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“Yeah,” I said, the word emerging a lot rougher than I wanted. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Yes?”
“I think we need to go back to Alexis’s house and get the rest of Savannah’s things,” she said. “The baby’s been wearing the same couple of outfits I grabbed that first day, and she needs more. Plus, I want to get more of her toys too, so she stays happy and doesn’t get bored.”
“Okay.” I scrubbed down the table, hoping the manual labor would get my still-hard cock to calm down. Maybe an errand and some fresh air was just what I needed. “We can go after you finish giving Savannah her bath, if you want.”
“Sounds good. I’ll call my mom and see if she can watch the baby,” Charlotte called back. “I know it sounds silly, but I don’t want Savannah to see the house. Not with everything that happened.”
“Good plan.” It didn’t sound silly to me. Not really. I wanted to spare my daughter all the heartache and pain in life, no matter how young she was and whether or not she’d remember.
After I got the kitchen scrubbed clean and myself presentable again, Charlotte and I dropped the baby off at her mom’s—with a warning not to open the door to anyone but us—and set off for Alexis’s house.
We parked at the curb and got out. The crime scene tape was gone from the door, which meant the police department was through gathering evidence. Normally, they’d turn the property back over to the family afterward, but since Alexis didn’t have anyone, I assumed the bank would probably take it back. That thought bothered me more than I wanted to admit. Not the bank, but Alexis being alone. We’d only had the one night together, but still.
Charlotte pulled out her key and let us in. That surprised me.
“What?” Charlotte asked over her shoulder.
“Well, unless they broke a window to get inside, like what happened at your house, the front door is the obvious entry point. But from what I can see, the door’s fine and the locks are the same, since your key worked.”
She frowned. “And?”
“And that means Alexis probably knew her assailant and let them in.”
“Oh.” Charlotte shuddered. “Right. Let’s get this done as quickly as possible. Being here creeps me out.”
“Don’t touch anything you don’t have to,” I said, closing the door behind us with my hip. “Just pack what you want of Savannah’s stuff. I’m going to take a look around while you do that and see if there’s anything left behind the police might have missed.”
She went off to the nursery, and I started scanning the area. I didn’t see any signs of forced entry. No busted windows or smashed-in doors. So the assailant must’ve left the same way they’d come in, through the front door.
Once I’d cleared the living room and kitchen, I headed down the hall to the master bedroom. Covering my hand with the hem of my T-shirt, I opened the drawers, then rooted around inside. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, until I opened the nightstand drawer. It seemed to stick a bit, and I wiggled it around until it slid out completely. Wedged between the drawer and the back was a small journal.
Bingo.
I pulled it out and flipped through it, seeing a blur of entries and some photos stuck in between the pages. I shoved it in my jacket pocket, then replaced the drawer. The book might not give us any useful information, but whatever was in there, Alexis had wanted to keep it hidden.
My stomach twisted as I did a quick search of the rest of the rooms before meeting Charlotte back near the front door. After we loaded all the baby stuff into the back of the car, I handed her the journal. “Found this in Alexis’s bedroom,” I told her. “If you want, I’ll drive so you can look at it on the way.”
Charlotte flipped through the journal as we headed back to her house, her expression growing sadder the longer she read. “Wow. I had no idea how much she’d suffered. We were best friends, but she never told me some of this stuff. The abuse.” She showed me an entry. “This last entry here is from a few days before she died. She says that Elijah made a new Facebook account and messaged her. She didn’t reply, but he told her how sorry he was for all the pain he’d caused her and for what he’d put her through. He said he just wanted her and the baby to be a family.”
“Asshole.” I gripped the steering wheel harder than necessary. “That’s what abusers always say, to lure their target out.” Then the words registered, and my heart dropped. “Wait a minute. I thought you said that Alexis didn’t tell Elijah about the baby.”
“She didn’t,” Charlotte said, her face pale. “She said she’d left without telling him. So how’d he find out?”
We stopped for a red light, and I took a deep breath and tried to think about it objectively. “Honestly, it probably wouldn’t be that hard to find out. If he had another fake account on Facebook and sent her a friend request, and she accepted not knowing it was him, he could see all the stuff she posted. Did she ever share photos of Savannah?”
Charlotte swallowed hard, her eyes huge. “Oh God. Yes, she did. She loved taking pictures of the baby.”
“That’s probably it, then.” The light turned green and I accelerated, raking one hand through my hair, forcing myself to breathe to help dissipate the growing anger and anxiety inside me. The thought of Elijah Harris stalking an innocent woman and her child—my child—online made me want to hurt something. Mainly him. “He must’ve checked in on Alexis at some point. Might’ve been months after she left him, when he finally started to care about her again. If he saw Savannah on her profile, that could’ve been the impetus for him to start digging around to find their address. Between social media and the resources he’d have through the police, it wouldn’t have taken him long to track them down.”
“Jesus.” Charlotte closed the journal with trembling hands. “That’s awful.”
Awful didn’t begin to cover it.
After stopping to pick up the baby, we went back to Charlotte’s house. She took Savannah back to her room to get her settled in for a nap while I unloaded the stuff from the car. Then I went to the guest room to make a call. Elijah Harris wasn’t the only one with contacts.
I must’ve caught my CO before he went to bed this time, because he answered on the first ring. I gave him a quick rundown of the situation and the journal I’d found, then asked him what he thought. I needed perspective. I was too close to be objective, even though my instincts were telling me I was right. Elijah Harris was behind all this.
Smith, my CO, agreed—to some extent. “There could be other viable explanations, or other people involved, but I do think Harris is at least involved. It would be too much of a coincidence if he wasn’t. What I do know for sure is that that journal and any other evidence you have needs to go to the police.”
