29. Elijah
“Don’t get mad, but I went through Edna’s accounts.”
I look up at Jaxson. “What?”
“Edna’s bank accounts. I have connections,” he replies when I don’t immediately respond. After setting his laptop down on my desk, he gestures to the screen, specifically to a two-thousand-dollar payment sent last month.
“What is this?”
“These payments happen every month, on the first day, and are sent into a bank account under the name Alec Malik.”
“Alec. The investor who works for Andie’s father.”
Jaxson nods. “I’ve already reached out to Jack Gannon about it. He claims that he had no idea and has opened his office so that NYPD can get into Alec’s desk. I have a buddy out there who is taking lead.”
“We knew that Edna was in contact with Andie’s father,” Michael says. “But why would she be paying money to his assistant?”
“Edna wrote everything down.” I jump up and grab the wooden box full of Edna’s letters to Andie. Could it be so simple? Could the answer have been inside here this entire time? I immediately go to the back, the final letter she wrote, and scan the words.
Dearest Andie,
Today was a hard day. I’m feeling weaker. More worn down than I have in years. I’m afraid to call you though because the last thing I want to do is put pressure on you. You’ve already struggled so much, child.
So much more than anyone should ever struggle.
I want you to know how sorry I am that I failed to see the signs before you left. I am so sorry that I didn’t step in sooner. That I didn’t rescue you from your parents well before the divorce.
You should know your father has been in contact with me for quite some time now. I know he doesn’t deserve it, but you should truly give him the chance to explain himself. I hate that you’ll have no one else when I’m gone.
Hate that you’ll be alone.
Please don’t be alone.
You don’t have to share any of the other letters with Elijah if you don’t want to. But please, please, show him this one. Let him know how much he meant to me. How grateful I was to have someone watching out for me. In a lot of ways, he’s stubborn just like you. Afraid of showing any kind of weakness because it opens the heart to pain. But love is worth that heartache, child.
I thank God every single day for the time I had with you. And please forgive me for the secrets I kept from you. I promise to tell you everything in the next few letters, I just—I needed you to read this one first.
And please watch out for Elijah. He doesn’t know it, but he needs someone too.
Unable to continue, I stop reading, fold the letter, then tip the box and dump them all onto the floor.
“Whoa, what are you doing?”
“There has to be something here,” I tell Lance. “Something that will put all of this together for us. Pick up a letter,” I tell them, silently apologizing to Andie for the invasion of privacy. But her life is worth more. I set the box aside. “Start reading, I?—”
There’s a difference in pattern between the bottom of the box and the sides. Reaching forward, I run my fingers over it. The wood isn’t nearly as smooth as the rest of the carefully crafted container.
Using my index finger, I push down on one corner, and it pops open.
“Edna had secrets,” Lance comments as I remove the bottom and stare down at a handful of papers. I withdraw the thin, white envelope first then lift an old newspaper clipping from the bottom.
A photograph of Andie’s stepfather stares back at me along with the title LOCAL MAN FOUND DEAD. Could it be that this is all tied back to him somehow? Lance reaches in and pulls out the stack of papers beneath, splitting them into three piles and handing one to Michael, the other to Jaxson, and keeping one for himself, while I open the white envelope in my hand.
A bright pink sticky note is stuck to the top of images printed from the internet.
Your granddaughter killed my father.
I will make her pay.
They will all know that she is a killer.
She will lose everything.
Pictures of Andie at events, photographs of her walking on the side of the street.
“Elijah,” Lance says.
I look up at him, my mind still trying to wrap around the fact that whoever is targeting Andie believes that Troy was their father. But he’d had no children. I looked into it. “What is it?”
“Diana Pallum’s birth certificate,” he says as he holds it out.
I take it from him. The father space was empty until someone wrote “Troy Hanover” into it. His name is in the same handwriting as the sticky note. I note the woman’s name written as mother and rush over to my computer.
With adrenaline pulsing through my system, I pull up her information on a database I technically shouldn’t be in.
As soon as I have the number she used on her last tax return, I make the call.
On the third ring, a woman answers. “Hello?”
I put it on speaker and point to Jaxson since he’s the only one with any real authority outside of this room. “Is this Mrs. Karen Pallum?”
“It is,” she replies. “What is this in regards to? I have a client coming in.”
“This is Detective Jaxson Payne with the Los Angeles Police Department.”
The woman mutters a string of curses. “It’s Diana, isn’t it? Where was she found?” There’s a hint of emotion in her voice.
“She’s not dead,” he tells her. “But we think she’s involved in a kidnapping. Can you tell me anywhere she might have gone? Somewhere she could hide?”
“Not anywhere near LA,” she replies.
“Where?” Jaxson asks.
It takes everything in me not to take over the phone call, so I stand and pace.
“As soon as she found out about her loser father, she became obsessed with some small town in Maine.”
Jaxson’s gaze meets mine. “Hope Springs?”
“Yes. He moved there when he met some trollop. Ended up dead for his troubles. Good riddance is what I told Diana, but she never saw it as that.”
“You believe she’s in Hope Springs?” Jaxson asks.
“That would be my guess. He left her a few acres out there. Lovely, right? He abandoned us for greener pastures before Diana was even born then had the audacity to leave her useless property. Just one more thing to take care of.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“No. I never cared to know. Diana found it though. Or I think she did. She hasn’t been in contact with me for years now. Not since I told her she needed to let it go and get help. She’s been obsessed with this fashion designer out of New York.”
“Andie Montgomery?” I ask, unable to keep my mouth shut any longer.
The woman hesitates. “Yes. That’s her. If you find Diana, she needs help. Don’t be like the others who have arrested her. Please. They just keep letting her go, but she needs real help.”
“We will do our best. Thank you, Mrs. Pallum.” He ends the call.
“I’ve got the property,” Michael says as he gestures to his computer screen. “It’s on the outskirts of town. About a seven-minute drive.”
“Let’s go.” I grab my pistol and secure it at my back then slip my knife into the waistband of my jeans.
“I’ll call the sheriff on the way,” Jaxson says as he withdraws his cell and heads for the front door.
Lance hits the unlock on his truck.
Boom.