somebody was either looking for something or trying to keep anybody from finding anything." I said.

''So they disapeared em right?" said Owen Todd.

"Yup...Even the appointment book I did find had the day they went missing's appointments ripped out of the book." I said.

"But they was only supposed to meet with you right boss?" said Clerow...

"No...Bonita and Sepia was supposed to show them a house earlier, but they never made the appointment." I said.

"That it? Were they supposed to be anywhere else?" asked Chance Howard...

And then I remembered something...Something about our dinner-

Just then Gary's Android rang....He looked at us...


"I've got to take this ...excuse me." he said and got up and walked towards the restroom.


We all continued to laugh and talk and eat....Gary came in after a little while and said to Lisa...


"Well you talked Scurlock up...He would like to meet with both of us first thing in the morning." he said.


''About what?"asked Lisa.

"He said he has some new figures to show us..." he replied...

"I'll bet...You go see him...I'm going to meet with Sepia and Bonita." she said.


"He insists on the both of us being there." said Gary...

"Ohhh, okay...We might be a little late girls...but we'll be there." she said.

"SCURLOCK!!!" I said.

"Who?" asked Clerow,Owen and Chance in unison....

"The reason they hired me in the first place...They wanted me to investigate their partner, who they didn't trust..A John Scurlock....They wanted me to look at their books.He's the one person I didn't talk to...." I said.

III-

Later on that afternoon, I picked Sepia up after work...We were driving through the city, talking...

"Your car will be out of the shop tomorrow won't it?" I said.

"Yup..and you won't have to pick me up anymore." she laughed...

"Oh I don't mind." I said ,smiling...

Just on a hunch...I decided to drive past Lisa and Gary's house... I am glad I did.

"Sepia...Do you see what I see?" I said.

"Oh My God!" she said...

It was Gary's Lexus!

It was parked right out front...I got out of the car, walked up to the house....The door was locked!!! It hadn't been before....I checked the car...It was locked and the keys were lying on the front seat!!!   It had been two days since the Hughes had gone missing....Lisa's car was at the office and now Gary's car was in front of the house and the door was locked... Somebody had been here!  But who ???and better yet!  WHY?


(TO BE CONTINUED.....)