Page 75 of Dirty Valentine
“Track Samuel Ashworth’s line,” Jack ordered.
The genealogical software populated the screen with births, deaths, marriages—centuries of family history cascading like digital rain.Doug made little sounds of discovery, the kind of excited noises he usually reserved for breaking encryption codes.
“Whoa,” Doug said, then immediately glanced at Jack.“Look at this.The Ashworth line stayed in Massachusetts forever, then split in the 1920s, meandering south for the next couple of generations.”He pulled up another screen with the dramatic flair only a teenager could manage.“Until someone eventually came here.To King George County.In 1983.”
“Who?”Jack’s single word carried the weight of command.
Doug’s fingers danced across the keyboard.“Someone named Evelyn Ashworth bought property on Marsh Creek Road.”More typing, more screens.“But get this—two years later she marries this guy Joseph Toscano.He was navy, stationed at Dahlgren Naval Base.
“Marriage lasted less than a year,” Doug continued.“But after the divorce, she starts going by Evangeline Toscano.”
The silence that followed was absolute.I could hear my own heartbeat, the hum of Doug’s computers, the storm still raging outside.
“Forty years,” I said, the words barely a whisper.“She told us she’d lived here forty years.She’s been here all along.”
“Right under our noses,” Cole said.“She knows how to use the plants—concoct her own hallucinogenic brew.”
“Tag team,” Martinez said.“One provides the methods, the other has the access.”
Daniels’s low growl made us all turn to her.“The greenhouse break-in.Three weeks ago.Potts processed that scene by herself.She’s been at every scene.Her hands have been all over the evidence.We’ll be lucky if we’ve got enough evidence to get a conviction on anyone by the time this is finished.”
“Then we’ll need to catch them red-handed,” Jack said.
Jack hadn’t moved, but I could feel the fury radiating off him in waves.When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, controlled, lethal.“Sheldon.She used him as a test subject.”
“The séance that wasn’t a séance,” I said, remembering Sheldon’s confused account.“The floating feeling, the memory gaps.She was dosing him, seeing how much it took to incapacitate someone without killing them.”
“Are we sure he’s still upstairs?”Jack asked Doug.
“Unless someone climbed the balcony and pulled him from the second story,” Doug said, offhand.
I looked at Jack and then ran upstairs, Jack close behind me.When I got to the guest room Sheldon was staying in I knocked on the door, a little more frantic than I should have.And when Sheldon opened the door, eyes wide behind his lenses, and wearing a white undershirt and boxers, I almost hugged him in relief.
“Is it time for dinner?”he asked.“Doug said he was going to order groceries, but that was hours ago.What time is it?I’ve been playingElden Ring.What day is it?”
“It’s Thursday,” I said.“We were just checking to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m good,” he said.“I broke up with Leena.She’s taking it okay I think.She didn’t text me back.”
“That’s wise,” Jack said.“You’ll meet the right girl one day.We’re glad to have you stay with us for a while, Sheldon.Do me a favor and let one of us know if you need to go somewhere.Just in case.”
“In case what?”he asked.
“In case Leena didn’t take the breakup as well as you think,” he said.“Women get crazy sometimes.You know how it is.”
“True,” he said, shaking his head.“When my Aunt Pam’s husband left her she threw a hatchet at his head.Took off part of his ear.”
“There you go,” Jack said.“Enjoy your game.”
We left Sheldon to his game and went back downstairs to the team who’d made themselves at home in the office.
“All good?”Cole asked.
“He’s locked in,” Jack said.“Pull up everything you can find on Evangeline Toscano’s property.”
“Margot has already started gathering the data,” Doug said.“The Marsh Creek property’s huge.About a thousand acres in all.A majority of it is wetlands.That’s probably how she was able to buy it as a private sale.A developer couldn’t do much with it.”He pulled up the survey and a topographical map.“That’s her home, and then there are a few outbuildings—greenhouse, shed, dock, and a boathouse.Those are the most identifiable.”
“We had to park a good ways from the house,” I said.“And then we had to walk across the bridge.Her house is built on stilts in the marshland.As far as I could see that bridge was the only way on her property.She saw us coming.”
