She already had Alley's handwriting on her autographed glass. As a standard procedure, she compared it with the letter. Not surprisingly, it wasn't even close.
Alley's maid, Clara, was a good suspect. She'd all but said she hated her employer to her and Jillian's face, and she didn't seem thrilled to be doing more than her job description stated. And as Alley's maid and (unofficial) secretary, there had to be something handwritten by that maid somewhere. Dry cleaning? Grocery list? Back pay? Something.
But yet, how would she be able to get it? Something like that would be locked up inside Alley's house, which required permission to enter the gate. Alley wouldn't let her back in, that was certain. And she didn't dare risk going back anyway, considering Patrick might see her. And sneaking in wasn't an option either. A place like that would have surveillance cameras and maybe even motion sensors. Even if she had the upper body strength to climb the privacy fence, her efforts would be futile.
Kenzie's head began to throb as she tried to come up with a way to get samples of Clara's handwriting, plus worrying about where Jillian had gone off to. So she went to her laptop to see if Logan was online. To her dismay, he wasn't.
Unsure of what to do next, Kenzie decided to browse the Web and see if she could find any more facts on Alley. Maybe that would give her some clues.
There were several fan sites devoted to Alley, such as the Hidden Springs town website, and even some pages that were obviously created by stalkers. But none of them got Kenzie any closer to solving the case.
She was about to give up when one more website caught her eye. It wasn't one just to worship Alley, or stalk her as some sites were keen on, but it was one that contained actual facts. It had a list of Alley's movies and what year they'd come out, as well as their plots and Alley's costars. It had information about where Alley had grown up and how she'd come to be a star. It even had information about her love life.
Curious, Kenzie clicked the link entitled Romance. There was a list, complete with pictures, of Alley's various lovers. Some of the names had a picture of Alley with them, while some showed them solo. Her most recent one, however, made Kenzie inhale deeply.
Because the picture of her most recent beau had skin with a green tint. The same type of person Alley had called a "stupid freak" just yesterday. The type of person she blamed for what had happened to her appearance.
The paparazzi had been all over this one, according to the website, because it was a great surprise that a celebrity would be dating one of "those" people.
As Kenzie looked closer, she recognized the bridge in the background. It was the same bridge stretching over the pond in the hidden garden. The garden where the Fountain of Youth was located.
So that was how Alley knew where the fountain was. She'd dated one of the green-tinted-skin people, who'd showed it to her. The man's name was Galen Finch, but no one knew where he was. He was said to have disappeared after Alley announced the end of their relationship. Some speculate that he committed suicide. Others say he went into a severe state of depression and ended up in an asylum.
Kenzie didn't know where Galen was either, but he had one distinguishable characteristic - a tattoo on his left shoulder. The tattoo depicted a sword cutting through vines. If she found a green-skinned man with that tattoo, she'd find Galen.
********************
Jillian returned home not long after Kenzie's discovery, her arms loaded down with shopping bags. She'd obviously been to the consignment store. But that wasn't the only place she'd been. She surprised Kenzie by handing her a small box.
"I thought you'd like this," she said sincerely.
Kenzie took the box and opened it. Inside was a book about the history of Hidden Springs. Kenzie, being a bookworm, was ecstatic to say the least.
"Thank you!" she exclaimed. "I do like it! I can't wait to read it! But you didn't have to do that."
"Well, yes, I did. I shouldn't have got so mad at you last night. I guess I was just worried that fame would go to your head or something. Like solving this case would make you famous, and you'd forget all about me."
"No way. That would never happen. Even if I had millions of simoleons, I would never forget my best friend. I'm sorry about this too. I wish I had an off switch for cases."
"Don't. You're a great detective, and the last time you tried to take a vacation, you got dragged into one of my messes, even though I did need your help anyway. At least this time you're taking a case on vacation because you want to."
"Well, if it's any consolation, I don't think I'll be working on it much longer. I've caught a few breaks."
"Really? Just in this amount of time? What happened?"
Kenzie filled Jillian in on hacking the SBI database to no avail, meeting Saundra, finding indentations in the (original) threatening letters (which for some reason weren't turned in as evidence), and about the website and Alley's latest fling, which she'd ended.
"That guy would have motive for this," she concluded. "Plus he'd know how to put a spell on Alley, if that's what happened."
"Yeah, but how will you find him? No one's seen him in a very long time. Maybe he really is dead."
"That's a possibility, and it would make sense, but still. Why take his own life? Ruining Alley's would be a lot better. That Fountain of Youth is pretty sacred to his type of people from what I understand. He must have showed it to her, and now she's using it whenever she wants, after she dumped him. I think he'd feel more angry and used than depressed."
"Okay, but again, how will you find him?"
"That's half the fun."
The two giggled together, then rekindled with a friendly hug. They then realized it was time to eat. Not wanting to cook, despite buying groceries, they decided to eat at the bistro once more. And since the weather was nice once again, they decided to enjoy the crisp evening air by eating outside.
While they were waiting for their food, Kenzie's eyes narrowed. She spotted Patrick Brookes across the way, gabbing into a cell phone. She was tempted to tell him about the leads she found without being hired by Alley, but she didn't want to give him any information. She'd rather see him fail.
"Nemesis, ten o'clock," she hissed to Jillian. Jillian turned and saw Patrick as well. She chuckled under her breath as she said, "Nemesis is an understatement. Except I don't know what else to call him."
"Arch enemy. Pain in the butt. Son of a llama."
"That works."
As she was watching him, Kenzie got an evil thought in her mind. She didn't know where it came from, but she wanted to try it anyway. She was going to hack the PI database again, but this time she'd look up information on Patrick Brookes. She wanted to know where he came from and anything about him that she could. Just knowing that she could find out everything about this guy in a heartbeat, and he wouldn't even know about it, was just what Kenzie needed to put the guy in his place. Even if he didn't know it was happening.
When the food arrived, Kenzie told Jillian of her scheme, which caused her friend to choke on her hamburger. "You're going to what?!"
"Here, take a drink," Kenzie said as she pushed Jillian's drink glass closer to her choking friend. When she gave a thumbs-up to indicate that she was all right, Kenzie repeated her plans. This time, Jillian just raised her eyebrows dubiously. "Why?"
"Why not?"
"Uh...because you have no reason to. I mean, he isn't a suspect, he's just a guy you don't like. What good will getting that information do you?"
"Maybe it'll explain why he's such a jerk."
Jillian sighed. "Well, just don't get caught."
"No problem."
When they were finished eating, Kenzie and Jillian prepared to head back to the house. But first they saw Clara, Alley's maid, heading outside. She was carrying a box and a small piece of paper. She threw the paper into the trash can and hopped into the waiting taxi.
Without skipping a beat, Kenzie briskly scurried toward the trash can. Making sure no one was watching, she reached inside and extracted the piece of paper that Clara had just discarded.
"Gross!" Jillian declared as she sauntered up behind her. "Why'd you do that?"
"I need handwriting samples."
Kenzie examined the paper carefully. It had a dinner order written on it, scrawled in messy handwriting that didn't belong to Alley. Obviously, Alley had sent Clara out to get her dinner, not wanting to be seen in her current state.
The two headed back toward the car once more, but as they were getting inside, they saw Patrick writing furiously on a little notepad while still squawking into his cell phone. Frustrated, he tore off that piece of paper and hurled it to the ground. He then blasted something else into his phone, vigorously writing again. At last, he hung up and headed toward his motorcycle.
Kenzie jumped out of the car and fluttered to the abandoned piece of paper on the ground.
"Yeah, Patrick's handwriting is really going to match the creepy person's who's sending Alley threatening letters," Jillian said sarcastically when Kenzie got back into the car with the piece of paper in her hand.
But Kenzie was only half listening, and even Jillian's sarcastic raspberry didn't bring her out of her stupor.
For the handwriting on that piece of paper, the one Patrick Brookes had just written on and tossed casually onto the ground, was nearly identical to that of the handwriting on the threatening letters.
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