Page 76 of Deception

Fearing something might block the drawer, she gently pulled on it, happy when it slid quietly open. Not quite as many files as the first drawer, but again nothing.

In her memory, she scanned the room, wishing she could turn the light on. But her dad might see it and come investigate. Madison rolled her shoulders. Might as well go back to bed.

Or check the top drawer again. What better place to hide a file than among hundreds of files? She eased the drawer open again and this time slowly went through each file.

By the time she got to thePs, she was ready to give it up.Wait. Was that a file that had slipped down? Or had it been purposefully hidden? Madison tugged the accordion folder sandwiched between two other fat files so she could read the label. “Hargrove, J” was written in her grandfather’s neat lettering. Of course—Pfor private investigator.

She slipped the file out of the cabinet and eased the drawer shut. As tempting as it was to stand there and scan the contents, she didn’t want to risk her father coming downstairs and finding her. Madison tucked the file under her robe and secured it closer to her body with the terrycloth belt.

A minute later she climbed into bed with the file, eager to read it. What if the file contained information on his killer? Madison pulled out the contents, and photos slipped from her fingers and fell onto the bed. She picked up one and dropped it like it was a hot coal. Her stomach churned, and she ran for the commode, heaving what little food she had in her stomach.

Madison wet a cloth and pressed it to her mouth, wishing she’d never looked in the folder. While the photos didn’t show an adulterous relationship, it did show two people who were obviously in love with each other. Two people who weren’t her mother and father but her father and another woman.

When were the photos taken? Before her mother died. Madison was certain of that—Grandfather would not have concerned himself with her dad’s affairs unless Mom had still been living. She steeled herself and examined the pictures. Her father and the woman were in a restaurant setting ... and evidently were having a private moment. While not conclusive proof of an adulterous affair, the pictures showed the intent was there.

Another thought roiled her stomach. The file was what her father had been looking for earlier. She’d have to give him points for not wanting her to discover the photos. An invisible band squeezed her lungs.

What if ... no.

Her dad had not killed her grandfather for the file.

Would she be so quick to dismiss him as a suspect if he wasn’t her father?“If she killed herself, Gregory drove her to it. Or he could have put something in her wine. She’d lost her sense of taste and wouldn’t have noticed it.”Her grandfather’s words roared back into her mind. What if her dad had killed her mother and then discovered Grandfather had this report? And then killed him to get the report. He’d certainly been searching for something in the file cabinet earlier tonight.

No. She refused to believe her father had killed her mother or grandfather. Madison’s fingers shook as she scooped up the offending photos and deposited them back in the accordion folder.

That left the typewritten report to deal with.

Not tonight.

Madison jerked it up and stuffed it in the folder as well. She was too close to this, but she couldn’t show the file to anyone else. Sleep. And time. That’s what she needed.

She also needed to get through the next few days, starting with the funeral arrangements and then Grandfather’s burial. People would be there to pay their respects and she had to represent him well.

In the letter, he’d told her he was depending on her to work with his lawyer to settle his estate, and to do that, she’d have to go through the contents in the filing cabinet.

What other secrets did it hold?

41

Clayton worked his shoulders. If he didn’t, his neck would be so stiff he wouldn’t be able to turn it by morning. He looked at the clock. Two a.m. It was already Friday morning. Unable to even think about sleeping, he’d been hunched over the laptop since he arrived home. He’d found articles on Aaron Corbett, the man whose brother had died at Parchman, and all kinds of articles on adoption.

Turned out Corbett was a sniper in Afghanistan back in 2008, and since returning home, he’d had several run-ins with the law for domestic violence and fighting at a local bar. Clayton found a Facebook page that was mostly rants against the government and the judicial system, Judge Anderson in particular. But the chance he was the sniper yesterday was remote. Why would he shoot at Madison? Would he even know who she was? He’d check with Hugh and see what he’d come up with on Corbett.

Until he had Dani’s DNA file, he couldn’t take that search any further. Clayton sat behind the computer again and once more googled finding birth parents. There was a plethora of sites that could help with that, and he clicked on links he’d skipped earlier. Nothing. Exhaustion weighed on him. Perhaps their mother would respond to Dani’s email.

Clayton believed their birth mother had put her DNA out therefor them to find. Could be she was a very private person and wanted to meet them on her own terms.

Own terms.Made him think of Jen. He blew out a long breath. At some point, Clayton had to call her and talk sense into her. He couldn’t believe she’d trusted Jake again.

“Why not? I trusted you.”

The voice wasn’t audible but was loud and clear in his head. He wanted to plug his ears, like it would do any good. “Men like Jake don’t change,” he muttered to the empty kitchen.

“You did.”

Had he? When he left Jen’s house, he’d driven straight to the casino to lick his wounds. In time Jake would do the same thing—revert back to his comfort zone.

“You didn’t go in.”

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