It wasn’t aggression. It was clarity. With each pound of my fist, I understood a fraction more. “It’s Meg. The woman who helped me with the garden at Crosby House,” I said.
“The short Irish one or the tall dark-haired one?”
“Irish.”
“What about her?”
“It’s her car that ran down Ben Nader. I know it is, but I don’t know why.”
“And Sandra Mays?”
“I keep coming back to Tammy Nader.”
“What’s her motive?”
I sank my fist into the dough for the last time. “They had a falling out. But Mack Hebron overheard Sandra and Ben talking, with Ben saying something about not keeping it a secret anymore.”
My mind circled back to what Miguel had said a moment ago. Meg was Irish. Vivian Cantrell had told me that one of the women had lost her boyfriend and her son. What if—
“What’s wrong?” Miguel asked.
I spun around to face him. “Margaret.”
He cocked an eyebrow waiting for me to continue.
“Tammy Nader said her son’s fiancée died in the crash that killed her son, but the newspaper article I found said she survived.” I stopped. Thought back. Had she actually said the fiancée had died, or had I made an assumption?
“Okay,” Miguel said.
“The fiancée’s name was . . . or is . . . Margaret.”
Miguel’s expression changed, showing his understanding. “Meg.”
“A nickname for Margaret.” A chill ran up my spine. Had we figured it out? Were Meg from Crosby House and Margaret, the mother of little Kevin, one and the same?
Another realization hit me. KM. The K was for Kevin.
I went to the table. Miguel had a lazy Susan filled with condiments. I held up the salt shaker. “Let’s say this is Meg McGinnis.”
“Okay.” He sat down. “Go on.”
Next was the pepper shaker. “Esmé Adriá.”
He pointed to the little bottle of sesame oil. “Who’s this?”
“Tammy Nader.”
“And the spicy chili oil is . . .”
“Mack Hebron.”
“Let’s say that Ben is the soy sauce, and Sandra is the oregano.” I looked at the six objects, feeling like there was a missing ingredient.
“What about the other women with the Bread for Life program?” Miguel asked, holding up the garlic bulb. “You’re sure none of them are involved?”
“None of them have a particular connection to Ben or Sandra.”
“But does this Meg McGinnis have a connection to Sandra?”
I sighed. Heavily. “Not that we’ve found. Em looked at all their backgrounds. They’re all immigrants. Zula’s from Eritrea. Claire’s from Canada. Amelie is from Germany, and Esmé is from Mexico. Only Esmé has a connection to Ben through the shelter. But it was Meg’s car—I know it was—that hit Ben.”
“They’re friends?” he asked, and just like that, I had an epiphany. I’d seen the bond grow between the women in the Bread for Life program, just like the bonds would grow between the women at the shelter. Except . . . Meg had shown me Esmé’s room. She just hadn’t known that all her own stuff hadn’t yet been moved from Esmé’s room to her new one. Or had she? She had, I realized. She had been trying to direct my thinking toward Esmé and away from anyone else.
“I’m not so sure,” I said, answering his question.
I looked at it from Esmé’s perspective. She had disappeared for several days after Ben’s accident. Why? She’d told me she didn’t know what to do, or what to think. Because she’d suspected Meg, which had put her in a conundrum? Had she recognized the blue car? Had she voiced her suspicions to her friend, or had she kept quiet?
I suspected that she’d voiced them, which is why Esmé had become so scattered and distant. She was completely freaked out, and maybe Meg was trying to convince her to keep quiet.
Miguel lifted the bottle of oregano and the soy sauce. “Sandra and Ben were talking about a secret.” He tapped the chili oil. “Which Mack overheard.”
“When I went to see Ben in the hospital, I told him I’d worked with Meg, and that I knew Esmé. He turned pale and I thought he’d reacted to Esmé’s name, but it was Meg.”
Meg was also an immigrant. Just like Esmé, she’d come here before, and she’d come back. It’s where she met Grant Nader. It’s where she had her child. Why had she not been back for so many years? Why had the Naders not helped her to be with her child?
I pictured her face. The angles of her cheek. The scar above her lip. And then something Tammy said came back to me and my blood ran cold.
I grabbed my purse, digging out my keys. They were heavy in my hand. Keys. I turned them over, thinking. Keys. But whatever thought was on the edge of my brain, it was gone. Our dinner was all but forgotten. “Let’s go see Tammy Nader,” I said.
Chapter 29
“Meg may have tried to run down Ben, but that doesn’t explain Sandra,” Miguel said from the passenger seat of my car.
That was true, but I could only operate based on what I currently knew. Or thought I knew. I needed confirmation from Tammy that my thought process was on target. One thing at a time. I had a question I had to ask Tammy Nader. After that was answered I could move on to the Sandra conundrum.
It was only as we started out of Miguel’s driveway that I realized I didn’t actually know where Tammy and Ben Nader lived. Emmaline wasn’t likely to give me the address without a full explanation of my reason. I wasn’t ready to give her that quite yet. “Change of plans,” I said, and I redirected the car inland.
A short while later, we arrived at Mercy Hospital.
“Ben,” Miguel said.
“Ben,” I agreed.
Up on the fourth floor, I knocked before we entered his room, but stopped short. Tammy sat in the same chair I had, facing the side of Ben’s bed. Ben sat upright, casts on one arm and one leg, his face and what I could see of his arms black and blue. For as bad as his injuries looked, though, he looked better than he had the last time I’d seen him.
“What do you want?” Tammy demanded, standing with such force that her chair shot back and hit the wall.
I moved into the room, Miguel right behind me. “I’m really sorry to bother you,” I said, and I was. “I won’t be long. I just have a question for you both.” Maybe two, I thought, but I wanted to keep it casual to start.
Tammy’s face turned red. “Get out,” she snarled, but Ben raised his good arm and said, “Tammy, stop.” He sounded tired. Exhausted, in fact. “We need to stop.”
“Mrs. Nader, I think I know who’s behind this.” I leveled my gaze at her. “But you do, too, don’t you?”
The color drained from her face until she was pallid. She sank back onto her chair. “What do you know?” she asked, but the bite was gone from her voice.
“I know that your son’s fiancée survived the accident that killed him. She was spared. Your grandson was spared.”
“What are you talk—”
“Meg. I’m talking about Meg. She has a scar above her lip, and another on her arm. I thought she was at Crosby House because she’d been battered like the other women,” I said. “That she was escaping from some horrible situation. But it wasn’t like that, was it?”
Tammy was as still as a statue. Not a muscle moved. But Ben answered. “No. It wasn’t like that.”
“Those scars, they’re from the car accident that killed Grant, aren’t they?”
This time Ben gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
Meg’s situation became a little clearer. “Did you keep Kevin from her?” I asked, more horrified. She hadn’t lost her son. Her child had been ripped away from her.
Ben cupped his hand over his forehead. “It was wrong,” he said. “We never should have—”
He stopped when Tammy slowly stood and started for the door.
“Tammy, wait.” Ben’s voice rose above the beeping of the monitors he was hooked up to.
She
stopped. “You’re not going to take him from me.” Her voice was low. Measured. But I sensed she was walking a fine line between control and an emotional break.
I shot Miguel a frantic glance, nodding to his phone. He understood exactly what I was trying to tell him. He angled his body so Tammy couldn’t see, but from where I stood, I could see his fingers flying across the keyboard as he texted Emmaline. She and her cavalry would be here within minutes to stop Tammy from getting Kevin, wherever he was, and disappearing with him. I’d suspected Meg, but I hadn’t understood what was behind the hit-and-run. Now I did. Meg had lost her fiancé and Tammy and Ben had kept her son from her. She’d been trapped in Ireland without him, probably with no proof of his birth, and with no money or recourse to fight for him. I didn’t know why she’d waited ten years, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. She only wanted her child back.
I wanted that for her.
Another thought occurred to me. Ben had told Tammy about the ladder to the roof at Yeast of Eden’s building. Tammy and Sandra had had a falling out. What if Sandra had figured out that Meg was back? What if she’d confronted Ben or Tammy about it? “What about Sandra?” I asked her.
She laughed, high and shrill and more than a little unhinged. “She got what she deserved.”
The reason for their falling out, I thought. “She knew about Meg?”
Tammy glared at her husband. “You told her about everything. That Margaret was alive, but that we’d kept Kevin. You confessed your sins to her and then she tried to blackmail me. She said she’d tell everyone.”
Ben choked out a sob. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were weak. You wanted to give Grant back!”
We all stared at Tammy, slack-jawed.
“You mean Kevin,” Ben said quietly.
Tammy backed up, her arms flailing, looking like a trapped animal. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“Grant is dead, Tammy. And we were wrong to take Kevin from his mother. Grant loved Margaret. He wanted to marry her—”
Tammy slammed her hands over her ears, violently shaking her head, but Ben continued, his voice low. “Did you kill Sandra?”
Tammy’s eyes grew wide. Crazed. “Her death was like a gift. It was so much like a gift, like I was being told that I’d done the right thing because she couldn’t hurt us. She couldn’t take Grant away from us.”
Oh my. The woman was truly losing her mind right in front of us.
“Kevin,” Ben corrected.
“But Meg is the boy’s mother—” I started.
“I am Grant’s mother—”
“Tammy.” The quiet voice came from Ben.
Tammy kept on. “I am his mother—”
“Grant is dead!” Ben’s voice sounded with the force of a cannonball. “He loved Margaret. They were a family, and we took Kevin from her. We did this to her. We. Did. This. To. Her.” He broke down into a sob. “To them.”
“Did you kill her?” I asked. I thought Tammy was unhinged enough to give me the truth.
“Not me. Not me.” She wagged her finger at me. “I didn’t kill her, but I wish I had.”
That wasn’t the confession I’d hoped for. I changed direction, turning to Ben, but keeping an eye on Tammy. “You volunteered at Crosby House and saw her there?”
“It was a true coincidence. I’ve volunteered at the shelter for years. Long before Margaret and her mother came into the picture there.” His face paled and his voice dropped to a whisper. “It was like seeing a ghost. She went by Meg, though. At first I wasn’t sure. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but—”
“Meg is a nickname for Margaret.”
He dropped his chin to his chest. “It was like she walked out of my nightmares.”
“I bet it was.” She’d haunted him. I thought that was why he volunteered at Crosby House. To make amends.
Ben kept talking, cleansing his guilty soul. “She was there in the office one day when I went to talk to the director. Sitting there, plain as day. She didn’t see me, and I ducked out. I tried to stay out of her way.”
I thought back to when I’d asked Meg about Ben Nader the first time. She’d played me, I realized now, but I couldn’t blame her. She had a lot at stake.
We heard rapid footsteps in the hallway. The cavalry, I thought. Tammy looked at the door, panicked. “You called the police?”
She grabbed the door handle like she was going to barge into the hallway. Instead, she let go, turned abruptly, and beelined for the bathroom. Emmaline rounded the corner into the room, her arm straight at her side, her gun in her hand pointed at the ground. A deputy slid in right behind her.
Tammy stopped cold.
“It’s over, Tam,” Ben said with a sob. “Thank God it’s over.”
Chapter 30
“Help me understand,” Emmaline said to Meg. They sat in an interview room at the sheriff’s station. Miguel and I stood on the other side of the one-way mirror, observing. “You were in the States on a tourist visa?”
“I was here on an H1-B visa as an international teacher, but it expired. Grant and I, we were engaged. We had Kevin. We left him here with Grant’s parents while we went back to Ireland so I could . . . then we had the . . .”
“The accident,” Em finished.
Meg swiped away a tear. “I almost died. My mam nursed me back, but by the time I was well, so much time had passed. I had to save money to come back—my mam and I, we’re just ordinary people. And then I didn’t know how to prove I was . . . that I am Kevin’s mother.”
I could see Em’s blood boiling. It was as if the stars had aligned against Meg reuniting with her son. “The Naders wouldn’t help you?”
She scoffed through her tears. “Help me? They wouldn’t even acknowledge me. They acted like they didn’t know me. And then one day when I showed up at their house again, Grant’s mother—Tammy—she . . . she threatened me.”
“Threatened you how?”
Meg swallowed. Hard. Swiped at her tears. “She told me she would never let me take Kevin away from her. I b-believed her.”
“What did you believe she’d do?” Em asked.
Em looked up. Down. Everywhere but at Emmaline. She tried to school her face, keeping more tears at bay. “Kill me? Hurt Kevin?” Her face collapsed. “I don’t know. I was scared.”
“What did you do?” Em asked quietly.
Meg wrung her hands. “I went home.”
“To Ireland?” Emmaline asked.
She looked back up at Emmaline, the tears flowing now. “What else could I do?”
“And you came back when—“
“My mother and I, we saved enough money to come back.”
Emmaline nodded. Paused, then changed directions. “Tell me about Sandra Mays.”
“Is Kevin safe?” Meg asked. “Is he still with them?”
“Kevin is safe. He is with a foster family. Ben Nader does not want to press charges. With the extenuating circumstances, a judge will take that into consideration. He’s safe, Meg. I want to get him back to you, but you need to help me.”
Meg dragged her hands under her eyes and sniffed. “I didn’t do it.”
“Tell me about Sandra,” Em said again.
“I don’t know Sandra. I never met her.”
Emmaline pressed. “Did you plan a meeting with her on the roof at Yeast of Eden?”
Meg shook her head emphatically. “No! Never. I did not do that to her. I did not kill her!”
Em took a breath. “Okay. Let’s go back to the hit-and-run. Tell me about that.”
“I didn’t do it,” Meg repeated. “It wasn’t me.”
“Meg, it was your car that hit him. We’ve had forensics go over it. We’ve compared it to the video we have. It was your car. You hit Ben Nader.”
Meg had her elbows propped on the table and cradled her head in her hands. “But I didn’t. You have to believe me. I didn’t hit him.”
Emmaline paused. Regrouped. I could see her pat
ience wearing thin and I didn’t blame her, but Meg was convincing. I kind of did believe her. Or at least I wanted to.
“Your car was in the shop, is that right?” Emmaline asked.
“Right. It needed a new bumper.”
“And how did you get the damage to the bumper?”
Meg had been looking at the table, but she looked up suddenly, something in her eyes. Clarity? Understanding? “Oh no.”
It hit me at the very same moment. That day at the shelter. The keys. “Oh my God.”
Miguel turned to me. “What is it?”
“It wasn’t Meg.”
“What?” He stared, first at me, then through the mirror.
“It wasn’t Meg. It wasn’t Meg!” I backhanded his arm. “Let’s go.”
I pounded on the door of the interview room. I knew Emmaline would get there eventually with Meg, but I also suspected that the young woman would do what she could to hide the truth she’d just realized. Emmaline cracked open the door, looking more than a little irritated.
“We’ve got it wrong,” I said. “We have to go to Crosby House.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at Crosby House like a mini caravan. Two cruisers, Emmaline in her police SUV. Miguel and me in my pearl-white Fiat crossover.
We parked along the street, out of sight. Standing on the sidewalk, Emmaline put on her stern I’m the sheriff expression as she adjusted the wide black hairband that held back the tiny Z curls of her hair. “You need to wait. Don’t be going all Dirty Harry.”
I scoffed. It was only because Billy was a huge Clint Eastwood fan that she even knew about Dirty Harry. “You need to update your pop culture reference for vigilante,” I said. “Maybe don’t go all Walt Kowalski.”
“That’s Eastwood, too,” Miguel said.
“And who the hell is Walt Kowalski?” Em asked.
“Gran Torino,” I said.
“Still Clint Eastwood, so might as well be Dirty Harry—”
“Bryan Mills?” I interrupted. “Much more current.”
They both looked at me, Em with perfectly arched raised eyebrows. “And who is that?”
“Liam Neeson? You know, in Taken?”
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