“We haven’t apprehended him yet.”
“I was told that Hope was found on the side of a cliff, left to die, I believe those were the words from many of the volunteers that were present the day she was found.”
Jo found herself rubbing her thumb and index finger on her right hand. “Do you have a point?”
“How safe is the only surviving witness to a crime?”
“Every precaution is being made to ensure Hope is safe. No one wants that more than the residents, family, and friends of this town.”
“Good. Good. My only concern is Hope’s welfare.”
As much as Jo wanted to see the last of the woman, she went ahead and stopped her from leaving with a question of her own.
“Oh, Ms. Pensky?”
The woman showed surprise when Jo called her back.
“Yes?”
“How well do you know Nathan Stone?”
Ms. Pensky lifted her chin, didn’t smile, and stared.
“Who?”
Gotcha! The woman could interrogate, but she was shit for lying.
“Have a nice day, Ms. Pensky.”
“You do the same, Sheriff.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The street between Sam’s diner and Miller’s Auto was blocked off to traffic. Miss Gina’s special lemonade bridge club started setting up tables by ten. Backyard barbeques were lined up on the street outside of the only market in town. A staple of any small town festivity was the American flag, several of which the volunteer fire department pulled out and flew on every streetlight in town.
River Bend was too small for a mayoral office, but there was a chamber of commerce . . . or a half a dozen busybodies who helped legislate some of the simple squabbles the town would come across.
“I didn’t know you owned a pair of jeans, Dad.” Wyatt gave his father crap as they lugged bags of ice from the market to fill the buckets lining the beverage station.
“Do you own a suit?”
Wyatt thought of the tie holding the PVC pipes together on his truck. “Define suit.”
His father laughed as he dropped the ice into one of the waiting buckets and went back for more.
“So, all this for one little girl.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said with a sigh. “Great, isn’t it?”
His father patted him on the back. “You really have something special here.”
“I love it. I really do.”
“I can see why.”
Sam walked out of the market as Wyatt and his dad were going back in for more ice.
“Hi, Sam . . . have you met my father yet?”
Sam offered a handshake. “No, but I’ve heard plenty about you.”
After his father exchanged pleasantries, Sam glanced back over to his diner with a scowl.
“What’s up? You don’t look too happy.”
“Zoe’s on a terror in there. She needs fresh basil and I don’t have it.”
“None here?”
Sam shook his head. “I bought them out last night, but she needs more.”
Wyatt scratched his head. “Check with Mrs. Miller, she has an herb garden, and if that doesn’t work, call Mrs. Kate.”
Sam’s eyes lit up. “Your son is brilliant,” he told William before running across the street.
“All for a little girl,” he heard his father utter again.
“She became everyone’s little girl when she went missing. This day could have been very different.” He shuddered to think about what could have happened had they not found Hope when they did. “This celebration is for the town. A pat on the back for watching out for each other. You don’t get this in the big city.”
“You don’t get it in every small town either.”
“Then you’re living in the wrong town.”
“Not a lot of need for a high-powered lawyer in a place like this.”
Wyatt had to laugh. “There is this week.”
His father conceded with a nod. When his smile grew bigger and his eyes traveled to a space behind him, Wyatt turned.
Melanie walked up the middle of the street with Hope’s hand in hers. The two had the same smile, the same hair pulled back in a clip.
And Wyatt’s heart warmed.
The woman had wiggled inside him and taken up space he didn’t know he had available.
“If it isn’t the special guest of this shindig,” William said as they approached.
Hope lifted her arms to his dad, who hoisted her up as if she were four.
The movement had Melanie gaping and Wyatt doing a double take.
Hope kissed his father’s cheek and giggled. “Did you see the balloons?”
“No, where are they?”
“Over by Uncle Luke’s.” Hope pointed with the arm she had slung over his father’s shoulder.
“Wanna show me?”
“Okay.” Hope jumped down from his dad’s arms and pulled on his hand.
William winked at Melanie. “We’ll be back.”
Melanie stood with her mouth open as her daughter ran off with Wyatt’s dad.
“What is that all about?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s infatuated. I’ve never seen her like this.”
Wyatt took in Melanie’s profile. There was still a measure of tired behind her eyes, but she looked as if she’d managed a few hours of sleep.
She must have felt his eyes on hers. When she twisted in his direction, she grinned and ran a hand down the back of her hair.
He smiled.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” He stepped into her personal space and pressed his body next to hers. “Getting some sleep?” he asked in a gentle voice.
“A little.”
“Anything I can do?”
She glanced over her shoulder at her daughter. “Nothing you’re not already doing.”
When she twisted back his way, he closed the space between them and kissed her. Like every time, his body responded with a desire for more, not that this was the time, or the place.
She pressed a bit closer, and he suffered a groan.
Melanie broke their kiss and smiled. “Happy to see me?” she asked with a knowing smirk.
“Miss you,” he told her.
She lowered her eyes. “Now’s not the time.”
He placed a finger under her chin and forced her eyes to his. “Just holding you is enough . . . right now,” he added.
Wyatt wrapped an arm over her shoulders and walked her in the opposite direction from Hope and his father.
When Melanie looked behind them, he stopped. “She’s safe with my dad.”
“I know. It’s just . . .”
“It’s hard.”
“It’s impossible. I worry in my sleep.”
Wyatt kept walking and let her talk.
“I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming that we didn’t find her. I see her cold and broken on the side of the cliff.”
He held her closer.
“I see Mr. Lewis coming back and checking in at the hotel and none of us being the wiser to what he is up to.”
“I don’t think he’s coming back,” he told her.
She snuggled closer. “I still worry. Then there is Nathan and that pinched-face Oz woman.”
Wyatt stopped in the middle of the street and laughed. “Oz woman?”
“Yeah, didn’t Pensky look like the witch from The Wizard of Oz?”
Now that she mentioned it . . .
“I see her taking Hope away and Nathan laughing.”
“Oh, darlin’. Stop doing this to yourself.”
She shook her head. “I’m not. It’s my dreams. I feel so damn helpless. Like I’m not in control of anything right now. Like someone is going to reach in at any moment and t
ake everything away.”
“You know what you need?”
She laughed. “For Nathan to jump off a bridge, or relocate to Alaska where he can’t get to Hope?”
“All good ideas. No, what you need is to remember the power you do have.” They were already walking back around the block and on the opposite side of the street. “You need to take control and do something other than react.”
Her laugh wasn’t convinced. “Like what?”
“I don’t know . . . sue Nathan for child support. Use the media that has been wanting to talk to you since all this happened to fight against Oz Lady and all those like her. Take control. It might not stop everything Nathan is doing, but it will make you feel better.”
Her feet met the street and didn’t move. “I can do that.” It wasn’t a question.
“You can.”
“Stop being a victim,” she said with a sigh.
The smile on her face said it all.
“You’re brilliant.”
He chuckled. “Second time today I’ve been told that.”
“Humble, too.”
He accepted her kiss, mourned it when she broke it off and disappeared inside Sam’s diner.
In the middle of the main street in River Bend, Wyatt realized how hard he’d fallen.
And he smiled.
Melanie sat beside Wyatt’s father, sinking her teeth into some of the best barbeque ribs she’d ever eaten and feeling as if the food was gas in a car that had been sitting in the front yard for twenty dry years.
She’d eaten enough to survive in the past week, but not enough to fuel her brain.
With Wyatt’s infusion of confidence and watching the town come together to celebrate her child . . . she was ready to fight.
“I’m angry, William. The man refused to give me a dime, said he was barely living off the funds his parents gave him for college. When I suggested he get a job like me, he couldn’t be bothered to tap into the hours set aside for his social life. We had a child. A social life takes a backseat to that.”
William stopped chewing on his corn on the cob to respond. “That it does.”
“Now he’s back and for what reason? And even if we don’t learn what’s behind all this, what makes him think he’s parent material? And you know . . .” she pointed the end of the rib bone at William, “that social worker has to be in his pocket. Hope was being cared for by a respected, sane, responsible adult when she . . .” The thought of Hope on the side of the cliff made her pause. “She wasn’t neglected. Isn’t neglected.”
“Hope is a polite, well-adjusted young woman. It’s clear you’re doing a fine job raising her,” William said.
“She is . . . isn’t she?” They both looked into the middle of the street. Hope played alongside a handful of other kids her age. All kids she would have eventually met when she started school in the fall. She was smiling and laughing, despite the broken arm and the events of the week.
“I may not be able to provide her with all the toys and all the junk a lot of kids have. But she has what she needs. I’ve sacrificed my own crap so she could have enough.” Melanie lifted a hand in the air. “I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I just do what every other parent out there does. Except Nathan. He never sacrificed squat. So yeah . . .” she paused, set the bone on the plate. “I’m pissed he even showed up. It isn’t like he handed me a check, or God forbid, health insurance.” The thought of the bills that were coming her way hadn’t even hit her yet. The hospital social workers had set her up with a contact to help tap into some funding for the needy to help minimize the debt. Bottom line, she didn’t have the money for gas for her car when she had one, and health insurance wasn’t a priority when she could stand in line at a clinic. Yeah, it sucked, but she didn’t have many options.
It was William’s turn to point food at her. “You know the good thing about anger?”
“No, what?” She bit into another rib.
“It’s the perfect motivator. Not happy with the current president? It motivates you to go out and vote for the next. Gas prices too high? Buy an electric car, hug a tree, put in solar. Tired of bullies? Learn to fight, take control, don’t allow yourself to be a victim.”
Melanie looked into the eyes of the man and saw his son. “Did Wyatt tell you to say that?”
William offered a look of shock. “Remember who raised whom, darlin’.”
She giggled. “He calls me that.”
“Calls you what?”
“Darlin’. Always makes me think he was raised in Texas and not California.”
William glanced toward the cloudless sky. “Guilty. Born and raised outside of Houston. I’d like to think some of me chipped off the block.”
She couldn’t help but laugh and search the block chip out of the crowd. She caught him across the street, standing beside Luke and a man who looked familiar but she couldn’t place.
Wyatt offered a wave and she smiled back, waving her rib.
Well, what was left of it.
She returned her gaze to William, then snapped back to Wyatt and narrowed her eyes. “Is that . . . Alan Crane?”
William glanced around, saw his son, and shrugged. “Looks like it.”
Melanie tilted her head. “You knew he was coming?”
He finished off his corn and wiped his mouth with the red and white checkered napkin before placing it on the table. “I might have had my people contact his people.”
“But my daughter’s not missing.” And Alan Crane was the face of missing children. After the murder of his young daughter many years ago, Alan’s life revolved around finding missing children and the perpetrators who harmed them. He was the media face of the forgotten.
“Mr. Lewis is,” William said.
She stared at Wyatt’s father without humor. “But Wyatt asked you to help with Nathan.”
He laid his hand over hers. “No. He asked that I help with you. And Melanie . . . my son has never asked a thing of me since before he was in college. Even then . . .”
Tears were close, but she pushed them back. “I’ll pay you back someday.”
Hope took that moment to climb up into the chair she had beside them. She shoved food in her face and smiled at them both before scrambling off.
“You already have.”
Zoe snuck up behind her and slid into a chair. “Well, do I pass the test?” Zoe asked the question to William.
“Just like back home.” He waved a rib before taking a bite.
Melanie questioned her friend with a lifted brow. “You knew he was from Texas?”
“Oh, please. The minute the man opened his mouth I knew where Wyatt got all that swagger and charm.”
“I may not have the accent I once did, but I’d have to turn in my born and raised card if I’d lost my swagger.”
They were both laughing at the twang William put behind his words.
“I guess the name ‘Wild Bill’ makes a little more sense,” Melanie said.
“When do you fly out?” William asked.
Zoe sighed. “Tomorrow early.”
Melanie leaned her head on her friend’s shoulder. “It means so much that you came.”
Zoe offered a one-arm hug. “Always, anytime.”
And before Melanie let her friend go, she told her, “And tell Luke your plans. The guy goes a little nutty when you leave.”
With a heavy sigh, she said, “He knew I was leaving the last time.”
“Two words . . . Bar. Fight.”
“Fine!” Zoe pushed herself off the seat and searched the crowd. Once she caught sight of Luke, she darted across the street.
“Your friend is a fine chef.”
“Yeah . . . and you’ve only tasted her barbeque. She makes things I can’t even pronounce.”
“And lives in Dallas?”
; “Yep. Left town shortly after we all graduated from high school.” When she left again, Melanie would miss her all the more. Seeing Zoe’s face around town made it feel more like home.
“I’ll have to find out where she works when I go again. I wouldn’t mind sampling her other menus.”
Melanie stood and grabbed her plate. “You won’t be disappointed. Can I grab you anything while I’m up?”
“No, no . . . I’m good. Why don’t you go enjoy your town?”
Such a thoughtful man. “Wyatt’s lucky to have a dad like you,” she told him.
William smiled and cocked his head to the side. “Where are your parents, darlin’?”
The thought had crossed her mind a dozen times once she realized Hope was going to be okay. “My mom called, her boyfriend took her on a cruise . . .” Melanie was too embarrassed to tell him that her mom didn’t offer to jump off at the nearest port to join her. When she’d called and heard Hope was going to be okay . . . she suggested Melanie call her if things changed. “My dad didn’t get word from my brother, Mark, until night before last.”
“And is he going to visit?”
She paused. “Not all family is helpful, William.”
She heard Zoe laughing from across the street and turned to see her talking with Wyatt, Luke, and Alan Crane.
“It’s a good thing you have such a tight circle of friends.”
“Yeah . . . a very good thing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They’d been filming all day.
Crane and the crew showed up at the inn before dawn with two huge trucks and a crew of no less than twenty-five people. There were shots taken as the morning fog lifted from the ground, and they filmed the sunrise from the vantage point of where Hope had been standing the last time Miss Gina saw her.
A small company of actors resembling Miss Gina, Melanie, and Hope were brought in, as well as a man who had the same body type and general look of Mr. Lewis.
The fake Mr. Lewis went through the motions of being checked into the inn by the fake Miss Gina for close to two hours before they got it right. Melanie stood to the side and watched as her double told the Hope’s double to stop running through the inn. It took four takes before getting it right, and each one was a tiny knife in her side.
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