Chapter 39
REN
I rush through her door and head straight for the closet. Pulling out the trunk, I rest it on her bed and use the lockpickers I still keep on my keys to open it.
It’s full of paperwork, and old photos; lots of them of Eloise, some including her mom.
To an outsider, Nile Meadows looked like the perfect guy.
It’s what made him the perfect predator.
I root through all his paperwork, pulling out his doctorate and the marriage license for him and Eloise’s mom.
There’s a photo of Katelyn when she was younger, standing next to a fishing lake, and when I take a closer look in the trunk, I realize there are way more of them.
My phone ringing interrupts me, and when I see that it’s Lance, I quickly answer.
“You got something for me?”
“Oh, I got something.” He sounds smug, and for once, I’m not mad about it.
“You know Katelyn has a grandma who lives in Florida?”
“That doesn’t sound like breaking news, Lance.” I continue flicking through the photos, noticing that there's a disturbing amount of them with Katelyn in.
“No, it’s not, but did you know Katelyn got pregnant when she was seventeen?”
“I didn’t know that,” I admit, looking at the photos and trying to gauge her age in them.
I used to see a lot when she hung around with Eloise, but she disappeared for a while.
She sure wasn’t around for her senior prom.
I remember thinking that things might have been different if she had been.
She would never have allowed Eloise to get her drink spiked.
“You wanna guess at who helped her get out of trouble, fixed her up in some facility for young mothers?” he quizzes me.
“I don’t have time for guessing games, Lance.”
“Dr. Nile Meadows. I’m assuming, from the name, that he’s some relation of Eloise’s.”
“He’s her dad,” I remember the asshole's face perfectly. He was petrified when I kicked that chair from under him, and he realized he was gonna die.
“I lift out another photo of a young Katelyn. She’s sitting on a porch step with a huge, happy smile on her face, and the placement of her hands makes me wonder.
“Did her gran say which facility it was?” I ask him, digging deeper into the trunk and pulling out another document. Property deeds to a lake cabin.
“No, she didn’t have any details, but she did warn me that Katelyn was a troubled girl. They haven’t spoken in years.” I put him on speakerphone, type the address into my phone, and when I see that it’s only a two-hour drive from here, I start heading back to my car.
“Good job, Lance.” I decide to keep the information I just found out to myself as I hang up the phone. It’s best I keep Lance out of my plans, because if my hunch is correct, what I’m about to do won’t be legal.