Dante cleared his throat. “Sorry. It’s just that you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago.”
“Really? Who?”
“A girl named Amy.”
“Was she your girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a girlfriend now?”
“No, not right now.”
“My mother doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“Is that right?” Dante knew where this conversation was going, but he didn’t know how to end it without hurting Leslie Anne’s feelings.
“I think she likes you.”
“I like her, too, but—”
“But you wouldn’t want to date a woman whose daughter was fathered by Eddie Jay Nealy. Is that it?”
“No, that’s not it. You put words in my mouth.”
“Then why wouldn’t you be interested in my mother? She’s smart and beautiful. And she really is a good mother. And a good daughter to Granddaddy.”
How could this sweet girl be Eddie Jay’s daughter? It didn’t seem possible. He had studied the photographs of the man, searching for any resemblance. And found none. Leslie didn’t look like Eddie Jay. But other than her being blond and a few other vague similarities, she really didn’t look like Tessa, either.
Leslie Anne Westbrook looked like only one person—Amy Smith.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AS HE SETTLED into the booth in a quiet corner of the restaurant where he was meeting with fellow Dundee agents, Dante couldn’t get Leslie Anne off his mind. He had intended to tell her that another agent would take his place as the liaison between her family and the agency, that he’d be working in the field for the rest of this assignment. But he’d changed his mind at the last minute, deciding it was best to leave that unpleasant job up to Tessa. She was the child’s mother, wasn’t she? She was better equipped to deal with her daughter than he was. Besides, the less Dante was around Leslie Anne Westbrook, the better.
But what if Leslie Anne isn’t Tessa’s daughter?
That one thought tormented him in a way nothing had since he’d had to face the fact that Amy was dead, that she’d never come back to him. Now here was this teenage girl who looked so much like Amy. Could it be nothing more than a strange coincidence? Or was he blowing the resemblance between the two totally out of proportion? Maybe the teenager didn’t look as much like Amy as he thought she did.
He needed an unbiased opinion. That’s why he’d asked Lucie to meet him a little earlier than the other agents. She was that rare breed of woman who could, despite being an emotional creature, act and react in a rational manner when the occasion called for logic.
Dante watched Lucie as the hostess pointed her in the right direction. He waved at her, then eased out of the booth and stood while she walked toward him.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he said.
“Sure thing. What’s up? You sounded sort of odd when you called and asked if I could get here a little earlier than we’d planned.”
After Lucie slid into the booth, Dante slipped in on the opposite side and faced her. “I need to ask you to do something for me and I need you to keep it strictly between the two of us.”
“All right.” Apparently curious, she studied him for a moment. “I take it this is something personal and has nothing to do with the Westbrook case.”
“Right and wrong.”
She stared at him questioningly. “Right that it’s personal?”
“Yes.”
“And wrong about—”
“In a roundabout way, it does have something to do with the Westbrooks. With Leslie Anne in particular.”
“Hmm. You’ve got me dying of curiosity.”
Dante removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket, flipped it open and stuck his finger into a slot beneath his driver’s license. “I want you take a look at this picture and tell me if she resembles anyone you know.”
Carefully, Dante eased the senior high photograph of Amy from his wallet. He’d been carrying this picture around for seventeen years. He tried not to glance at it as he slid it across the table to Lucie, but he couldn’t stop himself. God, how it still hurt. Sometimes the pain was as fresh and raw as it had been in those first few weeks and months after Amy had disappeared. Her beautiful blue eyes stared up at him from the faded picture. But it was her smile that still captured his heart, as it had all those years ago. Removing his finger from the edge of the picture, he lifted his hand and curled his fingers into a loose fist.
Lucie turned the photograph around, picked it up and looked at it. Her mouth opened on a silent gasp, then she shook her head. “Who is this?”
“Who does she look like?”
“I’m confused. Where did you get this old picture? Who’s the girl?”
Dante breathed in deeply and out slowly. “Damn it, Lucie, just tell me if you think she looks like anybody you know.”
“Well, if her eyes were brown instead of blue, if the hairstyle was updated and if it wasn’t obvious that this photograph wasn’t taken recently, I’d say this is Leslie Anne Westbrook.”
Dante swallowed hard, inwardly reeling from the strength of his emotions. Joy and total despair fought within him for dominance. If Lucie saw the resemblance, then it hadn’t been his imagination playing a cruel trick on him. Leslie Anne did look enough like Amy to be her—? Her what? Sister? Daughter? Niece?
“Obviously this isn’t Leslie Anne.” Lucie laid the photo on the table and scooted it back toward Dante. “Is it a photo of a relative? Leslie Anne’s aunt or grandmother or—”
“That picture is of a woman named Amy Smith. She was seventeen when this senior picture was taken.” Dante lifted the photo, gave it one quick glance, then stuck it back in his wallet. “She disappeared seventeen years ago and has been presumed dead all this time. She fit the description of all of Eddie Jay Nealy’s victims—young, pretty, blond. And she lived in Texas, one of the states where quite a few of Nealy’s victims lived.”
As if puzzled, Lucie shook her head. “Whoa. Wait a minute, will you? I’m really confused here. How do you know about this girl—Amy Smith? And where did you get her picture? And how is she connected to Leslie Anne Westbrook?”
“Amy gave me this picture,” Dante said, taking a leap of faith by trusting Lucie in a way he trusted very few people. “When I was nineteen, I was engaged to Amy.”
“My God!” Lucie’s big brown eyes flew open wide. Narrowing her gaze, she stared hard at Dante. “When Sawyer called us all in for a briefing on the Westbrook case and he handed out the files containing a picture of Leslie Anne, you saw the resemblance right away. That’s why you volunteered for the job.”
“Yeah. I jumped at the chance to take this assignment because I wanted to know how it was possible that a sixteen-year-old girl could look enough like a woman who supposedly died seventeen years ago to be her daughter.”
“Have you asked Tessa Westbrook if—?”
“She swears she gave birth to Leslie Anne. But she also admitted that she has no memory whatsoever of her life before she woke up in the hospital in Louisiana.”
“What’s one got to do with the other? Leslie Anne was born nine months later, after the attack. Tessa would know whether or not she gave birth to Leslie Anne.”
“Tessa would know that she gave birth to a child, but what if—” Dante let out a harsh, exasperated breath. “Damn it, I know I’m grasping at straws here….”
“You think there was a baby switch? Dante, that doesn’t make any sense. That would mean Amy Smith had to be alive and that she gave birth at the same time Tessa did and in the same hospital.”
“I realize what a ludicrous scenario I’ve drawn up in my head, but I keep thinking about the possibility that Tessa’s baby might have been born dead or died shortly after birth.”
“It still doesn’t add up,” Lucie told him. “Neither Tessa nor G.W. really wanted the baby in the first place. The only reason Tessa went through with the pregnancy was for her mother’s sak
e. So if the child had died, I doubt G.W. would have tried to replace it, especially not with another child belonging to one of Nealy’s victims.”
“I know. But the only other possibility I can think of is impossible.”
As Lucie continued looking at Dante, she suddenly seemed to realize what he was thinking. She grunted. “Huh-uh, don’t go there, my friend. There’s no way in hell that Tessa could be—”
“Yeah, I know. I know. Other than being the same height and general physical description, Tessa bears only the most superficial resemblance to Amy. Add to that the fact G.W. and Anne Westbrook would have known their own daughter even if she didn’t know herself, as would all of Tessa’s friends and relatives. But you tell me how it’s possible that Leslie Anne—”
Lucie grabbed Dante’s hand and held it tightly. “I don’t know, but my gut instincts tell me that there’s definitely something rotten in the state of Mississippi.”
“Then you don’t think I’m crazy?”
Lucie grinned. “I’m not sure about that. But you have every reason to suspect something’s definitely screwy about who Leslie Anne Westbrook really is.”
“What would you do if you were me? How would you handle things?”
“You need to put some distance between yourself and the Westbrooks, especially Tessa. You already know that I picked up on some chemistry between you two, so don’t deny it.” Lucie pointed her index finger in his face. “After what you just told me, you can’t let yourself become involved with Tessa Westbrook.”
“I plan to send someone else to work personally with the Westbrooks,” he said. “I’d thought maybe Dom, but—”
“Send me. I can work both sides of this. I doubt Tessa knows anything that can help you, but it’s possible I’ll hear something, pick up on something or just figure something out simply by staying at the Leslie Plantation. I’ll consider this a twofold assignment. One is to find out who sent Leslie Anne the clippings about Nealy and number two will be to learn anything I can about why Leslie Anne looks like Amy Smith. It could be that there’s a family tie we don’t know about. Could Amy have been a distant relative of Tessa’s? Does Amy have family still in Texas that you could—”
“Amy was an orphan. Her parents were killed in a car wreck when she was six. If either had any family to speak of, Amy didn’t know them. She couldn’t remember any grandparents or aunts and uncles. And social services never located any relatives.”
“Look, there are several different scenarios that would explain why Leslie Anne resembles Amy Smith so much, but to be honest with you, all of them seem implausible.”
Hearing familiar voices on the other side of the restaurant, Dante glanced up and saw Dom Shea and Vic Noble talking with the hostess. She looked his way, then pointed the Dundee agents in the right direction.
“Here come Dom and Vic,” Dante told Lucie. “Let’s shelve this for now.”
Before Lucie could respond, the other two agents joined them. Dom sat by Lucie, while Vic slipped into the booth by Dante. Lucie gave Dante a mum’s-the-word look.
“Nothing I like better than a dinner meeting,” Dom said jokingly. “Makes it easier to digest your food when you’re talking business.”
“I’m flying to Rayville, Louisiana, tonight and picking up a rental car,” Dante said. “While Lucie takes over with the Westbrooks, I want you, Dom, to start digging around Fairport. Find out everything you can on the people closest to G.W., Tessa and Leslie Anne. And find out who would have anything to gain by harming Leslie Anne.” He glanced at Vic. “I had intended to send you back to Atlanta because I figured Sawyer might need you on another case, but I checked with him about an hour ago and he said he can spare you for a few more days.”
“Fine by me,” Vic said.
“Why are you going to Louisiana?” Dom asked.
“I want to talk to Sheriff Summers,” Dante explained. He’d tell Dom and Vic only what they needed to know. “Summers was a deputy in Richland Parish seventeen years ago when Tessa Westbrook was found half-dead just off Interstate 20. It’s possible he’ll remember something that might affect our case.”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that G.W. Westbrook thought it necessary to cover up what had happened to his daughter?” Dom said. “And believe you me, he covered things up pretty good. There is no record on file in Richland Parish on Tessa Westbrook—not a report from either the police in Rayville or any surrounding towns or the parish sheriff’s department. But there is a record of her having been a patient at the medical center in Rayville for ten days.”
“Do you have any idea what’s in those records?” Lucie asked.
Dom shook his head. “Nope. But we’ve got somebody working on the inside to find out. It’s costing us—” he rubbed his thumb against his index and middle fingers “—mucho dinero. Spies and informants don’t come cheap.”
“What do you want to bet the hospital records either vanish from thin air or they’ve been doctored so they read as if Tessa Westbrook was in a terrible car wreck?” Vic Noble glanced around the table. “Daddy Warbucks was damned and determined to keep the truth about what happened to his daughter under wraps. The old man called in a lot of favors and doled out a heap of money.”
“He wanted to protect his daughter,” Lucie said. “He didn’t want the scandal of her being raped and impregnated by her rapist to become public knowledge. I can understand, can’t y’all?”
“He had to have put the cover-up in action almost immediately after he was notified about Tessa being found,” Dom said. “That means he formulated a complicated lie about what had happened before he knew his daughter was pregnant.”
“One thing’s for sure—we have a lot of questions and very few answers,” Dante told them. “Lucie will handle the family exclusively from now on. Dom, you and Vic will investigate locally. And I’ll start at the beginning, with where Tessa was found seventeen years ago.”
THE LAST THING Tessa felt like doing was entertaining, even if their guests were only family and friends. And she couldn’t fault her father for thinking it would be helpful to surround themselves with people he believed truly cared about them. It was almost as if he had called in reinforcements after the battle had been lost. But the war wasn’t over, Tessa reminded herself as she sipped on her wine—a vintage she would have, under normal circumstances, appreciated. But not tonight. Not when her mind was so preoccupied with one thought. Only when the beast who’d sent Leslie Anne those newspaper clippings had been unearthed and punished would the next battle be won. As for the war itself—it might not ever end. Not unless her daughter could come to terms with the truth.
“I do wish our darling Leslie Anne could have joined us this evening,” Myrle Poole said. “But I suppose the dear girl is embarrassed by that silly stunt she pulled. Can you imagine her running away from home because some other teenager dared her to do it?”
“Did y’all find out who dared her to run away?” Celia asked. “ I think his or her parents should be notified and the proper punishment doled out.” She turned to Charlie, smiling like a besotted fool. “Don’t you think so, sweetheart?”
“Most certainly.” He looked straight at G.W. “And if I were you, I’d make sure Leslie Anne wasn’t allowed to see this person ever again.”
“Quite right.” G.W.’s cheeks flushed. “But I doubt we’ll be able to pry the person’s name out of her. Leslie Anne can be quite stubborn.”
Listening to the conversation, Tessa marveled at how easily her father lied. At least he had the decency to seem slightly embarrassed by his bold-faced lie. But what else could they have done except fabricate a believable story about why Leslie Anne ran away from home? It wasn’t as if they could announce to one and all that the Westbrook clan—G.W., Sharon and Tessa—had been harboring a dark, ugly secret all these years.
Olivia laughed, the sound shrill to Tessa’s ears, but then everything about the woman rubbed Tessa the wrong way.
“G.W., from whomever do you suppose the c
hild inherited her stubborn streak?” Olivia cooed the question.
Tessa didn’t know who was worse—Olivia or her cousin Celia? Both women were making spectacles of themselves by the way they were fawning over their men. But she supposed desperate women acted that way. A woman who was unsure of how a man felt about her often pushed too hard for assurance.
G.W. chuckled, the sound only slightly wooden, and Tessa doubted anyone other than she and Aunt Sharon knew how phony that laugh was. “I’ll take full blame for any of Leslie Anne’s bad traits, including her stubbornness. And I’m damned proud to be her granddaddy.”
Sharon and Tessa exchanged a look that said only they knew what G.W. really meant. He was proclaiming to one and all that his granddaughter was a Westbrook. And be damned with who her biological father was. Of course, his declaration was lost on the rest of his audience.
Suddenly Tessa wondered if they all really believed the car wreck story? Dear God, what was she thinking? Of course they believed it. Surely no one here in her home, sharing dinner with her, might actually have been the person who’d sent Leslie Anne those clippings. No, no, that wasn’t possible. None of the others knew. And even if they did, who would have—?
Olivia! That damn woman was capable of anything. But why? What motive did she have to want to hurt Leslie Anne?
Tessa could understand if Olivia or Tad had tried to blackmail her for money to keep the secret from being revealed, but what did either of them have to gain by exposing Leslie Anne to the story of Eddie Jay Nealy’s murdering spree?
Think about it, she told herself. A person doesn’t do something so sadistically cruel without a motive. And no one here had a motive.
Olivia and Tad might be money-grubbing sycophants, but what would they have gained by hurting Leslie Anne? And the others here this evening were all family. Aunt Sharon had always known the truth and could have revealed it at any time. But she adored Leslie Anne and would never harm her. Aunt Myrle could be annoying and often silly, but she had a heart of gold. How often did she refer to Leslie Anne as “my sister’s precious little namesake?” Tessa wasn’t overly fond of Celia, mainly because Celia hadn’t kept her jealousy of Tessa a secret. Celia had been panting after Charlie for ages now and up until recently, he’d been panting just as hard after Tessa. But was Celia capable of deliberately hurting Leslie Anne simply because she hated Tessa?
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