“Did he have a job?” I asked.
Jordana’s brow furrowed. “I think he worked…was it in the Galleria?”
I couldn’t help her, since of course I was the one who’d asked the question.
Jordana continued, “I think…yeah.”
“So if Brian’s such a good guy, how come Hayley never introduced him to her parents?”
Jordana looked pained. “I don’t know. Maybe because she was afraid they wouldn’t think he was good enough for her? He was older, he wasn’t in college, didn’t have any money…I don’t really know. I’m just guessing.”
“But there was nothing…skeevy about him? Or dangerous?”
Jordana leaned back as though I’d thrown something at her. “No. No way.”
I knew we should wrap it up. Jordana didn’t have anything more for us, and I didn’t want to have to offer more reassurance than we could honestly give her at this point, so I decided to see if there was any meat on the bone of my elopement theory. “Did Hayley get along with her father?”
Jordana seemed surprised by the question. “I guess. I mean, we never talked about him like that.”
“So she never talked about her father. Or her mother?”
She shrugged as though the question had never occurred to her before. Probably because it hadn’t. “Stuff he was working on, but that’s all.”
I supposed it made sense. At her age, parents were wallets with legs. And these were big wallets. We thanked Jordana and headed back to Bailey’s car to “reconnoiter” again.
Bailey cranked up the AC and picked up her cell. “I want to make sure the photo of Brian made it to the station and give the update on what Jordana told us. See what they’ve come up with so far.” She tapped in the number, then swore softly. “For some reason, I’m suddenly not getting any signal. Let me try outside.” She got out of the car and walked a few steps away, then began to speak. After a couple of minutes, I leaned forward to see what was going on, but her back was to me. It was another five minutes before she returned to the car. But when she got in, she stared out through the windshield for long minutes without speaking.
“What?” I finally asked.
Bailey continued to stare out the window as she spoke. “Brian Shandling does not exist. It’s a fake name.”
The wheels in my brain skidded to a stop. The entire landscape had changed. If Mr. Nice Guy was a fraud, then my theory-or more accurately my hope-that Hayley might be shacked up with her boyfriend on an island in the Bahamas was a pipe dream.
“They ran the name, found an apartment address, a couple of credit cards, and a driver’s license with a photo that matches our guy, but the DOB comes back to a dead two-year-old in Utah. I’ve put an alert out for him and for any activity on his credit cards,” Bailey said.
