Her Mother’s Grave

Chapter Fifty-Three

“Lila Jensen.”

Noah drove as Josie sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead but seeing nothing. She kept saying the name. Trying it out. It wasn’t what she’d expected. Then again, Josie wasn’t sure what she had expected. Lila Jensen sounded so normal, pretty even. Not at all like the devil she knew her mother to be.

“Lila Jensen,” she said again.

“Gretchen’s already on the phone with DHS trying to expedite a search of their records. She’s also checking the databases to see how many Lila Jensens there are, or were, in the state, looking for any born between 1958 and 1964—assuming she was between eighteen and twenty-four when Belinda first met her at the courthouse. We know she was older than Belinda, but not by much.”

Josie blinked, the flashing mountain scenery coming back into focus. “That won’t help you find her.”

“What?”

“So we know who she was before she stole Belinda’s identity. She shed her own identity for a reason. She wouldn’t go back to it. She doesn’t want to be found.”

The strange exhilaration of discovering one of her mother’s secrets was now replaced with a sense of disappointment. Maybe they would find out some things about Josie’s mother before she had become Josie’s mother, but she knew in her gut it would not lead them to her. They still had no way to track her. No photos, even.

“Dex,” she whispered.

Noah looked over at her for a second. “What’s that?”

Josie cleared her throat and spoke more loudly. “Dexter McMann. The boyfriend I mentioned to you. I remembered his name. I need you to find a current address for him. He would be thirty-seven now.”

“You think he would have photos?”

“I doubt it,” Josie said. “It’s probably a dead end, but Gretchen is right, I have to at least try talking to him. But first, I want to find Larry Ezekiel Fox and have a little chat with him.”