by Lisa Gardner
“Let's back up,” he announced curtly. “What do we know? Someone murdered Meagan Stokes, and it was not Russell Lee Holmes.”
Melanie nodded.
“Your mother and brother didn't do it because they seem to have an alibi and they have been as destroyed by it as anyone.”
“Okay.”
“But your father may have been involved. We know he needed the money. And your godfather probably helped him.”
“To approach Russell Lee.”
“Exactly. So we know Meagan was killed for money, but they botched the ‘copycat' crime, so to speak. Thus they went to a backup plan, approaching Russell Lee to confess and get them off the hook. Now, Russell Lee did confess to the murder, so he must have been promised something.”
Melanie hesitated. “The blood on the fabric. Maybe Russell Lee is alive. Maybe that's what he was promised. He could be the one pulling all the strings, messing with everyone.”
“No,” David said forcefully. “I don't buy it. The man was executed in front of witnesses. Even if the state coroner had been bribed to pronounce him dead when he was really still alive, his hands and feet blew off. You can't fake that.”
“Unless it wasn't him in the death chamber.”
“And who could they have gotten instead? What kind of moron agrees to be fried in someone else's place? It's just too far-fetched. Besides”—David's voice picked up suddenly—“the blood on the fabric is not Russell Lee's. The DNA test said it was your genetic father's. So if you're not Russell Lee Holmes's daughter, then someone else is your father. Who the hell is your father?”
David became very excited. Melanie shook her head. Her head hurt. Dim pictures of a time and place that had been . . . Dizzy. White lights. She closed her eyes futilely and rested her forehead against the car window.
But David was obviously feeling better about things. “You were right, Mel!” he said excitedly. “Dammit, you were the one who was right all along.”
“I—I was?”
“Your family honestly loves you. Your family isn't violent. Your family is exactly who you thought they would be. That's why the pieces never fit. We've been trying to solve a murder that never happened. Shit!”
“What?”
David was no longer talking. He glanced over his shoulder, shot the car in reverse, and while she was still jerking forward, he put the pedal to the floor and squealed them onto the freeway.
“It's going to be okay,” he declared.
“My head hurts.”
“I know. Hang in there for me. I have one last place for you to see. And then, if my theory is correct, you'll know exactly who you are, and we'll finally get to the bottom of all this.”
“I want to get to the bottom of all this.”
“Of course you do, Melanie. Or should I say Meagan.”
THIRTY-FIVE
I CAN NEVER THINK of Texas without feeling like a failure,” Patricia Stokes was murmuring. “As a wife, a mother, a lover. When Harper told me we could move, I swore I would never come back. I never wanted to see Texas again. I blamed the whole state for breaking my heart.”
“I made a similar vow myself,” Ann Margaret said, “but more out of necessity, I'm afraid. I always figured Larry Digger would keep pecking away at things, or, if not him, then someone else. When I was a child, I used to think a mistake was simply a mistake. You make it, you pay for it, you move on. Now I think some mistakes are more like a pebble hitting a pond. They start as a small ripple, then get bigger and bigger, an exploding circle of mistakes, until they become a tidal wave and you simply drown.”
Patricia glanced at her. They'd been traveling since dawn, and up talking for most of the hours before then. There were things that had finally been said and many more things each was still struggling to grasp.
“How could you love a man like that?” Patricia had to ask.
Ann Margaret smiled. “Don't you think that's my line?”
Patricia winced. The more she learned about Harper, the less she had a right to judge others.
“When you're young,” Ann Margaret added gently, “you love who you were raised to love.”
“Our fathers.”
“Exactly.”
“And when we're old enough to know better—”
“It's too late to do anything about it.”
“I can't believe I didn't know,” Patricia sighed. They finally reached their destination, and Ann Margaret pulled into the grand old Georgian that had been Patricia and Harper's first home. The white pillars still stood tall, but the paint was peeling and looked mildewed on the top. This house had been so beautiful to Patricia as a young bride flushed with the heady rush of newly pledged love. It was dated now, one of those tired homes real estate agents labored to sell.
The house had been on the market for a year, she and Ann Margaret had learned that morning. The rooms were empty, the owners already off to Florida and retirement. The grass could use mowing, the flower bed needed weeding.
The house wasn't the way Patricia remembered it; its obvious age reminded her too much of her own.
“Oh, God, Annie, I failed my little girl.”
“We all did.”
“But I was her mother!”
“I know, that's why you adopted her again. Haven't you ever realized why you loved Melanie from the moment you saw her? Because a part of you knew, Patricia. Even though your mind had accepted that Meagan was dead, the mother in you knew.”
“What must she have been thinking these last few days? And then that scene with William. My poor baby, having to shoot a man she'd once cared for. How do you get over such a thing, even when you know you're right? It's too much. She shouldn't have had to go through any of that! We should've taken better care of her!”
“She's tougher than you think, Pat. Maybe she has more of her mother in her than you realize.”
“I don't want her to have to be strong. I want her to be safe. I want her back!” Patricia fisted her hands. She wanted to strike something, lash out again in hurt and rage. She could do nothing but calm herself and remain focused for her daughter's sake.
“So tell me,” she said after a minute, when she'd gotten her hands to relax. “We're here. I know what happened twenty-five years ago. Now what do we do?”
Ann Margaret shrugged. “If she's seeking her past, sooner or later she'll come here. And if Harper and Jamie are looking for her, sooner or later they'll try here as well. So now we wait.”
DAVID WAS FINALLY slowing the car. Melanie opened her eyes. She had fallen asleep almost the minute they reached the interstate, her mind hitting a wall and shutting down. Now, her limbs felt sluggish, her body heavy, as if a great weight were pressed against her. She could feel moisture on her face, sweat dampening her upper lip and brow. Her throat was parched.
She fumbled for a can of Coke on the floor by her feet, then took a long sip. The liquid didn't lighten the thick cloak of impending doom that had settled around her.
David quietly asked, “Does any of this look familiar? Take your time, Melanie. We'll go slow.”
They'd arrived at a crumbling group of houses built into a curving hillside. It might have been well kept once, but it looked neglected now. Tall weeds waved along the cracked asphalt roads. Small groves of trees that might have once been pleasant, shady retreats, were now tangled and overgrown with brambles.
When Melanie rolled down her window, she caught the unmistakable scent of gardenias.
Her mind lurched. She clutched her soda as if for balance.
“I've been here,” she murmured. “I've been here.”
“This is where your family used to live. Patricia, Harper, Brian, and Meagan Stokes.”
A minute later a tall white house emerged into view.
Big white columns. Grand Georgian style. A huge gnarled cherry tree on the front lawn, perfect for climbing. Help me up, Daddy. Help me up. A tall, overgrown hedge, once perfect for hide-and-seek. You're never gonna find me, Brian. I'm smart! A graceful cur
ving drive once marked up for hopscotch. Look at me, Mommy, look at me!
Two women standing next to a red rental sedan in the driveway. Crisp gray hair. Golden, gleaming blond.
Mommy, Mommy, I'm going to grow up someday to look just like you.
Melanie turned toward David slowly. His eyes were concerned. And as she watched, he suddenly seemed to spin far away.
She was falling back in time, a tumbling down into a gaping black abyss . . . until she was in a dusty wooden shack and she was four years old.
“I want to go home,” she heard herself murmur. “Dada Jamie, why can't I go home?”
“It's okay, Melanie. You're here with me, David, and you're safe. You are Meagan Stokes. Your family never hurt you, they never even abandoned you. Your father just faked it for the million dollars. Insurance fraud. Very clever insurance fraud. It's Harper's MO.”
“You don't understand,” she said. “You don't know . . .”
In the distance, a car engine suddenly gunned and roared. Another car, coming up behind them fast. The two women turned and stared. David glanced in the rearview mirror. Melanie watched them all fatalistically. They didn't know. They couldn't understand. She had tried to run once too. She had learned . . .
“Shit,” David said. He stepped on the gas. Melanie looked at him sadly.
“You shouldn't run,” she declared softly. “It's only worse if you run.”
“Hang on, Melanie. Dammit, hang on.”
He roared down the hill toward a grove of trees. Melanie heard shouts. The women were running. Everyone was running, even she was running in her mind. She remembered it clearly now. The fourth day, the desperate bid for freedom. Just wanting to see her family again . . .
Not fast enough though. Never fast enough. Ah, lass, can't you see that when you run away, you only hurt yourself?
Melanie was snapped back by a savage curse. She glanced at David and saw sweat pop out on his face as he frantically cranked the wheel. A sharp turn had suddenly appeared in the road. And they were going so fast. Much too fast. When you run, you hurt only yourself.
David swearing again. Back tires squealing, trying to break loose. David fighting them, yanking at the steering wheel so hard, the muscles in his arms bulged. David praying, maybe, then at the last moment, glancing at her apologetically. David whispering her name.
She thought, I love him. And a heartbeat later, I'm so sorry.
The back tires won. The whole car snapped around. So much screaming. Oh, God, that was her voice, screaming.
You hurt only yourself when you run.
The other car hit them hard. Melanie had a brief impression of Harper's shocked face. Then the front of their car snapped over the top of the other and they sailed through the air.
David's hand found hers. She felt the warm, rough texture of his fingers entangling with her own.
Then the ground rushed up fast. The car landing. A new screech of metal. A scream cut short. Black.
THIRTY-SIX
J AMIE O'DONNELL'S BREATH was coming out hard as he frantically focused the binoculars on the street overlooking the Stokeses' old home. He felt like he'd been running a marathon since six that morning, but more likely he was too old for this, and now that the moment was at hand, it was too real. His hands were shaking, and he had not felt this afraid in a long, long time.
First he followed Brian to the airport because he was worried about the kid. Then, when he figured he must let Brian forge his own way like a real man, he bought a one-way ticket to Houston for himself.
He'd landed at Houston Intercontinental, a place that always brought back too many memories for him and few of them good. It had occurred to him for the first time that none of them ever came to Texas. They avoided the entire state as if it carried the plague.
That was a shame in some ways. For as many of the memories were bitter, a lot were sweet. Patricia. Texas nights. Watching baby Brian grow. The miraculous birth of Meagan. Christ, the first time she'd gripped his index finger, such a tiny, tight fist. His baby. Jamie O'Donnell's girl!
Finding Melanie in Huntsville had been easy. She was smart and resourceful, he was proud to say, but it was a simple matter to trace her to the motel and set up watch. The arrival of the FBI bloke had made him nervous, but they seemed to have a thing between the two of them. Not bad really. He'd run a check on Special Agent David Riggs in the very beginning, as he'd done with all of his daughter's acquaintances. It was a father's prerogative, he liked to think, to want to know his daughter's associates.
The Riggs man had checked out well. Middle-class roots. Good rep with the Bureau, and Jamie had heard this from an inside source who hated to give praise. Shame about the arthritis, but the boy seemed to move well enough and was certainly above average in the brains department, as he'd figured out Harper Stokes quickly enough. That alone made him A-OK in Jamie's book.
The man's presence, however, had made shadowing Melanie a lot trickier. He doubted Melanie would ever think to check her rearview mirror, but Riggs was a trained professional. Jamie had had to follow them the hard way, staying three car-lengths back, occasionally turning off. Once they'd reached the neighborhood where Mrs. Appleebee lived, it had been easier. He merely pulled over at a gas station on the main road and waited.
When their rental car had finally reemerged forty-five minutes later, Jamie had had a clear view of Melanie's face. She'd looked pale, shaken, and anguished.
Mother of God, his heart had lurched in his chest.
It seemed that all the times he tried to protect his daughter, he only brought her pain. And that left him with the horrible, bitter thought that maybe Harper was the better one of them after all. She'd run into his arms naturally enough when he'd adopted her. Called him Dad, went out of her way to make him smile. Seemed happy.
When Jamie had crouched down to see his daughter, his own daughter whom he'd protected at great personal risk for five long years, she recoiled from his embrace.
He still remembered the moment clearly. The way his heart had simply stopped beating in his chest. The taste of dust in his mouth. The way his reaching fingers had curled into a fist.
Harper's smug smile from across the room, enjoying Jamie's pain.
And the sudden realization of just how much he hated the son of a bitch.
From that day forward, Jamie had wanted nothing more than for Melanie to remember. She should know the true nature of self-centered, money-hungry Harper Stokes. She should know the true nature of Jamie and how honestly he had loved her over the years.
But it never happened. Melanie was happy as Melanie. Harper was surprisingly good to her, maybe because he knew it rankled Jamie so much. Or maybe he had cared for Meagan too, more than he would ever admit. Patricia and Brian adored her, falling back into their roles as mother and brother so gratefully, it had made Jamie's chest ache. And Melanie . . . Melanie grew into such a lovely, content young lady, Jamie's rage lost all momentum.
He could want only what was best for her, he discovered. And though his pride demanded action and his shame and hurt feelings rankled, he never made a move to interfere. Loving a child, he learned, was humbling. How the mighty had fallen, and how easily he'd accepted the tumble from grace.
Then, six months ago, Harper foisted William Sheffield onto Melanie. Harper kicking Brian out of the house over such a thing as being gay. And then cold, petty Harper letting Patricia dissolve into drinking again, until Melanie's whole family was once more ripped apart. Pretending to be better than his whole damn family while all the while he was slicing open healthy patients for a buck.
Jamie had had enough. He'd given Harper the world twenty-five years ago. A fresh start with a million bucks, and as soon as the time was right, his own daughter to make Harper's family complete. There was nothing more one man could give another. There was nothing more one man could do to ensure Patricia Stokes's happiness. How dare Harper piss it all away for a buck.
Even in a rage Jamie could be remarkably cold. He'd
plotted his strategy, made his plan, set the wheels in motion.
Harper would finally get his due, and Jamie would finally get his triumph.
Except so much had happened along the way. Harper hiring a hit man to take out Larry Digger and his adopted daughter. Jamie had figured it out the minute he saw the police sketch on TV—that was one of his acquaintances, whom he had introduced to Harper in the past, and Jamie sure as hell hadn't hired him to attack Larry Digger, so that meant Harper must have. Jamie had to hunt the fellow down and plug three bullets into his heart simply for principle's sake. You did not mess with his daughter.
As for Harper's due . . . all in good time.
Except Harper surprised him again. Pushing William so hard the boy cracked. Then trying to finger Melanie in the boy's shooting. As if Russell Lee Holmes's son had deserved any better.
Then today, just forty-five minutes earlier, Jamie caught sight of Harper Stokes here in Houston, obviously trying to track down his daughter.
The players were assembled, but the pieces were moving faster than Jamie had expected. And for the first time since he'd started this a month before, he was genuinely afraid.
Not for himself, but for Melanie.
Now he was parked on the road above the Stokeses' old house with a clear view of the street. He saw Patricia and Ann Margaret arrive. And then he spotted Harper, parked along a side street, waiting.
David and Melanie approaching. Harper pulling out. Harper gunning the gas. And then the cars were racing. Up over one hill, thundering down another.
The squeal of tires. The crash of metal. Jamie watched all his worst fears pass before his eyes and was too far away to do a thing about it. The car spinning, hitting the other, sailing into the air. The sickening crunch as it landed, the hood popping up.
He could hear Patricia and Ann Margaret still shouting from the house, beginning to run. Screaming.
He waited himself, breath held, for a sign of his daughter.
A car door opened. Melanie staggered into view. Blood on her forehead. She seemed dazed and confused. Suddenly she plunged into the woods.