Hitman's Creed - 21

 

"How do you find someone who doesn't want to be found?" Joey asked that evening after Glenn came by to tell him and his mother what preparations were in the works to secure their house, and what he had found out about Miss Nye and her daughter.

Joey's mother was more worried about the daughter, asking, "Do you think he took her then killed her?"

"While I have no facts to back it up, my gut feeling is that she's alive and with him, although I doubt she went willingly," Glenn replied, answering Miriam's question first. "If he'd wanted her dead he'd have killed her as soon as he found her. As for what you asked, Joey, if the person knows what they're doing then finding them can be virtually impossible."

"How would my father have learned to do that?"

"Possibly trial and error, maybe with help from someone. Money in the right hands can get you just about any kind of help you need."

"But he didn't have any money," Miriam told Glenn.

"Perhaps it's more a case of not having any that you knew about. He was, after all, planning on running away with his mistress before everything went south. That would take funds of some sort."

Joey nodded slowly, his eyes flicking to the windows and back again. "He could be out there somewhere right now, watching and waiting."

"I'm not going to say that isn't a possibility. He could also be off in Timbuktu or somewhere equally remote if he feels he's accomplished what he wanted to do."

"If you're right about his daughter, why would he kidnap her?" Joey's mother asked. "It seems to me that would make it even harder for him to hide out."

"Or," Joey put in, "it would make the perfect cover. A single father with a teenaged child, who would think he was a wanted killer?"

"Very true, Joey, if she went with him willingly. But as I said, I rather doubt she would have, so that would be harder to pull off."

"You don't think…" Joey shivered. "They, the police, said he abused her. What if…"

"He took her to continue doing it? Sick, but then he's not exactly a sane man now, if he ever was."

"He wasn't. He beat mom," Joey spat out angrily. "I wouldn't put anything past him."

"Joey!" his mother said, pain lacing her voice.

Joey bit his lip, muttering, "Sorry, I didn't mean to tell him that."

"I know," she told him. "I suppose it's something Glenn should know about anyway."

"It helps me get a better picture of him, yes," Glenn said. "And it goes no further than this room as far as I'm concerned." It also hardened his resolve to find and eliminate Mr. Fairburn.