If she found a comfort zone, then they might be able to triangulate and ascertain a probable location of Kingsley’s safe house, give or take a dozen square miles or so.
Ellie bit her cheek until she tasted blood. Might. Probable. Dozen square miles. Not very reassuring, but what else could they do?
She traced her finger over a line of text that she’d read too many times already and exhaled through her nostrils. Staring at these documents all morning and afternoon was making her eyes start to cross. So much of this felt like a wild goose chase. Hopefully, her accomplices were having better luck.
Stretching her arms overhead, she glanced up from the sea of papers to check in with the others. Jillian’s blonde head was bent over the laptop, and adoption records were strewn across the kitchen island as she searched for a legitimate adoption by Letitia Wiggins. Ellie didn’t envy her that job.
Adoption records were usually sealed, so uncovering the one that was linked to a specific person would be a hell of a feat. Sam laid at her feet with her head slumped on her paws, heaving deep doggy sighs every once in a while, her expressive eyebrows twitching.
Ellie’s gaze traveled across the room to one of her overstuffed living room chairs, where Katarina sprawled with a yellow legal pad in her lap and her bare feet stretched onto Ellie’s coffee table. She’d spent half an hour in the shower and had discarded the atrocious “New Mommy” sweatpants ensemble in favor of a pair of Ellie’s old baggy jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Her brown hair hung loose, obscuring part of her face as she scribbled notes with a pencil.
Katarina had shot down the suggestion that there was a blood link between her and Kingsley, refusing to even entertain the idea to the point that she scoffed at Ellie and Jillian’s focus on the adoption records as a waste of time. Instead, she’d told them she’d rack her brain for anything and everything Kingsley had ever shared or revealed about his history during her time with him and jot the details down, no matter how irrelevant, vague, or inconsequential they might seem.
Ellie studied the other woman’s profile, frowning. Was there really no deeper connection between Katarina and Kingsley? Because Ellie wasn’t convinced.
Truth be told, she was pretty sure Katarina wasn’t convinced, either. Why else had she breathed fire and all but charred their heads to ashes when presented with the possibility?
Ellie understood why Katarina reacted that way, though. Turned out, not even Kingsley’s protégé wanted to entertain the idea of additional bonds to the man who’d raised her. She’d had years to accept the nurture part of their relationship. Expecting her to immediately jump on board to tacking on a genetic, nature link to the sociopath was a lot to ask.
The more Ellie toyed with the idea, though, the more she wondered. Kingsley had a proven track record of fixating on father-daughter relationships, of obsessing over the unraveling and corruption of interpersonal connections. All of which fit perfectly with a man whose lover lied about a pregnancy and gave up a child for adoption without his knowledge. Plus, there was his dysfunctional focus on the bifurcation of women into two groups…good girl or slut.
Slut. She shuddered at the word. At the horrible, horrible memories it conjured up. Memories she still couldn’t fully access, thanks to her brain’s protective mode repressing them. The game, though. She’d never forget that. Even the horrible name—Die, Bitch! Die—testified to Kingsley’s misogynistic, twisted ideas about women.
His sinister voice stuck in her mind. Sometimes disappearing for a while, but always coming back, like an evil boomerang. One day Ellie hoped to eliminate every trace of him from her brain entirely, but that would never happen unless he was locked up or dead and no longer a threat to her family or anyone else.
Like Bethany.
Her teeth tugged at her bottom lip while she straightened the closest papers. Time to focus. Hopefully, they’d get lucky and find the clue leading to Kingsley’s whereabouts. It wouldn’t help Ellie manage her memories, but at least they could prevent him from featuring in any new ones.
A wet nose nudged her elbow, and she absently stroked the dog’s soft head with one hand while she marked a location on the map with her other. After a few minutes, Sam abandoned her in search of a more attentive ear scratcher, but Ellie barely noticed as she hunched over the table and tapped the pen on the wood. Hours had passed, yet no leads. No nothing.
Maybe Katarina was right, and this adoption angle was them sprinting down a dead end.
A gasp from the kitchen made Ellie’s head whip up. “Did you find something?”
When Jillian lifted her gaze from whatever paper had elicited her reaction, her mouth hung open, and her blue eyes held an expression that sent tingles racing across Ellie’s neck.
Katarina sat up slowly in the chair. Her lips were pinched, but she was quiet as she waited for Jillian to share.
“So, Letitia Wiggins did give birth to a baby. A little girl, no record of a name. Two days later, the Rhett family from Charleston announced the birth of their own daughter, Morrigan Rhett.”
Wrinkling her brow, Ellie turned the name over in her mind. Morrigan Rhett. Why did that sound so familiar? “How have I heard of that name before?”
“Morrigan Rhett was featured in the society pages for a long time, as one of those feel-good stories that everyone could get behind. You know, poor unwanted baby gets adopted by a rich family and turns into a beautiful debutante. It’s one of those rags-to-riches fairy tales that most people love, like Little Orphan Annie meets The Princess Diaries.”
“Most people are idiots.”
Jillian ignored Katarina’s less-than-helpful contribution. “After her society debut, Morrigan started to gradually disappear from the public eye.
