Page 43 of Lost Lake
“Don’t take offense to this, please, but if she was such a strong woman of faith, how did she get pregnant out of wedlock?”
“Even the strongest of Christians make mistakes. But she never considered Lucy a mistake. She always believed Lucy was a blessing from God, and she wanted her child raised in the faith. She knew her parents would never do that.”
El gave him a quizzical look. “Do you plan to take custody of Lucy?”
Did he? Gabe sat back, trying to digest the fact that he had a major decision to make. Did he care for Lucy, or allow her to go to foster care? He couldn’t imagine doing either one, but hewould have to make a choice at some point. That was, if they found her alive. Something he believed would happen. And he would be so thankful that he would want her with him forever. At least he prayed he’d want that to happen.
El took photographs of each page of the will, then closed the folder and slid it into an evidence bag. “I’ll try to get Sierra to process the scene, but I don’t want to leave valuable evidence behind.”
“You think someone could come looking for it?”
“I think it’s possible.” She retrieved the financial folder and withdrew recent bank statements.
Gabe leaned closer, not surprised to see a balance of only $26.11 in her account. “As you can see, she barely had enough money to live on.”
“No big deposits for sure.” El flipped to the next month, then month after month before she closed the folder. “This doesn’t immediately look like our murder is financially driven. Unless, of course, she’d found an illegal way to make money and it went bad on her.”
“You mean like selling drugs?”
“Or something like that.” She lifted her chin and looked him square in the eye.
He eyed her. “You can’t be thinking of prostitution. No way. And if you are, let it go. I told you how strong of a Christian she was. No way she was prostituting herself.”
“Desperate means often require desperate measures.”
“I’d like to think if she was that desperate for money, she would’ve asked me for some.” He took a long breath. “Who knows, maybe that’s why she was coming to see me.”
“Could be. Hopefully the forensics will provide us with a lead, and we can determine why she needed to see you.” El arched a brow. “Was it common for her to visit you?”
“No. Lucy has a tendency to get carsick so I usually came here. I told you, she visited me last weekend. She claimed it was simply because I’d been so busy and we hadn’t seen each other for a while. But I’ve been thinking about it. She was kind of uneasy. Not afraid. Restless.”
“Maybe Mrs. Z. knows what had Kenna so worried.”
“It’s possible.”
El bagged the file and flipped to the ID file. She withdrew an envelope holding necessary items to identify Lucy if needed. “We’ve got both DNA and fingerprints here.”
“Finally, a break in our favor,” he said.
El bagged the packet then checked the final files before closing the drawer. “You looked through those envelopes on the desk yet?”
He shook his head and picked up the stack. “Bills. None markedpast dueon the envelope, but a look at the actual statements will tell us if she was struggling to meet her monthly bills.”
“Keep at it. Let me know what you find.” El strode back to the kitchen, a purpose in her steps.
He opened each envelope and examined the statements. “All of these accounts are current. Doesn’t include her rent, though, but it’ll be easy enough for my team to confirm with her landlord. She didn’t have a computer. Used a tablet, and I don’t see that here. Could be on her bedside table, or she could’ve taken it with her.”
“When you’re finished checking out the desk, we can search her room together.”
“I have an envelope of photographs to look through before I’m done.” He didn’t expect to find anything unusual in the pictures. Kenna only printed photographs she wanted to display in the house. She surely wouldn’t display some super-secretproblem that had scared her into adding three locks on her doors and ended with her death.
He reached for the envelope, then paused. Viewing pictures of the two of them would be a tough task. He swallowed and withdrew a thick stack of pictures. The top photo was of Lucy’s last birthday party. Her beaming smile tore at his heart.
Oh, baby girl. Where are you?
He breathed slowly until he could continue. Five more birthday party photos were next in the stack, each labeled on the back with dates. Kenna and Lucy in various positions, both widely smiling. Lucy wearing the bracelet found near the beach.
His heart sank. He was pleased to have the bracelet confirmed as belonging to her. It told them she might’ve wandered off in the woods, and they would find her. On the other hand, it cut him to the quick to know that she’d really been present and something forceful enough had happened to cause her bracelet to fall off.
