Page 38 of Little Child Gone (Nikki Hunt #10)

TWENTY-THREE

Nikki met Matt in the lobby, her eyes drawn to the entrance. “Snow’s starting early, I see.”

“Sleet mixed in,” Matt said. “Which means I’ll probably be busy today.

” He handed Nikki a large manila envelope wrapped in clingwrap.

“The police finished their search and said I could go back into the house and start working, so we decided to start on the room next to the kitchen. It’s pretty empty, including the closet, just dirty.

Luke was sweeping the closet and basically knocked out the side wall at the bottom.

Vacuum barely touched the wood, too. Anyway, this envelope was hidden inside.

I’m the only one who touched it. There are four birth certificates, but I didn’t take them out, so I don’t know any more than that. ”

Nikki wanted to hug Matt for being so careful. As a firefighter for Stillwater, his prints were on file and would be easy to dismiss. “I’ll let you know what we figure out when I can.”

“I saw you guys were looking for a missing kid,” Matt said. “Obviously this isn’t priority, but I wanted to get them to you to protect the evidence.”

She thanked Matt again for his quick thinking and then headed back into the secured area to rejoin Miller and Liam. She fished a pair of latex gloves out of her bag and carefully took off the clingwrap.

“They were hidden behind a side wall in the closet.” Nikki explained how Luke had discovered the envelope. “Matt protected the evidence. He didn’t take the birth certificates out.” She carefully removed the yellowed documents and laid them out on the table. All four had been issued in Ohio.

Nikki tapped a gloved finger on the nearest document. “Bianca Carrero, born 1973 in Cleveland, Ohio.”

“This must be Ms. Smith’s real name,” Miller said.

“Most likely,” Nikki said.

She took out the next birth certificate. “Rebecca Lincoln. She would have been eighteen that summer.” The next certificate was Jason’s, who was three and a half years younger. His last name was also listed as Lincoln. “We might actually have a surname.”

“I’ve gone through the online Ohio public records,” Liam said. “There’s a marriage license for Bianca Carrero and Shane Lincoln dated May 30th, 1995.”

“Rebecca was born two years later,” Nikki said. “Is there any kind of divorce record for Bianca and Shane?”

Liam’s grim expression made her hopes sink. “Yeah, Shane Lincoln died in a car accident in 2005. I’m trying to see if Bianca remarried, but it’s like finding a needle in a haystack without more information. At least a date.”

“What about the last certificate?”

“Bailey Carrero.” Nikki thought of “Bailey” written on the whiteboard in Taylor Hall’s locker. “Bianca Carrero is listed as mother, and there’s no father. This certificate says it’s a copy.”

“Nothing that explains why Taylor Hall had Bailey’s name and the date the family disappeared?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

Nikki opened her laptop and typed in “Bianca Carrero,” expecting to see dozens of options. Her heart hammered inside her chest. “There’s a missing persons page.”

“What?” Miller asked. “How did the Hendrickson attorney not discover it?”

“She didn’t have the right name,” Nikki reminded him.

The page appeared to be run by Elena Carrero, an older cousin of Bianca’s. “According to this page, Bianca and her three children went into hiding the summer of 2015 and were never heard from again. Elena has been searching for them since then.”

“So she did remarry,” Miller said. “Or at least have another relationship that resulted in Bailey. If he is the abusive one, that could be why the birth certificate is a copy. Bianca may have changed his name so that he’d have her last name instead of his father’s.”

Nikki skimmed through the photos Elena had shared. Bianca had been a beautiful, dark-haired Latina, and all three children appeared to favor her. Nikki understood Stephanie Bancroft’s jealousy. Both Bianca and Rebecca were stunning. Nikki kept scrolling until she reached the page’s earlier posts.

“Listen to this.” Nikki had found the first entry from late 2015. “Bianca endured abuse from her boyfriend until he moved on to her daughter, Rebecca. That’s when she decided to run.”

“She give the boyfriend’s name?” Liam asked.

“Redacted.” Nikki liked Elena’s style. “Literally, it says “redacted” instead of a name.”

Miller glanced at his vibrating phone. “It’s Chen.” He answered the call. “Hey, Lieutenant, what’s up?”

“Comm center got a 9-1-1 call from one of Christy Hall’s neighbors. She found her lying in the yard, blood everywhere, and called the police. They are headed there now.”