by Jami Alden
“You both told me I should help her,” he reminded them.
“That was before we knew she was hiding evidence that could have helped us find Mom.”
“She found it right before the funeral,” Danny said. “I know she’s telling the truth.”
“Really?” Ethan said. “The last time you saw her before the memorial service was twelve years ago when she dumped you for not calling her right when you got into town. You really think you still know her well enough to know if she’s lying? Or are you protecting her for the opportunity to dip your wick in an old pot?”
Danny winced at the crudity. “Come on, this is Caroline. Don’t talk about her like that.”
Ethan and Derek’s eyes widened. Yeah, yeah, Danny knew what they were thinking. They were remembering every one of the locker room type comments he’d had about both their girlfriends until it became clear the women were there to stay. Not to mention the crude comments Danny had made about Caroline after she dumped him.
Still, he didn’t want anyone badmouthing Carrie, not even his brothers.
“Besides,” he continued, “I’m not dipping my wick anywhere—”
“Yet,” Derek and Ethan interrupted in unison.
Okay, he’d give them that. “I’m treating her like a regular case.” Liar. You’ve never had a client you wanted to strip naked and bend over your desk. “Someone killed her husband and, based on what happened yesterday, is trying to kill her too. In the meantime, she’s helping me figure out what James Medford had to do with Anne’s disappearance.”
“Fine, assume she’s telling the truth,” Derek said. “Why the fuck would you keep something like this from us?”
“I wanted to wait and see if there was anything to it.”
“How could you not think there was anything to it, when we already know about his first wife owning the land where the bodies were found?” Ethan said.
“I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.” The excuse sounded lame to his own ears. They knew he was working with Caroline, knew about the connection to James’s first wife. He had a bad feeling he knew the answer, and it wasn’t one he liked. He’d hidden it from his brothers because he’d wanted to avoid this conversation. Didn’t want them to question his judgment about the only woman who’d ever been able to get under his skin. “And I knew the second I told you anything, you’d drop everything else. We have clients who have hired us, and we can’t ignore them to focus on this investigation.”
“Controlling son of a bitch,” Ethan bit out. “You had no right to keep us in the dark. And while you were off playing cowboy, we could have been helping you.”
“And that’s why I’m here now,” Danny said. “You guys are pissed. I get it. But we can either keep yapping about this like a bunch of blue hairs at a bridge game, or we can get down to business.”
Caroline did another circle around Danny’s office, too keyed up to sit still. The furnishings were spare. A wide maple desk topped with a flat screen monitor. A leather rolling desk chair and a built in bookshelf full of books about World War II. The only decorations were a picture of him with his father and brothers. All three Taggart boys were dressed in their military dress uniforms, Danny and Derek in olive green, Ethan shining in Navy whites. Tall and strong and every girl’s soldier fantasy come to life.
Caroline had been devastated when Danny told her he was going to West Point. But she still remembered how the sight of him in his dress uniform made everything below her wasit perk up and say hello.
Don’t go there. She turned away from the picture and focused her attention on the desk. Papers and files covered the surface in haphazard stacks. She started straightening to give herself something to do. Within seconds a familiar calm came over her. Her world might be spinning out of control, but she could create order, no matter how insignificant.
“Were you really engaged to Danny?”
Caroline looked up from her organizing to see Toni, the tall, dark haired woman she’d seen with Ethan at the memorial service. The woman was beautiful, with Snow White coloring and a lean, athletic body. Her heavy dark rimmed glasses, severe haircut, and outfit of skinny jeans, T-shirt, and hoodie gave her the look of an indie-rock star.
Caroline lined up a stack of files so the edge was parallel to the edge of the desk. “It was a long time ago.”
“I just can’t believe Danny was ever close to getting married. I mean, he barely has any friends, much less girlfriends.”
“He was a lot different back then. We both were.”
Toni cocked a dark brow over her glasses. “Yeah? How so?”
“We were high school sweethearts. Really young.” Really dumb. Really naïve. Really foolish. She thought about the last year of her life. Maybe I haven’t really changed that much.
“They’ve been talking about you since you showed up at the memorial service,” the woman said, staring at Caroline like she was a particularly exotic animal in the zoo.
“I didn’t realize you worked here too,” Caroline said in an attempt to ease the awkward silence.
“Danny calls me the nerd patrol,” she said with a smile. “I specialize in electronic investigations. I’m also Ethan’s girlfriend.”
“Now there’s a guy I never thought would settle down.” Even as a teenager, Ethan had been a Lothario in training.
“Exactly my impression when I first met him,” Toni said, her red lips slanting in a grin. “But within a week he’d saved my life and moved me into his place, and the rest is history.” Her smile took on a dreamy, satisfied look that left no doubt Ethan was taking very good care of Toni in every way that counted. “Back to Danny,” Toni said. “Were you seriously high school sweethearts? Personally I can’t imagine Danny ever being sweet to anybody.”
Caroline’s mouth stretched into a smile at the woman’s brazen curiosity. “Sweet? No Danny was never sweet. But he was—”
“Huge? Hot? A total stud in the sack?”
Hot color flooded Caroline’s face when she heard Danny’s voice. All of the above. “I was going to say intense,” she said and he arched his left eyebrow. “And you can take that however you want to.”
“Toni, if you’re done trying to pry into my love life, I have a system I need you to hack.”
Toni gave Danny a mock salute and clicked her heels. “Aye, aye, mein führer. Let me get my system up and I’ll get on it.”
Danny rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything as Toni disappeared down the hall. Caroline made to follow but was stopped by Danny’s hand on her arm. She could feel the heat of that touch all the way through her wool sweater and cotton T-shirt underneath.
“Intense, huh?” He stood with his head bent intimately over hers, so close she could feel his hot breath tease her hairline. Her nipples chafed inside her bra, and she fought the crazy urge to rub up against his chest for some relief.
Danny’s office was suddenly ten degrees warmer. She wanted to strip off at least one layer of clothing. What was wrong with her? They were supposed to be investigating a murder, if not two, and she was letting herself get carried away by memories of the past.
And the present, she thought, unable to get the taste of his kiss from the night before out of her mouth. It was exactly the same, and completely different, and part of her—the foolish, impulsive part of her that never seemed to learn its lesson with him—wanted to strip him down and catalog all the ways he was the same and different after all those years. She gave herself a mental shake and pulled herself out of it. “There were a lot of things I could have said,” Caroline said, deliberately stepping back and pulling her arm from his grip. “But I get the feeling Toni likes you, and I didn’t want to badmouth you to a friend.”
His full lips quirked into that sexy half smile and she knew he wasn’t buying it for an instant. He let her walk past him down the hall, but she knew her reprieve was only temporary.
Danny pointed her a few doors down. She stepped into an office where Toni sat behind a desk outfitted w
ith half a dozen computer monitors and a laptop. Two standard tower units hummed under the desk. Ethan stood behind Toni. His hand rested on her shoulder, his thumb moving back and forth in an absentminded caress that spoke volumes.
“Okay, I’m all fired up. Tell me what we’re looking for.”
“I need you to get into the records for Harmony House. It’s a shelter for pregnant teens in San Mateo. We need to know who the residents were in the six month window around when Anne disappeared.”
Irritation pricked at the back of Caroline’s shoulders at his continued use of his mother’s first name, as though he could keep his distance, forget he was emotionally invested in the case as long as he didn’t acknowledge their relationship. “We know your mother,” she emphasized the syllables, “started in May, and according to Ines she stopped showing up in July.”
To Caroline’s astonishment, Toni had the records within minutes. There were six names on the list. Toni quickly printed out the list and handed it to Danny.
“Okay, let’s divide and conquer. I’ll take these two, Ethan, you take these, and Derek,” he said to his brother who had joined them, “take these. Let’s find these girls and try to set up face to face meetings if they’re still local. We need to know everything they remember about Anne and James Medford.”
Within a few hours they had located all but one of the girls. Two lived out of state—Amber Tomkins lived in Tacoma, Washington, and Maria Lopez lived outside of Phoenix. Another, Serena Washington, had relocated south to Los Angeles, and Constance Morales lived outside of Sacramento. Only one—Lauren Adams, now Lauren Schiffer—was local. She lived about five miles away in Palo Alto.
There was no sign of the sixth girl, Emily Parrish. According to the records, she’d moved out of Harmony House on June 26, and vanished into thin air.
“Doesn’t look like anyone was too worried about her though,” Derek said. “No missing persons reports were ever filed.
“Okay, let’s try to get everyone to talk over the phone. I’m going to try to set up a meeting with Lauren Schiffer.”
According to their research, Lauren lived in Palo Alto with her husband, a professor at nearby Stanford University, and her two school-age sons. It hadn’t been easy to get Lauren to agree to talk to them. At first she’d insisted she’d never lived at Harmony House—they must have the wrong woman.
“I’m investigating the disappearance of Anne Taggart,” Danny said. “I promise I won’t take up much of your time.”
Silence poured over the phone line and he could feel her weighing whether or not to talk to them. It was clear from her initial reaction, she didn’t want anyone to know she’d once lived at the shelter.
“Maybe we should just swing by your husband’s office and ask him if he knows anything,” Danny said.
Lauren agreed to meet them in a coffee shop two towns over. “But I have to be back by eight,” she said.
He parked the car and followed Caroline across the street, his hand resting in the small of her back. When she tried to inch away, he slid his hand more firmly around her waist. She might as well get used to him having his hands on her again. The curve of her waist was just the start.
A rush of warm, coffee scented air hit them as he opened the door. It was easy to spot Lauren, as she was the only woman over the age of twenty-five in the place. She sat alone, her eyes fixed on the door, her hands wrapped around the paper cup in front of her.
As they approached her table she stood up and nervously stuck out her hand. Around his age of thirty-five, give or take a year on either side, Lauren was pretty in a kind of matronly way. Fine lines fanned out from clear blue eyes, and her auburn hair was straight and grazed her chin. Jeans and a cardigan showed off a body that had done moderately well through the rigors of having two children.
Well, three, assuming the one she had as a teenager made it to term.
“I don’t have much time,” Lauren said as she sat down and motioned for them to do the same. “My husband took the boys to a movie, but I have to be back when he gets home.”
Danny nodded. “This shouldn’t take much time. We just need to ask you about a few people you might have come in contact with while you were living at Harmony House.”
Tension carved deep lines around Lauren’s mouth. “If I answer your questions you have to swear you won’t tell anyone I ever lived there,” she said, her voice barely audible. Her lips pressed into a tight line. “No one has any idea I ever lived there, that I ever had another—” she stopped and shook her head, unable to force the word “baby” out. “He can never know.”
Caroline reached out and laid her hand over Lauren’s. “I’m sorry we have to force you revisit what’s obviously a painful subject, but we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t really important.”
Lauren nodded.
“Do you recognize this woman?” Danny held out his cell phone with Anne’s picture on the screen. “We think she was a volunteer at Harmony House while you were a resident.”
“Yes,” Lauren nodded. “That’s Anne. I can’t remember her last name, but I remember she was really nice, always trying to help us figure out what we were going to do once we had to leave the shelter.”
“Her last name is Taggart. Anne Taggart.”
“She’s Danny’s mother,” Caroline interjected.
Danny watched Lauren’s face for understanding to dawn, for her to put the name together with the one she’d been hearing in the news lately.
Nothing. Instead she asked, “Really? How is she?”
“Do you follow the news, Lauren?” Caroline asked gently.
“Not really, why?”
“Because Anne Taggart went missing eighteen years ago, and her body was recently discovered outside of La Honda.”
Lauren covered her mouth in horror, then looked around to make sure no one was listening to their conversation. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. All I knew was that Anne stopped showing up one week, and after that I moved out of the area. I never heard anything about her disappearing. I’m really sorry I can’t help you—” she started to stand up.
Danny caught her hand and gently forced her back down. He called up another picture on his phone. “We’re not finished yet. How about this man? Do you recognize him?” He held out his phone so she could look at an older picture of James Medford.
Lauren’s already pale complexion turned the color of chalk. “Yes,” she said after several seconds of silence. “I recognize him. That’s Jack Murphy. He’s the man who convinced me to sell my baby.”
CHAPTER 9
“He what?” Caroline felt like she’d taken a fist to the stomach. There had to be some mistake.
“He paid me twenty thousand dollars to give up my baby for adoption,” Lauren said, her voice a whisper as she leaned closer.
Caroline was going to be sick. There was no way James could have been involved in something like that. “But you said his name was Jack Murphy. This man’s name is James Medford. He is—was my husband. Maybe it’s not the same man.” She was grasping at straws and she knew it.
Lauren shook her head. In the low light of the coffee bar, Caroline could see the sheen of tears in her eyes, the faint tremble in her mouth. Lauren’s fingers twisted around her cup and she held herself perfectly still as the story came spilling out. “I was only sixteen, and I had run away to live with my boyfriend, who was twenty. We were going to get married and keep the baby, but he was killed in a liquor store robbery.”
“I’m so sorry,” Caroline said.
Lauren let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t be. He was the one doing the robbing. Stupid idiot tried to rob a liquor store with a toy gun. The manager’s wasn’t a toy. God, we were so stupid.”
“How did you meet Jack?” Danny asked gently.
Lauren took a deep breath and collected herself. “I’d seen him at the shelter before, and I knew he helped some of the girls find adoptive parents for their babies. The girls he helped were always really secretive about it—sa
id it was really important that no one else knew any details. All I knew was that the adoptions were closed—no future contact with the kids, records sealed tight, all that stuff. When I was about seven months pregnant, the director called me into her office one day. Jack was there, and he wanted to make a deal.”
“What kind of a deal?” Caroline asked through lips that had gone numb.
“He said he worked with wealthy, childless couples who would do anything to have a healthy baby. They would pay any amount. If I agreed to give up my baby after it was born, I would get twenty thousand dollars.”
Caroline wasn’t overly familiar with California’s adoption laws, but she knew paying a mother for her child was illegal. Big time.
James had brokered the deal himself. She looked up to see Danny studying her with a funny look on his face. Almost compassionate.
“I know how awful it sounds,” Lauren said and scrubbed at her eyes. “But it was the best choice. I had nothing, there was no way I could have supported us. My baby girl went to live with a rich couple who wanted her. That money helped me make something of my life. Now I have a great husband and two perfect little boys, and I never would have had that if I’d kept her.”
Caroline swallowed back a lump in her throat as she heard Lauren repeat the words she must have said to herself millions of times. Like when she woke up in the middle of the night, stared into the dark and wondered about what might have been.
Caroline could relate. She’d done a lot of dark of night second-guessing herself in the past decade.
“Really, it all worked out for the best,” Lauren said.
James would have been a hero for helping a young girl with an impossible choice, had it not been clear he’d profited from the venture, too. Not for a second did Caroline believe twenty thousand dollars was the end of it.
“I don’t understand though,” Lauren asked. “Why would he say his name is Jack Murphy?”
“Cover his tracks,” Danny said. “Adoption records are sealed in some counties in California—where was the baby born?”