Forever Hers

by Walters, Ednah

  He took Raelynn’s hand. Amy watched them walk toward the galley and smiled. It was like he had the magic touch. Too bad that touch hadn’t stopped him from acting like a jerk.

  An hour later, they were in the air and Raelynn was on the floor with her dollhouse while Amy and Eddie relaxed with their drinks. Lori hadn’t reappeared since they boarded the plane and lunch was being prepared by the attendant.

  Amy turned her attention on Eddie. “Okay, what’s going on? You seem tense. Is everything okay with the plan?”

  “The plan is airtight.” He pulled out his laptop from a bag.

  Amy heard him, but her gaze was on the yellow folder she’d put her manuscript in at the lake house. She’d completely forgotten about it. “You brought my work with you?”

  “I promised to read it.” He opened the laptop and booted it up.

  “But with everything that’s been happening—”

  “I’m a man of my word, Amy,” he said firmly. “I don’t say things I don’t mean and I keep my promises.”

  Did that mean he’d meant what he said last night?

  “Your book gave me something to enjoy last night. You’re a gifted writer.”

  Warmth spread through her at the compliment. “Thank you. What chapter are you on?”

  “Thirteen. It’s surprisingly good.” The smile on his lips said he was teasing.

  At least he hadn’t reached chapter fourteen, the first love scene. She often lived vicariously through her heroines, until last night. “Surprisingly. I’m not sure whether to be insulted. How many romances books have you read?”

  “None, but I like yours. The guy is a control freak and anal, but he has his reasons, which makes perfect sense.”

  Amy laughed. Of course it made sense to him. Amy had borrowed a few traits from the old Eddie. Funny he didn’t see himself in her hero. “And the heroine?”

  “A certifiable whack job.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Oh, come on.”

  He grinned. “She is. She spies on him, throws a slushy in his face just because she thought he was flirting with another woman then acts like it’s his fault and stops returning his calls.”

  Amy made a face. “So you think I should downplay her response?”

  “Oh no. He was flirting with another woman and deserved what he got. I hope he kidnaps her and locks her in his,” he glanced at Raelynn to make sure the child wasn’t listening then lowered his voice to add, “bedroom and teach her not to play games.”

  Amy made a face. “Actually that’s exactly what she does to him.”

  Eddie laughed. Happy to see tension gone from his face, Amy smiled.

  “Now I’m definitely looking forward to finishing the book.” He started his Internet browser and logged into his e-mail account. “Are you ready for this?”

  Amy nodded and scooted closer.

  “Before I show you this, I want to explain a few things. Back in Sandpoint, I told Sally they should try the name Penelope as a password on Burgess’ computer. They got in and hacked into his e-mail account. We now have e-mail correspondence between him and Nolan. In the last week, Nolan sent him ten e-mails demanding to know if “it was done.” We assumed ‘it’ had something to do with you. So, I came up with a plan.”

  He opened a page from his Favorites bar —Sandpointonline.com. It showed news headlines. One, dated today caught Amy’s attention.

  Burglary Gone Wrong: The body of a woman and her child discovered at a lake home near Lake Pend Oreille. Suspects still at large.

  Amy’s heart started to pound before he clicked on it. The first thing she noticed was the picture accompanying the article. It showed the police and an ambulance outside the Fitzgeralds’ lake house. The article was short and to the point.

  A neighbor heard a scream and called the police late last night. Inside the house, the police found the body of a young woman and her five-year old daughter dead from gunshot wounds to the head. The police believe the woman interrupted the burglars and was attacked. This tourist destination has been besieged by well-orchestrated burglaries the last couple of months. Most of the time, the perpetrators left no clues behind. This time, they weren’t so lucky. A crowbar with a partial print was found at the scene, along with one disposable glove and cigarette filters. The police believe they have what they need to identify the perpetrators.

  “An hour ago, Briggs’s tech people sent an e-mail to Nolan with the link,” Eddie explained. “It didn’t take long for him to react. I spoke with Rod before we took off. Nolan is on the move. He left work early, went to his bank and came out with a box. Then he went to a storage facility and removed more boxes. We hope that one of them contains the mementos Blackwell mentioned.”

  “Blackwell?”

  “That’s Burgess’ real name. Jeremy Blackwell. Sly dug through high school records and found him and Penelope. He’s trying to find a yearbook, so we have photographs to go with the names. As for Nolan, we have no idea what he plans to do with the boxes. That’s where you come in.”

  Amy nodded. “Me?”

  “You’re going to be our bait. Remember you said you wanted to play with his head?”

  Amy grimaced. “It now seems so juvenile.”

  “No, it’s not. It gave me the idea to fake your death then have you reappear. Nolan thinks you’re dead. Rod and Hailey are going to make sure he takes his girlfriend out tonight, where you will appear. We want him to see you at the restaurant. What he does after that will be crucial, but we’ll be waiting for him.”

  They were still discussing the details of their plan when the cabin attendant brought their lunch. Afterwards, Raelynn napped, leaving the two of them watching real-time surveillance of Nolan. He was piling camping things in his living room, which meant he planned to go to his cabin.

  Seeing inside the same house she’d lived in brought back so many memories. Some bad, others good. After a while, she couldn’t stand it. “You’ve never asked me why I married him.”

  Eddie glanced at her and shrugged. “It’s not important.”

  That was sweet, but… “I’d like to explain anyway.”

  Eddie closed the laptop and nodded. “Okay.”

  “He was there for me the night Charles got killed.” She frowned, still finding it hard to believe Nolan was behind Charles’s death. “He was the first officer at the scene, which now made sense. He stayed with me at the hospital, until my parents arrived, and visited me at home when I convalesced. He continued to visit throughout my pregnancy. My parents liked him. All they saw…all I saw was this nice guy who also happened to be a cop. He never asked for anything, not even a date. He was just there. Supportive. Attentive. Nice. He swore to get the men responsible for killing Charles and he did. Raelynn was six months old when he asked me out and about a year when he asked me to marry him.”

  “Were you in love with him?” Eddie asked.

  Amy shook her head. “I was grateful to him and I thought I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him. The passion wasn’t there. A couple years into our marriage, and it started to bother him. He became controlling, wanting to know where I was and what I was doing. He cut me off from the other officers’ wives, my friends, my parents, but behind my back, he told everyone I wasn’t well.” She talked about the Russian roulette game Nolan loved to play with his gun, the threats to kill himself or her if she ever left him, how powerless and helpless she’d felt.

  “Did he ever touch Raelynn?” Eddie asked through clenched teeth.

  “No. He’d wait until she was in bed before he acted out, but that changed when she turned four. He started dictating what she wore and which friends she played with. Children are very sensitive and Raelynn must have picked up the vibes around the house because she started having nightmares. She’d come to our bedroom in the middle of the night. I always took her back to her bed and stayed with her until she slept. Nolan started resenting her.”

  Eddie murmured something ugly under his breath, his hand tightening around hers. She hadn
’t even noticed he’d taken her hand in his. She slipped it from under his and placed it on her lap.

  “The last straw was the night she came to our bedroom and he took her back to her bedroom. I didn’t hear her cry and was convinced he’d done something horrible. I waited until he was asleep then went to check on her.” The terror on her daughter’s face would stay with her forever. When Amy continued, her voice shook. “He’d tied her wrists to her bed, and covered her mouth with duct tape, so she wouldn’t call me. I just…I just grabbed her and ran.”

  The silence that followed was deafening. She lifted her head and glanced at Eddie. His eyes were narrowed, his jaws tense and hand clenched. He looked ready to punch something.

  “Where were your parents during all this time?” he ground out. “Why weren’t they helping you?”

  Amy sighed. “Nolan had them believing all sorts of things about me. By the time I got around to visiting them, he had convinced them I was the one hurting Raelynn.”

  Disbelief flashed across his face. “And they believed him?”

  Amy shrugged. “Don’t judge them too harshly. I wasn’t exactly a dutiful daughter. By the time Charles died, we were hardly on speaking terms. They were relieved when I married Nolan. I couldn’t go back to them when it fell apart.”

  Eddie scrubbed his face. “Kids act out all the time, Amy. It doesn’t mean you give up on them.”

  Listening to him come to her defense made her feel warm and fuzzy inside, but the situation with her parents was partly her fault. It took her a long time to reach that conclusion.

  “How could you forgive them?”

  “They are Raelynn’s only grandparents. Charles was an orphan and came from the system, so if anything should ever happen to me, she’d…” Amy’s voice broke. She cleared it and continued. “She’d need them.”

  “So they can treat her the way they treated you? Over my dead body.” He pushed the button for the cabin attendant and asked for a drink. Amy declined.

  In the past weeks, she’d thought about everything that had happened before she packed up and left Charlottesville and reached the only conclusion—her parents really thought she was crazy.

  “You know they had reasons to believe I was psychotic,” she said softly after the flight attendant brought Eddie his beer and left. “Remember the break-ins and calls to the police?”

  “Do not make excuses for them,” Eddie ground out. “Parents are supposed to support their children no matter how often they screw up or if they are running up and down the street naked because of a psychotic breakdown. Family comes first, not ex-husbands.” Eddie chugged his drink. “How did you get Reither to sign your divorce papers?”

  “I went to his station and caused a stink. He had no choice but to sign them.”

  Eddie put the bottle on the table and scooted closer to her. When he spoke, he did slowly as though measuring his words. “You know something else about psychotic people? No one believes what they say. They make unreliable witnesses. Nolan did this to you, so no one would ever take anything you say seriously. But you know what? It’s not going to come to that. We’re going to nail him.”

  Amy believed him. When he went back to studying live feed from Rod, Amy opened her laptop and checked her e-mail.

  There was a long e-mail from her mother. It was filled with apologies and regret, which told Amy they might actually have a chance at healing as a family. It might take years, but they could do it. Her mother wanted them to talk.

  Amy responded to the e-mail her, told her mother she’d be in town, then closed the laptop.

  CHAPTER 21

  Eddie paced outside the bathroom where his sister was helping Amy get ready. As soon as they’d arrived at the hotel, the two of them had gone shopping at the pedestrian mall, which was adjacent to their hotel. It was almost eight.

  They’d eaten on the plane and Raelynn was on the floor with her latest toys, courtesy of the hotel. Not only had the front desk manager offered them a backpack full of toys, books for her during their stay and a list of activities for kids. They’d even sent milk and cookies up to their suite. Trust his sister to pick a kid-friendly hotel.

  He punched in Rod’s number. “Has he left the house?”

  “Yes. I’m on his tail. Their reservation is at eight and Ms. Kincaid’s at 8:15.”

  “We haven’t left, but we’ll be there as soon as we can. Is Hailey in place?”

  “And hating every minute of it,” Rod said and chuckled.

  Eddie was still amazed Ken had paired the ultra-macho Rod with the moody Goth girl. But then again Rod’s specialty wasn’t computers and security.

  The door opened and Lori stepped out, eyes flashing with mischief. “Ready for the transformation?”

  Eddie rolled his eyes. He still didn’t understand why it had taken them half an hour to put on a simple dress and a wig. “This is no time for games, Lori. We have to go.”

  Amy stepped out and air froze in his chest. Draping down from one shoulder, the blue and black striped sheath dress hugged her curves and stopped at her mid-thighs where her black boots came to just above her knees, she was breathtaking. The wheat-colored hair tumbled past her shoulders and framed her face. Parted on the left, the full bangs were swept to one side and partially covered her right eye. She peered at him with seductive, smoky blue eyes framed with thick lashes and electric blue eye shadow. Bright red lipstick enhanced and drew attention to her naturally pouty lips.

  An image of her from last night flashed through his mind. His seductress was back. He couldn’t wait for this to be over, so he could propose to her.

  “Is there a cloak or coat to cover up the dress?” he asked irritably.

  Amy laughed. “And spoil the effect?”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Lori retorted. “You look gorgeous.”

  “She doesn’t need to be dolled up to look gorgeous,” he snapped.

  “Oh, thank you, sweetie.” She walked across the room to kiss Raelynn and Eddie’s gaze followed her.

  “Mommy, you look beautiful. Where are we going?”

  “Swimming,” Lori answered and moved to Raelynn’s side, two hangers with bikinis dangling on her fingers. “Look at what I got for us. New swimsuits. You and I are going to change and head downstairs to the pool for a dip. We’ll also make an appointment for mani-pedis because tomorrow, we’re going to have princess spa treatment.”

  “What are mani-pedis?” Raelynn asked, touching her new swim suit.

  “I’ll show you the pictures.” Lori looked at them and mouthed, “Go.”

  “She’s something else, isn’t she?” Amy said as they waited for the elevator.

  “If you’re talking about my sister, then you might revise that once she turns Raelynn into a carbon copy of herself. Here, take a look at this.” He gave her the stapled printouts when they entered the elevator and it was just the two of them. “You were right. Penelope looks a little like you.”

  Amy frowned as she studied the colored picture. “A little? We could be twins.”

  Penelope Digger, Nolan’s true love, did resemble Amy a lot more than his present girlfriend. “Sly sent it this evening. Most high schools didn’t have online records of year book pictures ten years ago, so it took a lot of digging to find the picture. William Burgess, or should I say Jeremy Blackwell, is also the co-owner of ABC rentals with Caldecott and Aldridge in Sandpoint. Reither must have known of your location nearly two months ago and orchestrated the burglaries before Blackwell’s arrival.”

  Amy just shook her head and flipped over the picture and read the second page.

  “Funny, Nolan tried to convince me to go into nursing when I went back to school to finish college. I was perfectly happy with my English major, but he kept saying nursing is a noble job, like being a cop. Now it all makes sense. Penelope was a nurse.”

  She folded the papers and shoved them in the purse he hadn’t noticed her carry, then removed a compact mirror and checked her makeup, which was perfect. Not
that she needed it. She shot him a look from the corner of her eye, caught him watching her and gave him a small smile.

  “Are you nervous?” she asked.

  “No. You?”

  “A little. Nolan isn’t stupid and I’m afraid he might pull a fast one on us.”

  “Don’t be. We’ll all be there. Hailey is waitressing in the restaurant. You’ll recognize her right away. She has black hair, a nose ring and tattoos, and doesn’t smile much. She’s our ears and eyes on the inside. Rod and I will be outside. We’ll be in communication the entire time, so Nolan won’t do anything without us knowing.”

  The walk from the elevator through the seven-story atrium to the entrance of the hotel gave him a taste of what tonight was going to be like. Guests seated around the atrium turned and stared, the bellhops forgot they were pushing luggage and bumped into tables. Even the front desk managers stopped whatever they were doing, their gaze following her hip-rolling walk across the room. Amy wore a faraway look on her face and appeared completely oblivious to the commotion she was causing.

  He ushered her into a SUV and gunned the engine. The restaurant was only five blocks away. “Let’s go over what you’re supposed to do tonight.”

  “The reservation is under your name and it’s for a couple. Hailey will find me a table in the middle of the room, where the occupants of the restaurant can see me. The idea is to have as many witnesses as possible. I’ll order salad and wait for your call, which will be to the restaurant, so the hostess can page me. The entire restaurant will hear my name and see me get up. The hostess will overhear my side of the conversation and know I’ve been stood up. Instead of going back to my table, I’ll leave the restaurant.”

  Eddie smiled with approval. “Good. When a criminal panics, which we hope Nolan will, they always try to cover their tracks. He will either follow you or leave to get rid of the boxes. Either case, we’ll be waiting.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. I feel like I should do more, force him to react right there inside the restaurant in front of everyone.”