by Mary Burton
Melina looked out the window toward the four-lane highway, watching as the traffic rushed past. “Who leaves a kid on the side of the road?”
“You’ve already met one of them. Sadly, there are many more.”
Her mind returned to the body found in the woods behind Mecum’s house. “I shouldn’t gripe. I wouldn’t be here now if not for Bonnie.”
“Good way to look at it.”
She regarded him, watching as he raised his cup to his lips. He moved with precision, as if he never wasted energy on anything unnecessary.
“I know,” she said. “Speaking of evil, is there anyone in the Nashville area who knows Mecum? It’s clear that house is not his hideout.”
“Jackson’s team and Andy are searching for other residences, properties, and possible associates.”
Their meals arrived and she immediately picked up a hot, slightly oily fry and grinned. Nervous energy aside, it had been a couple of days since she’d had a real hot meal. And she did not know when she would see the next one.
As they ate, their conversation centered on old cases they each had worked, and she realized their paths had almost crossed several times before. At the end of the meal, he insisted on paying. When they stepped outside and got into the car, she felt a wave of relief wash over her. She was always glad to leave that place.
Her phone rang as he pulled onto the highway. “Andy,” she said. “That was quick.”
“When it comes to computers, I can do magic,” Andy said.
“I’m here with Agent Ramsey. Mind if I put you on speaker?”
“As long as you don’t mind Agent Ramsey hearing a few details about your past.”
“I’m an open book.” Melina actually trusted Ramsey with the details of her past more than anyone she had met in a long time. She hit the button.
“Hello, Andy,” Ramsey said.
“Hey, boss. Glad I caught you as well. This might be of interest to you both.”
Ramsey started the car but, instead of driving, sat as he focused his full attention on Andy’s words. “Ready when you are.”
“As you likely know, Agent Shepard provided me access to her DNA account. First thing I did was cross-check her DNA against the sample collected from Jennifer Brown’s sink. It was not a match.”
She was disappointed and relieved. “Are you sure?”
“Very,” Andy said. “I was able to upload it to GEDMatch, an open-source site. Because your DNA is available for access, GEDMatch is able to crossmatch it with its entire database. Any blood relative who has done the same will create a match. From there, a family tree can begin to be constructed. Best hit we had for Melina was a great-grandmother.”
“How did my great-grandmother get in the system?” Melina asked.
“One of the many hundreds of relatives you have is likely an amateur genealogist and uploaded it.”
“What is the bottom line?” Melina was more anxious than she realized to have something concrete about her past.
“The great-grandmother, Ann Talbot, had a son named Howard by her first marriage. Ann remarried when Howard was only five, and her second husband adopted the boy. His name changed from Talbot to Guthrie.”
“Our connection to Bonnie Guthrie,” Melina said.
“Correct. Howard and his first wife, Felicia, had two children. The boy, born in 1959, and his sister, in 1960. After thirty years of marriage, Felicia died. Howard married Bonnie Franklin, now known as Bonnie Guthrie, in 1989.”
“Is what Bonnie told me about her late husband’s family true?” Melina asked.
“Yes,” Andy said. “Lizzie Guthrie, Howard’s daughter, was born in 1960 and earned herself a long rap sheet. I know this because Agent Ramsey sent me her name and I did a complete search. Her offenses were mostly related to drugs and prostitution. She’s in CODIS and I was able to cross-check her DNA against Agent Shepard’s. They’re a match. Mother and daughter.”
Melina set her head back against the rest and for a moment she drew inward, hearing only the beat of her heart and her rapid breathing. She kept her gaze on the ceiling. “Are you sure?”
“It’s a ninety-eight percent chance that she was your biological mother. Lizzie was thirty when she died. You would have been about three at the time, Agent Shepard.”
Loss, sadness, and anger collided and then tangled into a tight ball. In a matter of seconds, she had found her birth mother and had just as quickly lost her. Her throat tightened, and she did not trust herself to speak in a calm voice.
Ramsey said, “Did Lizzie Guthrie have any other children?”
“She did. She had a son, who was born three years before Agent Shepard,” Andy said. “According to birth records in California, Bonnie Guthrie’s account of Agent Shepard’s half brother was correct. The boy’s name was Dean Guthrie. He does not have a police record.”
Frustration ate at Melina as she thought about this dead end. “What about my DNA? Can you find Dean using my profile?”
“I have loaded your DNA into CODIS, Agent Shepard. Your DNA might help us find Dean Guthrie. He can change his name but not his DNA.”
“Excellent work,” Ramsey said.
Melina remained silent, trying to process what amounted to family information overload.
Andy took another long pause and said, “One last detail. Your original California birth certificate states you were born September 2, 1987, not August 1.”
“My parents didn’t know my vital statistics. Knowing my mother, she picked the date because it had a sentimental reason,” Melina said.
Computer keys clicked on the other end of the line. “When your birth mother died, Howard and Bonnie took custody of you and your half brother. You lived with both until Howard died of a heart attack a year later.”
This all fit with what Bonnie had told her. The woman traded on lies, but she also knew when to use the truth. “According to Bonnie, she retained custody of me.”
“There is no filing with the California courts regarding a custody order. Bonnie’s first arrest was in 1976 and then nothing until 1992. She received a speeding ticket in Tennessee. She was given a court date but didn’t appear.”
“My dad found me in November of 1992.”
“Bonnie was headed east on Route 25.”
Melina smoothed her hands over her thighs, letting her mind trip back. A distant audio memory flashed. Gravel kicked up under tires. A car engine roared. She watched the car drive away and in the back window saw a face. The details of that face narrowed into focus. The child, a boy, was screaming and pounding on the window.
“She kept Dean and put me out on the side of the road like a dog.” Melina was amazed her voice sounded so matter of fact, even distant.
“It appears so,” Andy said quietly. “Bonnie was arrested in 2000. Her arrest record notes there was an underaged boy with her. He gave his name as Dean Guthrie. The pair of them were stealing from an electronics store. As Bonnie was being cuffed, the boy asked to go to the bathroom. He vanished and cops couldn’t find him.”
“In 2000, Dean would have been sixteen,” Ramsey said.
She cleared her throat again. “Do we know anything about him?”
“No. I haven’t had a lot of time to look for him, but he seems to have fallen off the radar after Bonnie’s 2000 arrest.”
“Keep us posted,” Ramsey said.
“I would bet money he’s here in Nashville,” Melina said, her intuition gnawing at her.
“Why do you say that?” Andy asked.
“Because Bonnie came back to Nashville,” Melina said. “She didn’t come looking for me. She came looking for Sonny.”
“Kind of odd that he happened to be in the same town as you,” Andy said.
“Not really,” Ramsey said. “As he got older, he would have known if Melina had been found, it would have been by Nashville police, and she’d have landed in Davidson County’s social services.”
She shifted her gaze, meeting his gaze head on. She felt light headed
.
He knew as well as she did why Sonny, a.k.a. Dean Guthrie, was here.
“He’s here because you’re here,” Ramsey said.
For more years than she could remember, she had wanted to peel back the veil on her past and know where she came from. But each new layer of history brought with it a new set of problems.
Melina ended the call, doing her best to not show her emotions.
“You okay?” Ramsey asked.
“Sure. Just fine.”
“Your nonreaction is more worrisome than any rant.”
“This is a lot to take in.”
“Have you spoken to your parents about Bonnie?” he asked.
“I’ve touched on the high spots but not gone into much detail. I don’t want to upend their world.”
“Something tells me they can handle it,” Ramsey said.
“Probably. I just need to process this as much as I can before I get bombarded with questions from them. They mean well, but I can’t even answer my own questions, let alone theirs.”
“Adoptees have a tendency to hide their true emotions from both their birth and adoptive parents. They become a kind of peacemaker who does their best to not upset the applecart.”
“I’ve read all the psychology books,” she said. “Adoptees have lost their birth parents through no fault of their own and consequently fear losing their adoptive parents. They test, prod, probe, all the while expecting and also fearing rejection. And if we do reunite with the birth family, we spend the rest of our lives walking on eggshells so that we don’t chase them away.” She shifted in her seat as if his scrutiny was too much to bear.
“You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“Too damn much. But my observations about adoption and adoptees are not relevant right now. What matters is Elena and finding Sonny.”
“The more I consider Jennifer Brown’s crime scene, the more I’m convinced Sonny is suffering with serious abandonment and anger issues,” Ramsey said.
Melina pictured a young boy who watched Bonnie driving off, knowing his sister was on the side of a deserted road. He must have been traumatized. The fear he had felt as a boy grew into rage as he became a man. “He’s killing Bonnie over and over.”
“I think that’s exactly what he’s doing.” Ramsey put the car in drive and pulled out onto the main road. For several minutes neither spoke as they wove their way back to Nashville.
All the unknown pieces of her past were falling into place and creating a very sad and dark image. She tipped her head back against the headrest. “New birthday, a birth mother, and now a half brother who is likely a serial killer. So, how’s your family doing?”
He shook his head. “You can’t pick your family.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Thursday, August 27, 6:00 p.m.
Bonnie was good at figuring things out. Her first stop was the hospital. She knew walking in and asking about the kid was not going to get her anywhere. So she made a quick stop at a uniform store located across from the hospital and bought a pair of scrubs. She pulled around the side of the building and changed into the scrubs and then drove to the hospital.
The success of a con depended on confidence. If you believed your story, the chances of someone else buying into it were good.
She rode the elevator to the pediatric wing. There were several nurses at the central station. They might give up information on the kid, but chances were slim. All the new federal regs made everyone paranoid.
The rattle of the wheels drew Bonnie’s attention to an attendant pushing a food cart. Older, with stooped shoulders, he was perfect. She snatched a clipboard from a side cart.
As he loaded a tray with an untouched yogurt and banana beside a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, she came up to him, smiling. “Such a waste,” she said. “All that food.”
“I hear ya,” he said. “Happens all the time.”
“Could feed an army on the unopened food alone.”
“I know.”
She glanced at her clipboard. “I’m here to do a follow-up with Elena Sanchez.”
“She’s checked out,” he said. “Social services came. A foster mom, I think.”
“Darn. I was hoping to do a quick mental health analysis. County has implemented a new policy. I’ll contact the agent in charge of the case.” Again, she glanced at the clipboard as if trying to remember. “Melina Shepard.”
“She should know. Her mother took the girl.”
Bonnie pretended to write on the clipboard. “Right. The Shepards are good people.” She thought back to the article she had read about Melina. There were family details, but she could not quite remember. “Thanks, doll,” she said.
At the information desk, Bonnie asked if there was a computer she could use and was directed to a small room reserved for family members of patients. She now had everything she needed.
She searched Melina’s name. When she had been in California, all she had had was Melina’s first name. But how many Melinas could there be in Music City? Turns out, a few dozen. She had searched each one and come up empty. Then she’d come across an article on Agent Melina Shepard with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The instant Bonnie saw the picture of the young agent featured in a news article, she knew she had found her girl.
Now, as she searched Melina Shepard, she skipped all the blah-blah information about her investigative successes and looked for information on Melina’s family.
Bonnie found it in an article that mentioned Melina’s father was a former detective with Nashville police. Mother was a former schoolteacher. She typed Detective Shepard Nashville Police. A few more clicks and there, on the screen, was Hank and Molly’s address.
Bonnie scribbled it down and then mapped the directions on the phone she had stolen from Ralph. Outside, she hurried around the building, dumped the clipboard in a trash can, and, in the car, changed out of the scrubs into her clothes.
The drive took twenty minutes, and as she got closer to the residential neighborhood, she followed the street signs until she spotted the one-story brick rancher. She drove slowly by the house and down to the end of the street.
The neat lawns with their neat flower beds and two-car garages irritated Bonnie. A few yards had bikes propped against the side of the house, and others had kiddie pools in the backyards.
It all screamed family.
Shit, Bonnie, Melina, and Sonny would all still likely be a family if Melina had just been good that day. Hell, she had tried to reason with the kid that night in the car. She had given her crackers and cookies and then bribed her with five dollars if she would just shut the hell up. But Melina had wanted out of the car. Bonnie had not enjoyed the three days of nonstop driving, either, but she had been willing to suck it up to get across the country. Sonny had managed fine with the long drive. But Melina kept melting down, demanding to be let out. Finally, Bonnie had granted the little brat her wish.
Bonnie circled around the block and looked toward the Shepards’ house. She spotted a woman passing in front of the window, and just behind her was Elena.
Bonnie kept driving. She had confirmed Elena’s location, and she knew the address and basic setup of the Shepards’ house. She dialed Sonny’s number. He picked up on the third ring.
“What the hell do you want?” Sonny demanded.
“I haven’t told the cops anything because I don’t want them to lock you up,” she said. “I really care about you, Sonny.”
Silence. “You haven’t been quiet for me. You don’t want to be nailed as an accessory after the fact.”
“I kept quiet for you, not me, baby.”
“You always put yourself first, Bonnie.” He sounded sure of himself. “You’re out of jail. And I know you well enough to know you want to stay out. I got you out. We’re done.”
She stopped at a stoplight. Up ahead were directional signs to the interstate that could take her far away from all this. “I want to
make things right between us.”
“There’s no making things right.”
“I saw the way you looked at Elena. She looks so much like Melina, doesn’t she? It’s like having your baby sister back.”
He didn’t speak, but she could hear his breath. He was listening.
“What if you, Elena, and me left town together? What if we kept going east like we’d planned all those years ago? Or what if we went to Mexico?”
“My life is just fine without you.”
“Is it, baby? You’ve developed a nasty little habit, and I bet in your off time you watch Melina, too. Always looking out for your sister.”
He didn’t respond.
She grinned. “You’re in Melina’s life, aren’t you? Do you watch her through the window of her town house? Watch her feed that little cat?”
“How do you know about the cat?”
Bonnie chuckled. “I’ve seen where she lives. It was important to me to know she turned out okay and she has.”
“No thanks to you.”
“Baby, she wouldn’t have the life she did if not for me. Putting her on the side of that road was the best thing I could have done for her. You know how she hated the traveling. Elena’s the same. She hates the travel. She wants a real family, too.”
“That kid is nothing like Melina.”
“Not true. Elena’s mother died just like your mama. Stuck a needle in her arm. I begged her to kick the habit. You remember how hard it was for Lizzie to stay away from it. She wanted to but loved the dope more than her little kids.”
“Shut up.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, baby. I want to give you a chance to get back what we had before. This time it will be you, me, and Elena.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course, I can.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry about how, baby. I’ll get Elena, you can get the key, and then we’ll get the money that will set us all up for life.”
Silence, and then, “Call me when you have her. Then we’ll talk.”