Rosemary Cottage

by Colleen Coble

  He showed it to Amy. “The DNA test came back.”

  “I thought so. You went a little pale.” She swallowed and stared at it. “I’m afraid of what my parents will do, Curtis. They may try to take control of the investigation into her disappearance away from you. Not having those results is the only thing that has kept them corralled. The private investigator they hired has been poking around, but I think he’s pretty useless. Maybe my father just had to do something. Maybe you shouldn’t read it. If they don’t know the truth, they won’t interfere.”

  He offered her a tight smile. “I’m prepared for him to try to take charge. I won’t allow it. Raine is mine.” The flap resisted his finger, then he ripped it open and scanned the page.

  Negative. Not a DNA match.

  This couldn’t be right, and he read it again. Negative. He whistled through his teeth. “Holy cow.”

  “What is it?” She took the letter he held out and read it. The color leached from her cheeks. “It can’t be!” Her eyes were stunned when she looked up at him. “Ben isn’t Raine’s father? Then who is?”

  “He claimed to be her father.” Curtis took off his Harley do-rag and wiped his forehead, then adjusted it back in place. Anything to avoid facing the implications of this result. “They both lied. But why?”

  “If we knew that, we might know why Raine was taken.” She bit her lip. “My parents won’t know how to behave about this news.”

  “At least they’ll drop the custody battle.” He winced. “I’m sorry. This means she’s not your niece.”

  Her eyes widened. “Not my niece.” Her voice trembled. “I—I have to admit this is a blow. I thought she was a small piece of Ben left in the world.”

  He took her elbow and guided her to the house. “Edith isn’t going to believe this. I’m not sure I can.”

  Edith opened the screen door for them. “I won’t believe what?” Her pallor had grown worse with every hour Raine was still missing.

  “The DNA results show that Ben is not Raine’s dad.” He let the door shut behind them and headed to the kitchen to start coffee. The women followed him. “Yet Gina and Ben both claimed he was the father.”

  Amy stepped past him and put coffee in the grinder. “Maybe Ben suspected he wasn’t the father and that’s why he didn’t give her any support.”

  She needed a dose of reality about that brother of hers. “We can talk about it over coffee and cookies.”

  Her chin was tipped up aggressively, and her green eyes sparked fire. “How could Gina lie about something like that? Did she not even know who the father was and picked Ben as a likely sucker? This is despicable!”

  Curtis clamped his lips shut and put water in the coffeepot. She was judging Gina just like everyone else. Gina had changed. Why she’d lied was still in question, but he’d bet everything he owned that Gina knew exactly who Raine’s father was.

  The gray deck looked new with a pergola overhead for shade. Baskets of geraniums hung from the beams. Birds chirped overhead as Amy settled into a chair at the outdoor table. The beauty of the day did little to calm her agitation.

  Raine wasn’t her niece.

  The information kept slapping her in the face. Everything she thought she knew was suddenly in question. Even her decision to settle here. Being close to Raine had been part of the draw.

  The thought of eating a cookie turned Amy’s stomach, but she set the plate of treats on the patio table. Curtis’s eyes seemed to look through her as he sat in a chair beside her and sipped his coffee. He hadn’t condemned his sister’s actions, but he should have. And if he thought what Gina had done was okay, then whatever relationship developing between the two of them wasn’t going anywhere. First drugs and now a blatant lie about her brother. Who was Gina really?

  “You look shell-shocked.” Curtis set his cell phone on the table and glanced at his aunt. “You okay, Ede?”

  Edith’s lips trembled. “I feel like I didn’t know Gina at all. Everything is such a jumble.”

  How could he act so unaffected by this news? Amy stared at his tanned face under the Harley do-rag. “Don’t you feel the same? I’ve been told Raine is my niece, only to discover it was all a lie.” She blinked rapidly at the burn in her eyes. “I feel a sense of loss, okay? How would you feel if you found out she wasn’t related to you at all?”

  He held her gaze. “I’d still love her.”

  The rebuke in his words brought her up short. Did this change how she felt about the tiny girl? No, it didn’t. She’d already given her heart. Every moment that went by with her missing was agony. “And I do love her.” She exhaled and slumped in the chair. “But it’s still hard to swallow. This surely means something, but what?”

  “I think it’s all connected to her kidnapping.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He stared at the hummingbird feeder where two tiny birds fluttered. “Intuition. Two deaths and now Raine gone. And we suddenly find out even Raine is not who we thought.”

  Edith stirred cream into her coffee. “Have you heard from the FBI about their questioning of the senator?”

  Curtis nodded and glanced at Amy. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but they called this morning. Senator Kendrick didn’t know anyone called Bossman, and he says he didn’t know Grant that well. I guess he was recommended by his campaign manager.”

  “Then we need to talk to the campaign manager.”

  “They plan to. The boat hasn’t been found either, even though Heather told us the name and make.”

  Amy watched one of the hummingbirds dive-bomb the other one, trying to drive it away from the feeder. Territorial behavior even in the bird kingdom. Did Raine’s kidnapping have something to do with her father’s rights? Could she be safe and sound with her real father—someone who didn’t want to admit he was related to her?

  She pulled out her phone. “I’d like to talk to the senator myself. He might be a little more forthcoming with me.”

  “You think he’d be honest on the phone?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I think he’s doing a campaign drive in Kill Devil Hills tomorrow. I could show up and talk to him face-to-face.”

  “Want me to take you?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I’d appreciate the company.”

  She studied his expression and the sadness in his eyes. What did he think about his sister now?

  “What are you thinking?” he asked softly. “I see the judgment in your eyes. You blame Gina, don’t you?”

  “Shouldn’t I? She lied to you, to Ben, to Edith, everyone.”

  Curtis’s gray eyes flashed. “My sister cared about everyone. You can’t judge her based on this one incident.”

  “You appear to be deliberately ignoring the evidence. I thought better of you than that. Look at what’s right in front of us, Curtis! The truth is here.”

  “Truth—whose truth? And who are you to judge her?” he countered, his voice raised.

  Her anger spiked at his dismissive tone. “She lied to my brother! I think that’s reason enough for me to question her virtue.”

  His eyes flashed. “I’m not going to sit here and let you trash my sister, Amy.” He snatched his cell phone and coffee, then got up and went inside.

  “Oh dear,” Edith said. “That was rather unpleasant. And you are making judgments, honey. Judgments that aren’t yours to make. None of us knows what is in another person’s heart or the circumstances that rose in a person’s life. I’m not saying what Gina did was right, but God is her judge, not you or me.” She took a sip of her coffee. “And what of your brother’s involvement? I don’t believe he was lily white in this situation.”

  Amy bristled at Edith’s tone. “What do you mean? He was hoodwinked like everyone else.”

  “Was he? I don’t think so. I suspect there is something much deeper going on than we know. And Ben didn’t have a stellar reputation either.”

  Amy jumped to her feet. “I won’t listen to anyone talking bad ab
out my brother. Not even you, Edith.”

  She marched around the edge of the house to her car. Her pulse thumped against her temple. Neither Curtis nor Edith knew her brother all that well. Not like she did. But as she drove toward home, she wondered what reputation Edith was talking about. Ben had been well liked. At least she’d always thought so.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  His chest still burning from his argument with Amy, Curtis stood in Raine’s room. Two walls were pink and two were lavender. Her favorite three stuffed bears sat in the tan rocker in the corner. He stepped to her empty crib and picked up her blanket. If she’d had this, it might have been of some comfort to her. Holding it to his nose, he inhaled the aroma of baby lotion and little girl. Was she warm and fed? Crying for him and Edith?

  His eyes stung, and tears choked his throat. How could he bear it if he never got her back? He stood and prayed for a long time by her crib, then wiped his eyes and closed the door behind him before stepping into Gina’s room.

  Boxes littered the room, and everything in the dresser drawers hung out. The fuzzy pink rug had been kicked up to reveal the wood floors underneath. Edith knelt in the closet on her hands and knees. Her expression was almost wild when she looked back at him.

  He hauled her to her feet when she held out her hand. “What are you doing?”

  Her short hair stuck up on end. She wiped dust on her capris. “Looking for something, anything, that will put an end to this nightmare.” Her face crumpled. “I want my Raine.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  His own tears welling again, he pulled her against his chest. “We’ll find her, Ede, I swear we will.” They’d both been rocked to their cores.

  “She’s never been away from us. I’m so afraid, Curtis.” Her words were muffled against his shirt. “I can’t stand this.”

  He patted her back awkwardly. Edith was one of the strongest people he knew. She’d managed to hold it together, but the waiting was destroying all of them. Their Raine had been gone four days, an eternity.

  She finally pulled away and wiped her eyes. “There has to be something we’re missing. Want to help me look?”

  He nodded. “I came in here for the same reason. I’d like to find out where she got the money for that expensive wedding dress. Or I guess someone could have bought it for her. There’s no record of such a purchase in her regular bank account.”

  “Amy said it was expensive.”

  “Like twenty-five-thousand-dollars expensive.”

  He moved to the bed and stripped off the bedding to reveal the mattress beneath it. He removed the pillowcases and felt inside the down pillows but felt nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Check under the bed,” Edith said.

  She went around to the other side of the bed and stooped. He dropped to his hands and knees and examined every inch under the queen bed. Nothing. Not even dust bunnies. He heaved the mattress onto its end on the floor to expose the box springs. Was that an envelope?

  Edith gasped and swooped in to grab it. The envelope shook in her hand as she struggled to open the flap, so she handed it to him. “I can’t do it.”

  The paste on the flap was gummy, but it wasn’t stuck tightly. It appeared the envelope had been opened and reopened numerous times. He lifted the flap and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “It looks like a bank statement and old receipts.” Perching on the side of the box springs, he began to go through them. “Look at this, Ede. Two large deposits made three months apart, each a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  Edith’s eyes were wide. “Is it possible this is support from Raine’s father?”

  He should have thought of that himself when he discovered Raine wasn’t Ben’s child. “I bet you’re right.” He glanced at the clock, then remembered it was Saturday. “We’ll have to wait until Monday to get any answers on where the deposit came from. According to the statement, they were electronic deposits, but the bank can trace where they came from. And now we have the bank information and account number.”

  “Could Tom find out something sooner?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called the sheriff, but the call went to voice mail. He told Tom what he’d found and ended the call. “I’m sure he’ll check it out. The bank name and account number will tell us a lot.”

  “What about Ben’s address book? The one that was in code.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to work on it. I’ll see what I can figure out on it tonight.”

  “Is there a purchase of the dress?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.

  Line by line, he went through the transactions. “Nope, it’s not here.”

  Edith frowned, then her expression cleared. “Let me go through the receipts.” She spread them out on the bed and began to go through them. “Here it is!” She stared at it, then glanced up at him. “It was bought just before Raine was born.”

  He took the receipt. “Yet they never married. And where would she have gotten that kind of money? It came from a bridal shop in Virginia Beach. I’m going to go talk to them about it. I can be there by midafternoon. You should stay here in case there’s a ransom call.”

  She nodded. “Of course. The FBI has the line tapped too, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think we’re dealing with a ransom. We would have heard by now.”

  “I think so too.” She exited but left the door open behind her.

  He went to his room and carried Ben’s coded book back to Gina’s room. Might as well start with something simple. Once he began to look at it, he recognized the simple code he’d used in school as a boy. The beginning letters had been reversed so a equals z, b equals y, and so on. Simple enough. He found a pen and deciphered the few entries, but an hour later there wasn’t much sense to be made of it all.

  The book was what it seemed—an address book. The few notations were Amy’s address, Ben’s address, and another one on Hope Island he suspected might be a fish house since it was out near the four-by-four beaches. A dead end.

  Curtis looked around the room. Amy’s accusations still rang in his ears. How well did he really know his sister? He would have guessed he knew her very well, from her wilder younger years to the new Gina who had emerged a couple of months before Raine was born. That Gina had been gentle and wise. Full of faith and hope. An inspiration to him and others. But had she deceived him? Was there something much darker under the surface that he’d missed?

  Her pink leather Bible was on the nightstand. Flipping through the well-worn book, he noticed she’d marked many passages. This hadn’t been a table ornament, but a living, breathing comfort to her. How did he reconcile this with the lies?

  Amy stormed into the house and tossed her purse on the sofa. Her parents were in the living room and would have to be told. She found her mother curled up on the sofa reading a magazine, and her father smoked his vile pipe while he looked at his investments on his laptop.

  Neither of them saw her until she cleared her throat. “I need to talk to you.”

  Her mother was dressed in a silky pink top and white capris that screamed expensive. She tossed aside the Cosmopolitan she’d been reading and stared at her. “What’s happened? You look terrible. You should try some of my face cream.”

  “Dad, shut the computer.” She waved smoke out of her face. “And I don’t want you smoking in here. Some of my patients are allergic to smoke. Come outside with me.” When he didn’t move fast enough, she shut the lid for him, then took the computer with her.

  “Hey!” He sprang to his feet.

  Her mother got up and followed her. “What’s this all about, Amy?”

  She walked out the back door to the seating area on the back deck and dropped into a chair. She was unutterably weary. There was no way this was going to go well. “Have a seat. I have something important to tell you.”

  Her mother’s face crumpled. “Is she dead?”

  Amy shook her head. “They haven’t found Raine yet. But Curtis got news to
day. I’m sure your attorney will be calling as well since a copy was mailed to him. The DNA test came back. Ben is not Raine’s father.”

  Her mother’s eyes went as wide as sand dollars, and her mouth sagged. A filmy moisture filled her eyes. “Not Ben’s? Then Raine isn’t our granddaughter?”

  “No. Gina lied about it.” It was all Amy could do to choke out the words. Little Raine wasn’t hers. Every now and then, she’d thought she’d caught glimpses of Ben in the child’s expression or the shape of her eyes. Amy had deluded herself as much as Gina had deluded them.

  Her father took a puff of his pipe, then exhaled a stream of smoke. “But you said Ben claimed to be the father. Why would he do that?”

  “I’m assuming it was because she convinced him of the lie. Maybe she saw him as a good father for Raine. Maybe the real father was married.” Pain throbbed behind her eyes, and she pressed her hand to her forehead. “I don’t know, it’s all such a jumble.”

  “So we don’t have a granddaughter at all. Ben is truly gone.” Mother’s mascara was running now, and little hiccups escaped her.

  At least her mother seemed to have some real sentiment for Raine. “I’m upset too. I thought we had a little piece of Ben left to love. But that doesn’t change the fact that Raine is still missing. I love her and want us to do all we can to get her safely home.”

  “I think that’s up to the FBI now,” her father said. “It’s not our business.”

  “Gina was Ben’s girl, Dad. I think we still have a responsibility to do what we can. Maybe offer a reward.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Amy.” He tamped out his pipe. “Elizabeth was his girl. Not some woman he was too ashamed to introduce to his family.”

  “Ben had funds he left. We could use that to search. And what about that money? Why was it in a secret account? Have you looked at it?”