The Woman Most Wanted
Pamela Tracy
Did Tom Riley arrest the wrong woman?For six years, the Sarasota Falls police chief has been hunting the cunning beauty involved in his partner's death. Now here she is, back in his New Mexico town, her face a match to the one on the wanted posters. But the woman Tom Riley knows as Rachel Ramsey insists her name is Heather Graves.Is Heather really as innocent as she claims? And what is he supposed to do about their undeniable mutual attraction? As his search for answers uncovers secrets in Heather's past, Tom realizes that Heather is the woman he most wants…
Did Tom Riley arrest the wrong woman?
For six years, the Sarasota Falls police chief has been hunting the cunning beauty involved in his partner’s death. Now here she is, back in his New Mexico town, her face a match to the one on the wanted posters. But the woman Tom Riley knows as Rachel Ramsey insists her name is Heather Graves.
Is Heather really as innocent as she claims? And what is he supposed to do about their undeniable mutual attraction? As his search for answers uncovers secrets in Heather’s past, Tom realizes that Heather is the woman he most wants...
She followed so close that when he stopped, she walked right into him.
Tom righted her, his hands clasping her arms and automatically pulling her toward him. Heather looked up expectantly, and before he could stop himself—not that he wanted to—his lips were on hers.
Her lips were soft and warm, pliant and giving at the same time. He wanted her closer, but that wasn’t even possible. Her arms wound around his neck. In the car, she’d smelled like strawberries. Right now, though, she smelled like the outdoors, crisp October leaves with maybe a hint of rain.
Yes, rain had a scent, and it made him feel more alive than he had in years.
Dear Reader (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a),
Have you ever caught a glimpse of someone ahead of you, sucked in your breath, got all excited and hurried over to say hi only to discover you’d made a mistake. LOL, I have. I’ve shouted greetings only to get the “who are you?” stare.
They say everyone has a doppelgänger. I just love that word. I heard it first in a movie. It took me two weeks to learn how to spell it (I’m so glad spell-check will put that little thing over the a), and it’s really, really hard to work into conversations.
Lately, my misidentifications have to do with my dad. He was a WWII vet who passed away over a decade ago. But often I go into a restaurant and there’s an eightyish balding man, wearing baggy jeans and a plaid shirt—sometimes suspenders—and even though the face isn’t my dad’s, it’s all I can do not to go over, fall to my knees, touch his face and tell him how much I miss him.
In The Woman Most Wanted, Chief Tom Riley sees a woman he thinks he recognizes, one wanted by the police, and one he has a special interest in. Except it’s a case of mistaken identity. Though it takes him a while to figure out the truth, in his heart, he knows from the beginning that, indeed, Heather Graves was wanted. By him. Forever.
And in this case, it takes an entire book to get over a first impression because, boy, did he blow their first meeting.
Ain’t romance grand?
Thank you so much for reading Harlequin Heartwarming books! If you’d like to know more about me, please visit www.pamelatracy.com (http://www.pamelatracy.com). You can also get to know most of the authors at heartwarmingauthors.blogspot.com (http://heartwarmingauthors.blogspot.com).
Pamela
The Woman Most Wanted
Pamela Tracy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PAMELA TRACY is a USA TODAY bestselling author who lives with her husband (the inspiration for most of her heroes) and son (the interference for most of her writing time). Since 1999, she has published more than twenty-five books and sold more than a million copies. She’s a RITA® Award finalist and a winner of the American Christian Fiction Writers’ Book of the Year Award.
To Daniel Crawford, who looks like me, or maybe I look like him—doesn’t matter, we look like each other. Except I’m shorter and wider. Next time I see you we’ll do “rock, paper, scissors” to see who’s cuter.
I love you, baby brother!
Contents
Cover (#u3c9fc422-ecf6-5607-80e5-f3d85b032e53)
Back Cover Text (#u863f8995-4559-5e12-8597-488f78270278)
Introduction (#u9bd33019-efb6-5a32-be0a-acd69f7a1243)
Dear Reader (#ud8d7dd85-ce74-57a3-b5cd-83af8b57a55e)
Title Page (#u23721ca7-b8ff-56b6-b44b-207063841df6)
About the Author (#u515eace2-bb30-5d76-a286-da124c9b588c)
Dedication (#u3d28a1d4-01ec-5339-a89b-057c63ed7430)
CHAPTER ONE (#u360499cf-d69e-5fa9-b0ec-5ab4a41be1d1)
CHAPTER TWO (#u692844ea-d11e-5006-9330-dd3d6f669342)
CHAPTER THREE (#udadb1046-0363-5491-b893-e525ecbfd49f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u836abad6-ed6c-5d1b-906b-7f265bf27ce6)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u2a243f6f-5585-5626-a58e-254d469396fd)
CHAPTER SIX (#u8c192776-d728-57b1-b0c7-05ce2b03d6dc)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u68ec03fe-fc9c-5fc5-8e41-abc88e3ec6ff)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
TRAFFIC ALWAYS MADE Police Chief Tom Riley want to jump out of his SUV and redirect vehicles until every lane ran smoothly. Sitting still, waiting longer than he deemed necessary for his turn to exit, annoyed him. He didn’t like it, didn’t want it and even his badge could do nothing about it.
Truthfully, his little town of Sarasota Falls seldom required a vehicle to suffer through one rotation from the traffic light. Today, however, was Founder’s Day and Tom was idling in front of Sweet Sarasota, the town’s bakery, far enough back to know it would take two turns before he got to hang a left.
He had something to do, it was police-related, and he was half-tempted to engage the siren.
The town’s hundredth year. Mayor Rick Goodman had gone overboard with marketing the event, at least in Tom’s opinion, and for the last few days the town experienced a boon as family, friends and past residents made their way back, all to celebrate.
Tom hadn’t participated in the pumpkin-toss competition and he hadn’t played horseshoes, although he’d wanted to, but he had ridden the celebration train this morning—as security.
Rah, rah. It had gone a mile down the tracks, turned and ended abruptly.
Tom had also worked late last evening and had personally driven five inebriated people home from the Hoot & Holler. None had been in a police car before. All except him had found it a joyous occasion. They’d even tried to tip him. Then, he’d also changed a flat, found a lost kid and received a proposal of marriage.
He hadn’t minded the flat. He hadn’t minded finding the lost kid, who’d just taken off with a family member who’d been more than surprised because she insisted she’d informed the family of who was going where and when. But Tom had been somewhat taken aback by the marriage proposal, which came from a woman more than forty years his senior. She’d been at the front-desk area at ten last night, holding a bag of the town’s finest chocolate chip cookies and wanting to thank the police for the good job they were doing.
He’d honestly told her it was the best offer he’d had all day, but, unfortunately, he wasn’t looking for the next Mrs. Riley. What he didn’t tell her was that his heart still had a hole in the center from the ex–Mrs. Riley.
Eighty-three-year-old Helen Williams had slipped her phone number in his hand and said should he ever make it to Arizona to give her a call.
He had a gut feeling she’d been at the Hoot & Holler, too. He’d taken a cookie and thanked her. Then, he’d followed her out the door, grateful, and watched her walk one block to a small motel.
He’d finished up his paperwork and gone home, and now at four the next afternoon, he was back on duty. Man, he’d be glad when Founder’s Day festivities ended. He much preferred tourists to people he shared a history with.
At least a dozen had asked about his ex-wife.
Two hadn’t known about Max’s death. He’d given them the condensed version. Partner killed in the line of duty; when they buried Max, Tom buried himself in work. The next thing he knew his house was empty and his wife gone.
Everyone agreed it was bad.
Didn’t matter. Tom finally got the green light, turned left and twenty minutes later was on the outskirts of town, where houses were few and traffic nonexistent. Most of the people who lived out here just liked open spaces. Some, however, lived in the middle of nowhere so they’d not be observed.
Case in point: Richard Welborn, who’d been arrested not quite a year ago and had taken off before his court date, leaving his mother alone in a rental house she could barely afford. She claimed she didn’t know where Richie was. But Tom knew she got checks from Richie.
Welborn needed to own up to his responsibility for driving drunk and putting an elderly woman in the hospital. She’d been through months of physical therapy and now almost a year of pain.
Tom drove by the Welborn house a few times a month, even though Richie’s mother shot him dirty looks and the sight of the house brought back memories he’d prefer to keep at bay.
He willed Welborn to show up so he could arrest him and never have to drive to this particular address again.
This time, being out on bond wouldn’t be an option.
To Tom’s annoyance, even this fairly remote section of Sarasota Falls had traffic.
The woman in the white Chevy ahead of him had Arizona plates. Maybe a relative of Helen Williams? Even from behind he could tell the driver was under thirty, with long blond hair. Something niggled at his subconscious, but Helen—who’d been friends with Tom’s grandmother—didn’t have children, so that guess seemed unlikely. Tom gave his head a shake. During the past few days, with so many out-of-towners, he’d paid close attention, driven by the motels and through neighborhoods, keeping his town safe.
Little Miss Sunshine blocked his way and needed to either speed up or pull over. He had more things to do before he could head home, and thanks to an unexpected speeding ticket he’d given out as he headed this way, he was now running behind.
He might get even further behind because something about the woman in the car tugged at his memory: might be the hair color, the shape of her head, or a gut feeling. Something.
He needed to pull this woman over.
Problem was, she wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Tags up to date: check. Speed limit observed: check. Tom looked at the time on his dashboard. Not even five. The Hoot & Holler didn’t get rowdy until about ten or eleven most nights, so she probably hadn’t just left. Then again, Founder’s Day changed everything. His officers, all ten of them, had been working overtime.
He wondered if he was on a fool’s errand. Tom didn’t for a moment believe Welborn might return to his last address, but in the name of good police work, the importance of paperwork and the promise he’d made to a victim, Tom intended to do his job.
His turn was still a far distance ahead. He checked the lane next to him, glanced in his rearview mirror and started to edge over for the pass as the center line had gone from solid to striped. He wanted to see the driver.
Simultaneously, the white Chevy increased its speed so he could no longer safely pass. He was in no mood for this. The driver continued to be a pain.
Problem was, he couldn’t decide what to do. Technically, she had the right of way. At first, she’d been going so slow that he figured she was looking for a turnoff. Now, she was slowing down and speeding up. Usually, this indicated someone under the influence. Since she hadn’t started this type of maneuver until she’d seen him, he was willing to hold off. Something was up with her.
He sped up more, thinking to get ahead of her.
He started to flip on his siren, but decided that was overkill, and he always tried to put rational thought before reaction.
Once the opportunity arose, he went for the pass, slowing to look at her as he was beside her.
She looked back.
And he almost lost control of the SUV as the image from a police wanted poster stared at him from the driver’s seat.
Rachel Ramsey in the flesh!
It only took a second to catch his breath. He loosened his death grip on the steering wheel and activated the siren with one hand while motioning for her to pull over with the other.
Her blue eyes widened in innocent surprise.
Innocent? Not a chance. He’d been hunting her from the moment his partner, Max, had been shot in cold blood during a convenience-store robbery right in Sarasota Falls.
She’d been the passenger, not the driver, back then. Her boyfriend, Jeremy Salinas, was a punk kid who’d been sent to Sarasota Falls to live with his aunt. The idea had been that maybe a small town would be good for him.
That hadn’t quite worked out.
Rachel hadn’t pulled the trigger, but according to the witness, she’d been the distraction.
Every bit as guilty.
Watching Rachel’s every move—no way was she escaping this time—he radioed in a 10-29 so his men would know where he was and what he was doing, then, not even giving her an inch, he motioned for her to pull over.
If she tried to lose him, he’d use his car as a weapon.
He cared that much.
She carefully coasted to a stop on the shoulder, apparently pretending to be nothing other than a law-abiding citizen.
How could Rachel seem this safe or look even remotely carefree? Obviously, she didn’t recognize him. Well, he’d enjoy nothing more than shoving a photo of his partner in her face. He’d make sure it was an eight-by-twelve complete with Max’s wife and kids. He intended to tattoo their likenesses on Rachel’s brain. He wanted to remind her of what she’d destroyed. She hadn’t just killed a cop, she’d helped erase a husband, son, brother...
* * *
HEATHER GRAVES DIDN’T feel at home in Sarasota Falls, New Mexico, and doubted she ever would. Already she missed her job working as a dental assistant in Phoenix.
She’d been safe there.
She wasn’t so sure she was safe here.
Friday, two full weeks ago, had been her last day of work. She’d spent the next few days packing up her parents’ house—she’d let it go too long, even paying rent on a home with no occupants—keeping only what had memories for her, like a train clock that had a different whistle for every hour. No matter where they lived, she’d grown up with the sound.
When she’d finished, she gave the house keys to the rental company and her own apartment key to her best friend, Sabrina. Sabrina thought Heather was foolish. Heather figured Sabrina was right.
Heather had been in Sarasota Falls ever since, renting a room at Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, a quaint older house that came with a happy, somewhat mothering proprietress.
Yes, she was foolish, but she also liked to think of herself as brave. According to the lawyer who’d reviewed her parents’ will with her, she now owned a farmhouse in this town, one with the same tenant for the last twenty-five years.
Her parents had acquired the farm and acres around it when she was a little over one year old. Yet, to her memory, neither they nor she had ever stepped foot in Sarasota Falls. The lawyer had provided the name of the local company that handled collecting the rent as well as maintaining its upkeep. Apart from her parents’ basic details, the leasing office wasn’t much help.
Heather kept trying every avenue, though, because she had a lot of questions and knew of very few people who might have the answers.
She’d also gone out to the farmhouse and knocked on the door. No one answered. It looked empty; it felt unloved. It didn’t look like the type of house her city-loving parents would invest in. There was too much land, the location was too remote.
Bill and Melanie Graves had gone up in a helicopter to tour the Pacific coastline to celebrate their twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. She and her dad had planned it. Mom had said it was her dream. Dad’s dream, too, then.
Thirty minutes later, a sudden electrical storm had hit. No one on board survived.
In the space of minutes, she’d lost the only people who loved her, who applauded her, who thought she was the best thing that had ever happened. Period.
Everything was passed down to her: their belongings, both their cars and their secrets.
It was the secrets that had inspired the move, not the rental house. She might have been able to wrap her mind around them having property she didn’t know about. Might being the operative word. She’d have still investigated and tried to figure out why.
But soon after visiting the lawyer’s office, armed with their death certificates, she’d gone to her parents’ bank to close their account and was asked if she was aware that her parents also had a safe-deposit box.
No, she hadn’t been aware.
The steel drawer was long, hard and half-full. It contained the deed to the property in Sarasota Falls, her dad’s discharge papers as well as a bible, two birth certificates, a marriage license and two old drivers’ licenses.
She doubted the cop, who’d suddenly appeared behind her, would take her angst over family issues as a good excuse for her meandering style of driving. Surely, though, he had better things to do than pull her over for a warning.
She couldn’t shake the memory of standing in the bank’s vault, the safe-deposit box open in front of her, and finding the identification: the photos on the drivers’ licenses were of her parents.
The photos, not the names.
CHAPTER TWO (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
THE COUNTRYSIDE HEATHER was driving past was stunning—it was mostly grazing land, and a few small homes with long driveways nestled between trees with their leaves still green but turning yellow, orange and brown as the October weather took control. She tried to focus on the giant pines because what wasn’t stunning was the cop who was beside her, staring. His siren was screeching and he was frantically motioning to the side of the road.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she murmured as she pulled over. She hadn’t been speeding that much. Her tags were current and her cell phone was in her purse, not plastered against her ear or in her hands while she texted.
Rolling down her window, Heather waited while the cop did his thing. Boy, he looked stoic sitting back there in his chief-of-police SUV. The siren hadn’t been enough for this officer, as his rapid do-or-die gestures actually had Heather considering her gas pedal and showing him what speeding really looked like.
That would have been a mistake.
What was taking him so long? She wanted to drive by the rental property, see if she could meet the tenant and visit a local farm that advertised a country store, a petting zoo and more. Then she would return to Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, enjoy a hot bath and relax. Maybe even visit with Bianca a bit and discreetly ask about her parents.
This cop—or chief of police, as his vehicle indicated—was slow. Although Heather knew she should stay in the car, this wasn’t Phoenix, it was Sarasota Falls, so she pushed open the door. In a flash, the cop was out of his vehicle and striding toward her. He made it to her car in seconds, kicked her door shut before she could step out and looked through her open window.
Okay, time to get worried.
She swallowed, trying to push back the fear threatening to surface. “What’s the problem, Officer?” She twisted, trying to get a good look at the man who stood next to her car.
“Put both hands on the steering wheel.”
“What?”
“Both hands on the steering wheel. Now.”
“But—but, why? What’s going on?”
“Don’t. Make. Me. Repeat. Myself.”
She put her hands on the steering wheel while the fear came, roiled in her stomach. This cop had an agenda and for some reason she was it.
Not where she wanted to be. Somehow, she had to make him realize he’d made a mistake, a serious mistake. “Look,” she sputtered, “I have to tell you, you’re really scaring me. I have my driver’s license and proof of insurance. Write me the ticket if you have to, but stop acting like this.”
In the distance came a siren, its sound gradually getting louder. Then came another and still another. In the blink of an eye, three squad cars—their wheels screeching—surrounded her vehicle.
Clearly, they thought she was public enemy number one instead of a random speeder. Two other cars slowly drove by, one a family and the other a lone female. From the expressions on their faces, they offered no pity, only curiosity and accusation.
“Open your door slowly and keep your hands where I can see them at all times.” The cop’s voice didn’t sound any friendlier now that he had backup.
“I will open the door. I don’t have a weapon.” Her teeth started to chatter, even though it wasn’t cold. Her mind, ever logical, grasped at any possible reason for the cop’s behavior.
She heard more doors opening, the sound of voices, all coming her way, and her fear escalated.
Apparently, she wasn’t moving fast enough. He jerked open the door for her, and she threw her purse out, not caring where it landed. “I can do it!”
But he had control of the door and was partially in the way. Instead of a graceful exit, she spilled awkwardly from the car—maybe what he intended. Her knees hit the road first. Her jeans offered little protection. Her palms hit hot, rough pavement, and bits of rocks pressed against tender skin. Her purse was right in front of her. She started to reach for it.
Simultaneously, she heard the chief of police drawing his gun and his steely warning. “Keep your hands where I can see them at all times.”
Her purse stayed where it was, and the cop pushed her closer to the hot pavement while yanking her hands behind her back and handcuffing her. Another cop—this one younger, a kid really, but looking just as stoic—went for her purse, while another read her rights to her. Oddly, all she wanted to do was talk, tell them the truth—that she’d done nothing. Instead, her throat closed and she swallowed.
“Do you understand?” the cop snapped.
She swallowed again and managed to answer. “I understand my rights, yes, but I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”
“Tom, she wasn’t going for a gun,” the cop who’d picked up her purse said. He looked no-nonsense and had a military haircut. “At least there’s not one among her things, and her license says Heather Marie Graves.”
“Considering who she hangs around with, getting a fake ID is as easy as ordering a pizza,” the chief replied.
She lost her breath... Her parents had fake ID. Is that who he’d meant? She’d thought maybe they had been in witness protection, but surely her parents’ identification would have been destroyed. They wouldn’t have been so careless as to keep it. No way could her parents have been involved in something criminal, not a chance.
“Tom, her vehicle’s clean,” said an officer.
Clean? Of course it was clean. She’d washed it just yesterday. Tom? His name was Tom? Okay, maybe it fit him. Tom was the kind of name that belonged to a guy grilling steaks in the backyard, keeping an eye on the neighborhood, right? A good cop? Make that chief of police. Well, this one might look like a serve-and-protect type, but he acted a little too much like a fight-to-the-death title contender.
Tom straightened, a line of sweat dotting his forehead.
“Sir, I haven’t done anything wrong,” Heather protested, no longer looking at him but now focusing on the ground at her feet because she was afraid to look up, especially at the gun being aimed at her. “I’m a dental assistant. I just moved to Sarasota Falls, and I’m trying to find work. And, of course, I don’t have a gun.”
In one of the police cars, the radio crackled. An officer she couldn’t see yelled, “The plates are registered to Heather Graves, age twenty-seven, of Phoenix, Arizona.”
“I didn’t want to get a New Mexico license until I was sure I could find a job here,” Heather offered.
“Why did you come back here?” Tom snapped.
“I’ve never been here before, not that I remember.” Maybe she’d been born here, maybe some woman she’d passed in town today had carried Heather in her womb, but other than that, until her parents’ death, Sarasota Falls hadn’t existed.
“Right.” None too gently he hauled her to her feet and turned her to face her car. With her hands cuffed behind her, she couldn’t rub at her sore knees or even brush away the dust and dirt of the roadway clinging to her clothes. A female officer stepped forward and quickly patted her down.
“Nothing,” the female told the others.
“I told you. I’m a dental assistant. I don’t need a gun. What’s go—”
They weren’t listening to her. Instead, the woman cop frowned at Tom. “You’re going to have to fill out a report for drawing your weapon, Chief Riley.”
“You saw everything, right?”
Heather noted the slight trembling of the chief’s hand.
The one still holding the gun.
“Her purse. When she went for it, I thought...” He looked at Heather and his expression shut down, unreadable. Silently, he stepped back.
“You’ll be all right taking her in?” the cop who’d read her rights asked.
The chief nodded.
“Let’s roll,” the female officer said.
Her mind screamed protests that her mouth didn’t utter. She was so numb that she blindly allowed the chief to escort her into the back seat of the SUV, no questions asked.
She witnessed the female officer attach an orange sticker to the back window of her car.
She could consider it impounded.
All this was for real.
Chief Riley climbed behind the steering wheel and quickly radioed in a code she didn’t know and then reported both the current time and the mileage on his vehicle.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Ex-excuse me,” she said softly. Chief Riley glanced in his rearview mirror.
Anger came off of him in waves. Wait. Innocent until proven guilty, right? The cops were the good guys, right?
What if they weren’t cops?
Yeah, right, only Heather Graves could have such a ridiculous thought after one SUV and three squad cars surrounded her little hatchback.
“I—I...” Words fought to form but didn’t leave her throat in even the semblance of a sentence.
Come to think of it, every time she had a nightmare, she lost the power of speech.
Since this was the biggest nightmare of all, she’d most likely lose a lot more before the ordeal was finished.
* * *
FINALLY.
Tom was almost afraid to take his eyes away from the rearview mirror. She might disappear. She’d done it before, leaving the Sarasota Falls Police Department frustrated and amazed.
He’d taken it the hardest. The chief of police back then had finally taken him aside and said, “If you intend to keep your job, focus on what you can change and leave what you can’t for another day. Otherwise, you won’t get anything done.”
Good advice. If he’d taken it, he might still be married. Instead, he’d spent hours driving the back roads, stopping by Rachel Ramsey’s friends’ houses.
They were all convinced of her innocence. Not him. He continued to drive, even though he knew it was a long shot.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she protested again, eyes wide open, with a little shimmer. Too bad. Tears really didn’t work on him anymore. Still, she continued to amaze him. He’d expected her to be mad, resist arrest, pretend surprise. The only thing she’d done was cooperate and try to get his attention.
She had that, all right.
He thought back to when he’d been a rookie and picked up Rachel multiple times. Early on for shoplifting and once for truancy. Tom still remembered trying later to explain to her mother that Rachel just needed guidance. The advice had fallen on deaf ears.
Still, he’d often helped Rachel return what she’d stolen.
As a young cop, only a year on the force, he’d been appalled that Rachel Ramsey was raising herself and that he knew little about how to help her. Her mother was negligent, not abusive. Social services had visited twice, both times because Tom had personally phoned. Their report was the house was livable and there was food in the fridge. Rachel had no bruises or complaints. Apparently, those were the core expectations for parenthood.
He’d actually escorted the social worker once and had realized that Rachel was stealing only what she needed: clothes that fit and school supplies.
It was still stealing.
She was dressed pretty fancy now. Her shirt was pale pink with glittery buttons. Her jeans were fitted, without tears, and he recalled her white tennis shoes looked brand-new. She wore a pearl necklace and tiny earrings, too. The phone he’d confiscated was top-of-the-line.
She’d obviously done all right for herself and had upgraded from a house that was in the middle of nowhere and a delinquent mother.
He should have arrested Rachel when he’d had the chance back then. Played hardball with the shoplifting and truancy offenses. Maybe a stint in juvie would have done her good. But he’d known a few kids who’d gone to juvie and only learned how to be better criminals. So, even during his third year on the force, he’d continued to take Rachel home, talk to her mother about providing support and drive away.
Looking in the rearview mirror, at Rachel Ramsey, he tried to see the girl she’d been. It was there. Buried. Her blond hair was still long and wavy. She should have dyed it, curled it, or something. Her cheekbones were still high and her mouth was still lined with a shade of red lipstick that most women didn’t dare wear—not in his experience. His ex-wife sure couldn’t.
Her blue eyes were the giveaway.
After almost a decade, Rachel Ramsey had changed very little, apart from her circumstances. Tom Riley, however, had changed a lot.
“Truly,” she said, clearing her throat, “you’ve made a mistake. I did speed up and was probably over the limit. I admit it. Give me a ticket, but I’ve done nothing else wrong.”
He could think of only one word in reply. “Nothing?”
His tone must have had some effect because she sat back, twisting a bit as the handcuffs restricted movement, and stared at him. Boy, she had fake confusion nailed.
What had she been thinking by coming back to Sarasota Falls? He had a million other questions to ask, but not before every word could be recorded. No chance would he mess up this case, because of his close connection to it. He longed to knock on Max’s widow’s door and say, “Sylvia, we got her. And, I’ll make sure she leads me to Jeremy Salinas. Justice will be served.”
In the back, Rachel settled and stared out the window. She was pale, and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. She had aged a bit. There were a few lines by her eyes. He’d have called them laugh lines on anyone else.
Not her.
Nothing to laugh about.
And today he was going to do something he should have done more than ten years ago—see that she was put away for a long, long time.
If he’d done that when she was fifteen, she might not have met Jeremy Salinas, wouldn’t have participated in a convenience store robbery and wouldn’t have helped lure a police officer to his death.
Chief Tom Riley could only blame himself that she’d been free to roam the streets ever since.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
CHAPTER THREE (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
FOR THE FIRST time since he’d joined the force, paperwork was a blessing. Tom stared at the computer screen and coughed wryly as Heather Graves’s picture revealed a background check so squeaky clean it had to be fake.
Until recently, Heather had been working in Phoenix, Arizona, as a dental hygienist in a small practice, just as she’d said. Before that, she’d been at the state university.
Now the same woman sat in a Sarasota Falls jail cell, a prime suspect involved in a homicide.
His fist clenched and he suppressed the urge to hit the table hard. He didn’t need for his team to see how angry he was.
It made sense that Rachel would change her name, but he’d never have guessed she’d have the ability to create a false history that gave her a college degree and also enabled her to immediately find work. Had she really done all this?
With a quick phone call he learned that the dentist in Phoenix would hire her back in a heartbeat and that as far as the dentist knew, family matters had inspired the move. She’d been a model employee, left her personal business at home and gave two weeks’ notice before quitting. And, no, the dentist hadn’t met a boyfriend.
Maybe she’d been smart enough to shed Jeremy Salinas a while ago.
Tom hadn’t been able to shed the memory of what the man had done. He opened a file on his computer, staring at the likeness of Rachel Ramsey.
There had to be a flaw in the cover she’d created for herself, and he’d find it.
He took the time to study her academic history at Arizona State University. A few taps on the computer keys had her photo. Student IDs weren’t supposed to be all that good. Rachel’s, make that Heather’s, was. This photo was from her senior year. He found the first three years’ of student ID photos online, too.
Every one of them showed a smiling coed. Blond hair, so shiny and glossy it seemed to glow. Heart-shaped face. Lips red even without lipstick.
It was Rachel’s face all right, but it didn’t make sense. The timing of it didn’t work. No way could Rachel be here, in high school, dating Jeremy Salinas and living under an alternate name and actually graduating with honors.
It defied logic. Still, Tom’s years in law enforcement showed him time and time again that improbability was a condition best investigated.
Still, a tiny thread of doubt pulled at his consciousness. Could he have made a mistake? Could Rachel have a doppelgänger? Or, could this Heather, who looked so very much like Rachel, be a relative? He’d called her Rachel, and she hadn’t even flinched. He’d marveled at her control.
More than a decade on the force. He was seldom wrong, and he especially didn’t want to be this time.
He enlarged Heather’s student ID photo, looking at the area on her face, just above the left lip, where there was a red birthmark. Then, he brought up his photo of Rachel, taken a half dozen years ago, and enlarged it.
Same red birthmark, same size and shape.
What were the odds? He searched for statistics of family members having the same marks and found it was rare but possible.
So, right now, he could have Rachel Ramsey in a cell or he could have a complete innocent.
He pushed back his chair, stood and looked across the busy room. His officers were on the phone, writing reports, scanning the computers.
There was something else, though. A tension in the air as well as a few furtive glances in the direction of his office.
They knew the story, knew how close he’d been to his partner, and worried about him.
Maybe this nightmare was about to come to an end, maybe Tom would finally go to bed at night knowing he’d done his job.
Caught the accomplice of Max’s killer.
“Looks like her,” Lieutenant Lucas Stilwater said. “Only older.” Lucas—near retirement age—was one of a few officers left who’d worked with Tom’s previous partner. The rest were new, hired within the last three to five years. Good cops, every one of them. Sometimes, listening to their banter, he wanted...
Wanted to go back in time.
For the first few months after Max’s death, when Tom had looked across the busy room, by habit he’d still been looking for Max. The room hadn’t pulsed with activity then. Instead, it was like someone had turned down the volume, changed the scene to slow motion. For a long time, Tom felt as if he didn’t belong, that he was role-playing. Then, when the chief retired, Tom had been approached by the mayor, Rick Goodman.
The pluses: Tom was a captain, Tom had a master’s in criminal justice and the people of Sarasota Falls knew and trusted him.
The minuses: Tom’s whole life was his job, so much so that his wife had left him.
In the end, Tom hadn’t turned his back on his job, nor had it turned its back on him. He’d found that being chief gave him a renewed sense of purpose—just not in his late partner’s case.
Until today.
There were still things to do, he reminded himself. Unless Tom missed his guess, Heather Graves was either a crime stamped “solved” or a new door opening on an old case that had troubled him through to his soul.
He headed for the cell, thinking he’d personally escort Rachel to booking, but she wasn’t there. For a moment, he felt fear. Immediately, his phone beeped as if someone knew he needed an answer. He glanced at the caller ID. Captain Daniel Anderson, in records, was always quick to deliver information. He was someone Tom could rely on and, in fact, he called the man a friend.
“Give me good news,” Tom barked.
Daniel didn’t react at all, just stated, “She has no criminal record.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
HEATHER HAD ANSWERED every question she’d been asked, but the police hadn’t known to ask about her parents’ real names, Raymond Tillsbury and Sarah Tillsbury, née Lewis. They’d accepted her history because everything checked out. Of course it did. Her life story hadn’t changed until recently.
She thought about telling them the truth, but the chief was already so certain she was guilty of a crime. What if her mother and father had done something awful? What if that was why they’d changed their names and moved to Phoenix? If that was correct, Heather wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth.
But really, Melanie Graves a crook? Her dad a killer? They were the kindest people she’d ever known. They’d loved her, she loved them, but... No, no, no.
“Ma’am, if you’ll just give me a minute.” The booking officer had led her from her cell to sitting across from him at his desk. Then, he stood and walked over to the chief, who was looking at her and clearly wasn’t happy.
She continued wiping at the black residue on her fingers. They’d taken her fingerprints digitally, but then used ink and paper, saying something about an international component.
This Rachel Ramsey person must be in a lot of trouble if they thought she’d fled the country. Heather almost looked forward to her release—and she truly thought she’d be out soon—so she could go research exactly what Rachel had done.
And what she looked like.
Possibly, Heather would find a link between Rachel and her parents. Focusing on the two police officers, she wished she’d felt some sort of connection to them that would allow her to trust them. If she shared every detail about what she’d discovered, would they fill in some of the missing pieces? She wasn’t sure.
Closing her eyes, she willed herself away from the police station and imagined her apartment in Phoenix. She’d left the lawyer’s office in such a daze; she didn’t even remember driving home. But she’d spent the whole of that evening perched at her kitchen table, laptop in front of her, and she’d researched Raymond Tillsbury, not Bill Graves.
He’d said he was raised by a mostly absent father; she assumed that was still true. But her grandfather’s real name had been Terrance Tillsbury. She found three obituaries, and two mentioned children. There was no other history for him. Her father, Raymond Tillsbury, had a bit more presence. She found his military record, complete with a few photos. He’d honestly shared his accurate United States Army history. He’d been a hero. That wasn’t a surprise. He’d been her hero.
She’d kept at it for hours before finally finding his name tagged on a Christmas photo posted by someone on Facebook. The photo was thirty years old and from a company party. She cut and pasted, enlarged and then decided it indeed was a picture of a much younger version of her dad. Going back to the original post, she wrote down the information shared. It was from a work party for the employees of Little’s Grocery Store in Sarasota Falls, New Mexico.
So, she now owned a home there, and her father had once had a job there. Since her father’s real name was Raymond Tillsbury, did that mean she was Heather Tillsbury?
Heather Tillsbury. She said the name out loud, feeling a little queasy, as if she’d lost her parents for a second time.
Of her mother—real name, Sarah Lewis—she’d found too many hits to investigate, so she narrowed her search to Arizona and then to New Mexico. Still too many. So she narrowed her search to Sarasota Falls. There was a family named Lewis there, but no mention of a Sarah. Google provided a few photos but they meant nothing and might’ve not even really been Lewises. She wanted to find them, ask them questions.
According to the photo she’d found online, the house her parents had been renting out in Sarasota Falls was a white clapboard farmhouse in need of a little tender, loving care and with a lot of land.
Since she’d seen it, she knew it needed a lot of tender, loving care.
Another police officer had joined the two standing at the door. They were having a meeting. No one looked happy.
“Lawyer?” she said. They all turned toward her. “I want a lawyer. Or, at the very least, my phone call.”
“We’ll see to it,” the officer who’d taken her fingerprints promised, but he didn’t move from the impromptu gathering. Her back was getting stiff, and she was cold. She also wanted a drink of water.
Maybe something stronger.
Sitting back, she was almost glad when the chair creaked loud enough to disturb the officers. Still, they didn’t move.
She sighed and sat back. Looking out the big window, she watched as a few cars drove by, followed by a firetruck, complete with streamers. No doubt it had been featured at the Founder’s Day celebration.
Why had her parents left and why didn’t they talk about their hometown, family, or friends. The way she figured it, this was the town where she could have been raised. Instead, from the time she was one until she turned sixteen, she and her parents had moved from one town to another, about every three years. Her dad claimed his military background had put the wanderlust in him. Her mother said it was the need to explore that drove him.
At sixteen, her mother’s diabetes meant it was wise to stay in one place and with one doctor. Or maybe, Heather now mused, they’d decided they were safe.
Maybe their feeling safe had something to do with Sarasota Falls. Maybe not. Maybe she was silly to come here. There were way too many maybes. But in her heart, she knew there was a piece missing from her life: her roots.
Roots were so important to her, she’d started putting in job applications from the moment she’d arrived in town. No luck yet, but people had seemed encouraging.
Earlier today, she wandered around the Founder’s Day celebration trying to get a better lay of the land. Once the crowds got to her, she decided to take a drive. The countryside was so different from the metropolis of Phoenix.
Sarasota Falls: thirty-two thousand. Phoenix: four million and climbing.
She wondered who her parents had been friends with, and if they’d missed this place.
How they’d thought it would somehow remain a secret.
Why she was crazy enough to think that moving here, even temporarily, was a good idea.
She shook off the doldrums. Moving had been a brave and wondrous thing.
Right.
She’d just have to keep telling herself that.
* * *
“SHE’S HIDING SOMETHING,” Captain Daniel Anderson said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Tom glared at Heather, willing her to glare back, annoyed when she didn’t.
Daniel cleared his throat and said the words Tom didn’t want to hear. “She’s hiding something but it isn’t that she’s Rachel Ramsey. I can tell you what you already suspect, which is that everything points to a case of mistaken identity. This lady is shorter than Rachel and—”
“Shorter? You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve had her in custody not even an hour and you can already tell—”
“I’ve studied Rachel’s photos, almost as often as you, especially the ones from the convenience store,” Daniel said calmly. “Plus, I watched the surveillance video a hundred times.
“She was wearing heels during the robbery! Keep talking to her,” Tom ordered before heading to his office to study the photos, even the ones that would tick him off. He switched out Heather’s photos to compare to what they had of Rachel.
Heather Graves might indeed be legitimate and just happened to look like Rachel Ramsey.
Right down to a red birthmark!
The most recent photo they had of Rachel, save the surveillance video, was her driver’s license. A head shot, which while nice, didn’t tell them all that much, except that Daniel was correct. The woman he’d hauled in was shorter than the height listed on Rachel’s license But, everything else was spot-on.
Rachel Ramsey, girlfriend of Jeremy Salinas. Guilty of robbing the convenience store—at gunpoint—and taking off. Max hadn’t been looking for them on that hot, muggy August day. He’d been responding to a call on the other side of town. Somehow, they’d crossed paths. The final radio check-in from Max gave a license plate number and reported that he’d hit the siren to warn the vehicle ahead of him—someone driving erratically, dangerously—to pull over.
Jeremy Salinas and Rachel Ramsey.
Guilty of murdering a cop.
Max hadn’t even been aware that the car they were driving was stolen.
Tom should have been with him that day, and would have, if his court appearance hadn’t taken twice as long as necessary.
The only witness to the shooting, a frightened high school senior who’d skipped school that day and had been trying to keep a low profile heading home, said that the car Salinas was driving spun out of control and hit a telephone pole. Max had parked next to it and jumped out. Then the passenger side door had flung open from the impact, and Rachel had fallen from the car, on her stomach, acting hurt.
Max, doing what he did best, bent down to help her up. The moment he’d made sure Rachel was all right and was straightening, the boyfriend fired his weapon into Max’s heart.
Max’s blood was on Rachel’s hands in more ways than one.
“Hard to believe she’s been living under an assumed identity and has been so successful.” Lucas was back and staring over Tom’s shoulder at the mug shots—left side, front, right side—of Heather’s face on screen. How she managed to keep her expression both shocked and innocent-looking was pretty amazing. Maybe she’d worn the same expression the day she pretended to be hurt.
She was that good of an actress.
But making herself shorter? a little voice questioned inside Tom’s head.
“I wonder why she didn’t try to change her looks more,” Lucas remarked.
Tom wondered the same thing.
“Man, I’ll bet this is making your day,” Lucas added.
“It would make my day if she’d just admit she was Rachel,” Tom muttered, knowing it wouldn’t happen.
Deputy Oscar Guzman walked over and looked at Heather’s photo. “Maybe Rachel Ramsey was the fake name all along—maybe Heather Graves is the real name.”
If only it was that easy, but Tom knew Rachel’s history like the back of his hand.
“Not a chance. I knew Rachel personally. She is Diane Ramsey’s daughter.”
Oscar raised an eyebrow. He’d brought Ms. Ramsey in twice for being drunk and disorderly. She’d died of an overdose a year ago.
“Rachel was born to an alcoholic mother and raised by a succession of stepfathers and squatters. She even spent some time in foster care,” Tom said, momentarily feeling sorry for the girl, then remembering what she’d done. “She’s been in and out of trouble with the law most of her early life. Despite it all, I’d thought she was a decent person, until...” Reminding himself that he was talking to colleagues, he kept his voice even and his words matter-of-fact. “Both Jeremy and Rachel, we figured, disappeared across the border. Maybe we were wrong about Rachel. She—” he looked at the computer screen, hit a button and continued hoping that saying the words would make him believe them “—went to college and became a dental hygienist in Arizona.”
No one said, “Yeah, right,” but he wondered if anyone besides himself thought it.
Five years. He’d been looking for her for five years. Still, disappearing was nothing compared to the way she’d reinvented herself.
He almost believed her name was Heather.
Almost didn’t count.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
HEATHER GOT THE feeling that while everyone—everyone, that is, except Chief Riley—knew they’d made a mistake, no one wanted to admit it.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
No one wanted to be the one to admit it and then try to convince Chief Tom Riley he was wrong.
She didn’t get the idea they were afraid of him. More, they were afraid for him.
“I can see why he mistook her for Rachel,” one of the cops muttered. The officer standing next to him nodded.
“I’d avoid Tom for the rest of the day,” another officer advised.
Heather wished she could avoid him, but he stood in the middle of the fingerprinting room, leaning against a counter and grilling the tall officer who’d taken her prints. “Find something,” he ordered.
Luckily, the police officer who’d already introduced himself to her as Daniel didn’t even blink. He just shook his head slowly.
Then came a few moments of waiting: the cops waiting for some action, Daniel waiting to be believed, Heather waiting for someone to yell “April Fool’s” and Tom waiting for what he would never hear because Heather was not Rachel.
“Find something,” Chief Riley repeated, leaning against a counter and staring at her image on the computer. He seemed mesmerized by her likeness.
He was tall; she hadn’t noticed that at first. His hair was a slightly curly and as blue-black as the crows that came to her backyard looking for food and making unnecessary noise.
The same color as her father’s, actually, but the knowledge didn’t encourage a connection of trust.
He looked at her now, but his eyes weren’t as piercing as back when they were on the interstate and he’d pulled her over.
Funny how she’d noticed his dark eyes throughout this whole outrageous venture. They’d gone from shock to hate to murderous. Now they were cloudy, as if some door had closed on an emotion so near to the surface he couldn’t control it unless he locked it away.
“It’s her,” he said. “It’s Rachel, and we can’t let her walk away. We might never find her again.”
“Tom, I agree, physically, in looks, you picked up Rachel.” This cop, the kid who’d retrieved her purse back on the interstate, was the one speaking.
The cop who’d introduced himself as Officer Guzman said, “You didn’t have a warrant, Chief. No other markers, besides the physical resemblance, support your arrest. Electronically, I’m finding no criminal history. Live scan doesn’t have her in their system. We can’t charge her.”
Frantically, Heather tried to think of what to say. Part of her was amazed they were talking so openly in front of her. If the chief of police had made a mistake, why weren’t they having this conversation behind closed doors. When she got a lawyer... No, she wouldn’t need a lawyer. If she needed a lawyer, she could use this conversation in her defense.
“I—”
They stopped talking and looked at her.
Chief Riley frowned, his steely gaze accusing her, making her feel guilty.
“I was only speeding a little,” she squeaked.
The man flinched a bit. Kid Cop managed to portray a hint of compassion—a blink, a slight contortion of his face that was almost a smile—and then he was back concentrating his attention on Tom.
“Look at her,” Chief Riley growled. “Unless Rachel Ramsey has a twin we don’t know about, that’s her. No mistake. There was a witness when Max died. Let’s do a lineup. Bring the convenience store clerk in, also. I guarantee he’ll confirm it’s her. That’s enough probable cause.”
Kid Cop didn’t say anything. When Heather glanced around the room, suddenly the other officers got busy as if there was so much to do in a room without desks, without general everyday conversation, without hope. Finally, an older man, not in uniform, walked over and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “We’ll do an appearance bond for the speeding and see what we can find before the court date. You’ll have at least seventy-two hours to prove you’re right.”
“Seventy-two hours, my foot,” Chief Riley growled again. He was glaring at Kid Cop, who already had a sheepish look on his face. “This isn’t a bailable offense, is it?”
Kid Cop shook his head.
“Which means,” Tom continued, “with an appearance bond, I don’t have enough time to do squat, but it gives her enough time to disappear again.”
“I won’t,” Heather protested, finding her voice. “I’m not guilty of anything, and there’s no need for me to disappear.”
Tom returned to growling. Kid Cop started to nod, but instead gestured to the man coming through the door.
An elderly man wearing a blue cambric shirt tucked into worn jeans with scuffed brown work boots took one step forward. “I’m Father Joseph McCoy,” he said to Heather. “I understand you might need a bit of help.”
Though surprised at the clergyman’s casual attire, Heather felt relief, pure and welcoming. She opened her mouth, but the words didn’t come.
By his stance and the way the cops took him in as one of their own, it was clear he’d been here before. But it wasn’t Heather, the room, or the bunch of cops that Joe looked at. It was Chief Riley.
“Who called him?” Tom demanded.
Joe took another step into the room, running a hand through his hair. “Tom, it’s good to see you.”
They were on a first name basis?
The other cops, spectators really, started to shuffle from the room. Judging by the expressions on their faces, she wasn’t the only one feeling relief.
“Miss Bianca called me,” Joseph McCoy said. “Someone told her that her boarder had been arrested. Bianca seems to think it’s taking a bit too long for you to realize your mistake and release her.” He glanced at Heather and smiled; it went all the way to his eyes. There was a sadness there, though, and Heather wondered what had put it there.
One of the cops muttered, “Trust Miss Bianca.” He was the first to back out of the room. None of the others focused on her, not really. They were focused on Chief Riley as they exited.
If she’d have been anywhere else, Heather would have laughed out loud. It just figured. Even though she’d been the one harassed and accused, it was Chief Riley who needed saving.
* * *
HE’D ACTUALLY VOUCHED for her! Used the word innocent to describe her and claimed that Bianca Flores knew there’d been a mistake.
Tom didn’t know how Bianca could be so sure, and Father Joe was no better, siding with a woman who coldheartedly assisted her boyfriend in murder. Tom watched as Father Joe led the woman going by the name of Heather Graves to his old white truck. Her blond hair swayed in the wind. She held herself stiffly, arms folded as if fighting off a chill that didn’t exist—at least not in Sarasota Falls, New Mexico, in October. They were going to fetch her car. The tow company had retrieved it, the order hadn’t been canceled.
Unlike Tom’s arrest.
Staring out the window at their retreating figures, Tom felt somewhat like a little boy watching as someone important disappeared from his life. Years ago, that someone had been his real father—who hadn’t been much of a father at all. Tom barely remembered him.
Then, five years ago, it had been Max dying.
Later, it had been his wife, who complained that Tom was married to his job. That it took him three weeks to get around to calling her and suggesting he still loved her and—
She’d hung up, and he really hadn’t thought of her again, until this business with Rachel had come up.
Rachel would literally disappear, Tom had no doubt. Heck, maybe this time she’d become a teacher in Miami or a lawyer in Nashville. She was good at reinventing herself.
Joe, well...Joe wouldn’t disappear. Since Max’s death, Father Joe had faithfully—at least once a month—either stopped by the police station or phoned. He always wanted to take Tom out to breakfast, lunch, or even invite him to some sort of social activity. In Tom’s mind, Father Joe was someone to avoid, someone who made Tom worry about choices and how everything came together only to eventually fall apart.
“Really,” Oscar Guzman said, “she might not be Rachel.”
Tom shook his head at the only man brave enough to come back to the room. Oscar’d only joined the force last year, but he’d been FBI before that and a marine even before that.
He was, besides Daniel, the only officer willing to tell Tom he “might” be wrong who still, in his naïveté, had a wide-eyed optimism about people.
Tom had been that young once.
“How can you say that with such certainty?” he asked. Turning to Daniel, he added, “And, judging by the way you’ve been banging on the keys of your computer, it’s looking like Heather’s fingerprints are new to the system.”
“No history,” Daniel agreed.
“Has anyone contacted the convenience store clerk for identification? I don’t care if it starts a media storm. I want it done.” Tom hated the way his words sounded—desperate, human, uncertain.
“It’s not the media that’s kept us from doing more,” Daniel said. “It’s the evidence, or should I say lack thereof. Nevertheless, I emailed him her photo. Now we’re waiting for a response.”
“Call him.”
“I did.” Daniel sounded a bit exasperated. “He didn’t answer. Even if he says it’s not—”
“You haven’t proven Heather is not Rachel.” Tom’s words weren’t an accusation, but were simply a statement of fact.
“And you haven’t proven she is.” Daniel looked a little guilty, as if he personally was at fault. But it wasn’t Daniel’s fault that Rachel had avoided being fingerprinted. She’d gotten lucky, more than once, possibly had gotten lucky again today...except now they did have the woman’s, Heather’s, fingerprints.
Tom glanced out the window and watched Father Joe shut the passenger side door and walk to the driver’s side of his truck. Before opening his door, he looked up and his eyes locked with Tom’s.
Father Joe was getting old, soft. And right now, he looked a little distressed. Not a look Tom had seen on Father Joe.
“I wonder why Father Joe is getting involved?” Daniel said.
“I’m going to find out,” Tom promised. What Tom wanted to know, more than anything, was why Bianca had called Joe instead of coming herself. She’d never been one to shy away from a sticky situation, and apparently she liked Heather.
One thing Tom couldn’t argue, Joe was the kind of preacher who greeted everyone as if they were already friends and wouldn’t know a foe if the person outright threatened him. That didn’t mean Joe wasn’t smart, though. The friend-rather-than-foe attitude had alleviated more dangerous situations than Tom’s badge and gun ever had.
Joe’s presence had diffused this one. The other cops went back to work as Joe drove Heather away from the station, and Tom turned to head back to his office.
“Think of it this way,” Daniel said. “In my quest to prove she’s not Rachel, I just might prove she is. Except for that height thing.”
Tom wished he didn’t have to listen to logic. He wanted time alone, time to think, time to look into just when Heather Graves arrived in town, where she was working and what friends she’d already made.
“I don’t think you’re listening to me,” Daniel complained.
“I’m listening,” Tom murmured, watching as Joe and Heather disappeared into traffic.
Tom started to get irritated but then noticed how intently Daniel studied his computer. “You got something?” Tom finally asked.
“I do,” Daniel said. “There’s quite a few things to think about when it comes to this case. Let’s face it. The resemblance between Rachel and Heather, it’s uncanny.”
“They have to be related.” Tom walked over and stood behind the captain.
Daniel nodded. “That’s what we need to investigate.” He hit a few more buttons and Heather’s photo shrunk to half the page. Then, Daniel arranged the grainy shots of Rachel—the most recent they had, taken at the convenience store the day Max died—next to Heather. After a moment, he shrunk the two photos so they took up a third of the screen. Then, photo after photo appeared in the center box, hundreds, before finally, one froze in place. The woman was blonde, but it looked poorly dyed. Her hair was short and jaggedly cut, but there was something about the turn of the head, the way the older woman’s chin jutted out, the somewhat pointy eyebrows.
“This, my friend,” Daniel said, as if Tom needed a reminder, “is Rachel Ramsey’s mother.”
“Was,” Tom reminded him.
Diane Ramsey had a fairly extensive rap sheet and Tom had followed her through Sarasota Falls’s underbelly, sometimes to arrest her, but most often to keep an eye out for her daughter. Diane had changed her hair color weekly, wore wild clothes, although nothing cosmetic could hide her battle with drugs and alcohol.
Rachel Ramsey had been a pretty girl. It was anyone’s guess if she took after her mother.
Daniel worked his magic with the computer, going through dozens of photos of Heather Graves, who had a web presence. The officer enlarged, shrunk, stretched, sharpened. Then, he said, “This one.”
“Got it.”
“Yes!” And the image of an older woman appeared onscreen, again blonde, but not poorly dyed, this lady had a tired but happy smile on her face.
Finally, satisfied with his findings, Daniel said, “Heather’s mother, taken from her driver’s license. Now we have Heather’s photos and fingerprints, and I’m sure Diane’s DNA is still in the system. We should run a comparison.”
Tom agreed. “Anything to get us closer to catching a killer.”
CHAPTER SIX (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
A CATHOLIC PRIEST. She was sitting in the passenger seat of a big white truck being driven by a priest. She felt the need to confess but didn’t know for what or even how.
“Thank you so much for getting me out of there. Why did you do that? How did you know?” she finally asked.
“Miss Bianca asked me to.”
Heather nodded. She’d figured out the owner of the bed-and-breakfast liked to help her guests, but this went a bit beyond common courtesy.
“I want to know everything,” Father Joe McCoy said. “What happened?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Heather admitted. “One minute I was driving, taking a scenic tour, sort of looking for Turner’s farm.”
“It would be closed. The Turners had a honey booth in the festival.”
“That’s where I picked up their brochure with directions to their farm. I was a bit lost. Then, suddenly, I notice a cop behind me—the chief of police, no less—and soon he has his siren on and is motioning me to the side of the road.
“Were you speeding?”
“Maybe a little, which is unusual for me. I slow down for yellow lights.”
“As you should,” he agreed.
“He thought I was someone named Rachel Ramsey. Do I look a lot like her?”
Father Joe didn’t answer but clutched the steering wheel, white-knuckled, reminding her of the way Chief Riley had acted while driving her to the police station.
“Do you know her?”
For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer.
“Rachel,” he said, turning into Bart’s Auto Repair and Towing, “is a young woman born and bred in Sarasota Falls who is a few years younger than you, and who has made a few poor choices.” After a moment, he amended, “More than a few.”
“I look like her?”
“Yes, quite a bit. But anyone who knows the two of you, once they got close enough, could tell you apart.”
“So, you can tell us apart?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Quite easily.”
“Are we related?”
He didn’t so much as hesitate. “No one knows who Rachel’s father was. And her mother wasn’t born here in Sarasota Falls.”
He parked in the lot, choosing a spot by the door, and exited the vehicle. She followed him into a tiny office located next to a large repair shop.
“There is no Bart,” Father Joe said, pointing to the sign that read Bart’s Auto and Towing. “There is a man named Taylor Jacoby. He bought the business from Bart and didn’t bother to change the name.” Heather didn’t smile. Nothing felt funny, not after the day she’d had.
“I’ve no doubt,” Father Joe continued, “that he’s already got your vehicle here. If he tries to charge us, I’ll have him call the chief. Since you were brought in by mistake, the city will need to cover the cost.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“You’re not the first person I’ve picked up from the jail.” He grinned and added, “But I think you’re the first who claimed to be innocent who really was.”
Funny how good it felt to be believed. The reassurance erased some of the stress. Thank goodness she was no longer at the police station, no longer being questioned. And there were two people in town who believed her: Bianca and Father Joe.
She turned to thank him, but he was over by a candy machine talking to a little boy. Shaking her head at how surreal it was, she headed for the front desk and started the process to get her vehicle. It took all of ten minutes and two phone calls to the chief of police. Keys finally in hand, she went back to find Father Joe. Part of her just wanted human contact, someone to feel safe with. Another part of her wanted someone who would answer her questions. “You hungry?” she asked him.
Joe hesitated a bit, then nodded. “Quite. Have you been to the Station Diner? That’s train station, not police station.”
“No, but I’ve driven by it.”
“Let’s go there. It’s a staple around here and should be pretty empty since tonight’s big hooray for the Founder’s Day celebration is a chili cook-off. Unless you like chili?”
She loved chili but right now didn’t feel like being in a crowd. “The diner would be fine.”
She followed him away from Bart’s. The sun had almost disappeared behind grayish clouds. A slight wind swayed the trees that lined the fairly empty streets. The diner was two blocks from the well-lit high school, where the cook-off was being held. She remembered seeing a flyer for it. Faint lights chased each other in the sky. Heather rolled down her window, took a breath of fresh air—so different than the police station’s—and listened to the sound of cheering.
The Station Diner’s parking lot had three cars. She pulled into a spot and Father Joe positioned his car next to hers. Together they walked to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open.
She’d gone back in time. A waitress wearing a retro-looking blue uniform, complete with a conductor’s hat, guided Heather and Joe to a booth. “Hi, Joe,” she greeted.
“Good evening, Maureen. This is Heather Graves. She’s new to town, been here less than a week. Maureen’s been here almost a year now.”
“Nice to meet you,” Maureen said.
“Great place,” Heather said, looking around at the decor. She could well imagine that at one time this area had been where passengers waited for their trains, but the benches had been replaced with tables and booths. The window where tickets would have been sold now featured a cook dressed in white rather than an agent dressed in black with a cool hat. The walls and shelves had railroad paraphernalia. The only things out of place were the animal heads fastened right above the restroom signs and over the chalkboard menu.
Joe settled in and handed Heather a menu from behind the napkin holder.
“Are you going to eat?” Heather asked when he didn’t take a menu for himself.
“I’ve got their selection memorized.”
It took Heather a few minutes to order. Then, after taking a long drink of water, she said, “I got the idea from listening to the officers that Rachel was responsible for someone’s death. Is that true?”
Joe’s lips went together, his brow furrowed and his nostrils flared a little.
Heather almost wished she hadn’t asked. But she’d just spent the last few hours being interrogated and falsely accused. She’d never forget the way the cell walls seemed to close in on her.
“I’ll check online and find out on my own,” Heather said. “I’m sure the story’s there.”
“Many stories about what happened that day are online,” Joe agreed. “And much of what you read will be factual. But it’s what’s not said that makes a difference.”
It made her think about her parents, how close her father had kept to the truth, and how her trying to figure out what their secrets were had led her here.
His phone pinged then, and with an apologetic look, he answered. She didn’t hear much, just “Oh, I was hoping for better news” and “Not entirely unexpected” and “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this loss. I’ll be right there.” His expression changed from concern to distress to pure sorrow.
She recognized the sorrow as she’d worn the expression quite a bit since her parents’ accident.
Nodding the whole time, Father Joe paused, listened and then said, “Someday that young man will realize exactly what he’s done, and he’ll have to live with it.”
When he ended the call, he said, “Lucille Calloway just passed away. She was in a car accident last year and never got her full strength back. I’m heading over to be with the family.”
“What about the young man?”
“Richard Welborn. I’m guessing Chief Riley was heading to the Welborn place to see if Richard had returned. He was driving drunk last Christmas and hit Lucille head-on. She was an amazing lady, in her eighties, and still going strong, at least back then. She went through many months of therapy and never really recovered. Depending on others made her miserable.” Father Joe smiled, looking a bit happier. It only lasted a moment before he added, “Richard was an amazing young man. People hereabouts forget that. He moved here with his mother, took care of her. I’m so surprised he was driving drunk. Still, can’t get past that he posted bond and disappeared. Never made restitution or apologized. Lucille’s family is angry at him although Lucille wasn’t.”
He stood, looked at the counter and said, “Maureen, I’ll take my food to go if you don’t mind.”
“Already packed. I heard your phone go off and figured you’d be leaving.”
Father Joe left, and Maureen put Heather’s meal on the table, asked if she needed anything and then walked over to another customer.
Heather had never felt so alone. For a few long seconds she just sat there, trying to get her bearings, and wondered what she should do next. Maybe leave Sarasota Falls? Some secrets were best left buried. Stay? Find out if she had family? Well, she didn’t have to decide tonight.
It had been a long time since breakfast. Heather stabbed a piece of chicken-fried steak and brought the fork halfway to her mouth before freezing.
Chief Tom Riley came through the restaurant’s front door, and his eyes honed in on hers. He said something to Maureen, and then made his way over to stand in front of her.
“I just lost my appetite,” she said, putting her fork down.
* * *
“MAY I SIT?” He didn’t like asking permission. He wanted to sit, question...yes, even press. Yet, he had to watch his step, do this the right way.
“I really don’t feel like company,” she said.
“And I won’t be good company,” he responded. “But, there are a few things I still need to know. This—” he looked around the diner “—is as good a place as any.”
She didn’t protest, so he sat across from her, so close he could reach out and brush a finger down her cheek if he wanted. He didn’t want to, but did struggle to accept that she wasn’t Rachel. Everything but his memory of a face proved she wasn’t Rachel.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty-seven,” she responded.
“Born?”
“In Phoenix, Arizona.”
“I mean what year.”
She responded with the year and stared at him. In all the time he’d walked a beat, driven the streets, worked the desk and finally taken the job of chief, he’d never had a suspect so obviously wrong yet so right. He couldn’t stop looking at her, but he knew he needed to be professional, go with the idea that she indeed knew nothing.
Gain her trust.
Maureen bought over a cup of coffee, shot Heather a somewhat proprietary look and sweetly said to Tom, “Freshly made. I’ve already got Cook fixing your regular.”
He needed to talk to Maureen. He’d given her a ride home from work a few times when her car didn’t start. Seemed she was reading a bit more into the gesture than he’d intended. He should have noticed before.
“Thanks.” He took a long drink, closed his eyes and counted to ten. He was too close to this case, could blow it because of the kind of emotion he realized he had with respect to it. Opening his eyes, he said, “I’ve spent the last couple of hours investigating you, Heather Graves.”
She started to sputter her indignation, but he held up a hand, expecting her to stop. Most people would have, but she wasn’t most people. Freedom and an hour spent with Father Joe seemed to have loosened her tongue. “You have no right, no—”
He placed a folder on the table, opened it and withdrew two pictures. One, not flattering, was of her just a few hours ago. The other was of a woman, much younger, with darker blond hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones and a wide mouth. All similar to what Heather looked like, except she wore her hair short.
With two fingers, she drew the photos close to her, squinting as she studied both of them side by side. She started eating again, eliminating half her meal and saying nothing. His hamburger arrived and he took a bite, watching her brow furrow and a frown distort her features.
“I see the resemblance,” she admitted. “This could have been me when I was a teenager.”
“Rachel Ramsey was sixteen when this was taken nine years ago. It was her sophomore year at Sarasota Falls High School.”
“I would have been eighteen and finishing up high school. How come you’re not showing me her police photo?”
“We don’t have one. She was never arrested or charged with anything. She spent a year in foster care, but she was only seven.”
“Father Joe said she made a few poor choices. He didn’t get the chance to tell me what they were. Why don’t you tell me?”
Poor choices? Tom cleared his throat. “Father Joe likes to sugarcoat the truth.”
“He seems like a nice man.”
“He is, but he tends to get involved in situations that hinder more than help.”
“Like mine?”
“No, not really yours. If you’ve created a false identity, you’re out of my league of expertise. Every avenue I explore turns up viable. The man who owns the dental practice in Phoenix says he’d hire you back in a heartbeat. I even managed to call one of the parents who had a little boy in your mother’s childcare. She says her son loved you, and she described you perfectly.” He put his hamburger down, wishing he was better at showing emotion. “You lost your parents such a short time ago. I cannot even imagine the pain you must be in. I’m sorry.”
She blinked, then looked out the window as if the streetlights were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. Finally, she said, “You’re one hundred percent sure I’m not Rachel Ramsey?”
He wanted to answer with a firm “yes.” But he couldn’t, so he admitted, “I’m getting there. Sometimes, I’m a bit slow.”
“Father Joe said I looked like Rachel, but that he could tell the difference.”
“How?” Tom asked, amazed. The only tangible piece of evidence he couldn’t seem to wish away was Heather’s height, or lack of it.
“Before we could get much further into our conversation and I could ask him, he got a phone call. Someone passed away.”
“Who?”
“Lucille Calloway.”
Tom couldn’t help the “umph” that escaped his lips. He’d wanted justice for her, just like he’d wanted justice for Max. Now it was too late for either of them.
“Father Joe was telling me about her and Richard Welborn.”
Father Joe was a talker; most ministers were. As a matter of fact, Joe had been the minister who’d married Tom and Cathy ten years ago. He took his job seriously.
“I was heading to Welborn’s place when I pulled you over,” Tom confessed.
“Where’s it at?” Heather asked.
“Two-one-six Decator.”
She blinked again, looking somewhat taken aback and slightly guilty. Every time he thought he could wrap his mind around her not being Rachel, something spooked him. “You know it?” he asked.
“I drove by it right before you pulled me over.” She pushed the photos back to him, her face wary and full of distrust. If he wasn’t careful, she’d leave, and he had so much he needed to know. She was poised for flight, too, inching toward the end of the booth.
“Tell me about your parents,” he said, quickly, hoping she’d open up.
Instead, she turned and swung both legs to the edge of the booth so she could easily exit, and then she muttered, “Why? Why are my parents important to you? Why don’t you tell me about Rachel Ramsey and her poor choices and why you couldn’t be bothered to listen to me earlier when you pulled me over? It’s innocent until proven guilty in America. You stamped criminal across my forehead without giving me the chance to defend myself. I’ve been scared, humiliated. And I’m annoyed at you.”
He’d been the center of attention many times, usually it wasn’t at the Station Diner. The place was only half-full, but all of the customers were paying more attention to Heather and her words than to their meals.
“You deserve to be annoyed at me,” he said quietly, so no one else could hear, and he hoped she’d lower her voice, too. “I overreacted when I saw you. I thought you were Rachel Ramsey. You look just like her.”
“What exactly did she do?”
He hadn’t spoken about it in detail for years, not since the psychologist the sheriff sent to Sarasota Falls declared Tom fit for duty. He didn’t want to talk about it now.
To his surprise, she leaned closer, looking at him directly in the eyes, and then her expression softened before she settled back in the booth. “Look,” she said, “I get that whatever happened all those years ago was somehow personal. I could tell that by how you behaved when you pulled me over. Just give me the basic facts. What can’t be disputed. I deserve to know.”
He half turned in the booth, held up his cup and said, “Maureen, more coffee.”
“Comin’ up.”
After he’d downed half the fresh cup, he said, “A little over five years ago, my partner was Max Stockard. He was ten years my senior, and when I started on the force, he mentored me. After a few years, he became my partner. More than the academy, Max taught me what policing was.”
He stopped. His dad had been a plumber; his mom, a librarian. Both were amazed that he became an officer of the law, proud, but kind of terrified. There were no police officers in the family on either side.
“I never met anyone as brave as he was. He made me want to be a better man, a better cop. Max died...” His voice cracked. He swallowed, quickly, and went on, “In the line of duty. Rachel Ramsey, more or less, caused his death by pretending to be hurt.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a car accident during a chase. She fell out of the passenger side door and lay there, just lay there. Max thought she was hurt. When he hurried to help, her boyfriend shot Max, point-blank.”
Heather again seemed like she wanted to leave. “And I look exactly like her?”
“Yes. She disappeared that day and hasn’t been heard from since. You’re my first lead.”
“I’m not a lead. I’ve never heard of her until today.”
“I want to believe you. Really I do. What I’m about to ask will sound a little strange, but hear me out.”
She didn’t say anything, but drew back, looking like there wasn’t a chance she’d help him.
“I want a swab of DNA, to compare against Rachel’s mother’s. And I’d appreciate something personal from your mother. Did you keep a hairbrush or—”
“Why?”
“I’m betting you must be related to the Ramseys somehow. For that matter, let’s get something from your father, too.”
To Heather’s credit, she didn’t pretend surprise or indignation. “And if I am, what does that prove?”
Tom opened his mouth, tried to say something and shut it again. She was right. What did it prove? It might prove that Heather Graves was related to the Ramseys, but it wouldn’t get him any closer to finding Rachel. Unless Heather was a master liar and knew where Rachel was.
His eyes narrowed, but before he could say another word, she said, “No,” scooted out of the booth and headed toward the door. He started to follow, but Maureen plopped his bill down.
He wound up paying not only for his hamburger and coffee, but also for her food and Father Joe’s.
It had been that kind of day.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
SUNDAY WAS TOM’S day off. Didn’t keep him from stopping by the office to see if Daniel or anyone else had anything new to report. They did and didn’t.
“Lucille Calloway died last night,” Oscar Guzman said. “My wife went over this morning and took a meal. The kids are taking it pretty hard even though it was expected.”
Lucille could have had a few more years if Richard Welborn hadn’t slammed his car into hers.
“I’ll find time to go over today,” Tom said. “Anything else?”
Oscar grinned and nodded. “My aunt says to tell you that Heather isn’t Rachel Ramsey. Seems Bianca noticed the resemblance right away, but, and this is straight from Bianca’s lips, Heather is much too short to be mistaken for Rachel.”
Tom rolled his eyes. More than anything, he wished it was the other way around, that Heather was taller than Rachel. Then he could have argued that she’d grown.
But she’d been wearing tennis shoes yesterday—not enough heel. Combine that with his little talk with her last evening, and he knew he needed to be looking at a different scenario. Still, Tom was frustrated that he hadn’t gotten around to speaking to Bianca. “You get anything else?”
“Yes. Bianca says that Diane Ramsey had a sister. She wonders if perhaps Heather is some sort of cousin to the family.”
Again, this was information Tom knew. “Diane Ramsey had two full sisters that we know of,” he replied. “They came for the funeral.”
“You talked to them?”
“In detail. Neither were surprised their sister Diane was dead. Both were surprised she’d lived as long as she did. Both said she’d had no business raising a child.”
“Rachel was in foster care for a while, right?” Oscar asked. “Any chance she lived with either of her aunts?”
“No—one aunt didn’t have children and clearly didn’t want any. The other had two boys and said no way did she want Rachel’s influence around her sons.”
“Rachel was that bad?” Oscar queried, one eyebrow raised.
“No,” Tom said. “But Rachel did hang around a rough crowd. Takes a special person to guide a young teen into the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of choosing better friends.”
Oscar didn’t shoot back with another question. Unusual for the officer who’d left the fast track of a career with the FBI to protect and serve the small town of Sarasota Falls. Of course, he’d fallen in love with someone here and chosen to be married to her instead of married to his job. Not once had Oscar bemoaned changing his career path. Instead, the man was happy. Tom didn’t think he’d ever been that happy.
After a moment, Oscar said, “You know, this is the first time you’ve ever talked about Rachel Ramsey without snarling.”
“I don’t snarl.”
Oscar only smiled and asked, “But Rachel didn’t kill Max, exactly. Right?”
“She didn’t pull the trigger. Her boyfriend did.”
“How old was Rachel when all this happened?”
“Rachel would have been a teenager, just. She was retained in third grade.”
“And back then Heather Graves would have been, what, early twenties?”
“And in college. Heather’s twenty-seven now. Rachel should be twenty-five.” The same age as Max’s youngest son. “Excuse me.” Tom stood, feeling sympathetic. He’d felt it last night, too, when he’d made his way from the table at the diner, stopped just on the other side of the cash register and watched Heather hurry to her car.
He needed to get close to her, but he didn’t know how.
* * *
HEATHER HAD NEVER been one to have vivid dreams, but since her parents’ death, she’d had more than her share. Last night’s had been a combination. The beginning had made her keep her eyes closed tight with her fist in her mouth to keep from crying.
Her mom and dad had been in her dreams, doing what they did best. Mom was in the living room sterilizing and putting away toys, finding items that had been left behind by the children she cared for, and doing it all to the music of Pink Floyd. Heather used to dance with her mother. Her father was outside mowing the lawn, making sure the sprinklers worked, and adding more tools to his shed. Man, he’d loved those tools. The thought of someone using her dad’s things hadn’t bothered her until now, as she was finally starting to accept that the secrets her parents had kept weren’t just about their identities, but hers, as well.
She opened one eye. The clock face read six. Way too early to get up, so she lay there in the half sleep that usually meant she’d have a headache when she finally did crawl out of bed. So, obviously, she’d have to crawl out of bed and take charge of today, make decisions, do something.
When she’d arrived in town, she’d thought about taking it slow, observing, but after last night, Heather was more than curious. She had two options: the first was to go to the house, but it was a rental and she didn’t want to bother the people living there. Plus, her attempt to check it out yesterday had ended in disaster. Even now, she could feel the hard cement under her body as the police officer handcuffed her and...
She forced herself to stop thinking about yesterday. The memory would only slow her down, and she had things to do.
Her second option was to drop by Little’s Grocery Store. A long shot, yes, but worth her time. Besides, she needed a few healthy snacks. What Bianca provided would put more curve on Heather’s thighs than she wanted or needed. After a shower, she chose a pair of white jeans and a bright pink button-down shirt, along with white tennis shoes with pink laces, as she was a girly-girl. Then, she fixed her face and did her hair before she was ready to greet the day.
She stood at the top of the stairs, listening. Right now, there wasn’t a single sound. Sundays, people probably slept in. Heather, however, didn’t think Bianca the sleep-in type.
She took two steps, then a loud creak came from the third and she paused. Nope, it wouldn’t be easy to make a silent getaway. Last night, she’d pleaded exhaustion when she’d come through the front door, and Bianca had been respectful.
Of course, Bianca had also spent the whole day working and enjoying the Founder’s Day celebration. Then, judging by what Heather had seen, Bianca spent the rest of the evening decorating the bed-and-breakfast for Halloween. Noting all the fake spiders crawling over the walls, the cobwebs in the trees and the witch on a broomstick stuck to the chimney, Bianca had had a busy night, too.
This morning, though, Bianca—all smiles—lingered at the bottom of the stairs, obviously wanting to know what had happened.
“Sit down,” Bianca cheerfully ordered when Heather made it to the bottom step. Heather hesitated and thought about pleading no appetite, but then the aroma of cinnamon rolls swirled under her nose and she lost all resolve.
A tall glass of milk cemented their new friendship.
“Chief Riley doesn’t usually let his emotions rule,” Bianca said a little too casually. “What exactly happened yesterday?”
“He pulled me over thinking I was someone else,” Heather said, thinking to herself that what the chief of police had engaged in yesterday had little to do with emotion and more to do with tunnel vision. “Do you think I look like this Rachel Ramsey?”
“Quite a bit, but not a dead ringer,” Bianca admitted. “I can see why Tom pulled you over. Without hearing your voice, seeing the way you walk, your mannerisms, well, he did what he thought he had to do.”
So, it was her voice, her walk, her mannerisms that Bianca claimed set Heather apart from Rachel.
Their identical looks were still an issue and “dead ringer” was a spot-on description.
Lots of what-ifs filtered through her imagination. In the end, she thought, she really, really, really doubted her dad had ever had a relationship with the likes of Diane Ramsey, but Heather was here to investigate and who knew what avenues she’d need to follow.
“What exactly was Rachel wanted for?”
It took Bianca a moment to answer. “Worst case scenario, first degree murder. Though, there’s a chance it will be accessory to a crime.”
First degree... It didn’t get much worse than that.
“Can you tell me a bit about the family?”
“Well, the Ramseys aren’t—weren’t—natives,” Bianca continued. “Diane just showed up one day in a burgundy-and-black Studebaker, in such bad shape that it puffed dark clouds into the air. Old Albert Turner was the chief then, so he chased her down and cited her.”
“You remember like it was yesterday.”
“Hard to forget. Diane’s antics guaranteed we’d all remember when she turned up in town.”
“What kind of antics?”
“Getting drunk at a Founder’s Day celebration.” Bianca laughed and held up her hand before Heather could counter with “lots of people get drunk” and said, “Let’s just say she couldn’t sing and no one appreciated the burlesque show.”
“Oh.”
“The town’s barbershop quartet were performing. She stood right on top of a big speaker and interrupted them. She was louder without a microphone. Albert Turner had to haul her down. It made the paper. From then on, I’d say she made the paper about four or five times a year. I always felt like she had something to prove.”
“Are any Ramseys still in the area?”
“No, not that I’m aware of. I don’t know if Diane and Rachel’s father were married when they had her, or if they ever got divorced or what. She and Rachel just stayed.”
“In the house over on State Route 4?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“Chief Riley said something about it.” Changing the subject by holding up a cinnamon roll, Heather asked, “You make these?”
“No, I buy them from Shelley Guzman. She has a bakery in town.”
Heather’d been in Sweet Sarasota yesterday. She’d picked up a free Founder’s Day muffin—it actually had a plastic school toothpicked into its frosting in celebration of the deaf school that used to be the mainstay of the town. Then she’d purchased three chocolate chip cookies that had smelled only slightly better than the cinnamon roll she was currently eating.
“You met her husband last night. He works for Tom.” Bianca once again was casual. “He’s a cop.”
Guzman. He’d been the big guy who’d challenged the chief of police. “So,” Heather continued, “what kind of girl was Rachel?”
“I,” Bianca said, somewhat sadly, “didn’t know her very well. I don’t have any kids of my own. They didn’t attend church nor did she play with my nephews when they were in town.”
“So all you really know about is Diane?”
Bianca nodded. “And she died just over a year ago.”
It wasn’t the first time Heather heard this. “How?”
“Hard living is what most of the town thinks.”
“Was she young? Old?”
“Why, I guess she couldn’t be that old. Younger than me. I never gave it much thought. She looked sixtyish, at least she did last time I saw her at the grocery store.” Bianca sat back. “Rachel would have been midtwenties, close to your age, which is why Tom must have gotten so flustered. I imagine Diane was fifty or so when she died.”
“Rachel didn’t come back for the funeral?”
“Most of the town thinks either Rachel has no clue her mother passed away, that Rachel didn’t care enough to come back, or that possibly Rachel herself has died. I hope she’s okay. I hope she ran away from here and found a whole better world. Met somebody who cared for her. She certainly was making some of the same mistakes her mother did. Father Joe had us all praying for her.”
“Thank you for sending Father Joe to get me. How did you know I was in jail?”
Bianca laughed. “The phone started ringing. By the third call, I knew it was serious. As for Father Joe, I know just about everyone, and I knew he’d have the easiest time pulling you out of there. In just an hour I’ll be listening to Father Joe’s sermon. You should come with me.”
Heather was tempted. She wanted to talk to Father Joe, but even more, she wanted to visit with the members of the church and ask questions.
Problem was, after yesterday, she was afraid to start.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, Heather paid for her small supply of groceries. She’d spoken to the man working behind the meat counter. He looked old enough to have been employed at Little’s for almost thirty years but claimed only five years. She’d talked to the current security guard on duty, and he’d spouted something about privacy laws and paperwork. She’d gone to the manager, who told her the name of the man who owned Little’s and said to contact his secretary.
Then she’d chosen the cashier, who looked closest to her father’s age. Trina Gillespie had been employed by Little’s for over thirty years and thought the name Raymond Tillsbury sounded familiar, but claimed she’d couldn’t remember anything else.
Heather even showed a photo from her cellphone to Trina, but before Trina could say more than “um,” the security guard came over and gave Heather a warning look.
Sunday was not the day to call a corporate office, so Heather added the phone number to her contacts and headed back to the bed-and-breakfast.
She had research to do.
* * *
HEATHER’S PHONE RANG at nine o’clock the next morning. She almost didn’t answer it. She’d paced her room most of the night, unable to sleep and feeling slightly sorry if anyone happened to be in the room under hers. These old Victorians creaked and moaned. Even with the morning sun coming through the window, she felt like she’d just gotten to bed. She wasn’t sure whether to blame it on the time spent in jail, the time spent sitting across from Chief Riley, or spending most of yesterday visiting Little’s Grocery Store and later reading online about the whole Ramsey family.
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