Page 80 of The Two Last Moments

“We have. And just this morning, an update came in about Lark, as well.”

My stomach lurches. Danny squeezes my hand.

You’ve got this, I tell myself.You can handle it.For Nina.

“Okay,” I say, sitting up straighter. “Tell us about Travis first.”

Rex sits forward and clasps his hands between his knees. “As you both know, it’s been hard to pick up Travis’s trail because he disappeared almost twenty years ago, before a lot of records were fully digital. We did all the obvious searches, criminal records, credit check. Nothing came up. But we didn’t give up after that. Our research team managed to find a DUI charge in Las Vegas from about eight years ago, filed under the name ‘Travis Bradlee,’ with two e’s at the end instead of e-y.”

Rex pulls up a photo on his phone and shows Danny the screen. “The Vegas police provided a copy of the mug shot from his booking. Is this your uncle?”

Danny nods. “Yeah. That’s Travis.” I already knew how much Danny and his uncle look alike, especially their eyes. But Travis’s are bloodshot in this photo, and his arm is in a sling.

“What happened to him here?” I ask.

“He was in a car accident,” Rex says, “injured pretty badly, the only vehicle involved. His blood alcohol was over the limit, and it was severe enough to make it a felony, given all the circumstances and the property damage. He got bail, but he skipped town and didn’t appear for the trial.”

Danny tugs at his necklace. “I never heard of Travis having a problem drinking, but the skipping town part? That fits.”

“After finding this lead, we expanded our search to include the misspelling of Travis’s last name. One of our researchers got a hit on a local newspaper from near Solvang.”

“Solvang?” I blurt out.

“That’s right. The article was about a support group for people with chronic injuries.” Rex flips to another image on his phone screen. “They hosted a fundraising event in a park, and this article was posted on the newspaper’s website about six months ago.”

In the photo, a few dozen people mill around in a park, holding signs that sayBetter Care for Chronic Pain. With the bright sunlight, the faces aren’t super clear, but it looks like Travis is standing to one side of the group. I spot his name in the caption, misspelled like Rex said. Travis Bradlee with two e’s.

Then Danny mutters, “What the hell?”

“I’m guessing you see the same thing we noticed?” Rex asks.

I glance from one man to the other. “What? What are you talking about?”

Danny points at Rex’s phone. “There. Lark, it’syou.”

On the edge of the photo stands a girl with long black hair. A girl who looks exactly like me. At the same picnic that Travis attended.

Danny rests his hand on the back of my neck. “It’s your hair,” he murmurs. “I would notice it anywhere.”

“But…my name isn’t in this caption.”

“Danny gave us a reference photo of you. One of our researchers has a sharp eye and made the connection. We called the clinic that runs the chronic pain support group. They refused to give out any info about Travis Bradley. Medical privacy laws. But they did have a record of a Lark Richards in their list of volunteers. You’d been volunteering at the nonprofit clinic. Helping organize the support group meetings, making food deliveries to people with mobility issues. That kind of thing.”

I’m still staring at myself in the photo, begging for something to click in my brain so this all makes sense.

“Did you find anything else to suggest Lark knew my uncle?” Danny asks.

“Not yet. We’re still looking into it. But we did learn something else.” Rex pauses, and sympathy fills his dark eyes. “Lark, you left their volunteer list a couple of months ago. Apparently, there was an incident.”

“Incident?” I ask.

“Accusations that you’d stolen from a patient you’d been delivering food to.”

“What?” I choke out.

“They wouldn’t give us any more information than that. And they chose not to press charges, so the real story is probably different. Misunderstandings happen.”

Shudders run through me. “It doesn’t sound like a misunderstanding. They think I’m a thief.”

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