The hours dragged by. Then another sleepless night. On Tuesday, when he hadn’t heard from Scott and nothing more from Leisha, Jim called her at work. He had two reasons for calling the woman: to see if she had heard from Scott and to see if she had been telling him the truth about who she was and where she worked.
Leisha didn’t sound at all happy to hear Jim’s voice. “No, I have not heard from Scott,” she snapped. “And furthermore, I don’t have time to talk to you.”
Her rudeness took Jim by surprise. She hadn’t been overly friendly when she called on Sunday night, but she certainly had been a little more cordial than she was today. Was her rudeness because she really was too busy to talk or was it because she wasn’t concerned about Scott’s whereabouts any longer?
Jim didn’t know. He had no sense of what was going on in her mind, but he determined that if she wouldn’t talk to him, it was time to find someone who would. He called Scott’s employer, Max Gianoli, at ProSound Electronics. If Leisha was telling the truth and Scott really had disappeared, Gianoli might have some inkling about where the young man might have gone. If Scott’s leaving had come as a surprise to Gianoli, he might be worried too.
Gianoli wasn’t worried. He was furious. “Scott let me down big time,” he snarled. “He knew we had a big show last weekend and I needed his help on it. I’m pissed as hell that he ran off like that.”
Jim tried to interrupt and ask Gianoli if he had any idea what had happened to Scott, but the man wasn’t listening. “Scott’s got to learn that he can’t come and go as he pleases. I’ve got a business to run.”
“Does this mean Scott’s fired?” Jim asked.
“It sure as hell does. He’s out of here,” Gianoli growled and hung up.
For a few more days, Jim’s thoughts bounced back and forth as he tried to make a decision. Normally logical and decisive, Jim felt frustrated that he couldn’t settle on what to do about Scott. Or if he should do anything. Call the police. Don’t call the police.
Finally, Jim decided that if Scott hadn’t returned home by the weekend, he would report him missing.
On Friday night, Leisha Hamilton called. Jim felt a surge of hope when he recognized her voice. In spite of his apprehension at hearing her, he was praying that she had good news about Scott. She quickly disillusioned him of that idea.
“I just wanted to tell you that I picked Scott’s car up from ProSound Electronics. Max called me up and threatened to tow the car if I didn’t come and get it.”
Remembering Max Gianoli’s frame of mind when he talked to him on Tuesday, Jim wasn’t too surprised that the man was angry about Scott’s car being left at ProSound. On second thought, however, it seemed too soon for him to get excessively upset about the car. Max had no way of knowing Scott wouldn’t be back any minute to pick up the car. He certainly wouldn’t go away forever and leave it behind.
“When did you get the car?” Jim asked Leisha.
“Yesterday. Like I said, Max wanted it off the lot. And I have the keys, you know.”
Jim’s fear was quickly giving way to anger at the idea of this stranger driving his son’s car around, as if she owned it and not Scott.
“Are you driving the car?” he asked.
“Not much. I have my own car, but I like having Scott’s car here. It reminds me of him.”
She sounded sincere and Jim tried to control his misgivings. “Leisha, what do you think happened to Scott?”
“I really don’t know,” she said. “At first, I thought he might have run off with that Jessica. But I already called her and she hasn’t heard from him, either.”
For a couple of heartbeats, Jim was speechless. The last time they had talked, Leisha had indicated she didn’t know about Jessica. She had said there was no other woman in Scott’s life. Now, she was telling Jim she had called Jessica. He could only imagine how Jessica must have felt getting a telephone call from her. He wondered if Jessica had known about Leisha prior to Scott’s disappearance. All week, he had been trying to think of a way to find Jessica, to see if she knew what had happened to Scott. He didn’t know her last name, though, and had no way to reach her. “If you’ll give me her name and phone number, I’ll call her,” he told Leisha.
“I already told you. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Maybe she just didn’t want to talk to you. She might talk to me, though. Especially if Scott is with her.” In his heart, though, Jim had begun to fear that his son wasn’t anywhere safe. Scott absolutely would not have left his possessions behind. Unless he intended to come back soon…
“Let me give her a call,” Jim said.
“Her name’s Jessica Tate. I threw away the number, but she’s enrolled at Mississippi State. Maybe you can find her,” Leisha said grudgingly.
“Is there anyone you know who had a grudge against Scott? Anyone who might be angry at him?”
“There may have been.” She sounded disinterested. “I don’t really know.”
Jim persisted. “Did he owe money to anyone?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not a lot of money, anyway.”
Clearly, they weren’t getting anywhere. Frustrated, Jim tried another approach. “Do you know of anyone who was jealous of him?”
Silence was her only response. Jim’s heart pounded. He was on to something. “Were you dating anyone else? Since Scott was seeing Jessica, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have been seeing other people.” He tried to sound casual, reasonable.
“That’s true. I went out on a couple of dates with Tim Smith, who lives in our apartment complex. But I just did it to make Scott jealous when I found out about Jessica.”
Jim’s chest heaved. It was almost audible. Instinctively, he knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. “How well do you know this Tim?”
“Pretty well, I guess. I got locked out of our apartment one night and Tim let me stay at his place. I was so upset the day Scott went missing, I asked Tim to stay over that night and keep me company.”
She didn’t have to say anything else; images of what was going on, of what scene might have ensued between Leisha, Scott and this Tim, flooded his mind. Dumbfounded, he gripped the receiver, unable to speak.
“Hello? Hello?” He could hear her disembodied voice, but he was choking on his own anger; his throat was so tight he couldn’t force any words out.
Finally, he asked, uttering his words carefully, “Tim spent the night in your apartment the same day Scott disappeared?”
“Yes. He slept on the floor and I slept on the couch.” Jim wondered if she thought him a fool. Ignoring his silence, she continued, saying there had been a break-in on the day following Scott’s disappearance. She recited a list of Scott’s things that were missing.
Jim tried to follow her words, but dark thoughts spun through his mind. First, she says Scott disappears. Then she takes up with another man immediately, as though she knows Scott isn’t coming home that night. Surely, Scott had gone places before without telling her. How did she know he wasn’t just off with one of his friends and wouldn’t return at any minute?
When Jim finally told Leisha he couldn’t talk anymore and hung up the phone, he realized he couldn’t keep the truth from Barbara any longer. He hadn’t told Barb of Scott’s disappearance for a week and the secrecy was eating him up. It had been almost impossible to carry on as usual, as though nothing was wrong. To smile in all the right