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Molly nodded uncertainly, then pointed to his phone. “She said she’d send you a link.”
“Oh, right. That woman makes my head spin sometimes.” He went to his email and, sure enough, there was an email from Gigi, along with his father’s username. “But there’s no password.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, then, in unison, said, “Mon ange.”
“But there also has to be a number in the password, right?” Gabe asked, but he already knew what it would be. “Mon ange plus my mother’s birthday.” Holding his breath, he tapped the phone’s keyboard and shuddered out a breath when it worked. “Only one file, but it’s huge.”
They found out why once it had finally downloaded. The file contained pages of handwritten documents—scanned pages of a journal. “Picture files take up a lot of space,” Molly said quietly. “Your dad had nice penmanship. These will be easy to read.”
“I knew he’d bought a scanner. They must have stolen it when they killed him.”
“I wonder what he did with the original journal?”
“I don’t know. If he went to all the trouble to tell Aunt Gigi where to find the scanned copy, I’m betting he burned it or destroyed it somehow. I never checked his house for ashes.”
“That may have been what Tobin was looking for when he destroyed your father’s house.”
“Maybe.” But he didn’t want to waste any more time wondering. He wanted to read his father’s journal. “A lot of this is his search for Xavier,” he murmured. There was page after page of dead ends and summaries of appointments with social workers that went nowhere. “He didn’t leave any stones unturned, did he?”
“Oh.” Molly’s voice softened. “He found him through Xavier’s birth mother’s headstone. The one Cicely and her husband paid for.”
“Cicely told us that,” Gabe remembered. “Dad tracked them down with a canceled check.”
“How many cemeteries did he search?”
Gabe counted as he turned pages. “Thirty-five. And it looks like he had to bribe someone at the final cemetery to give him the Morrows’ information.” He had to chuckle. “Here’s a receipt that he wrote.”
Molly snorted softly. “With ‘bribe to slimy grave guy’ as the notation. I wish I could have met him. He sounds wonderful.”
Gabe’s chest tightened. “I wish you could have met him, too. He would have loved you.”
Molly pressed a kiss against his upper arm, then leaned her head against him as she pointed to his screen. “There’s the note with Dr. Cousineau’s name and the fake name Nadia Hall used.”
“And a summary of his interview with Mrs. Royce, the neighbor we met.” He froze. “Hell. We forgot to call her.”
“I did yesterday morning,” Molly said. “I called her and April Frazier to let them know what happened. Mrs. Royce drove home from her daughter’s house in Huntsville yesterday and asked if she could come for breakfast to meet Xavier before he heads back to Houston. Xavier said yes, and I didn’t think you’d mind. I told her to be here by nine.”
They still had lots of time, then. “Of course I don’t mind.” He continued thumbing through his father’s journal, swiping whenever Molly hummed that she was ready to move on. There was a sizable gap in the dates, and it made Gabe’s chest hurt. “This was when my mom got sick. He wouldn’t let anyone else care for her except for Gigi and sometimes Patty’s parents. Rarely even me. He loved her so much.”
“And now they’re together again,” she whispered.
He swallowed hard, some of the sadness easing from his chest. “They are. That may be the only good thing to come out of his death. Well, that and meeting you.”
She smiled up at him. “I know what you meant.”
He had to kiss her then but forced himself to look back at the journal before things got carried away. He wanted to read it and then not look at it again.
“Huh,” Molly said, pointing at the page on his screen. “He suspected Cresswell of being involved after he threatened to fire him. I wonder if he has any evidence against him for some of the drugs that Burke believes that Cresswell stole.”
Gabe swiped through the pages faster, satisfaction taking root where the sadness had been. “He did. Photos of Cresswell taking bribes, affidavits from witnesses... Oh my God. This is gold.”
“André and Cardozo are gonna be so happy,” Molly said, bouncing a little where she sat.
Then they got to the part where his father had found Dr. Benson. “ ‘He won’t talk to me,’ ” Gabe read, “ ‘but I’m running out of time.’ ”
“He kept calling and calling Benson,” Molly said. “And felt guilty for pestering the man, but he needed answers.”
Gabe closed the file. “He believed Benson knew the name of Nadia’s lover. He may have.”
