by B. J Daniels
“I don’t understand.”
“John Atkinson told me that Laura had gotten in a lot of trouble when she was young. She’d run away and married Darrell Beaumont against your grandparents’ wishes. They disowned her.”
He felt Dulcie stiffen, waited a moment, and continued. “Laura had two children right away, one right after the other. When Darrell was killed in a motorcycle accident, Laura contacted your parents for help. She was living here in the old Beaumont place, Darrell’s family was helping out, but Laura was lonely and lost. Are you sure you want to hear this?”
She nodded, but didn’t turn around.
“Your grandparents came to Whitehorse. Laura apparently thought they’d come to take her back to Chicago but when she realized it would be on their terms, she turned them down. They saw the way she was living here and insisted on taking you back with them since you were the youngest, only three at the time. They apparently raised you as their own.”
Dulcie shook her head and stepped out of his arms to go to the end of the porch. “I can’t believe they would do that.”
“This is only Laura’s side of the story through someone else. Angel refused to go with them. She said she had to stay and take care of her mother.” He knew she deserved to be angry, but said, “I’m sure your grandparents didn’t know how to tell you after everything that happened.”
She turned. Her face was still pale, but her eyes were fired with heat. “Yes, how could they explain what they’d done? Taking me, leaving behind my sister to…” She waved an arm through the air. “And then not telling me all those years, letting me walk into this minefield?”
“Parents make mistakes.”
“Don’t even try to defend them.”
He stood listening to the pounding of his heart and realized he could no longer hear Finnegan Amherst sinking the metal pipes. Glancing at the sky, he saw nothing but blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. “Dulcie—”
“It makes sense now, doesn’t it,” she said with a bitter laugh. “Me inheriting the property. I knew there had to be a connection, but I never dreamed…”
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. John told me that Laura wore a locket around her neck with your picture in it. She would never take it off. He said losing you broke her heart.”
Dulcie’s eyes welled with tears. She quickly turned away.
He started to go to her, but stopped himself, giving her the space he knew she needed. “John said Laura feared they would come back for Angel as well. He thinks it was the reason she wanted to remarry, but only someone she could love as much as your father. I’m so sorry you had to find out this way.”
“So they left Angel and then Laura was murdered and Angel…” She turned around. “What happened to Angel?”
“She died, Dulcie. You were the child everyone was trying to protect.”
Dulcie shook her head. “That can’t be right.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to go.”
“Go? Dulcie—”
“I’ll be all right.” She stepped to him to lay her palm against his cheek. “Thank you for telling me. I know how hard it was for you. I knew it was going to be something like this. I thought I must be Angel…” She shook her head and turned to go down the porch steps as if she had somewhere she had to get in a hurry.
Russell wanted to call her back, afraid for her.
She stopped at her car, looked back at him and smiled. “I want to ride a horse before I leave Montana. Promise?”
He nodded as she ducked into her car and stood watching her go, telling himself she needed time alone to digest all of this.
But as he watched her drive off, he knew that nothing would stop her from looking for the killer now.
DULCIE TOLD HERSELF THAT nothing had changed. She was still the same person she’d believed herself to be all these years. But she was lying—just as everyone had lied to her.
She didn’t know who she was, wasn’t sure she could get past this. Her entire life had been built on the facade of a solid foundation that had now crumbled to dust and she felt herself sinking into the mire of lies.
Her mind whirled as she drove. A mother and father she’d never known. Her parents…grandparents, the two people she trusted the most. She could see their faces, the worry in them from the time she could remember. So much older than all her classmates’ parents.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” she cried, slamming her fist against the steering wheel. “Because you were cowards? Because…” The answer came to her as if plucked out of the blue sky overhead.
“Because you didn’t want to tell me about my mother.” She said the words on a ragged breath, her voice breaking as she thought of the murder story and the way Laura Beaumont had been portrayed. An alley cat in heat. A mother who ignored her little girl.
But why hadn’t her grandparents taken both girls? Why had they left Angel?
As she hit the brakes to make the curve in the road, Dulcie realized she was driving too fast. The car fishtailed wildly, the back tires sliding off into the shallow barrow pit. The sound of the dirt and gravel scraping across the underbelly of the rental car drowned out everything except the erratic pounding of her pulse. She was going to wreck another rental car. As if that was her biggest concern.
She got the car under control and slowed, her hands trembling on the wheel, her whole body shaking. The tears finally came in a rush, a wall of water that forced her to pull over and stop. She leaned on the steering wheel and cried for the mother and father and sister she’d never known, for the two people who had raised her, for herself.
When the sobs finally ceased, she wiped her eyes and pulled herself together. She might not know who she was—but she knew what she had to do. She straightened up and got the car going again, telling herself she’d always been strong. Now more than ever she needed that strength for what was coming.
She felt a small shiver of fear prickle her skin as she saw the Old Town Whitehorse cemetery ahead.
AFTER SCHOOL, JOLENE waited until everyone was gone before she walked up to the cemetery on the hill to meet Dulcie. The afternoon sun hung low in the sky after another torturous day of heat.
She stopped to catch her breath and pick some of the wildflowers that grew at the edge of the road. As she took her small bouquet and passed under the wrought-iron arch that read Whitehorse Cemetery to climb the hill, each breath burned her lungs.
The quiet up there was eerie. A stray gust of breeze stirred a bouquet of plastic flowers on a nearby grave. The air that brushed her face was hot as a fevered touch. She drew back instinctively and stood for a moment, trying to catch her breath.
She had to stop letting her imagination run away with her. There were no ghosts in this graveyard. The stories of the lights were nothing more than rural legends.
But the fear she felt was real as she saw Dulcie’s rental car parked at the back of the cemetery. Was she waiting in her car? Or had she already found Angel Beaumont’s grave?
Jolene wished she hadn’t agreed to meet here. Normally she found cemeteries interesting. She liked the headstones, the history, the feeling of peace.
But today she felt jumpy.
Dulcie looked up as she approached. Something in her face made Jolene’s heart lodge in her throat. Dulcie had discovered something. What?
All her fears came in a rush, filling her with terror. Perspiration beaded on her upper lip. She wiped at it and forced herself to walk over to where Dulcie waited.
She sucked in an arid breath, tears suddenly burning her eyes as Dulcie stepped to her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jolene demanded, her voice a hoarse whisper. “What’s happened?”
Dulcie shook her head and Jolene saw her hurriedly brush at her own tears. “I need to ask you something. How did you get the teaching position here?”
Suddenly she felt dizzy, a little confused. She shook her head as if to clear it. “Someone called down to the university looking for a teacher. Why?”
“No, I—”
“Are you adopted?”
Jolene took a step back, her heart a thunder in her chest. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You were adopted?”
“My mother was a teenager. She couldn’t keep me.” The words tumbled out. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because I’ve been trying to understand why someone is sending you the murder story,” Dulcie said.
“I know it doesn’t make any sense.”
“It didn’t—until I realized that the person writing it has just been waiting for me to inherit Laura Beaumont’s property and return to Montana and find Angel Beaumont.”
Jolene stared at her, eyes widening. “You’re Angel Beaumont?”
“No,” Dulcie said, shaking her head as she reached to take Jolene’s hand. “You are.”
The words barely registered as Dulcie led her to the tiny headstone next to Laura Beaumont’s. An angel had been carved into the granite with the child’s name cut in the wings: Angel Beaumont.
But it was the smaller letters carved in the bottom that squeezed Jolene’s heart like a fist: June 5, 1980–May 11, 1985.
June 5, 1980. Jolene’s birthday.
Chapter Eleven
Jolene felt numb. This was so surreal. She shook her head. “No, you’re wrong.” She felt faint, the heat so intense, she thought she might have to sit down.
Dulcie pulled her over into the shade of a large tree. “I’m sorry you had to learn it this way. I’m sorry we both did. But Laura Beaumont had two daughters,” she said, taking both her hands in hers. “Do you hear me? Two daughters. Dulcie Ann born in 1981 and Angel Lee born in 1980. We’re sisters.”
Jolene stared at the stranger standing in front of her. She heard the words but they didn’t register. She and Dulcie were sisters? “That’s not possible.”
“I know this is hard to believe. I’m having the same trouble, but it’s true.” Dulcie went on to talk about a locket and grandparents and secrets. Jolene listened but felt no connection to the people Dulcie was telling her about.
“Jolene, you are Angel,” Dulcie said when she’d finished.
She was Angel Beaumont? The daughter of Laura Beaumont? The little girl who’d witnessed her mother’s murder? The little girl someone had saved?
She shook her head and pulled her hands free. “There’s been a mistake.”
Dulcie studied her for a moment. “There’s one way to prove it. We can have Russell’s brother at the sheriff’s department run DNA tests. Then will you believe me?”
The sooner they cleared this up the better, Jolene thought, just wanting to leave the cemetery and go home. Since she was a little girl she’d always lost herself in books and that was what she wanted to do right now—curl up with a book, forget about all of this.
“Don’t you see, this is why you’re getting the murder story,” Dulcie said. “Someone knows who you really are.”
Jolene felt herself surface as if she’d been swimming up from the bottom of a deep, dark pool. “The killer’s wrong.” She felt her first pulse of panic. “If the killer thinks I’m Angel…”
Dulcie’s expression softened. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She smiled. “I always wanted a sister. I used to have an imaginary friend, at least that’s what my parents told me it was. Her name was Angel. Don’t you see? I remembered you.”
Jolene brushed at the sudden tears that flooded her eyes. “It isn’t that I don’t believe you…”
“It’s okay,” Dulcie said, putting an arm around her for a moment. “Are you going to be all right?”
Jolene nodded, although she wasn’t sure of that at all. “If what you’re saying is true, why can’t I remember? Why was none of this familiar like it was for you?”
“I suppose you repressed it because you couldn’t handle what you saw. You were so young.” Tears filled Dulcie’s eyes again. “I’m so sorry.”
Was that what she’d done? Buried the memory? “You think that’s why I came back here? Why I took this job?”
“Maybe.”
She studied Dulcie. Her sister? “What if the killer got me back here?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“Jump to conclusions?” Jolene cried. “One minute you’re telling me you’re Angel. The next you’re telling me I am.” She shook her head and stepped back. Her life had always been dull. Older parents. No siblings. Her only friends on the isolated farm where she lived were the animals and the characters in the stacks of books she read. Was it any surprise she wanted to believe this was fiction?
“It’s going to be all right,” Dulcie said, trying to comfort her.
But Jolene knew better.
DULCIE WASN’T SURE HOW she’d expected Jolene to react to the news. She’d hoped she would be as happy as she was about having a sister. She’d handled it poorly. But she’d suspected the truth the moment she’d heard Laura had two daughters.
The gravestone with Jolene’s birth date on it only proved it. Angel Beaumont was alive, back in Whitehorse and someone was sending her the murder story.
That’s why Dulcie had to find the killer fast.
Back at Jolene’s tiny house, she watched her sister in the kitchen pouring them each a glass of tea. She understood why Jolene didn’t want to believe this.
Still, she seemed too calm and Dulcie worried that Jolene didn’t understand how much danger she was in. Or didn’t want to face it, the same way she didn’t want to believe she was Angel.
They’d said little after they’d left the cemetery and driven into town to the sheriff’s office. Shane had taken DNA from each of them and promised to put a rush on the results, then they’d come back to Jolene’s house.
Dulcie knew that Jolene had to have buried the memories of her first five years here in Whitehorse along with the murder of their mother. “Maybe you should talk to someone. A health care professional who’s dealt with this sort of thing before.”
“A psychiatrist?” Jolene shook her head. “Let’s just wait for the DNA test results, okay? Because you’re wrong.”
Unfortunately, the results might not come soon enough, Dulcie thought. Who else knew Angel Beaumont was alive? Deputy Sheriff Shane Corbett, Russell Corbett, the person who’d saved Angel that night on the road, whoever had faked Angel’s death, whoever had whisked her away to be adopted illegally to hide her from the killer, and the killer?
A lot of people knew Angel Beaumont was alive. But how many knew Jolene Stevens was Angel?
“You can’t stay here,” Dulcie said. “It’s too dangerous.” She couldn’t bear the thought of finding a sister she never knew she had only to lose her.
Jolene handed her a glass of tea and plopped down on the couch in front of the fan. The hot air lifted the russet hair that had escaped her ponytail. Dulcie saw with clarity that her older sister’s hair was a shade darker than her own.
“I have to stay here. If I leave, the killer won’t give me the ending of the story.”
“You already know the ending,” Dulcie cried.
“No, I don’t. There is so much I don’t know. If I’m who you say I am, then I don’t know why our mother was killed. I don’t know who saved me. I don’t know who it is I have to fear.”
Dulcie couldn’t believe this. “You think the killer is going to confess all to you?”
“I do. Why else give me the other parts of the story? He—or she—wants me to understand.”
Dulcie was shaking her head. “It’s too dangerous. The killer can’t let you live once you know, don’t you see that?”
“I’ve made up my mind. The killer won’t act until he’s finished the story. He wouldn’t kill me before then.”
“There is just one flaw in your logic. What if the killer isn’t writing the story?”
“He is. No one else knows what happened that day but the killer.”
And Jolene, Dulcie thoug
ht with a shudder. But she could see her sister wasn’t going to change her mind. At least Jolene wasn’t completely denying that she was Angel and she seemed to have pulled herself together. “I swear you’re as stubborn as—”
“You?”
She stared at Jolene for a moment then began to laugh. “We are sisters. You’ll see. That’s why you can’t expect me to sit back and wait all weekend.”
“I didn’t expect you would, knowing you just the short time I have.”
“We have to find the killer before you get the last of the murder story,” Dulcie said, with renewed determination. She pulled a pad and pen from her purse and began making a list of what they did know.
“Midge Atkinson befriended Laura, then her husband had an affair with Laura. Both definitely suspects. Midge should also know who the friend was who Angel played with at the creek. Also there is the rainmaker and a man named Ben Carpenter who knew Laura.” She looked up. Jolene had an odd expression on her face. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“It’s not much, but at least it’s a place to start, right?”
“I still think the answer is in the murder story.”
“We’ve both read it a dozen times—”
“I’m going to read it again. There has to be something in it that points to the killer.”
Dulcie studied her sister. “If you’re that sure the person writing the story is the killer, then maybe we should turn the story over to the sheriff.”
Jolene was shaking her head. “The story isn’t over. The killer will finish it if we just wait.”
But finish it how?
“Monday I’ll get the end of the story. In the meantime…” Jolene glanced toward the table. “I need to return that basket to Midge Atkinson. Maybe we could do it tomorrow? I’m really tired today and I want to reread the murder story. I’ll be fine here alone. I need to be alone, okay?”
Dulcie knew she had little choice. Jolene was determined that the killer wanted her to read the ending and that she would be safe until then.
She just hoped Jolene was right and they had until Monday morning to find the killer.