While she waited for the Ranger, she reached again for her cell and placed a call to Jillian.
Her good friend lived just across the street and had been looking after Amy since Natalie had gone back to work. The little girl was good company for Jillian’s eighteen-month-old daughter, Susie, and the arrangement allowed Jillian to earn a little extra money while her husband, Bart, served another tour of duty overseas with the marines.
“Jillian? You’re not going to believe this,” Natalie said when her friend answered. “I just got home from the service and found that my house has been broken into”
“You’re kidding!”
“I wish I were. Life has been a nightmare since I got that call from the police about Rod. Can you keep Amy a little longer? I have to wait for some Ranger to come over.”
“What? Why?”
“I have no idea. And a forensics team. As soon as they’re gone, I’ll be over to get her.”
“Don’t you worry about anything. There’s no hurry.”
“Yes, there is. You’ve gone beyond the call of duty to watch her on a Saturday afternoon. That wasn’t our arrangement. I plan to pay you double.”
“Natalie—don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been through a horrible experience. What are friends for?”
“You’re the best, Jillian. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”
The second she hung up, Natalie’s landline rang, startling her. She moved to the kitchen to answer it but checked the caller ID first. It was blank. Would it be one of those hang-up calls she’d gotten twice this week already?
Natalie hated to answer without knowing who was on the other end, especially after this break-in, although it could be one of many important calls she was expecting—the police, the bank, the attorney, the mortuary, her boss at work, her coworkers, church friends, her insurance agent. But right now she was in no state to talk to anyone and let it ring until the person on the other end gave up or left a message.
She looked around but couldn’t tell if anything was missing. She’d developed a bad headache and needed a pain pill.
One look in the bathroom mirror made her realize she needed to freshen up before the Ranger arrived and she washed her face, remembering too late that she wasn’t supposed to touch anything. The burial plot in the newer section of the cemetery hadn’t been planted with shade trees yet. The heat had caused her to break out in perspiration, but she didn’t have time to change out of her lightweight linen suit.
After drying her face, Natalie refreshed her lipstick and gave her tousled, collarbone-length hair a good brushing. When she heard the knock on the back door, her brush fell to the floor. Her nerves were that bad.
She walked down the hall, past the nursery and into the kitchen. She used a dish towel to open the door leading to the backyard. Whatever picture of the Ranger she’d had in her mind didn’t come close to the sight of the tall, thirtyish, hard-muscled male in a Western shirt, jeans and cowboy boots.
Her gaze flitted over his dark brown hair only to collide with his beautiful hazel eyes appraising her through a dark fringe of lashes.
“Mrs. Harris? Miles Saunders.” She felt the stranger’s probing look pierce her before he displayed his credentials. That’s when she noticed the star on his shirt pocket.
This man is the real thing. The stuff that made the Texas Rangers legendary. She had the strange feeling that she’d seen him somewhere before, but shrugged it off. This was definitely the first time she’d ever met a Ranger.
“Come in.” Her voice faltered, mystified by this unexpected visit. She was pretty sure the Rangers didn’t investigate a home break-in.
“Thank you.” He took a few steps on those long, powerful legs. His presence dominated the kitchen. She invited him to follow her into the living room.
“Please sit down.” She indicated the upholstered chair on the other side of the coffee table while she took the matching chair. There was no place else to sit until the room was put back together.
He did as she asked. “I understand you have a daughter. Is she here?”
The man already knew quite a bit about her, she realized. “No. I left her with my sitter who lives across the street.”
He studied one of the framed photos that hadn’t been knocked off the end table, even though a drawer had been pulled out. “She looks a lot like you, especially the eyes. She’s a little beauty.”
Natalie looked quickly at the floor, stunned by the personal comment. He’d sounded sincere. So far everything about him surprised her so much she couldn’t think clearly.
He turned to focus his attention on Natalie. “You’re very composed for someone who’s been through so much. Your husband’s funeral was just this afternoon, wasn’t it?”
“I’m trying to hold it together. If you’d taken any longer to get here, you might have found a screaming lunatic on your hands.” She was nervous and talking too fast, but she couldn’t help it. “Why would the Texas Rangers want to talk to me? I already answered the detective’s questions after they found my husband’s body at the hotel. It’s hard for me to believe he took his own life, but even more difficult to believe anyone would have wanted to kill him.”
“Why do you think it wasn’t a suicide?”
Averting her eyes she said, “In my opinion he was too selfish to do it. That’s what I told the police. Now I’ve probably shocked you.”
“Not at all. Tell me something. Was your husband right-or left-handed?”
“Left.”
“The report said the gun was found in his left hand, but the angle of the bullet raises some questions. Your answer convinces me the gunshot wasn’t self-inflicted.”
She sat back in the chair. “So someone killed him? Am I a suspect?”
“If this weren’t crucial, I wouldn’t have insisted on talking to you today. I’ll explain, but we’re going to need some time, unless you want me to come back this evening.”
“No, no.” Might as well get this over with. “I’ll call my sitter and prepare her for a longer wait. Excuse me.” Natalie got up from the chair and hurried into the kitchen to call her friend on her cell phone.
“Don’t hate me for this, Jillian, but the Ranger is here now and it sounds like this is going to take a while longer.”
“You poor thing.”
“It’s all a little scary. Would you mind keeping Amy? I hate to do this to you, but he’s made it sound like it’s really important.”
“The girls are playing in the toy room and having a great time. Don’t worry about us. I’ll give them both dinner. You take your time.”
“Bless you, Jillian.”
She hung up and rushed back to the living room.
The Ranger eyed her directly. “I know you’re full of questions, so I’ll get to the point. Your husband’s death was a homicide. But that’s not the whole of it.”
She knit her hands together. “What do you mean?”
“The police stumbled onto some information that has resulted in the case being handled by the Texas Rangers. My captain has assigned it to me. That’s why the detective informed me of your phone call instead of following through himself.”
“I still don’t understand.” Something told her she wasn’t going to like what he told her.
His expression sobered. “Your husband wasn’t the man he claimed to be.”
Her adrenaline surged. “What do you mean exactly?”
“I wish there was a way to soften the blow for you. The man you knew as Rodney Parker Harris was actually born Harold Bartlett Park. He was born and raised in Denver, Colorado.”
She felt as if her lungs froze while the revelation sank in. “Surely you’re mistaken!”
“DNA doesn’t lie. His grandparents raised him after his parents were killed in a car crash when he was seven, but
they couldn’t control him. In his teens he ran away and got into serious trouble. In time he used various aliases and committed crimes that put him in prison for a sixty-year sentence.”
“Sixty?” Her cry resounded in the room.
“That’s right. He’d only served two of them when he escaped eight years ago during a prisoner transfer to another facility. He eventually ended up here in Austin. There’s been an arrest warrant out on him for years.”
A gasp escaped her lips. She sprang to her feet. “You’re telling me that I was married to a felon?”
His eyes looked at her with compassion. “I’m afraid so. You’re welcome to see the DNA test results. They prove he’s the same man who’d been on his way to another prison when he made his escape with a fellow inmate. That killer is still at large.”
Fear raced through her as her thoughts leaped ahead. “Do you think he’s the one who broke in here?”
“In time I’ll find out who did this.”
She shivered as he pulled a paper from his back pocket and handed it to her. “This is what we call a rap sheet.”
Her fingers trembled as she opened it. Another cry resounded in the room as she saw the mug shot of the man she’d been married to. It was Rod, but a younger Rod with long black hair and a beard. The good-looking man she’d fallen in love with had short-cropped, dark blond hair and was clean-shaved.
Natalie looked down the list of his crimes that had earned him a sixty-year prison sentence. “Murder?” The knowledge that she’d been living with a hard-core criminal caused her to break out in a cold sweat. This was her precious Amy’s father?
Her hands went clammy.
Horrified, she dropped the paper and ran to the bathroom where she threw up. When there was nothing left, she rinsed out her mouth and brushed her teeth. To her shock she saw the Ranger waiting for her in the hall while she clung to the sink to recover.
“I wish there’d been an easier way to break this to you,” he murmured. “If you want to lie down, I understand.”
His kindness got to her. She let go of the sink. “I’d like to pretend none of this is real, but I know it is or you wouldn’t be here. No wonder the Texas Rangers are involved. Since I was in the process of divorcing him, I’m sure the police have already decided I killed him.”
She left the bathroom and walked to the living room on shaky legs.
“They have to look at a death from every angle.” His brows lifted. “Do you own a firearm?”
“No.”
“Did your husband?”
She took a steadying breath. “Not that I ever knew about.”
He eyed her speculatively through veiled eyes. “Why do you think the police would automatically assume you wanted him dead?”
“Because he’d been unfaithful to me. Now that I know the truth about him, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been with different women throughout our marriage. This is unbelievable.” She couldn’t disguise the tremor in her voice. “When I had proof of his infidelity, I told him I was filing for divorce and asked him to leave the house.”
“How did he handle that?”
“He didn’t take me seriously until I warned him I’d call the police to put a restraining order on him. To my surprise he actually packed up and left. It almost seemed too easy, but it makes sense if he knew the FBI was hunting for him.”
The Ranger shifted his weight. “Mrs. Harris, the detective’s opinion of what happened was only speculation while he investigated your husband’s case. It was turned over to me too quickly for any conclusions to be drawn. I haven’t seen all the forensic evidence yet. Now that I’m in charge, I prefer to investigate the facts without bringing any bias from other sources. That’s why it was so important I spoke with you today. For the time being we’re going to keep any more information from being leaked to the press.”
“Thank you for that.”
“You’ve received a shock—you’re still pale. Sit down and I’ll fix you a cup of coffee.”
She pressed her lips together. “I imagine you could use some, too. Come into the kitchen. I’ll answer your questions while I make it. I need to stay busy.” Her suggestion coincided with the doorbell ringing.
“That’ll be the team. I’ll let them in.”
“They’ll need to check the garage, too.”
“I’ll tell them. I also want them to take your fingerprints. I hope that’s all right.”
He left her long enough to go to the door. Three people, two men and a woman, came in carrying equipment. They put on latex gloves and got to work. After meeting Natalie, one of the men took impressions of her fingers at the kitchen table while the other two checked the room for other prints.
When that was done they went about their business through the rest of the house, dusting surfaces and looking for evidence. The moment was surreal.
The Ranger stepped over several items on the floor to sit at the table. The high chair stood in the corner. She felt his gaze while she fixed coffee for them. “Where do you want to start?”
“Before we begin, you need to know I’ll be recording our conversation.”
Natalie nodded. “Do you take cream or sugar?”
“Both.”
So did she. She prepared two mugs and brought them to the table, sitting opposite him. After being sick to her stomach, the coffee tasted good, the sugar reviving her. He appeared to enjoy his, too, draining most of his mug before sitting back.
“Tell me about yourself first. I saw two women at the graveside service.”
“You were there?” she asked in disbelief.
“Watching from a distance. Were either of them your relatives?”
“No. I am an only child and my mother died several years ago. My parents divorced when I was twelve. My father had an affair and married the woman. They moved to his hometown in Canada. I never saw or heard from him again.”
“You’ve been through a lot of heartache in your life,” he observed with empathy. “Now, I’d like you to tell me about how you met your husband, and I’ll also need you to identify the people in these photos for me.” He handed her the camera and she blinked when she saw the display, astonished that he’d taken pictures at the cemetery. She swiped her finger across the screen, scrolling through the images before giving him back the camera.
She stared into space. “My husband and I met just over two and a half years ago. It was November. A controlled-substance delivery from LifeSpan Pharmaceutical didn’t check with the head pharmacist’s order. The shipment usually comes in a brown box with tamper-proof tape. When I saw that the wrong order had been delivered, I called the plant. Several conversations took place before a man in accounting came on the line. It was Rod.
“He said the problem would be taken care of. The next thing I knew he came to the pharmacy with the correct shipment.”
“Where do you work?”
“In the pharmacy at the Grand Central store on Spruce Street, about a mile from here.”
“How long have you been a pharmacist?”
“I received my degree seven years ago and I’ve been working there ever since. The head pharmacist, John Willard, and his wife, Marva, were two of the people at the service today.”
“Tell me about the other woman who was there. The older one.”
“Ellen Butterworth is a woman from the church who was good friends with my mother.”
“I see. All right, back to your story about Rod.”
“I thought it was unusual that someone from the accounting department would make the delivery instead of a courier, but Rod reminded me that we’d spoken on the phone once before about a separate issue. He told me he liked the sound of my voice and wondered what I was like, so he’d taken it upon himself to bring the package in person.”
“You’d never met him in pers
on before?”
“No. But now that I know he was a criminal, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d seen me somewhere and found out about me ahead of time.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me, either. Go on.”
“Rod came by several times after that and talked me into going out to lunch with him. I was flattered. He was very kind when I told him about my mother’s battle with MS. She’d only just died before he came into my life. I found him attractive and we started dating. I learned that he’d been in the military but had been released from service when he was wounded in the lower leg.”
“Did you see any proof of his military service?”
“No. I had no reason to question it. He said that during his time in the military, his folks were killed in a car crash in Houston, where he’d been born and raised. The military had helped him find a job from their outreach program and he was interviewed by LifeSpan to work in their accounting department. In time he’d moved his way up and eventually became the director of Finance. One thing led to another and he asked me to marry him.”
Her gaze flicked to his. “After looking at that rap sheet, I can see that everything he told me was a spectacular work of fiction.” She shook her head. “His healed gunshot wound had to have come from another source that had nothing to do with fighting a war.”
“Not the war he described to you. He was injured fleeing arrest after he escaped.”
She groaned. “Here I’ve been living with a killer, thinking all along how horrible combat must have been for him. He fed me lie after lie and I believed him.”
“Harold Park was a consummate sociopath who fooled everyone, including his employers.”
The Texas Ranger was trying to make her feel better, but the fact that Harold had lied to more people than just her gave Natalie no comfort.
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