Left to Vanish (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book Eight) by Blake Pierce (books to read for 13 year olds .txt) 📗

“Transaction history,” Agent Paige said. “From all thesales in a ten-year period. Becker circled and highlighted the ones sold by thechurch.”

Adele whistled, glancing along the three-page file. Tight,cramped cursive writing stacked in neat rows. Every few lines of text, one ofthe transactions was circled with a yellow highlighter.

“It was really quite impressive,” Paige said, nodding inadmiration. “Becker knew them from memory. But look, each of those was sold bythe church, within the timeframe we’re looking at. Each of them sold to privateowners. But it also keeps track of everyone who bid on the properties. See there,in the column on the furthest right. Those were failed offers. All of thempending, and then turned down.”

Adele tracked the folder and turned the page, scanning thedocument.

Perhaps Paige was right. Perhaps trying to do this alonehad been her mistake. Perhaps thinking she could had been the error. Paige hadprocured the necessary piece of evidence when Adele had fallen to despair.Perhaps she shouldn’t have counted Agent Paige out so quickly. Still, whatwould this do?

It was still more than twenty-three names. Still more thanshe could handle.

She tried to quiet herself, just scanning the folder,reading the transaction history. She looked from the purchase names to thepending sale information. She scanned through the list a second time, flippingthrough the three pages and squinting against the cramped, cursive handwriting.

Part of her wished Mr. Becker had heard of a computer or aspreadsheet, but another part of her was too focused to complain. Her eyesdarted from each highlighted and circled transaction to the next.

“What’s this right here?” she murmured softly. She tappedher finger against one of the pending sales that had fallen through.

Agent Paige nodded slowly. “Exactly,” she said. “I askedhim about that too.”

Adele blinked, wondering just how long she’d sat in thealley.

“Lavigne Preservation,” Adele murmured. “What is LavignePreservation?”

Paige murmured, “Flip the page, look at the next set oftransactions.”

Adele did. Under nearly every one of the transactionrecords, she spotted the same name. Lavigne Preservation. “A company?” sheasked, wrinkling her nose. She flipped the page to the last one, and again, onnearly five of the church sales, in the pending column, with failed bids andlowball offers, she spotted Lavigne Preservation.

“Becker said it was a historian,” replied Paige. “Said thatfellow offered bids on nearly all of the church properties, making claims thatthey needed to preserve the historic sites rather than develop them.”

Adele looked up staring at Agent Paige. “So you saw theconnection too?”

Paige glared now. “You’re good, but you’re not the only onewho knows how to do their job.” She shook her head in disgust. “Some of youyoung ones, you really need to show a bit more respect, you know that?”

Adele held up a hand in apology and glanced back at thepapers. “So he’s a preservationist? A historian you say?”

“According to Becker he still lives in the area. Alsoaccording to Becker, he made some big stink about ten years ago when the finalsales were completed. Protested outside a government building with some kooksand crazies, all of them frustrated that the land was sold for development orresidential, as opposed to preserved for its historic significance.”

Adele felt a flicker in her chest. Maybe she’d beenthinking about this wrong. Maybe trying to track down the victims was amistake. Maybe Paige was right. Maybe they’d found the killer instead.

“So some rabid preservationist went out of his way to lowballoffers on all of these properties.”

“Of course, Becker said he turned him down. Which, inBecker’s own words,” Paige said, pulling out her phone, pausing for a moment,then clicking the device, and a recorded voice suddenly spoke out:

“…he went quite mad,”the recording said, Becker’s voice echoing through the speakers. “Quite madindeed. Furious I wouldn’t sell to him. He kept saying I owed it to history.Owed it to faith. Said I owed it to God… Is that enough now? I really have tobe going…”

Agent Paige clicked off her phone.

Adele looked up, wide-eyed. “You recorded him?”

“He doesn’t use technology himself, but he’s not allergicto it.” Agent Paige shrugged, placing her phone back in her pocket.

Adele’s mind continued to churn. This was an importantdevelopment. If this historian had gone so far to think he was entitled to theland, but unable to buy any of it, maybe he might go even further. Slowly,Adele slid back up the dusty alley wall, her mind racing.

She swallowed slowly, muttering, “We have a criminal recordon the guy?”

“I haven’t called it in yet,” Paige said. “I just got out oftalking with Becker.”

Adele nodded quickly, dusting off her pants and closing hereyes for a moment to think.

“A historian. Not enough money to make a dent on theproperties. But enough zeal and frustration to organize protests outsidegovernment buildings. Invoking God and morality as entitlement to thoseproperties. Do you think it fits the MO?”

“Look at Mrs. Churchville’s property, Signora Calvetti’s,and Mrs. Schmidt’s,” Agent Paige said, softly.

Adele quickly flicked back through, moving from each of theaddresses they’d already visited of the summer homes. She read the pending salecolumn on each and looked up, eyes wide. “He made offers on all those houses,”she said quickly.

“Exactly.”

“We need to find out what we can about Lavigne Enterprises.Find out about this historian. Especially check to see if he has any criminalcomplaints.”

Agent Paige studied Adele for a moment, standing out in thesunlight, looking at where Adele stood in the alley. For a moment, she justwatched the younger woman, and then her eyes seemed to flash with somethingakin to a smile, though it didn’t reach her lips. She nodded once as if insatisfaction, and then turned, her shoes clicking as she began to move back upthe sidewalk. “I already called a cab,” she said, over her shoulder. “You cancall the police. Get the information yourself.”

Adele hefted the folder and then hurried after Paige,fishing her own phone out quickly, feeling some of the nerves, the anxiety,subsiding once more.

She knew she couldn’t keep on going like this, not withoutaddressing the underlying issue. Then again, if she did address it, she wasn’tsure there would ever be any going back.

Perhaps, at least for now, some skeletons