I Know Lucy (A Fugitive #1)(69)

Uncle Alex waited for our coffee and his danish to be served before blowing out a slow breath. “I know you told me to leave it alone, but I couldn’t.” He flicked open the folder. “I did some subtle digging and when I mean subtle, I’ve done this on my own. Haven’t spoken to anyone about it.”

His intense gaze made me nod.

“You wanna hear this?”

“Nope.”

Uncle Alex tipped his head with a droll glare. “Well, tough shit.”

He pulled out three bundles of paper, all stapled at the top left corner.

“So I looked up every murder article that I could find taking place in L.A. during 2009 with a few months on either side of the year as well. There were plenty, but I scoured every local paper, looking specifically for murdered couples. I then went through those searching for all the unsolved crimes. I then looked at family history. About ten of them had daughters around Dani’s age, but only three of them had daughters with blonde hair and blue eyes who have not been seen since.” He spread the three bundles out. “Look, this is no guarantee. I’ve probably missed some, but these three looked the most like Dani’s picture. Do you think any of them could be her?”

He pushed them towards me.

I didn’t want to look, but my fingers snaffled up the pages anyway.

First I flicked to the back pages to look at the photos. They were all in black and white and quite grainy and all three girls could have been Dani. One of them was kind of chubby, in the other picture, the nose seemed a little wrong, but the last picture could definitely be her.

I turned back to the front page and read the article. “Harriet Marshall. This could be her. Parents stabbed to death.” I winced, hoping that’s not what Dani had witnessed. The three articles about the murder all assumed Harriet had been abducted by the killer, one of her shoes was found lying near the curb as if it’d been kicked off in a struggle.

“Do you think—” Uncle Alex pursed his lips. “I mean, the story she told you, she wouldn’t have been making it up, right? I mean, what if her abductor was the one forcing her to pull the cons?”

I shook my head. “She was telling me the truth. I know she was.”

I had to believe it.

Sipping at my coffee, I went through the last two. Michelle Carlson and Lucy Tate.

The one on Lucy said she was a possible murder suspect. I pushed that aside immediately. As if. Dani wasn’t capable of murder.

After an hour of shuffling back and forth through the articles, I gazed at the pictures again. Lucy Tate’s photo was pretty cute. She was kind of chubby, but her nose was right. Her eyes were beaming, carefree and happy. It was sad that her life had been torn apart by these murders. Whether she committed the crime or not, she certainly wouldn’t be this grinning girl in the photo anymore. I flicked the pages back and skimmed the article again. Lucy’s father was an analyst for the FBI. I squinted as I looked at the grainy picture of a blond man with pale eyes.

“William Tenner,” I read the caption aloud.

“Yeah, he was the lead investigator on that case. Seemed pretty determined to find out who killed one of his guys.”

“Dani said her parents were killed by a crooked cop, maybe Jack Tate found out something he shouldn’t have.”

“It’s a possibility.” Uncle Alex shrugged. “But that Harriet girl, her father had ties to Hells Angels, so a crooked cop could have easily been mixed up in that too.”

I sighed, slapping the folder shut and sliding it back across the table.

“So, what do you think? Any of the girls fit?”

I shrugged. “They all could.” I pulled the folders back and ran my finger over the articles, finally picking up the one on the left. “Maybe Harriet, although Dani didn’t seem the type to be raised by a gang member.”

“I didn’t say he was a gang member, I said he had ties.”

Scratching the side of my head, I glanced at Lucy’s folder again. “She’s not a killer,” I muttered. “She’s a runner. Maybe the crooked cop tried to abduct her and she got away. Maybe that’s why she’s always on the run. Maybe she thinks he’s coming after her.”

“Could be.” Uncle Alex nodded. “Do you want me to look into it a little more?”

I wanted to nod a yes, but something Dani said made me pause. “She was scared, you know. Before she left she told me that telling you was starting something dangerous. Do you think asking these questions could put our lives at risk?”

Uncle Alex looked away from me, picking up his coffee and taking a slow sip before responding. “Questions can get you killed, especially if you ask the wrong ones to the wrong people.”

“So she ran to protect us then.”

His blue gaze met mine, his eyes lighting at the edges. “Little bro, I think that’s exactly what she did.”

I knew those words should comfort me. It proved that Dani’s feelings for me hadn’t been fake, but I just felt sick. Sure, I might be safe, but she wasn’t. She was alone somewhere out there, on the run from an evil that haunts her…and I wasn’t there to stop it.

“You want me to keep going with this?” Uncle Alex watched me carefully as he awaited my response.

I met his gaze and finally shook my head. “What’s the point? Even if we can track this guy down, we can’t find her. Don’t we need her testimony to make it stick?”