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Shelby flipped the file around, and Elisa started paging through it. Pretty women. Different races and a range of ages. Elisa recognized one of Josh’s former neighbors and another she couldn’t place but knew she’d seen before. “This photo looks older.”
“It is. She’s another former Josh girlfriend.” Shelby held up a hand. “Before you ask, she’s alive.”
“Lucky her.”
Elisa expected two or three photos, but there were more like twenty in the stack. Some women were in more than one photo. “Pretty.”
Shelby looked at the photo that had Elisa’s attention. “It looks like her time as girlfriend crossed over with Candace, wife number two. Clearly your brother-in-law is always looking to trade in.”
Elisa got to the last page and stopped. One photo jumped out.
“That one?” Shelby whistled. “Interesting.”
“That’s Rachel. Much younger and with lighter hair. It’s either her or someone who looks a lot like her.” The resemblance was too close for the woman not to at least be a relative. “Who is she?”
“Lauren’s sister.”
Elisa let the words sit there for a few seconds, but they didn’t make any sense. “That’s not possible. You confirmed that Lauren was an only child, just like Josh said. It was one of the few things he didn’t lie about when it came to Lauren.”
Shelby flipped the photo over. On the back were a bunch of notes that looked to be in Shelby’s handwriting. “From what I could piece together from records and former friends and neighbors, after Lauren died, Lauren’s mom, Allyson, got married. The move surprised everyone who knew her. Most thought she was just lonely. She met and married Ben Robinson, who was a widower with a young daughter, so some people who knew Allyson thought the idea of having another daughter appealed to her.”
Them. Elisa remembered Allyson’s obituary and that note in the comments:it was smart to leavethemout.Themmeant the new family andthemclearly didn’t end well. “Lauren was an only child, but Rachel said she had a sister. Was she lying?”
“Depends on how you reference the family relationship, Iguess.” Shelby flipped pages on her notebook to what looked like a handwritten timeline. “I worked this out and double-checked it. It’s true Rachel and Lauren would have been stepsisters, but they never even knew each other. Lauren was already dead when her mom met Rachel’s dad.”
Rachel and Lauren. “Oh my God.”
“Exactly.” Shelby flipped the photo back over and pointed at the young girl. “This is Rachel Dunne, formerly known as Nina Robinson. She was about eleven when Ben and Allyson got married. Ben and Allyson stayed married for six miserable years. Nina would be almost twenty-five today.”
“And Josh’s third wife.”
“The stepsister Lauren never knew.” Shelby nodded. “Apparently the happy marriage part for Allyson and Ben only lasted a few months. The rest was a slog. They fought. Nina, now known as Rachel, and Allyson didn’t get along. Friends say Allyson never stopped grieving for Lauren, and Nina was a tough kid. Not warm. Jealous in a rabid way. A school counselor said Nina’s mother left when she was a toddler. Nina viewed Allyson’s obsession with Lauren as rejection.”
Elisa remembered Rachel’s comments about her mom being in perpetual mourning, but she really meant stepmom. It all fit except for the emotional part. “If there wasn’t a real connection between Rachel and Lauren, why hunt down Lauren’s husband?”
Shelby shrugged. “Some sort of revenge? Maybe she’s a person who likes chaos? I’m not sure yet, but Lauren is the key here.”
“I don’t understand.” Elisa grabbed onto the edge of thetable as her stomach tumbled and churned. “But does this mean Josh is in danger?”
“Could be, or he might have found a partner with as many secrets as him.”
All this time Elisa had seen him as the aggressor, and he might still be, but something else was at play here. It was possible he knew who Rachel really was, but Rachel being Concerned blew that theory apart. “When and why did Nina become Rachel?”
“Nina bounced around a couple different types of jobs since graduating from high school. She tried college for a semester but dropped out. She was a receptionist and worked in retail the longest of any of her jobs. Then her father got sick. She moved back in with him and basically acted as his nurse and full-time caretaker.” Shelby flipped through her notes again. “It looks like Rachel came to life a few years ago, complete with an established fake backstory and false work history. We’re still tracing that, but before then she was Nina.”
Elisa traced a finger over Nina’s photo. She wore a soccer uniform. Her hair had come out of her ponytail on one side. Her expression, too wise and without any excitement or amusement, ate at Elisa.
Elisa didn’t think of Rachel as particularly great at showing affection. She couldn’t imagine Rachel taking care of someone in such an intimate way. “Not the most enjoyable existence.”
“Her father died less than two years ago and left her everything, which is probably how she’s financing her current lifestyle or con or whatever this is.” Shelby shuffled some papers around. “Heart condition.”
Elisa almost missed the throwaway comment. Her head shot up. “What?”
Shelby studied her notes. “He had dangerously high blood pressure. Looks like the medication couldn’t control it. He went blind and, eventually, died of heart failure.”
Blood pressure medicine.
That was one coincidence too many.
