Page 48

CHAPTER 34

Cedar Creek, Nevada Wednesday, July 31, 2024

IT TOOK SLOAN A MINUTE TO GAIN HER COMPOSURE AND FOR HER MIND to process what Eric was telling her. She knew her birth mother only through the tabloid articles she had read, the stories she’d heard during the short time spent with the Margolis family, and from the single box of photos Sloan had dug through at Nora’s studio. But during those limited engagements, Sloan had learned that Annabelle was an aspiring photographer, a devoted wife, and a doting mother who loved her newborn child. It was enough for a connection, however frail, to develop. And now, to learn that Annabelle’s blood had been detected in her home, and had been cleaned up, was heartbreaking news.

“Did the police ever do anything with this evidence?”

“I’m not sure how they pursued it. I only have what’s here in front of us, and I haven’t been able to track down anyone who worked the case back then. But I can imagine the riff this discovery caused.”

“How so?”

“I have to assume that the state police, no matter how influenced they might have been by the Margolis family, suspected that Preston had something to do with this.”

“Preston?”

“It’s the most logical, and usually the first, conclusion we come to anytime a wife goes missing or is found dead. The husband is the first suspect. In this case, with all this blood having been discovered and then cleaned up, the detectives investigating the case had to believe the worst—that Annabelle was dead. And with her husband and child missing, they likely suspected that Preston killed Annabelle and disappeared with their infant daughter.”

“Why? What was the motive? From everything I’ve learned about my birth parents, they were madly in love.”

“I don’t know. And this is just speculation, but from what I know about that summer, everything happened very fast between Preston and Annabelle. You know this from your conversation with Nora Margolis. Maybe he did feel trapped. Maybe he had buyer’s remorse and wanted to be back with Stella Connelly, his old fiancée. Look, Sloan, I don’t know the investigator’s mindset back then, but if I can pluck a couple of potential motives out of thin air thirty years after the fact, rest assured they found a few back then.”

“But now,” Sloan said, “in retrospect, we have new information. I’m alive, and we know I was put up for adoption. My adoptive parents told me they only met the woman posing as my birth mother—Wendy Downing. They said my father was out of the picture.”

“The FBI told you that an attorney going by the name of Guy Menendez helped Wendy Downing broker the adoption. For all we know, Preston Margolis was that attorney.”

“No,” Sloan said. “I don’t believe that. I can’t believe that.”

Eric shook his head. “Then we have to keep digging. Let’s get through the rest of the file and see what else we find. Specifically, we need to figure out how your disappearance is linked to Baker Jauncey’s death. The theory that Annabelle and Preston disappeared to avoid Annabelle being prosecuted for Baker’s death is supported by the fact that their house had been packed up and cleared out.”

Eric slid another sheet of paper across the table. On it were photocopies of images of Preston and Annabelle’s closets. The spaces were empty but for a few empty hangers and random items—a lone shoe, a sweatshirt in a heap, a makeup bag on the floor.

“Their closets were empty,” Eric said. “As if they’d packed all their clothes to hit the road.”

“But Annabelle’s blood . . . if Preston killed her, why would he pack Annabelle’s things, too?”

“Subterfuge? To make it look like they all disappeared together?” Eric pointed at the boxes on the table. “There has to be more in the files that will help us understand what happened.”

Sloan nodded. “Let’s get busy.”

But before they could begin digging, her phone rang. When she looked at the caller ID, she saw that it was Dr. Cutty. She held up a finger to Eric and answered.

“Hello?”

“Sloan? It’s Livia Cutty. I was able to look at those two autopsy reports you sent. Do you have time to review them?”

“Yes, thanks for getting back to me. Did you come across anything interesting?”

“Much more than interesting. In my humble opinion, both reports are terribly inaccurate.”

“How so?”

“Baker Jauncey didn’t die from a motor vehicle accident, and Sandy Stamos didn’t drown.”