The Stolen - Jason Pinter [82]
Terrace. If Robert and Elaine Reed had bought it, there
would have to be sale records. I could look them up on
streeteasy.com. Even if they didn't have contact info for
the Reeds, there would surely be a brokerage firm that
would. It made sense. There was a dollhouse in the room
Amanda was held in, and the place looked like the perfect
abode for a family with young children. But what I didn't
understand was how the two men who held us that night
were connected to the Reeds. Or how the Reeds were connected by proxy to Dmitri Petrovsky.
We drove around the streets looking for an Internet
cafe. I didn't want to have to go all the way back to the
city to use the computers at work. We were getting close
to something. Many different spools, but I couldn't figure
out the common thread that attached them.
"Look, there." Amanda was pointing to a small pizza
parlor. A sign posted outside read "Internet Access."
"You up for a slice and a socket?"
"I am a little hungry."
"Cool. Eat first, search later," I said.
We parked, walked in and scarfed down two slices and
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a Coke apiece in less than ten minutes. When we finished,
we took two seats in front of a lonely computer in the back
of the restaurant. The keyboard was dusty, and I imagined
it didn't get much use. The counterman eyed us suspiciously, as though we were as likely to rip the computer
from the wall as use it properly.
When I clicked the computer off sleep mode, I entered
in my credit card number for access. Once we were in, I
directed the browser to streeteasy.com.
"What is this?" Amanda asked.
"Streeteasy.com is a pretty useful tool. It's an online
database that records any property transactions, along with
the buyer, seller, asking price and brokerage firm who
handled the deal. I have a log-in."
I plugged in my log-in information and entered the name
Robert Reed in the search field. Several listings came up,
with records dating back to 1989, and in five different states.
"This can't be right," Amanda said. "How could he live
in three different states at the same time?"
"It's probably not all the same Robert Reed. Hold on,
I'll narrow the search."
I narrowed the parameters to Hobbs County. The search
came up empty. I tried it again, only this time plugging in
Elaine Reed instead. Again the search came up empty.
"Maybe someone else bought it for them? Or Elaine
bought it under her maiden name?" Amanda asked.
"That's possible," I said. "We might have better luck
searching for the exact house." We had enough information to narrow the search range.
According to Freddie at Toyz, the Reeds' son, Patrick,
was currently somewhere between three and five years old.
Which meant the Reeds had probably moved into the
house on Huntley within the past seven years, either when
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they decided to try to start a family or when Patrick was
on the way and space was essential. I entered the date
range in the past eight years just to be sure.
The list came back with two thousand, seven hundred
and eighty-three hits.
"I think we can narrow it down more," Amanda said.
"We know there were at least three bedrooms in that house
on Huntley. That should help, right?"
"Definitely, one sec."
I refined the search to only include houses that had a
minimum of three bedrooms. The search came back with
three hundred and sixty-seven hits. We were making
progress.
"Now we just sift through these and look for anything
on Huntley. Anything that looks familiar."
We scrolled through page after page of home sales and
purchases through the past eight years. It was fascinating
to see the range of prices at which houses had been bought,
but it also gave an accurate overview of what the most expensive areas in the state were. Unsurprisingly, Hobbs
County homes were ridiculously cheap. Until a few years
ago at least, when I noticed they began to trend upward
by a large margin.
We'd been sitting at the computer for nearly two hours.
The computer had charged thirty-six bucks for the access.
I hoped