I knew it wasn’t. Cecily had walked through a hell so bad she’d left her only child in hopes of escaping. “I don’t think so either.”
“Once they were married, she completely dropped off the face of the Earth. She didn’t renew her driver’s license, didn’t vote, no medical records I could find, or anything else. Hell, I didn’t even see a tax return.”
I leaned back in my seat, staring at the clinic. “How is that possible?”
“I’ve done a little digging into that family. They are seriously on the fringes. Some of the people Allen has working for him are militia with some dark ties.”
My grip on my phone tightened. “I hate that she grew up in that.”
Holt was quiet for a moment. “You really care about her, don’t you?”
It was stupid to deny it. Holt knew me well enough that he would read through any lie. “Yeah, I care about her.”
“I’m glad she got out.”
“Me, too.” Nausea swept through me at the thought of Addie still living with her father. “I want her to have closure, though.”
“And she needs to talk to her mom to do that.”
“I think it would help.”
Holt started typing something on his keyboard. “I have two thoughts.”
“Only two? Pretty small brain.”
“Jackass,” he muttered.
“You miss having me around.”
“Having you around usually means I’m getting shot at, so I’m going to say no.”
I chuckled. “Fair enough. Tell me your thoughts.”
“One is the shelter possibility. I have some contacts at women’s shelters all along the west coast that I can reach out to. They will sometimes provide women with entirely new identities to help them leave their old lives behind. That could be the case here. I’ll check.”
“Feels like a real asshole move to start over without your kid.”
“She might not have been able to take Addie with her. Those shelters have to go by the letter of the law, or they can get shut down. Technically, she would’ve been kidnapping.”
I worked my jaw back and forth. I didn’t care what it was called. Cecily should’ve found a way. “What’s your other thought?”
“The people Allen Kemper is mixed up with? They know how to hide. It wouldn’t shock me in the slightest if Cecily picked up some tricks living with him. Fake IDs, using cash, disguises. She could’ve disappeared all on her own. If that’s the case, we’ll never be able to track her.”
And then Addie would never have the closure she needed.
28
ADDIE
I stared down at the laptop screen. “You will not defeat me.”
Gizmo let out a little bark of agreement from his bed next to the desk.
I copied the address from the invoice into one of the fields on our shipping form. I naviga
ted through the menu, finding the correct pickup window we wanted. Then I read through everything three times. “I think everything’s right.”
I had lost my mind. I was talking to a dog and threatening a computer. This was what it had come to. I’d lost count of how many times Laiken had needed to get a refund on our shipping software because I’d messed something up. She was always incredibly gracious when she needed to do it, but I was determined to get this shipment correct.