I have determinedly tried to change Annie's father's name from Warren to William. He resisted a bit, so if you see any instances where he is still Warren, let me know and I will correct them.
His story and relationship with young Annie are made up, of course, and may come to be inconsistent with the show writers worldview. If they are inconsistent with what we know now it's because I missed something (perhaps while I was missing the man's name). My apologies for anything not canonical.
To those of you reading, setting up alerts and so on - my email and the traffic trends tell me you are there - thank you for your interest. I am having a great time watching the alerts and traffic graphs and seeing all the (surprisingly many) countries represented.
To those of you commenting, thank you again for your kind words.
Chapter 5: Sunday Night
By Sunday night, Jimmy, with Reigert's help, had looked everywhere for Annie, hotels and mom and pop motels where she might have chosen to stay, the grubby bars and restaurants where she might have looked for William. Sometimes he showed her picture, taken from the system in the office; sometimes he showed the composite of William Frost. But nobody they talked to had seen anything of either of them, and by dinnertime there was nowhere left to look and nobody left to ask. Reigert headed home for dinner with his family and Jimmy set off in search of his own supper and a bottle of bourbon.
Back in his hotel room, propped up on the bed, glass and bottle on the nightstand, television on but muted, Jimmy logged onto the USMS network and ran Annie's credit and debit cards again. If she'd bought meals or stopped at a hotel, she'd paid with the cash; she'd left no electronic trace. Her cell phone was off still; there was no location data available. He set the machine aside and called Marco.
He'd known he had to call sometime before Marco and the others came into the office Monday morning and found that he and Annie were gone. For Annie's sake he wouldn't tell the truth; the secret of her father wasn't his to tell. But he had to tell Marco something to excuse their absence, and so he'd lied and said that Annie'd called him that morning, miserably sick with some kind of virus; that by afternoon he was sick himself. From the way he felt he was sure neither of them would be in Monday morning. If Marco doubted the story he didn't say so, and Jimmy ended the call saying they'd be back in the office as soon as they could.
Glass in hand, he mulled over everything Annie had said and done since receiving the call from Amarillo on Friday. He'd sifted through it dozens of times, but new insight refused to come. He wished he had copies of the fax and the Frost file with him, tangible things to turn over in his hands while his mind turned over his memories, but he'd left them in Reigert's office. Even the pictures would help.
The pictures. There were the mug shots from the original Frost file, and the composite from the fax. And there was the picture from Annie's shoebox. She'd gasped when she'd thought of it, a sharp intake of breath. It was her picture, taken when she was young. He hadn't asked much about it, believed she'd thought of it because of the beard and long hair her father had worn at the time. But she'd been upset when she'd looked at the picture. Could that be about more than just the confirmation of identity? It was about twenty years old, judging by Annie's age in the photo. Some third person must have taken it but it might just have been a passerby asked to take a photo of father and daughter. It was a picture like anyone on holiday might take, but it must have been rare for Annie to have anything like a holiday with her father; he wasn't the type to take a kid on a holiday, and besides, there probably wouldn't have been money for holidays. Where had they been?
His head came up and his eyes widened as he put together all he'd seen and heard. Amarillo. The rock formation in the background of Annie's picture. The faded print in Reigert's office, desert and rocks. The same rocks. Jimmy pulled his computer into his lap. Googled 'Amarillo rock formation' and in two clicks knew where Annie's photo was taken, and where she had gone.