by Mary Burton
The door to Oscar and her outrage closed. She teetered between anger and relief. “Jeb said he was parked in front of the house. Watching Annie. No one ever saw him at the front door or walk around the side of the house. All reports had him in his car. With thirty years of tree and shrub growth there is no way he could have made it to the door without being seen.”
“Assuming the neighbors were still watching.” In this confined space he looked taller. He absorbed the energy around him.
“No one heard her scream. No one saw him take her from the house.”
“The tire iron was found in the trunk of his car.”
“That means squat until I have the DNA test results. Any word on those, by the way?”
“By tomorrow, I’m told.”
“Really?” Better to argue with Deke than to dwell on what could have happened here.
“I don’t run the lab.”
“Really.”
“You overestimate my influence.”
The false modesty did not sway her. “Did your father ever consider other suspects?”
“You know he did. He interviewed dozens.”
“And then the paid informant gave him the break he needed.”
“My father was an honest man. He wouldn’t frame a guy to close a case.”
“How do you know that?”
Large hands fisted at his sides. “I knew my father.”
“Do we ever really know our parents?” Her own came to mind. As an adult, she could see now her parents’ marriage had been riddled with problems. “The face they show us is not necessarily their true-self. They want us to see the best in them, not the worst.”
His jaw tensed. “Much like your client.”
The zing hit the mark. “Yes.”
He shoved hands in his pockets and paced. “I gave my brother the Dawson case files to review.”
“Another Morgan in the mix. Outnumbering the competition?”
He muttered an oath. “I was about to suggest that we work together.”
That surprised her. “Why?”
“Do you always look for a dark motive?”
“Yes. Always.”
Amusement relaxed his stance a fraction. “We both want this case resolved. I want to prove Buddy did his job. You want Jeb cleared. One of us is right and the other is wrong. But we are on the same path.”
“Why would you want my help?”
“The sooner this is resolved, the sooner it can be closed.” A smile quirked his lips. “Many hands make light work.”
“Maybe.” She folded her arms over her chest. “What about the letters?”
“Brad thinks the first fifteen are real. He’s not sure about the last five.”
Her hackles rose. “What’s that mean? If you think I did the forgeries . . .”
“No, I don’t think you tampered with the letters. Brad dated the letters back thirty years. They were all written about the same time but perhaps they were not all written by Annie.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Certainly not Jeb.”
“No. He’d not have had the talent to pull off that kind of forgery. The man wrote at a third-grade level.”
“Then who?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
“If it wasn’t Jeb, someone got away with murder.”
The shadows behind his eyes darkened. “I know.”
“It would explain why I was attacked,” she said. “Someone has a secret to keep.” She tapped her finger on her phone. “You believe whoever killed Lexis killed those other women and maybe Annie?”
His nod was sure and slow. “I think the cases are connected.”
“So the man who killed Annie is killing again.”
“Maybe.”
She shoved out a breath. “Could there be others before Dixie and after Annie?”
“We’re looking into it but so far haven’t found any.”
Rachel rubbed her neck with her hand. “I’ll help.”
Outside, an ambulance pulled up behind the remaining marked car and Deke’s vehicle. Deke nodded toward the door. “As soon as the paramedics check you out.”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t speak but his manner suggested that No was not on the option list.
Cut your losses. “Fine.”
As each moment passed, Baby’s hatred for Rachel Wainwright grew. The woman meddled. Didn’t know how to leave sleeping dogs alone. Baby watched Rachel get out of her car, punch the security code on her office and vanish inside. Gripping the tire iron, Baby imagined what it would feel like to beat Rachel to death. How sweet it would sound when her bones cracked and crunched under the blows of the tire iron. If Baby had another chance at Rachel, there’d be no missing. Rachel might be quick and gotten away the first time but Baby had learned and would be faster the next time.
The next time.
Baby had been told to leave Rachel alone, but Baby wasn’t as good a listener as before. The stakes rose each day Rachel kept stirring the pot. Kept digging deeper. And now she’d peeked the interest of that cop. Before Morgan had thought she was a kook. But not now. Now, he’d saved her from Baby’s perfect trap.
Not good. Not good at all.
March 1
Sugar.
I hear you’ve been asking after me. You are curious. Worried. Don’t be curious, worried and don’t come near the baby or me. We are done.
A.
Chapter Sixteen
Thursday, October 20, 7 AM
The first steps of Rachel’s run had started stiff and awkward. Each initial foot strike on the pavement jarred her bruised shoulder enough to make her grit her teeth. But she kept running, hoping for the best. To her relief, after a half mile her body warmed a little and she fell into a rhythm.
As she jogged the path at the park, her breathing soon calmed. In the morning light surrounded with a park full of runners she hoped she’d be safe, but still she kept her gaze swiveling from side to side half expecting to duck an attacker’s blow. She glanced behind her and checked her watch.
She would have loved to say this was a moment of rest and relaxation for her. But she had an important mission. Bill Dawson, Annie’s husband and the man who’d refused all her calls, jogged every morning at seven through the park. She figured if he wouldn’t see her, she’d find him. She sucked in a breath and slowed her pace, hoping he’d shown while her shoulder cooperated.
When she heard the steady clip of footsteps, she glanced back to see a tall, lean, olive-skinned man with hair more gray than black. He was fit, held his head up as he moved and looked as if he’d barely broken a sweat. Earbuds peaked out from his cap. He was attractive and she imagined thirty years ago he would have been stunning. A perfect match to Annie’s beauty.
As he passed, she quickened her pace and called out to him. “Mr. Dawson.”
He kept running.
“Damn,” she muttered, hustling faster until her fingertips brushed his sleeve. “Mr. Dawson!”
At her touch, he slowed and flashed her a look of pure annoyance.
She puffed a stray hair, which had drifted over her eyes. “Mr. Dawson, can I have a word?”
He jerked the earbuds out. “Who are you?”
“My name is Rachel Wainwright. I wanted to ask you some questions about Annie Dawson.”
His breath hitched seconds before his frown deepened with a menace that could make most flinch. “I don’t talk about her, especially to the press.”
“I’m not press, Mr. Dawson.” Her breathless tone forced her to pause. She’d underestimated the toll of her injury. “I’m an attorney and I’m representing Jeb Jones.”
Annoyance didn’t turn to anger as expected but curiosity. “Why the hell would you represent that monster?”
She didn’t rise to the bait that many had dangled in front of her the last couple of weeks. “I’m not sure that he killed your wife.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The loud bark
ing tone matched his reputation as confrontational and hard. “The cops sent him away thirty years ago.”
In a calm, I’ve-got-to-win-this-jury-over tone, she said, “I think they made a mistake.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have time for this.”
As he turned she said, “The cops cleared you immediately after Annie went missing because you were out of town at a trade show.”
Deeply etched crow’s feet deepened. “Look, if you are trying to pin this on me . . .”
“I’m not. I’m trying to find out what happened to Annie. Your alibi was solid.”
He released a breath as if he’d been holding it for thirty years. “That piece of crap client you are representing was obsessed with her and then while I was gone he came into my home and beat her to death. He beat my wife to death and took her body and dumped it in the woods.”
“While your daughter Sara slept in her crib.”
Your daughter triggered the tiniest of flinches. “Get to the point, Wainwright, or I’m calling the cops.”
She pressed the point she’d been mulling for days. “Were you the biological father of Annie’s baby?”
“What the hell?”
“I was given letters written by Annie from an unknown source. The letters were written to a lover. The way Annie talked I assumed this affair was a secret and yet you two dated openly, meeting in church from what I understand. And then the day after her body was found you signed papers relinquishing parental rights.”
“None of that is your business.”
The raw anger on his face divulged more than words. The nerve she’d struck might be thirty years old but it remained sensitive. “Please,” she prompted. “We need to find this man. I think he could have been involved in her murder.” His angry silence sliced the air between them. “Did she have a lover?”
“What if she did?” The loud question blasted like a double-barreled shotgun. “What the hell difference does it make now?”
“It could make a lot of difference to my client. This secret lover of hers could have been the one that killed her.”
He shook his head, aggravated. “You are chasing a pipe dream. Jeb killed her.”
The door that had cracked might burst open if she pushed a little harder. “Did she identify him?”
He glanced down the path as if common sense told him to leave now, but he lingered, no doubt weighed by an old secret pain. “This is none of your business.”
“If that guy was linked to Annie’s death then it sure is my business. Did you ever get a name?”
Under the anger simmered temptation. He wanted to talk. Wanted to vent.
“You carried the secret all these years. Was it to protect the baby?”
He clenched his fingers. “She didn’t deserve the mess she was born into.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“I couldn’t love her. Not like she deserved. I gave her away to parents who wanted her.”
“That was kind.”
“Or selfish. Depends.” He studied her. “The media has been all over me for another interview. You are the reason the past got stirred up. I missed your news broadcast.”
“My television debut was a hit.” When curiosity darkened his gaze she said, “I’ll give you the shorthand version. Annie’s sister decked me on live television.”
“Margaret.” The word came out like a growl.
“She’s not too thrilled with you either. She demanded contact with her niece.”
His eyes narrowed. “Annie looked out for her sister but she did not want her to have the baby.” His jaw tensed and released. “The last month before the baby was born Annie worried a lot about dying. She begged me never to give the baby to Margaret or her mother. I thought it was hormones, but I promised Annie that they would never raise the baby.”
“You loved Annie.”
Pain deepened the lines on his face. “Go away.”
“Who was Annie’s lover?”
“Christ, you are a bitch.”
Rachel shrugged. “Tell me what I don’t know.”
He flexed his fingers. “I don’t know who the hell he was! She was pregnant with his child when we married. I didn’t know that at the time. I thought I was one lucky bastard who’d landed a hell of a catch.”
“She told you?”
“Hell, no. When the baby was born, two months early by my count, healthy and whole, I knew it wasn’t mine.” White teeth flashed and contrasted with his tanned olive skin. “And do you really think I could make a pink baby with blond hair?”
Rachel had barely pulled a C in biology but she understood that his dark traits would likely have overshadowed Annie’s fairer ones.
“Annie tried to convince me otherwise but I knew. I’m not that stupid. That’s why I wasn’t in town when she was killed. I’d left to think and figure out what to do next.”
She doubled back to the critical question hoping for an answer this time. “She never told you who he was?”
“I demanded she tell me but she refused. Said it would do no good to ruin another life.” He shook his head, his disgust clear. “Okay for her to lie to me and mess with my life but she didn’t want to hurt her boyfriend. If I found out who he was today, I think I’d shoot the bastard. He did a royal job of fucking up my life.”
One week Dawson had been a man in love with a baby on the way and the next he’d lost both. “I see why you were mad.”
“Yeah, I was pissed. Real pissed. But not so pissed that I forgot Annie’s warning about Margaret.” He shoved out a breath. “That’s all you are getting from me.”
She followed. “Who adopted the baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?”
“The cops took her away and I never saw her again. I signed the papers but didn’t read them. End of story.”
“Just like that.”
“I had enough trouble on my hands in those days with the media hounding me.” He cursed. “What a nightmare. Annie was pretty but she was a lying bitch.” He grabbed his earbud. “If I see you again, I’m calling the cops.”
She watched him jog away, no desire to follow. The letters had not been to Bill. Who had been Annie’s lover? And what had the cops done with the baby?
Pastor Gary had arranged the marriage. Perhaps he remembered Annie.
Rachel showered and dressed in dark dress pants and a dark V-necked sweater. She chose simple jewelry and enough makeup to cover her bruise. She arrived at the large white church minutes after three. The parking lot was full, but she’d heard the church ran an aggressive outreach program. She pushed through large double doors and followed signs marked PASTOR’S OFFICE. In the distance she could hear a choir practicing. According to the church’s website they were known for their music. She’d watched video clips on the church’s site. The Saturday night and Sunday morning services rivaled many Broadway productions. Pastor Gary knew how to draw people in to fill his one thousand seat auditorium.
She made her way to the office and found the reception area empty. She glanced around, looking for a receptionist, and when she found none she peeked down the hallway to a door marked PASTOR’S OFFICE. After one last look and seeing no one she made her way toward the door that was slightly ajar. She glanced through the opening and found a richly carpeted office furnished with deep mahogany furniture. A man’s baritone voice echoed out. She looked in and saw a tall, gray-haired man staring out a large window, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
Rachel knocked once. The man turned, he muttered into the phone before closing it. “I’m looking for Pastor Gary.”
He smiled, as if that were his go-to response for everyone. “I’m Pastor Gary. How did you get in here?”
“Just walked in.”
“No one was at the receptionist desk?”
“No.”
He shook his head. “I’ve had a series of temps since my secretary had to take medical leave.”
“Kate. I met her.” She tig
htened her grip on her purse strap. “My name is Rachel Wainwright. I’m . . .”
“I know who you are.” His lips curled easily into a soft smile that made her feel at ease. “You made quite a showing on the TV.”
She adjusted her purse strap, which weighed heavily on her bruised shoulder that still ached from her run. “One of my more memorable moments.”
“You are representing Jeb Jones.”
Relieved by his lack of censor, she inched into the office. “I am.”
“He was a poor lost soul. What he did was horrible but he was a sick man and I know God has forgiven him.”
“How well did you know Annie?”
His gaze turned wistful and sad. “Cops asked the same question.”
“Deke Morgan visited you?”
“That’s right.” He adjusted his cuff. “Like I told him, she sang in the church choir. She had the voice of an angel and we always loved having her sing. Good music has a way of freeing the soul.” His soft even tones resonated like a lullaby.
“You introduced her to her husband, Bill Dawson.”
“They met at my church. He was a good kind soul as was Annie. A natural fit. I married them.”
“And her baby was born seven months later.”
He frowned as if she’d struck a sour note. “It is not my place to judge, Ms. Wainwright.”
“Bill Dawson was not the baby’s father.”
He raised a brow. “Who told you that?”
“He did.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
He glanced toward a cross on the wall and then back at her. “I think he has allowed time to rewrite his story.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. Guilt. He all but threw that baby away after Annie went missing. As soon as her body was found he signed the adoption papers.”
“He said he figured out the baby wasn’t his after she was born. He confronted Annie and she confessed. He was furious. Felt as if he’d been played for a fool.”
His head tilted as if she’d struck a sour note. “Did she tell him this mystery man’s name?”