the transactions were switched to her married name. That’s what we’re endeavoring to work out today.
Ignoring Alex’s message requesting a doctor’s certificate for my absence, I bring up the Grubhub app to place an order for a plain cheese pizza and a double serving of tomato soup. While I do that, Phillipa removes two folders from her leather satchel. The first one is thick and bulging with papers, and the other one is barely the size of a few sheets of paper. Although it’s small, I have no doubt the information inside will be mammoth. It isn’t Melody’s file, per se, more the Greggs’ as a whole.
Just like Isabelle’s record, it was coded to correspond with the date of the Greggs’ home invasion. I don’t know what’s in their file yet. I asked Phillipa not to open it until she was in my presence. It could be nothing, but my gut isn’t telling me that. It feels big, and it honestly has me twisted up in knots.
Once the order is placed, I dump my cell phone onto the kitchen counter before joining Phillipa in my dining room. She’s using the six-seater table to sort the bank transactions into ten three-year piles. The number of transactions is impressive. It would have taken Tobias months to compile, but I can’t take my eyes off the lonely file sitting at the end of the stack.
“Did you open it?”
Phillipa’s eyes stray to mine before she shakes her head. She’s either a good liar or she’s telling the truth. “Although tempted, I didn’t sneak a peek.” She fights like hell to keep her expression neutral, but she loses her battle not even ten seconds later. “It’s also sealed, so I didn’t have much choice but to wait.” She peers at me like a kid begging for a piece of candy. “Can we open it now?”
When I jerk up my chin, she snaps up the file and prepares to rip it open without a second thought like Melody did when our admissions applications were returned from Browns, but something stops her.
I realize what when she thrusts the light-weight file into my chest. “From what I saw in the videos I watched, you deserve to open this.” I’ve never had an interest in twanging someone’s lip until now.
After slipping my thumb under the seal, I lock my eyes with Phillipa’s. “Will this stay between us?”
She nods without pause for thought, so I rip through the tape holding the file together. A handful of polaroid photographs slip out first. They’re all of Melody. They must have been taken not long before she moved to Saugerties as she has the same length hair and huge doll eyes she had when she galloped down the stairs of her family ranch.
“How old is she in these?” Phillipa asks, gathering up the pictures.
I twist my lips. “Around four or five.” I point to the one in the far left-hand side of her bunch. “Her mom had a similar photo sitting on her bedside table. She said it was from Melody’s fourth birthday.”
Phillipa lifts her chin as her eyes raise to mine. “What else is in there?”
I fan out the file to show her its empty.
“That’s it? Just a bunch of polaroids?” she questions as she gathers up the final three photographs fanned across the table.
Our eyes snap down in sync when the crinkling of paper breaks through the silence teaming between us. When I notice the width and length of the thin slip of paper, I almost have a heart attack. It’s identical in size to the one Tobias handed me moments before his death. Although it’s folded, I can see it has a handwritten sequence of numbers across it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear it’s the same slip of paper.
It can’t be, though, surely. Tobias had a morbid fascination with altering the lives of female mafia members, but the Greggs didn’t hide Melody like Tobias hid Isabelle because she was sold like Isabelle. Liam just wanted to keep her safe from the only man left living after their home invasion. He didn’t buy her. He couldn’t have. He didn’t have the money.
Well, he did before he lost everything fighting charges of murder after his home invasion.
A home invasion no one can find any records of.
What if things aren’t as exactly as Melody remembers them? What if her memories were muddled by a man trained in persuasive techniques?
The food I haven’t eaten yet creeps up my food pipe when