A Heartwarming Thanksgiving

by Amy Vastine

  “Agatha felt much better this morning. I asked her a few questions.”

  He didn’t open the door wider or invite her in. But he did probe further. “Yes.”

  “Did you know that the nurse who took care of your grandfather at the end was also the full-time nurse when you were abducted?

  Now she had his attention.

  * * *

  Nathan opened the door and waved her in, still wondering how he’d acquired a female Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. Though he was a lot luckier than Sherlock. Shainey was everything a man could want in a woman: giving, funny, smart, funny…kissable.

  Too bad he didn’t want any of those things.

  “So,” Shainey said, clueless about the war going on in his head. She followed him into the living room and sat on a couch that billowed dust. “Why did you let your grandfather’s house get so rundown?”

  “You’re nosy,” Nathan pointed out. “It’s really none of your business.”

  “True,” she admitted. “But, when you came over the other night, you pretty much invited Aunt Agatha and me into your life.”

  He gave a non-committal shrug. “It’s not good to involve civilians in an investigation.”

  “You’re no longer a cop.”

  He flinched. After two years, he should have been past the feelings of regret at his forced vocational change. He wasn’t.

  “No,” Nate admitted, “I’m no longer a cop, and I’m currently living in my grandfather’s house and trying to figure out not only what happened to me just after my birth but how I came to be with a family that really wasn’t mine.”

  “Do you think your parents both knew you’d been stolen?”

  “You’re nosy,” Nathan said again, but this time his heart wasn’t in it. It felt good to have someone to bounce ideas off of. He didn’t want to call any of the cops he’d worked with, although he was sure they’d help. He sure couldn’t ask Rafe for help.

  His blood brother was both amazed and apprehensive about Nathan’s return. Mostly because Nathan didn’t know how to approach his birth mother, a virtual stranger. The awkwardness when they were all together was still tangible. Nathan couldn’t call her mother. She’d not been there to wipe his nose, put band-aids on his skinned knees, applaud at his graduation. Evelyn Williamson had done all those things.

  Yet Lucille Salazar deserved so much more.

  So he was glad Shainey was here. If she wanted to help, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. He sat beside Shainey, reached for a photo album on the coffee table and opened it.

  “This is Evelyn Williamson. The mother who raised me.” He turned the album so it faced her. A black and white photo showed a slim woman with coiled hair. She wore a short-sleeved A-line dress that was puffed out by a pregnancy bulge. Behind her was a large log cabin with carved bears on either side of the porch. “There’s a dozen more, even one or two from a baby shower. Evelyn is pregnant in all of them. And I’ve a birth certificate.”

  “Agatha said she remembered how excited Evelyn was when she found out she was pregnant,” Shainey breathed.

  Nathan pointed to a photo of a smiling Evelyn lying in what appeared to be a hospital bed and holding a baby.

  “You?” Shainey queried.

  “So I’ve been told.” He took another photo from the coffee table. “These are the only two pictures my birth mother, Lucille, had of me. Both were taken the morning I went missing.”

  Shainey looked from the two loose photos to the ones in the album. “I’m not an expert, but the baby has black hair in both. They seem to be about the same size.”

  “My brother had an expert compare them. He said there’s an eighty-three percent probability that it’s the same baby in both.

  “So you not only need to find out how you came to be with Evelyn…”

  Nathan nodded.

  “But also what happened to Evelyn’s baby?”

  “Yes, if there was one.” He leaned forward, and she was captivated not only by the pain in his eyes, but also by the strength. “Maybe Evelyn’s baby died. Maybe I was stolen to take his place. Maybe Evelyn was never really pregnant, and she pretended all along and there was a crazy scheme to abduct a baby when the time was right.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow, indeed,” Nathan said. “I can totally imagine the father that raised me doing something like that. He’d have done anything to keep my mother from being in pain, but I’m having trouble imagining that she would participate in such a scheme.”

  “Where were you—I mean, where did Evelyn give birth?”

  “A little town called Broken Bones. In the seventies, it wasn’t even on the map. Gesippi is big city compared to it. There was a doctor. He lived there, made house calls, I was delivered—” He stopped, regrouped, continued. “According to what I was told, I was a home birth.”

  “Like Deidra?”

  Nate nodded. “Somewhat. After I left you last night, I sat here and read everything I could find about the Garcia case. There’s not much.”

  “And the doctor who delivered you is dead, too?”

  Nathan nodded, “He died in prison. But that’s another story. It does, though, make you consider that he could have been bought.”

  “Have you been to Broken Bones?” Shainey asked.

  “A few years ago, as a cop, following leads, yes. Since I got out of prison…no.” He gauged her response. She probably knew his background, thanks to the Internet, but he wanted his past out in the open. Somehow what this woman thought of him was important.

  She didn’t so much as blink before saying, “What else is on your list?”

  “Thanks to you, the first thing on it now is visiting Patsy Kidd.”

  “I’d like to come along. I want to help you,” Shainey said.

  Something shifted in Nathan’s heart. Every sensible bone in his body told him to say no. If he did, he’d go on alone, but his steps would be heavier.

  If he said yes, the tiny piece of hope that flamed when he’d spoken to Agatha, when he’d heard the name Patsy Kidd and found out there’d been another child taken… Well, when two fanned that flame, it was a lot easier to keep burning.

  As if knowing exactly what he needed, she reached out and touched his hand again. The one with the stitches. Immediately, it felt better. So did he.

  “We’ll go on Saturday,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Broken Bones, Arizona, was so small that it didn’t even have a real main street, it was more of a main corner. Shainey looked at the tract of rundown houses and wondered what it would be like to live here. It was such a barren, lonely place.

  “Nothing here to sustain the town,” Nathan said, after she commented about the condition of Broken Bones. “At the turn of the century, a tiny bit of gold was discovered. Just enough to get people here, not enough to get them home again. You go down some of these dirt roads and you’ll find people living in shacks, much the way people lived a hundred years ago. Down about ten miles, there’s still a community of panners. To the west, there’s a cluster of luxury homes.”

  “Really?” Shainey sounded amazed.

  “Some people like to be off the beaten path.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Easy, I often tracked criminals here.”

  There was a convenience store with a post office and a second-hand store next to it. That was about it.

  “I couldn’t live here,” Shainey said.

  Agatha agreed with her niece. “Me, either. No library.”

  Nathan was still amazed that Agatha had insisted on tagging along. “Patsy knows me,” she’d argued. “She’ll open up to me. We have a history. I want to hear everything that woman has to say,” Agatha insisted.

  Nathan had a gut feeling that Patsy Kidd held the key to all the answers he’d been searching for. The only thing keeping Nathan from breaking the law and setting a speed record getting from Gesippi to Broken Bones was Agatha. She sat between him and Shainey in the car, looking so v
ery small.

  With every mile that passed, Nathan was more and more convinced that it wasn’t just coincidence that Patsy had retired to the same small town where he had “supposedly” been born.

  “Things happen for a reason,” Agatha said as they idled at the town’s only stop sign.

  The statement was out of the blue, but Nathan had to agree. Shainey seemed to as well.

  He was amazed by her. He was more than surprised that Shainey seemed to accept him as he was. Over the last two evenings, they’d gone through his grandfather’s house, searching for clues that apparently didn’t exist. They’d shared histories, dreams, losses. He’d told her about why he’d failed to turn over evidence that might incriminate his ex-wife. She’d told him about Jared, and Nathan couldn’t believe the stupidity of her ex-fiancé. He’d apparently married his receptionist and had two children. But then he’d cheated on her and was now taking a break after all the hours of parenthood and workNathan couldn’t understand wanting to take a break from being a father or a husband. “I’ll always appreciate what I have,” he said, as the dirt road they were driving on suddenly widened into a rural community of luxury homes.

  He meant it, too. He needed to appreciate Lucille Salazar for who she was, what she’d lost, and how she was willing to accept him—just as Shainey did—for who he was now.

  Looking over at Shainey, he thought again how grateful he was to have her by his side.

  Shainey had taken him to the Gesippi senior center yesterday and they’d spoken to a few people close to Agatha’s age. One had confided that she’d had a baby in the fifties and that the baby had died…

  Or so she’d been told.

  Two others had mentioned remembering girls who’d given babies up for adoption.

  Nate checked Patsy’s address as they hit a curving road that boasted a few large cabins.

  “It’s like a whole new town,” Shainey said.

  Agatha stared out the window and commented, “I can’t believe Patsy’s living in a place this grand. She always thought she was special, though.”

  “Perfect place to hide if you have money,” Nathan said. “It’s off the beaten path, and no one comes out here. Most don’t even realize this place exists.”

  “Lots of beautiful homes,” Shainey said. “Look at that one. It has carved bears at the sides of the porch.”

  They drove past it to a multi-level log home that boasted Patsy Kidd’s address. A wall of windows ended at a wrap-around deck.

  A few minutes later, they’d parked, and he and Shainey climbed the front stairs to knock at the front door. An elderly woman opened it, took one look at them and slammed the door in their faces. “I’m calling the cops,” she yelled through the door.

  “She’ll only get my brother,” Nathan remarked to Shainey and Agatha.

  “I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Shainey said.

  “That was Patsy,” Agatha called from the truck. “I’d recognize her chin anywhere.”

  “Well?” Shainey asked, “What do we do?”

  “Let’s sit in the car in the air conditioning and wait for Rafe. We have quite a bit to tell him.”

  It wasn’t a cop who showed up a half hour later, though. It was an Hispanic woman, pleasantly plump, with long, thick black hair and three children crawling all over themselves to exit the backseat of her vehicle before hurrying toward the house. The woman stared at them, concerned, and then took her cell phone out.

  Nathan rolled down his window and said, “We came to talk to Patsy Kidd. She wasn’t willing to see us and threatened to call the police. We’re waiting here, hoping when the police show up, they convince her to have a word with us.”

  “Why do you want to talk to my mother?” The woman didn’t come any closer, and she still held her phone like a weapon. Up on the wrap-around porch, the children were shouting, “Gramma, let us in.”

  “I’m Nathan Williamson. I’m investigating a missing child case from over forty years ago. Mrs. Kidd might know something from her days as a nurse.”

  “I wonder why she won’t talk to you. Let me speak with her. She might be in one of her moods.”

  The minute the woman headed away from them and up the walk, Agatha said, “Patsy never married. I’m sure she never had any children.”

  “Apparently she did,” Shainey said. “Must have happened when you were working in DC.”

  “No. I came home often and always kept in touch with folks in Gesippi.”

  The other woman had gone in the house. Her children at her heels. Even now, Nathan could see the curtain moving aside and knew Patsy was peering out at them.

  Agatha closed her eyes, tight, looking ever so much like she was fighting with herself. “It’s important that everything is out in the open now.”

  “Like your baby, Aunt Agatha.”

  “Yes. I wanted to keep her, to raise her, but at fifteen, I still listened to my parents. Can’t change that now.”

  “Is that why you never married? Did you love the man who fathered the baby?” Shainey asked.

  “Goodness, at that young age, I didn’t know what love was. I just got caught up in the moment. I never let it happen again.”

  Shainey and Nathan shared a look. Something sizzled between them, an acceptance, a connection, a promise of more.

  “The best we can hope for is our children to grow up happy, healthy, and loved,” Agatha continued. “Like you did, Nathan.”

  It took a moment, but he nodded. Agatha and her “Everything happens for a reason.”

  “ “And I hope Debby accepts this, too, one day. That happy, healthy and loved is better than abused and neglected.”

  “Aunt Agatha, what do you mean?”

  “Unless I miss my guess, that woman talking with Patsy right now is, or at least was, Deidra Garcia.”

  “What?” Nathan and Shainey said at the same time.

  “My mind is not gone. Patsy Kidd had no children, but the woman who just parked next to us seems to be the right age and she resembles the Garcias, all that glorious hair and barely five feet tall. She looks nothing like Patsy. And if I remember correctly, it was about forty years ago that Patsy started commuting to work. She said the only land she could afford was far away from Gesippi. I’m thinking she wanted a child more than anything and found a way to get one. She stole one.”

  Nathan called Rafe.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Patsy’s “daughter” came down to their car and asked them to leave.

  Shainey looked at Nathan, wondering what he would do. She wanted to call Debby, but Agatha might not be correct, could not possibly be correct. And while the claim sounded good, how on earth had Agatha culled such a declaration?

  Nathan looked like he believed Agatha.

  “We don’t want to put anyone out,” Nathan said, “but we’ve driven a long way. I just have a few questions.”

  “My mother’s upset by your being here. She’s not well. If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.”

  “We already called them,” Nathan said, “That’s how serious this is.”

  The woman looked annoyed, and Shainey felt sympathy for her. She understood what Agatha meant by healthy, happy and loved. This woman was worried about her mother, much like Shainey worried about and was now taking care of Agatha.

  But if Agatha was right, the woman was about to have a lot more in common with Nathan than with Shainey.

  For the next hour, the time it took for Rafe and his deputy to arrive, the woman paced the porch, clearly agitated.

  Rafe came up to Nathan’s car, nodded his head, and listened to what Agatha had to say. Shainey showed him a photo of Debby from her cell phone. Rafe wasn’t nearly as impressed by the likeness as Shainey was. Then, both he and the deputy headed to the porch and spoke with the woman standing there. After a moment, Rafe motioned for the others to join them on the wrap-around porch.

  Patsy finally came outside and sat stone-faced in a rocking chair. She gave Agatha a dirty look but d
idn’t even glance at the others. From inside the house, a cartoon provided background noise.

  Agatha took the second rocker.

  * * *

  “This is Josie Bell,” Rafael introduced the other woman. “I take it you’re acquainted with Patsy Kidd.”

  Shainey was the only one who didn’t nod.

  “Agatha,” Patsy said, “I didn’t realize you were in the car. I’m surprised you’re helping this man with all his questions, stirring up the past.”

  “I told them about my baby,” Agatha said. “You can’t hold that over my head. And I won’t keep silent anymore. It was your mother who took the baby from my arms all those years ago. Your family got good at taking what didn’t belong to them. I didn’t put all the pieces together until just now.”

  For the first time, Josie appeared uncomfortable instead of annoyed. “Mom, you don’t have to talk to them.”

  Rafe cleared his throat. “Since I’m personally involved, I’m turning this investigation over to my deputy. Ma’am, you’re not under arrest, but I suggest you call a lawyer—”

  “What! Investigation?” Josie stomped a foot on the wooden floor and looked at her mother. “What going on, Mom?”

  It was Shainey who answered but not in words. She pulled her cell phone from her purse, pulled up a photo and handed it to Josie.

  “Who’s this?” Josie asked.

  “Her name is Debby Garcia,” Shainey said.

  “So?”

  Shainey looked at Patsy, waiting. Patsy started rocking, a jarring back and forth motion. There was anger in the movement. And, a look of guilt so pronounced that Josie’s face twisted.

  “Mom, what have you done?”

  * * *

  The rocking chair stilled and Patsy looked at Josie, a pleading expression, and one so very similar to the one Lucille Salazar had given him during their first meeting. Nathan vowed she’d never look at him like that again, as if asking forgiveness.

  His mother had nothing to forgive.

  Nathan addressed to Josie. “I was abducted forty-two years ago from a hospital where your mother worked. I recently was reunited with my birth family. I think your mother has information that will help me figure out how I was taken from one mother and raised by another.”