“I agree,” said Hawes, studying the pages. “Let’s try to find the most recent notebooks and focus on those. We can take them with us. I’m not going to sit in this dark room and try to make out the words.”

“What about collecting evidence?”

“No crime has happened here. I think anything of use will be in these journals, and the more eyes we have on them the better.”

“Gianna,” Chris said.

She looked up from her place on the floor. Chris was standing by the closet, studying some of the sketches on the wall. He’d lifted the edge of one to expose another beneath it.

“Is this you?” he asked.

Her gaze locked on the drawing; she stood; her flesh seemed to grow heavy. As she drew closer, she saw a drawing of a little girl’s face. It was her. She was still a toddler.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Here’s another.” Chris lifted another odd sketch to show a drawing of an older child. She figured she was about eight. “He had some memories,” Chris said. “He didn’t forget you completely.” Becker and Hawes started lifting other sketches, searching for more images of a young Gianna.

“How old were you when that car accident happened?” Becker asked.

“Eight.”

“Then how did he do this one?” Becker moved aside to display an image near a pillow on the bed.

Gianna caught her breath at the sight of the teenage face. “That’s not me. That’s Violet.” Her heart seized at the image of her daughter. Tears flowed.

Hang on, honey.

Hawes frowned. “She looks exactly like you. How can you be sure?”

“The collar of the shirt. It’s hanging in Violet’s closet right now.”

Hawes smiled. “He’s been watching you guys.”

Gianna moved closer, staring at her daughter, aching to touch her hair and her face again.

Her father had perfectly captured Violet, although she’d understood how Becker had believed it was Gianna. The sketch made her chest burst with love and pain at the same time.

He knew us.

And we never knew him. “Violet will never know my father.”

“Clearly he had a soft spot for her. There’s four more of her wearing the same shirt right here.” Becker shuffled through a stack of papers next to the mattress.

“That’s lovely,” said Hawes.

Gianna felt like she was shrinking, becoming a fraction of her former self. She’d been unaware that her father had hovered outside her and Violet’s life. But he’d been there. Now her guilt filled the room, berating her for giving up on him. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “If I’d known he was still alive, I would have tried.”

“He set the boundaries,” Chris said. “It’s no fault of your own. Saul and your father thought it was best this way. For all we know, someone would have attacked you much earlier. You might not have seen your tenth birthday if your father had come forward.”

“He could have reached out later!” Gianna wanted to punch someone. “I would have understood!”

“You have every right to be angry,” Hawes started.

“Damn right I do!”

Detective Hawes closed her mouth, smartly recognizing that Gianna was in no mood for platitudes.

“Let’s get the notebooks packed up so we can start going through them,” said Becker. “We can come back for the personal drawings.” He scooped a stack into his arms and disappeared out the door.

Hawes and Chris started to assemble more stacks to carry out.

Gianna watched them for a second, feeling helpless and completely disconnected from the man who’d lived in this apartment. Her gaze traveled the room, searching for something to connect to the father she remembered. She couldn’t leave without something. She grabbed one of the Darth Vader PEZ dispensers and ripped a sketch of Violet off the wall. She folded it carefully and slid both items into a pocket. Hawes wisely said nothing.

Two painfully small mementos.

Gianna grabbed a stack of notebooks and followed Becker.

“They found Jamie’s car,” Becker reported, stepping into the small police station conference room where they’d gathered to look through Gianna’s father’s notebooks. Chris’s chest contracted at his words; then he remembered that Jamie was already safe. Michael had recently reported that she’d woken from surgery. Her first question had been about Violet.

Michael had told her the truth.

Next to him Gianna sucked in her breath. “Violet?”

“No one’s there. The car was abandoned in the rear parking lot of a furniture store only a few minutes away from where it was taken.” Becker paused. “The car’s clean inside.”

No blood.

“But the police have been searching for that make of vehicle,” Chris said. “He swapped it for something else or someone was waiting for him. We’ve been looking for the wrong vehicle for hours. Goddamn it!” He swung out of his seat and paced around the table. “Hours! It’s been hours!”

Gianna covered her eyes, her arms propped up on the table. Her stillness alarmed him.

“The store owner reported that he noticed a strange vehicle parked behind the dumpsters earlier in the day. He didn’t think much of it, assuming one of his employees had borrowed the vehicle. But now the police have checked with all the employees and it didn’t belong to any of them.”