‘Don’t shoot the messenger, but playing devil’s advocate, that truck’s not registered, and so we can’t definitively tie it to Alexandra Greene, which is the assumption here.’ Cord clicked his pen while he spoke, stopping only when Alyssa shot him an irritated glare. ‘Sorry.’

‘Yet,’ she corrected. ‘We can’t tie her to the truck yet – but I feel safe in assuming that, even if it doesn’t belong to her, she’s the one driving it. And since we can now connect her to everyone, beginning with Hayden Benson, Alexandra Greene remains my number one suspect.’ She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘My theory is that somehow Alexandra discovered Elizabeth hired Gabriel to look into Hayden’s disappearance. I don’t think it’s a far leap of logic to assume he’s dead, quite probably by Alexandra’s hands.’

‘But how did she find out? And why Lydia?’

At a red light, Alyssa darted a quick look at her partner. ‘What I want to know is why did Adam target Holly, and how did he get those photos from The Toybox case? And did Alexandra know what was in those envelopes she was delivering to my daughter?’ Alyssa’s blood pressure shot up, and she had to force herself to take several calming breaths.

Cord spoke quietly. ‘My guess is when we finally locate Alexandra Greene, we’re going to find out she’s also left-handed, just like the person who wrote those notes to Holly.’

Alyssa didn’t have an answer because she had a feeling her partner was right, and only by tracking down Alexandra would they be able to find out why. For the next mile, the two of them rode in silence, broken only when Cord suddenly pulled out his phone.

‘I just want to check on Sara real quick before we get to the hospital. She swears she was feeling fine this morning before I left, but she was looking a little piqued.’

Though his voice gave nothing away, Alyssa could tell by the way he drummed his fingers on his thighs that Cord was on pins and needles as he waited for his wife to answer. ‘Tell her I said hi.’

When Sara finally picked up, he released a relieved breath, and Alyssa felt her own muscles unclench.

‘Hey baby, I’m just checking on you and my babies. Yeah? That’s good. All right. Rest. Oh, and Lys says hi. Okay. Love you, babe. See you later.’

Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, he said, ‘She says hi back.’