Free The Secret (Seacliff High Mystery Book 1) by Kathi Daley Page A

information when everyone is together.”
    “Yeah, I get it. If I was the odd man out I wouldn’t want everyone else sharing info without me. Eli’s been a huge help and deserves to be in on the conversation. It’s just that patience has never been one of my virtues. Every time I try to be patient, I get tired of waiting and my good intentions fly right out the window. I usually end up doing something stupid or saying something out of turn.”
    “Don’t worry.” Mac laughed, setting her lunch tray on the table already occupied by Trevor and Eli. “I’ll help you keep your virtue intact.”
    “What’s this about virtue?” Trevor asked, suddenly interested in their conversation.
    “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Mac teased.
    “So can we talk about our research yesterday?” Alyson interrupted, anxious to get right to the point.
    “Did you talk to your mom?” Trevor asked.
    “Uh, not yet. She was asleep by the time I got home last night, and the timing didn’t seem right this morning,” Alyson answered.
    “You promised,” Trevor reminded her.
    “I know. I will.”
    “Talk to your mom about what?” Mac asked.
    Trevor filled Mac and Eli in on the note, the man who’d left it, and his opinion that Alyson should go to the cops.
    “I have to agree with Trevor,” Mac responded. “I think you should go to the cops. You could be in real danger. If the guy with the note is the same person who broke in the other day he knows where you live.”
    “I appreciate everyone’s concern, but I’d really like us to continue to pursue this on our own, at least for now,” Alyson insisted. “If we go to the cops they’ll probably put it on a back burner. We really don’t have any proof at all there even is an heir.”
    “I guess that’s true,” Mac acknowledged.
    “Did you guys find out anything yesterday that might help us prove our theory?” Eli asked.
    Alyson filled the other two in on her and Trevor’s findings from the previous afternoon. “Of course we have no way of knowing for sure if Mary’s baby is Barkley’s illegitimate child, or where she might be now, but it’s a start.”
    “I think our research can fill in a few blanks,” Mac interjected when Alyson finally stopped to take a breath. “I didn’t find a record anywhere of a child born to Mary Swanson. I did a pretty thorough records search from the local hospital, along with all other facilities within a hundred-mile radius. I also checked the county records to see if there was a birth certificate for any babies with the last name of Swanson or Cutter for the years between 1950 and 1970. Again, I drew a blank.” Mac leaned forward to emphasize her next point. “I did, however, find a death certificate for Mary Swanson issued in 1968.”
    “The year the checks stopped,” Trevor observed.
    “If Mary died, what happened to her child?” Alyson asked.
    “I have no idea,” Mac said. “I tried to see if I could find any evidence of a child, but there are no records at all of anyone around the presumed age of the child in question with the last name of Swanson.”
    “We checked school records, medical records, records for this county and the next one over, but we drew a complete blank,” Eli added.
    “But Ben confirmed Mary did indeed have a child, so why the lack of a paper trail?” Trevor asked.
    “He did say she moved away. Maybe she moved out of the area completely,” Alyson ventured.
    “Is there any way to find out which bank the deductions from Barkley’s account were deposited into?” Trevor asked. “That might give us some indication of where she ended up.”
    “Should be doable,” Mac answered. “After quite a few hours of surfing using Eli’s dad’s software, we managed to find out that the deposits into Barkley’s account came from a trust established at a bank in Portland. What’s even more interesting is that the deductions are still being drafted from the bank but haven’t been deposited in Barkley’s