Page 30 of Vanishing Legacy

Juliette tapped a paper in front of her. “She stayed to finish college while you deployed overseas?”

“Yep. For some reason, I thought she wouldn’t miss me being around. You know? She’d be busy with school and friends. But it was tough.”

Alana could imagine. Those days of holding her son for the first time, embarking on a whole new journey as a mother but going at it alone. It was more than tough.

“After college, Sonia’s older sister, Ziva, helped her start her own interior design business. Introduced Sonia to a few big clients and it took off. She decorated several historical homes on Jones Street, and later, big name celebrities hired her to decorate their beach houses on the island. She was great at it. Bought the house where Penny and I live now and decorated it herself. Said it was a surprise for me, but my guess is it was some kinda live portfolio for her clients. I didn’t realize how much money she was making until…until her death.”

Noelle had helped Alana pull Cash’s financials. The numbers in his bank balance had left her speechless.

“How long were you married before Penny was born?” Noelle asked.

“Let’s see…” Cash tipped his head back and squinted. “About four or five years. Somewhere in there. Penny was only two when Sonia died. But Sonia had filed for divorce around Penny’s first birthday. I knew she was unhappy, but man, I had no idea things were so bad. I was deployed with the SEAL team as a combat surgeon. Living in constant high-stress, dangerous situations. I refused to take leave and come home. The weight of my responsibility to the team was so heavy I simply forgot about the court date and was divorced by default. Goes to show what kind of husband I really was.”

Alana’s heart twisted at the pain in his voice. She carried her share of guilt over all the times she wasn’t home for Rocco because she was out saving the world. Or so she thought. “Can you tell us more about how Sonia died?”

“I was deployed when Hurricane Irma came through here. People in Savannah don’t worry too much about hurricanes. There hasn’t been a direct hit in decades, so maybe Sonia didn’t think twice about driving to a client’s house on Tybee Island during the bad weather. But her car got caught up in a flash flood and swept away. Pulled her car right off the road and into the ocean. Somehow it disappeared, but I don’t understand how that could happen.”

Tybee Island was a barrier island east of Savannah, popular with tourists. The charming coastal beach town also drew celebrities looking for a tranquil vacation home. “The storm surge could’ve pushed her car toward a low-lying area where it could be submerged in floodwaters and carried away by the current,” Alana said.

“That’s what the Coast Guard said. After searching over a week, they declared Sonia and her vehicle ‘irretrievably lost.’” He made air quotes. “The car could be anywhere by now.”

The room stilled. Alana processed the information. Sonia’s last moments would have been terrifying. “I’m sorry, Cash. Losing her like that must’ve been incredibly difficult for you.”

“I guess the hardest part is the not knowing.”

“I can imagine,” Juliette said.

“The funeral was awful. The family had a casket.” He looked at Alana. “A casket. Can you believe that? They never found her body, but her parents insisted on a coffin. It’s not like I had a say in it. We were divorced. And her brother, Darian, blamed me for her death. Shoot, I blamed myself. At the funeral, he got in my face and tried to start a fight. If Ziva hadn’t stepped in and calmed him down, I don’t know what would have happened.

“After the funeral, I was a mess. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t go back to the field. Couldn’t be there for the soldiers who needed me. I had to take some time off to be there for Penny and to just…get my head together. And when I finally got my head on straight, I knew I had to fight for my daughter. Sonia’s parents wanted custody, but I couldn’t let them take her away from me. It was a long, difficult battle, but in the end, I won.”

“I can’t believe they’d try and take Penny from you,” Alana said.

“It was awful. I don’t know what I would do without Penny. God opened my eyes to a second chance. A chance to be the best dad I can be.”

Alana smiled. “I know what you mean. Rocco is everything to me here on earth, and he drives me to be a better person. I didn’t plan to be a single mom, but I can’t imagine my life without him.”

“Being a parent changes everything,” he said.

“Yes, it does.” Alana caught the smile exchange between Noelle and Juliette. Time to bring the conversation back to business before they developed any Rocco-shaped ideas about a romance between her and Cash, because that would never happen. “After reviewing your background and what you’ve said here, I—we—believe Trejo isn’t your only threat.”

His eyes opened wide. “What do you mean?”

Alana didn’t waste time sugarcoating it. “There’s a distinct possibility that Sonia’s parents hired someone to kidnap Penny.”

* * *

“No. No way.” Cash drew his hand over his face. Being the target of a dangerous drug lord was bad enough. He couldn’t rehash a custody issue with his former in-laws. “Look, I already fought this battle in court. I have sole custody. I’ve offered to let them visit Penny, but they didn’t want that. They moved back to Colombia and haven’t so much as mailed a birthday card since. After all these years, I can’t believe they’d be behind this.”

Alana pulled a sheet of paper to the top of her stack. “Sonia’s siblings moved back to Colombia to start a construction business before she passed away, and then her parents followed three years ago, correct?”

“Not like they notified me or anything, but sounds about right,” he said.

“The business is doing well. They have the means to pull this off. To…circumvent the courts. But it’s just one theory.”

Noelle’s fingers traced the edge of her sleeve. “We’re checking into it. We’ll also use our connections with Homeland to get a bead on whether Sonia’s parents have traveled to the States recently.”

“Juliette is working with Matt to see if we can pull phone records and credit card statements.” Alana tapped her folder. “A few other threads we plan to pull. If Sonia’s family isn’t involved, at least we’ll eliminate them as suspects.”

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