by Hope Ramsay
She drew in a deep breath through her mouth and exhaled through her nose. She had been doing her relaxation routine for the last fifteen minutes while endlessly repeating Dr. Goodbody’s advice about negative situations. Dr. Goodbody said that obsessing over a problem or trying to wish the problem away was a big mistake. Instead, positive thinking requires a person to be honest with him- or herself and consider alternative courses of action.
The truth was, she had never killed anyone. As for the alternative courses of action—well, she doubted she could break out of prison, and Stone Rhodes was a formidable adversary, so her mind was drawing a complete blank.
Except for the look on Clay’s face the moment that he had pressed his hand up against the cruiser’s window. That look, if she let herself believe in it, said he cared about what happened to her. Like he was, maybe, the total embodiment of what Miriam Randall had told her she should be looking for.
That scared her silly.
Because the girl inside was hoping that Clayton P. would come busting in here like Sir Galahad. She could just imagine Clay rescuing her from this mess and carrying her off to some castle where he would sing love ballads to her.
Yeah, right. Like that was ever going to happen.
The door opened with a little squeak, and Chief Rhodes strode in. He wasn’t wearing his hat, although his short hair bore the unmistakable indentation of his Stetson, as did the skin of his forehead. He’d lost his utility belt, too. But he was still packing heat and still wearing a bulky Kevlar vest.
Which explained why the room had been air-conditioned into something that resembled wintertime in Juneau.
The chief took a seat and dropped a thin manila folder on the table. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out Jane’s West Virginia driver’s license.
“Okay, Mary, suppose we start with a simple question. Where’d you get this?” He held up the license and then placed it on the tabletop in front of her.
A tense little laugh burbled out of her. Forty-eight hours ago, his younger brother had rifled through her belongings and concluded that her name was not Mary. Obviously, Clay had better police instincts than the chief.
“You think this is funny?” the chief said.
Jane sucked in the frigid air and hugged herself, trying to find some warmth in the cold room. “I got the license in the usual way.”
“The usual way? Were you looking for identities online? Did you buy it from someone?”
She stopped laughing. “I hate to tell you this, Chief, but most folks go down to the DMV and apply for their licenses. Didn’t you know that?”
He pressed his lips together. It wasn’t a friendly look for him. “Do not get cute with me. I’m onto you.”
“I got the license at the DMV.”
“Uh-huh.” He leaned back in his chair and pulled a piece of paper from the folder. “If you think I believe that, then you need to think again. There is no way in hell you are Wanda Jane Coblentz.”
He slid the paper across the table. Jane recognized it as the missing flyer that had dogged her heels for years. It featured her eighth-grade school photograph—not because she’d gone missing in eighth grade, but only because her parents couldn’t afford to pay for a high-school yearbook head shot.
Looking down at her young face was never much fun. She always wondered where that little girl had gone off to. She had traveled a long way down life’s road since this photo had been taken. She’d hit more than her share of potholes and taken way too many detours into blind alleys on the road of her life.
Jane worked to suck back the tears. On some deep level, she mourned that little girl. That Wanda Jane was missing. She had died a long time ago.
She refused to meet that pain head-on. She had been running from the memory of the girl she once had been for the last seven years.
“All I can say is thank the Lord for laser hair removal,” she said in a shaky voice. “That unibrow was not attractive, was it? They ought to have a law prohibiting any photographs of a person between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. It’s an awkward age.”
She looked up into Stone Rhodes’s stony face and knew that the man had zero sense of humor. “You know,” the chief said, “you have an attitude problem. This is not a joking matter. That little girl, right there, has been missing for seven years, and her folks are tore up about it. And the police in Lexington, Kentucky, are certain she was murdered not long after she ran away.”
It didn’t seem possible, but the temperature in the room dropped a few more degrees. A cold sweat trickled down Jane’s back as she thought about Ma and Pa and her two little brothers. How on earth had the police in Lexington come to the conclusion that she was dead?
She was a runaway. That was true. She already knew Ma and Pa were looking for her. The Center for Missing and Exploited Children had been trying to locate her for years. She had seen her own face a dozen times on milk containers and bill stuffers. The photo was always the same: that eighth-grade graduation photo.
She had always been grateful for this fact, because it was amazing how people could look right past those milk container photos when they showed a thirteen-year-old girl with heavy eyebrows and a bad case of acne. She no longer resembled the girl in the flyer.
She put the flyer down on the table and leaned in. “As you can see, I am alive. So can I go now?”
The chief wasn’t moved by her statement. “So tell me,” he asked. “How are you acquainted with Joseph Andrew Hamil?”
She hugged herself harder as it occurred to her that the police always referred to the notorious by their full names, like Lee Harvey Oswald or Mark David Chapman. Not that Joey was all that notorious. But the boy had been a peanut-brained weasel, for sure.
It was a sad commentary that Joey was the first peanut-brained weasel in her life—the bad-boy hero she had mistakenly expected to rescue her from Seth, West Virginia, and her dysfunctional family. Instead, Joey had dumped her in a hotel in Lexington the minute reality came knocking.
He had done her a big favor. She had learned how to take care of herself, thanks to Joey. She had managed for seven years until Woody came waltzing into the Shrimp Shack throwing hundred-dollar tips around and talking about his musical connections.
Jeez, when would she learn?
Jane didn’t want to talk about this. She had done nothing illegal that night in Lexington. Not that the same could have been said of Joey. But she wasn’t Joey’s keeper.
And clearly Joey had not been hers.
She pushed the shameful memories back, just like she fought her tears. She didn’t have to tell this story. She wasn’t guilty of anything except terminal gullibility.
“What do you want to know about Joey?” she said on a sniffle.
“So you know him?”
“Sure, I know him. We were classmates at Sherman High School in Seth. We were in chorus together. He was one heck of a guitarist, too, and if he hadn’t been such a complete screw-up as a human being, he might have made it in Nashville. But, unfortunately, the guy was a loser.”
A little muscle pulsed in Stone Rhodes’s cheek. “So what is it, Mary, you have a thing for musicians? Do you cruise through small towns picking them up and then rolling them for cash? For the record, my brother is not a rich man, despite his recent successes.”
Wow, this was personal with the chief. Stone Rhodes was doing more than his job. He was looking out for his little brother. She gritted her teeth and decided that she wasn’t going to say another word.
He waited a long moment for a response, then he heaved a big, disgusted sigh. “Look, Mary, I’m about to haul your butt down to the county and have you thrown in jail. There is a detective up in Lexington who is pretty hot to have you extradited up there for interrogation. You are in serious trouble. I’m trying to help you out before the higher authorities tie my hands.”
Right. He was trying to play the roles of both good and bad cop. She leaned forward in her chair and spoke. “Okay, Chief, I gu
ess I’m going to exercise my rights and ask for—”
A commotion in the outer office interrupted Jane’s words. An instant later, the door swung open, revealing a man who looked like he had just stepped off the greens at Augusta National. He wore a yellow V-necked sweater over a white Cutter and Buck golf shirt. A pair of cream-colored slacks and saddle shoes with soft spikes completed his ensemble.
“I’m here to see my client,” the man announced. He looked down at her out of a pair of sparkling blue eyes hidden behind horn-rimmed glasses. “Wanda Jane, I presume.”
She nodded. This was manifesting at its finest, because she had been on the point of requesting an attorney. And bingo, one appeared as if by magic. The Universe was her friend.
Although it occurred to her that the Universe might have had a helping hand in the form of one Clayton P. Rhodes. That gave her a sense of hope.
She could fall for a guy like that, especially since he had a few additional talents, like fiddling and other stuff between the sheets and, after all, Miriam Randall had told her to ask for more.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Eugene. You do divorces and family law. You don’t know squat about criminal defense. Get out of here. Go back to the country club. I’m trying to do my business,” Stone said.
Family law? Okay, so Clay had to move in a hurry and Eugene was the only lawyer he could find on short notice in a town like Last Chance on a Saturday morning. It didn’t negate the fact that Clay had taken steps to rescue her.
Eugene drew himself up. “Stony, I’ve been retained to represent Ms. Coblentz, and you know very well you have to let me talk with her. So why don’t you take ten?”
Stony’s ears got bright red. “Did Clay hire you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“He did, didn’t he?” The chief pushed out of his chair and strode toward the door. “You have exactly five minutes before I return and continue with this interrogation.” He slammed the door behind him.
Eugene took a seat, and Jane noted that the man wasn’t carrying a briefcase or even a writing implement. She wasn’t sure how much faith she ought to put in him. “Don’t mind Stony, honey,” he said in a drawl that didn’t sound quite as deep as either Clay’s or Stone’s. “He’s got lots of personal problems these days that weigh heavy on his mind. He lost his wife about five years ago and has never recovered.”
“Family law?” she asked.
He smiled. “Best divorce attorney in the county. Clay sent me down here in a hurry. Said he didn’t believe you actually needed a criminal attorney.”
“I think maybe I do need a criminal attorney.”
“Well, let me be the judge of that. My name’s Eugene Hanks, by the way. I believe you met my wife, Thelma, at the Cut ’n Curl yesterday. So what’s all this about?”
“Chief Rhodes believes I murdered myself seven years ago.”
Eugene laughed out loud. “Is that so?”
She nodded. “You see, I ran away from home when I was seventeen, and I changed my name for a lot of reasons that aren’t important. But anyway, he says the police in Lexington think I was murdered, and he says he’s going to force me to go to Lexington to be interrogated by some detective up there who has this theory that I’m dead. Can he force me to do that?”
“No.”
“Is it breaking the law to live under an assumed name? I mean, I pay my taxes and make contributions to Social Security. I just don’t choose… I mean I haven’t until recently chosen to use my real name, because my face turns up regularly on milk cartons.”
“Does it?”
She nodded. “But people don’t recognize me because it’s a terrible picture and I had my eyebrows fixed.”
“I see.” Eugene cleared his throat. “Honey, I’m glad you’re paying your taxes, but if you aren’t using a legitimate Social Security number, that’s a problem. As a legal matter, you probably want to formally change your name, and I can certainly help you do that.”
“Oh. Can they put me in jail for living under an alias without doing it legally?”
“Well, the Social Security Administration won’t be too pleased, but if you’ve been paying your taxes and can prove you are a U.S. citizen, then I think we can negotiate something. In any case, I don’t think jail time is in your future for that.”
“I swear to the almighty power of the Universe that I did not murder myself in Lexington, Kentucky. Isn’t there some way I can prove that I’m myself and that I’m alive? What about DNA? I’ve seen those shows on TV. I’ll let the chief swab my cheek.”
Eugene laughed again. “Wait here one minute. I’m going to have a word with Stony and see if we can clear this up.”
He stood up just as the sound of more shouting came from the outer office. Ruby Rhodes came bursting into the room, her oldest son hot on her heels. The chief didn’t look happy, which was nothing new.
“Lord a’mercy, child, are you all right? I heard you got arrested right there on Palmetto Avenue in front of God and Clay and everyone else,” Ruby said, giving her oldest child an annoyed look.
“Momma, you need to leave now,” Stone said.
Jane had to bite the side of her cheek to keep from laughing when little Ruby Rhodes whirled around and looked up into the face of her giant-sized son. “Don’t you dare tell me what I need to do, Stonewall Ezekiel Rhodes. I have a right to know what my employee and tenant has been charged with. Just arresting her is bad for my business. But I’ll bet you didn’t even think of that, did you?”
“Momma, for heaven’s sake, don’t put your nose in something that will hurt you. And besides, I do not want this woman babysitting my children. I have made that abundantly clear to you. Speaking of the girls, where are they?”
“Well, I had to run them up to their riding lessons this morning because you took a notion to work today. Stony, Saturday is the day you get to spend with your girls. You know darn well it’s my busiest day at the shop. And if you don’t want Jane watching your girls, then I reckon you’ll have to be running them here and there to their activities yourself, because as of this moment I’m going on strike.”
The chief’s ears were flaming red now, and the color was spilling over into his cheeks. “Momma, this isn’t the time or the place.”
Ruby turned back toward Jane. “Are you all right, sugar? I heard he slammed you upside the hood of his car. I’m so ashamed of him, really. He hasn’t been the same since Sharon died, but that’s no excuse for him manhandling you.”
“I’m fine,” Jane said. “He scared me but he didn’t hurt me.” And that was the honest truth, because the chief hadn’t even bruised her. And that was saying something, given the fact that his younger brother had put several bruises on her all in the name of passion.
“Momma, you have to go now. Don’t make me manhandle you,” the chief said.
Eugene cleared his throat. “I do believe we have a case of mistaken identity here.”
“No,” Stony said. “We have an unsolved murder. The police in Lexington believe Wanda Jane Coblentz was murdered there about seven years ago by one Joseph Andrew Hamil. Until Mary, here, showed up with Wanda Jane’s driver’s license, the detectives working the case had nothing to go on except a crime scene at a hotel room and some blood evidence, but no bodies.”
Jane felt something hitch in her chest and she sank her face down into her hands. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “How could that be? I cleaned the room.”
“Jane,” Eugene said sharply. “Not one more word.”
“Sugar,” Ruby said as she rested her hand on Jane’s shoulder.
“They found blood in that room, and they found Wanda Jane’s DNA there,” Stony said grimly. “Joseph Andrew Hamil left Seth, West Virginia, with Wanda Jane Coblentz the day before she was supposed to graduate from high school. That evening, Hamil shot a convenience store clerk in Lexington, putting the man in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The authorities captured Hamil within half an hour of the shooting, after a high-s
peed chase. The next day, when they realized he was involved in Wanda Jane’s disappearance, they went to the hotel room and found it stripped clean and totally empty. The bathroom lit up when treated with Luminol, and they found Wanda Jane’s DNA at the scene.”
“Do not say one word, Jane,” Eugene said.
Jane tightened her jaw. “No one was killed in that room,” she said.
“The evidence says otherwise.” The chief’s voice was firm and strong and righteous.
“Stony, don’t be a jerk,” Eugene said. “There are dozens of reasons why Jane’s blood might be in that room. The police never found her body, did they? So don’t jump to conclusions just because Jane Coblentz decided not to go home and was last seen in the company of a known criminal.”
“Joey was not a known criminal,” Jane said. “He was just a kid in a bad situation who made a wrong decision. We were trying to get to Nashville.”
“He had drugs on him and a .45-caliber handgun when he was apprehended,” Stone said.
Ruby squeezed Jane’s shoulder. Jane had no idea that Joey had been into drugs. How gullible could a girl get?
“So you admit you were his accomplice,” Stone said.
Jane shook her head. “Accomplice in what? Running away from home? Believe me, I am Jane Coblentz. I thought Joey loved me. I thought we were going to Nashville to make it big in country music. I was seventeen and trying to escape an abusive father. I was also pretty stupid.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you. You don’t look a lick like that girl’s photograph or even the photo on the license, which could have been doctored in any case.” The chief snagged the missing-person poster off the table and handed it to Eugene.
Eugene studied the photo for several long moments, then handed the flyer off to Ruby, who blinked down at it and then said, “Honey, I’m so glad you did something about that eyebrow.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Momma, you can’t believe that—”
“I don’t know, Stone,” Eugene interrupted. “That’s an image of a little girl. You can’t say positively that it isn’t a photo of this woman.”