Chapter 329 Visitor Logs
ADRIANA
Sandy arrived before I was fully ready.
I was still eating breakfast with Lana on my knee when Hazel came to tell me, and I told her to settle Sandy in the waiting room and I’d be there shortly. I finished eating standing up, which was not ideal but was faster, and I handed Lana to the day nurse with specific instructions about the bandaged area and went downstairs.
Sandy stood when I came in. She was in the same carefully considered way she’d been dressed at the office.
“Good morning,” I said. “Sit down. I have some questions that are different from last time.”
She sat and folded her hands in her lap.
“I want to ask you about Alisha,” I said.
Something moved across Sandy’s face — a specific tightening around the mouth that arrived before she had time to arrange her expression.
“I hated her,” Sandy said. “I want to be clear about that upfront. I hated her from the first time Lucy brought her around the office.” She paused. “She was fake. The kind of person who was one thing to your face and another entirely when your back was turned. I tried to tell Lucy but Lucy was loyal, too loyal to people who didn’t deserve it.”
“Tell me about the fight,” I said.
Sandy’s eyes widened slightly. “You know about it.”
“I know it happened the day before Lucy was found. I know Alisha came to the office. I know there was shouting. Tell me the rest.”
Sandy exhaled. “She came in without an appointment, which she never did — she always called ahead because she knew if she just appeared, Lucy’s assistant would turn her away and she didn’t want that to happen.” She paused. “She was in a state. Upset, that cold controlled fury underneath. She pushed past me and went straight to Lucy’s office and started immediately. Saying Lucy had taken something from her. That she had stolen from her.”
“What did she say she had stolen?”
“She kept saying ‘you took what was mine.’ Over and over. Lucy kept saying she didn’t know what she was talking about, that she hadn’t taken anything.” Sandy shook her head. “And then Alisha said something I didn’t understand at the time. She said ‘you think I don’t know what you did? You think I don’t know about the file?’ And Lucy went completely white.”
I leaned forward slightly. “She said file.”
“And that was when Lucy’s voice changed. She stopped denying and she started telling Alisha to keep her voice down, to calm down, that they needed to talk gently. But Alisha wasn’t interested in talking. She stormed out and on the way past my desk she said—” Sandy stopped.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘she’s going to get what she deserves.’ Not to me specifically. More like to herself.” Sandy looked at me. “And then the last thing she said on her way out the door — loud enough that I could hear it from my desk — was ‘have fun in your home of sin.’”
The cabin. Alisha had known about the cabin specifically. She hadn’t just known Lucy was with someone, she had known the location.
“Sandy,” I said carefully. “Is it possible that Alisha was involved with the man who was using the name Tobby?”
Sandy stared at me. “You think she—”
“I’m asking if it’s possible.”
The silence stretched for long enough to be its own answer.
“I saw them once,” Sandy said finally. “Together. About six months before Lucy died. Alisha came to pick Lucy up from work for lunch — which she rarely did — and there was a man with her. I only saw him for a moment in the car. He didn’t come inside.” She paused. “I remember thinking he seemed too old for her. And I noticed a mark on his wrist when he reached across to open the door. A small tattoo.”
“Describe it,” I said.
“Like a crown,” Sandy said. “Red. Very precise.”
Everything clicked into a different position.
Tobby was not Lucy’s lover. Tobby was Alisha’s. Lucy had found something about Tobby that implicated him in something significant. Alisha had found out that Lucy knew. The fight the day before Lucy’s death had not been about a romantic betrayal — it had been about a file that threatened someone Alisha was protecting.
And then Lucy was dead.
“Sandy,” I said, “do you still have the visitor logs from that period? The record of who came to see Lucy in the months before she died?”
“The ones I gave you yesterday.”
“I need you to go through them again and look for any name that appears alongside Alisha’s visits. Any overlap. Any pattern.” I stood up. “Can you do that today?”
“Yes,” Sandy said.
“Hazel will stay with you while you do it.” I moved toward the door and then turned back. “Sandy. You’ve been telling the truth about Lucy from the beginning and people dismissed it because it was inconvenient for the conclusion they’d already reached.” I held her gaze. “I want you to know I hear you.”
Sandy nodded, and something in her expression that had been held tight since she walked in released slightly.
I went to find Hazel.
She was in the corridor with her phone against her ear and when she saw me she held up one finger.
I waited.
She ended the call and looked at me with the expression she wore when news had arrived that was either very good or very bad and she was deciding how to deliver it.
“My person watching Alisha’s house said she left this morning before sunrise. She had a bag with her.” She paused. “She hasn’t come back.”
I looked at her.
“She ran,” I said.
Hazel nodded in confirmation.
I thought about the photograph Alisha had produced from that safe without much hesitation. The convenient evidence placed with the right person. The fight the day before Lucy’s death. The specific knowledge of the cabin.
“She didn’t just know about the cabin,” I said. “She told him Lucy would be there. She gave him the location and the timing.” I held Hazel’s gaze. “And now that someone has started asking the right questions, she’s gone.”
“Where do you want to start?” Hazel said.
“Find her,” I said. “And get me everything you can find on the connection between Alisha and the man with the red crown tattoo. Because I think that’s the thread that connects Lucy’s death to everything that’s been happening to this family.” I moved toward the stairs. “And tell Sandy to stay as long as she needs to. Whatever she finds in those visitor logs, I want to see it the moment she has it.”