Sloane Monroe Series Boxed Set (Books 1-3)

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Alexa saw me first and said, “Did you just have a gun pointed at us?”

  “Wow,” the uninjured twin shouted. “Awesome!”

  I looked at Trista. “I’m so sorry, it’s just…I thought…well, your son, he sounded like…”

  “A scared little girl?” the uninjured twin said. He elbowed his brother and cracked up with laughter. “Told ya so, baby!”

  The injured twin crossed his arms and stuck his bottom lip out.

  “That’s not what I was was going to say,” I lied. “I thought someone was hurt.”

  Alexa slipped by me and whispered, “Good save.”

  “Accident?” I said.

  Trista made a face like she was preparing for a ‘you’re grounded’ type of lecture and pointed at the injured twin. “This one was wearing roller blades in the kitchen.”

  I leaned over and assessed the injury. “Ouch.”

  “You should see the wall he ran into,” Trista said. “It needs repair worse than he does.”

  I waited for Trista to finish and invited her to join me for a walk. We went outside and walked by Lucio. He nodded. I nodded back.

  “Who’s that?” Trista said.

  “Nobody,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about Alexa?”

  “What truth?”

  “I know what happened the night she was born—and about the other woman.”

  Her body stiffened. “Who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I understand why you kept it from me, but something about it makes me feel like what happened is tied to the murders.”

  “How?”

  “Did Doug ever tell you about the night the girl got pregnant?”

  “He didn’t, Rosalind did. She said Doug was drunk at some party and the girl took advantage of him.”

  “She didn’t say anything else?”

  Trista shook her head. “Why?”

  “What made you claim Alexa as your own? Did Rosalind pay you?”

  Trista stopped. “Excuse me?”

  “Did she offer you money?”

  “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

  “I didn’t say you took it, I just wondered if it was offered.”

  “It wasn’t!”

  “So why’d you do it?”

  She sighed. “Can we sit?”

  We found a spot by the curb.

  “I said no at first,” she said.

  “You must have been angry.”

  “And humiliated. Doug sent his mother to talk to me—he didn’t have the nerve to tell me himself. Can you believe it? And then she sat there and expected me to comply with the plans she’d made, no questions asked.”

  I crossed one leg over the other. “What did she say, exactly?”

  “Everything would be all right if I did what she wanted.”

  “And if you didn’t?”

  “She made it clear; my relationship with Doug would be over. Rosalind said she wasn’t sure the baby was even Doug’s and thought the woman was just some gold digger, but until she knew for sure, she wanted me to move into their house until the baby was born and everything could be sorted out.”

  Usually whenever a prolonged moment of silence passed, I found it awkward to sit there and keep quiet. But there was an element of hurt and regret to Trista’s words, and I found myself sympathetic rather than judgmental. If anyone was to blame, it was Rosalind and Doug for allowing his mother to clean up his mess. But he was gone, so it was far too late for a lecture. Rosalind, on the other hand, was someone I was more than happy to put under pressure. She needed to know what it felt like to be on the opposite end for once.

  “Alexa is my daughter,” Trista said. “I love her like I love my boys. She doesn’t know any of this.”

  “I won’t be the one to tell her,” I said. “Alexa’s already lost a father; she doesn’t need to lose you too.”

  “I just don’t understand why you think any of this pertains to Doug.”

  “I don’t either—not yet anyway.”

  A tear dropped from the corner of her eye and she turned away.

  “I’m sorry to ask this, but it’s important. What do you know about Alexa’s mother?”

  “Not much. I never even met her.”

  “What about her name?”

  Trista shook her head. “Rosalind said the girl didn’t want the baby, and all I cared about was Doug not being humiliated when everyone in town found out what he had done.”

  Out of confusion came the clarity I’d been seeking for more than a week: A suspect and a motive. All that remained was finding out who Alexa’s real mother was and whether two decades of suppressed anger made her crazy enough to kill.

  CHAPTER 30

  I stopped by Jesse’s house a second time, but still no cigar. And since he refused my texts and phone calls, my only option was to catch up with him in person. After the bomb Rusty dropped on his wife about the group sexcapade, combined with the revelation of how Alexa was conceived, Jesse was the only man still alive to tell about it. But if my theory was correct, there was one gaping hole in it: Why wouldn’t the killer go after Rosalind too?

  I needed to know more so I called Rosalind and arranged to meet at my hotel. She was hesitant until I sweetened the deal by promising I’d leave town afterward. That little carrot was too enticing for her to pass up, and it wasn’t a lie per se. I had every intention of leaving—once I’d solved the case.

  ***

  Rosalind drove a pearl-colored Rolls Royce into the parking lot. It was so nice I expected it to come complete with a built-in chauffeur. But she exited alone. Of course, no one in Tehachapi needed an escort, but if there was ever a person who could find an excuse, it was Rosalind. I approached, and she glanced around like she expected to find a handful of eavesdroppers hanging on to every word.

  “I thought we were talking in your room?” she said.

  “It’s a nice day; I thought we could meet outside.”

  She turned her nose up to the idea.

  “If you want to go to my hotel room, we can, but you should know there are a few men camped out in there, and this time you’d be speaking in front of everyone.”

  She slung a leather bag over her shoulder and sighed. “Follow me.”

  We walked into the lobby of the hotel and approached the front desk. A young girl with French-braided hair and pink braces blinked her eyes and said, “How can I help you ladies?”

  “I need to speak to the manager,” Rosalind said.

  “Maybe I can help,” the girl said.

  Rosalind wasn’t amused. “The manager—please.”

  A man emerged from the corner office, took one look at Rosalind and straightened his tie. He attempted to pull up his sagging pants, but they fell back down again. “Mrs. Ward,” he said, “nice to see you.”

  She offered him a I’m-smiling-because-I-need-something look. It was one she gave often. “I need a place we can talk,” she said motioning to me. “Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”

  “I believe the meeting room down the hall is empty.”

  He checked to be sure and then closed the door behind us.

  Rosalind sat down. “I’m glad you’ve decided to leave. A wise choice. Now why did you need to see me?”

  I smiled.

  “I want to know about the woman Doug slept with in high school.”

  She glared at me. “What are you talking about?”

  I pulled the folded up birth certificate out of my pocket, opened it, and handed it over. “I’m talking about this.”

  She studied it for a moment. “Why come to me when you can go to Trista yourself?”

  “Not Trista,” I said, “the other woman—Alexa’s birth mother.”

  She rubbed her hand over her chest like she’d just experienced a sharp pain.

  “I’m a private investigator, Mrs. Ward. I do this for a living. If you refuse to answer my questions, I’ll stay indefinitely. I’m sure you’ve kept your share of secrets over
the years. Do you really want me to uncover them all?”

  “Who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  She drummed her fingernails in sequence on the table. “I assure you, it does to me.”

  “I need a name, Mrs. Ward.”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good to lie about it now. It seems you’ve got some kind of proof the birth mother exists, but you have no reason to search for her after all this time. I’ve taken every precaution to ensure she never found out about Alexandria.”

  “Paying her off isn’t a guarantee.”

  “The girl has no reason to suspect her child ever lived.”

  Once she realized the revelation she’d just exposed, her hand flew to her mouth.

  I relaxed back in my chair. Finally, a simple truth had been revealed.

  “Relax; you just confirmed what I already know. How could you allow Trista to think the baby was unwanted for all these years?”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing…yet,” I said. “I wanted to get all the facts straight first, but if you don’t make it right with her, I will.”

  Through clenched teeth she spouted, “I saved that child’s life! All I could think about was what kind of life my precious Alexa would have had if I hadn’t stepped in. I wasn’t about to let some scared pill-popping girl take off with my granddaughter.”

  “But saying her baby is dead—isn’t that taking it too far, even for you?”

  “You said you came here to find out what happened to Doug, but so far you’ve only managed to tear apart my family. If you reveal what you know, you’ll hurt the one person who’s innocent.”

  “My goal isn’t to ruin Alexa’s life, but I want the truth, and you’re the one person who can give it to me.”

  Rosalind intertwined her fingers and rested them on the edge of the table. “If I reveal the name of Alexa’s birth mother, do I have your word you won’t share what you know with anyone?”

  I thought about the promise I’d already made to Trista. But part of me imagined myself at Alexa’s age. I’d want to know, but would she feel the same? I had no way of knowing how the truth would affect her.

  “I’ll keep quiet for now, but only because I don’t believe the truth should come from me. Now, I want a name.”

  “Ivy West.”

  I wrote it down.

  “Don’t get all excited thinking you’re going to find her. She disappeared many years ago,” Rosalind said. “No good will come from digging up the past now. We’ve all moved on.”

  CHAPTER 31

  I returned to my hotel room and searched the internet for the name Ivy West. Her birth certificate was easy to find, nothing exciting there. I jotted down the name of her parents and her date of birth which made her my senior by three months.

  The online databases I tried provided little information until I came across a newspaper article published in 1992. Ivy had been listed as missing, but her parents claimed she wasn’t kidnapped, she was just a runaway. According to their statement, Ivy had threatened to leave multiple times and said if she did, they’d never see her again. From what the article said, her parents had no interest in finding her, and without her parents support, it didn’t take long for the case to go cold.

  At the end of the article, I clicked on a link and was sent to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. The page contained two photos of Ivy, both taken as a teenager. Her wavy blond hair fell past her shoulders, but that wasn’t what stood out the most. It was her eyes. The same piercing baby blues Alexa had. In the photos, Ivy was around the same age Alexa was now—they looked like twins. The more I stared at the photo, the more the girl staring back didn’t remind me of a killer. She looked like a scared young girl looking for a way out.

  Under the remarks section, it stated Ivy had dropped out of high school and was working at a local yogurt shop at the time of her disappearance. I scrolled down the page until I came to a section called THE DETAILS. It stated the following:

  Ivy West left her home in Lancaster, California on the morning of February 21, 1992 for her job at the local yogurt shop in town. Her co-worker reported she never showed up for work, and she didn’t return home that evening. West’s parents stated she took the bus every day, but the bus driver was certain she wasn’t at the bus stop when he arrived to pick her up. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and Keds shoes. She also had on a gold heart-shaped locket which she always wore on her wrist.

  Had Ivy used the money from Rosalind to skip town forever, and if so, where had she been hiding all this time?

  CHAPTER 32

  The town of Lancaster was forty-seven miles up Tehachapi-Willow Springs Road. The drive itself offered plenty of scenery to passing motorists. The Tehachapi Wind Farm provided one of the most spectacular views with its showcase of over a thousand windmills, also called wind turbines, hovering some five hundred feet in the air. Passing the big white pinwheels was something even a person like Giovanni wouldn’t soon forget. But as fascinated as he was, nothing prepared him for what came next: The Willow Springs International Raceway.

  “It’s wonderful to see something this amazing out here,” he said.

  “When I tell people where I grew up they can’t even pronounce it, let alone understand what compels a person to live here. Most aren’t aware we have places like the raceway and Edwards Air Force Base in the area.”

  The conversation switched to trains and the history of the Tehachapi Loop and didn’t wrap up until we reached our destination at 592 Lakeshore Road. My expectation of the living conditions we’d find was blown when we drove up. Instead of a single-wide manufactured home in a rundown trailer park, I found myself looking over an immaculately kept Victorian charmer.

  In the front yard, a woman raked leaves into a black plastic bag. She spotted us and leaned her rake against the tree.

  “Can I help you with something?” she said.

  “Mrs. West?”

  She shook her head. “No, Anne Thomas.”

  “Sorry,” I said, “I was told Ivy West’s parents lived here.”

  “They used to—not anymore though. I bought the place a few years back.” She rested her hands on her hips. “You should have seen it. This is what two years of renovations looks like. I never thought this house would ever come alive again, but I can’t complain about the way it turned out.”

  I looked at Giovanni. “I guess we came all this way for nothing.”

  Anne removed the rubber gloves she was wearing and swished her fingers back and forth in the air allowing them to dry.

  “If you don’t mind, can I ask why you’re interested in the West’s?” she said.

  “I was just trying to get some information.” I reopened the car door. “Thanks for your time.”

  “Hold on a second. What kind of information?”

  “It’s probably best not to discuss it unless it’s with Mr. or Mrs. West.”

  “Mr. West has been gone for years now, so you won’t find him.”

  I leaned on the car door. “How do you know?”

  “Because…I’m Mrs. West’s sister.”

  Giovanni and I shared a look like maybe the trip hadn’t been a waste of time after all and then we walked over to where Anne was standing.

  “Where is Mrs. West?” I said.

  Anne swung her finger back and forth between Giovanni and me.

  “I’d rather know who you two are first if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m a private investigator looking into the disappearance of your niece, Ivy.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” she said. “Ivy’s been gone so long, no one cares anymore. Why bother?”

  “I have my reasons. Can you tell me where I might find your sister?”

  She winked and said, “Come with me.”

  We followed her inside the house and over to the fireplace. She titled her head toward the mantle. “There she is.”

  “She’s dead?” I said. />
  Anne nodded. “Car accident, been two years now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “We were never that close, to be honest. But I guess I had the best relationship with her out of everyone in the family.”

  “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions about Ivy’s disappearance?”

  She shrugged. “Fine by me—but I don’t know much.”

  “Did you know Ivy was pregnant?”

  “Her parents wanted her to have an abortion, but she was determined to have that baby. Planned on raising it herself, too.”

  “And no one thought it was strange when she didn’t come home with it?”

  “Ivy spouted off one thing one day and something else the next. Said she changed her mind at the last minute—didn’t want to talk about it. We assumed she gave it up for adoption.”

  “And none of you were with her when she had the baby?”

  “When she refused to get an abortion, her parents said they didn’t want anything to do with it. Truth was, they didn’t have the money to take care of Ivy, let alone a newborn. I wanted to be there for her, but I didn’t even find out she’d had it until after the baby was born.”

  “Did she ever say who the father was?”

  “All Ivy said was she didn’t know. Could have been any number of guys.”

  Up to that point, Ivy’s aunt had been a straight shooter, and there was nothing in her body language to indicate she was lying. The more I thought about Ivy, the more I felt for her, which made me uneasy. Why was I sympathizing with a possible cold-blooded killer? Some weird nurturing instinct had taken root inside me, and I had the sudden urge to find her and give back the life that was so hastily taken away.

  “Do you know anything about the day Ivy went missing?” I said.

  “My sister called me, crying. Said she thought Ivy’d run off because they’d had a horrible fight the night before.”