“You have it?”
“I have a copy. As well as a copy of the file the private investigator gave my stepmother.”
He frowned at her. “Private investigator?”
“Yes. When I didn’t find Renee where her letter said she would be, Donna, my stepmother, hired a PI because she was worried something had happened to her daughter.”
“A daughter she rarely sees?”
“You have to understand, Donna is the most generous, loving,forgivingindividual I have ever met. And she loves Renee. It’s my stepmother’s one flaw.”
“Loving her child is a flaw?”
“No. Loving an adult child who continues to be manipulative, secretive, and emotionally abusive, to everyone she comes in contact with including, and especially, her own mother would make loving that child a flaw. And that’s not mentioning Renee is a liar, a thief, and a kidnapper. I’m sure you also have a list of things she has done to her son. But perhaps you’re right, maybe it’s not a flaw, maybe more of a…blindspot?Whatever it is, it doesn’t do Donna any good. In fact, it’s harmful to my stepmother. It’s a toxic relationship and while I understand how deep parental love can go, in this case I believe Donna would be better off cutting contact or at least not enabling Renee or letting her treat her like shit.”
“I take it you’re not Renee’s biggest fan.”
“Not after the years of lies I’ve see and been subjected to. I bet, if you were to ask Rylan or Jacob Conners if they knew Renee had a family, neither man would say yes. In fact, I believe both men are under the impression that she’s an orphan who grew up in the system when the exact opposite is true.”
“I think we might need more than the thirty minutes I’ve allocated for this meeting.”
“I’m staying in Sunnyville. I’d be happy to come back in at any time. We can hit all the high notes today and I’ll leave you this copy of the PI’s file and my number as well as where I’m staying.”
“You’re staying?”
Mallory nodded.
“Can I ask why?”
“You can. I want to be sure you have everything you need to pass on to whoever needs it to stop Renee’s appeal from being successful. And I’m going to make contact with Jacob Conners in the hope of facilitating a meeting between Maddox Conners and Donna Dawson, his grandmother.”
“Ah. All right.” He pushed open a door. “Why don’t you take a seat? I’m going to grab a coffee and my partner. Can I get you a drink?”
“No. I’m fine, thank you.” She entered the surprisingly spacious office and picked the desk to the left as it had nothing on it so there was plenty of room to spread the PI’s file out in timeline order.
“I’ll be right back.”
Mallory nodded, already searching the file for the copy of the letter Donna had received from Renee all those months ago. From what she could work out, her stepsister had written the letter the week after she’d taken Maddox during a supervised visitation. Although she couldn’t work out why it had taken almost two months to reach Donna. Unless Renee had held on to it until the day she’d been arrested.
Not that the delay mattered at all.
Working her way through the rest of the papers, Mallory laid them out in chronological order. The private investigator had gone back quite a few years before Renee had married Rylan Conners—the years she’d been in a relationship with the father of her son.
From what he’d found, Renee and Jacob had been in and out of a relationship for almost six years before she’d suddenly married Rylan. Which reminded her about the timing of that marriage and the trust that would have been released when it had happened.
Thinking about their inheritances again, she pulled a notepad and pen out of her bag. She wrote down the age Renee was at each of her life milestones—her marriage, the birth of Maddox—Mallory also jotted down questions to ask Davis and noted any significant findings from the private investigator’s file.
“All right, let’s—” Detective Malone stopped beside her and gave a low whistle. “You’ve got a lot of information here.”
“I’m hoping it will be helpful. Will you pass this on to the DA or whoever will oppose the appeal? I’ve spoken to the lawyer Renee hired to represent her and from what I can tell, he’s going to claim she was suffering from postnatal depression during the time she left six-month-old Maddox alone in her apartment as well as when she took him against court orders.”
Detective Malone hummed as he perused some of the papers.
“Do you think she stands a chance of getting off? Her lawyer took great pleasure in assuring me he’d get her conviction quashed, not just a shorter sentence.”
“Not a chance.”
Mallory grinned. She liked the confidence in Detective Malone’s voice.
