Lone Witness

by Shirlee McCoy

  It would take time, but he seemed confident they would find the kidnapper.

  She hoped so.

  But while she waited, she refused to live in fear.

  At least not fear of the kidnapper.

  If she was honest, she’d admit she was still afraid of Patrick.

  In the weeks following the kidnapping, there’d been a buzz of media attention. Tessa had been offered thousands of dollars to give interviews and appear on live news programs.

  She’d refused all the offers.

  As soon as she’d been released from the hospital, she’d locked herself in the cottage, and she’d stayed there until most of the furor had blown over. As far as she knew, the only picture that had been leaked to the media was of a photo that hung in the diner—Tessa holding her employee-of-the-month award two years ago. In it, she looked nothing like the woman who’d left Napa Valley. She’d let her hair go back to its natural mousy color. She’d stopped wearing the violet-colored contacts that Patrick had loved. Instead of the short, trendy hairstyle she’d paid hundreds of dollars for, she’d had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, a fringe of bangs hanging over her eyes.

  She’d seen the photo on the nightly news while she was recovering from surgery. The next day, it had made national headlines. Since then, she’d been telling herself that Patrick would never recognize her as the dowdy waitress in the fuzzy photo.

  Every night, she prayed that she was right.

  Every night, she checked the locks on her windows and doors and lay in bed for hours listening to the creaks and groans of the settling house. She’d drift off to sleep and wake from nightmares. Not of the kidnapping or the attack in the hospital. Of Patrick, his hands around her throat, strangling the life from her.

  She needed to move on. Just like she had when she’d left Napa Valley. Put the fear behind her and take control of her life again.

  Walking to work was the first step in that, but winter had settled hard, and she was shivering by the time she reached Rachelle and Brett Halifax’s street, her toes numb in her rubber-soled black sneakers. There was light shining in a first-floor window of their house, and she wondered if the girls were there for the weekend. They usually were, and the fact that Tessa knew that bothered her.

  She’d woken from surgery expecting to be alone.

  Instead, Henry had been beside her, sitting in a chair, reading a Gideon Bible. He’d offered her ice chips, asked if she was in pain, called the nurse when she’d said she was.

  Since then, he and his family had made themselves part of her life. They’d brought her meals, cleaned her house, called her in the evening when the sun was going down and the shadows were getting long. The girls would giggle into the receiver, and Tessa would not be able to keep herself from smiling.

  Somehow, the twins had found their way into her heart.

  She was fine with that.

  She’d never thought of herself as maternal, but she loved painting fingernails and helping the girls choose outfits for church. Twice, she’d had Saturday-night dinner at the Halifax place. Brett had cooked wonderful meals while the girls chattered endlessly about school and friends. Everly was the boisterous one. Aria the quieter, more thoughtful twin. Both were lovely well-mannered girls who were obviously deeply loved by their family. Rachelle had shown Tessa photos of the girls’ mother—a beautiful black-haired woman who had been a teacher in the inner city, a person devoted to helping the less fortunate. Someone Tessa knew she would have liked.

  The same way she liked Rachelle and Brett and the girls.

  The same way she liked Henry.

  And that, she knew, was the root of her unease regarding the family. Not the twins. Not the Halifaxes. Henry.

  He’d been at the dinners, sharing stories of the girls’ antics and asking questions that Tessa hadn’t been able to answer. At least not completely. She’d told him the truth about her childhood—about her mother’s drug problems, and her grandmother’s more positive influence. She’d shared bits and pieces from her young adult years, mentioning Patrick in passing but not providing his surname, his occupation, or where he’d lived.

  When Henry pressed for more details, she sidestepped the questions or changed the subject.

  She knew he noticed, and there was a huge part of her that wanted to tell him everything.

  That scared her.

  Not because she was afraid of what he’d think or say or do, but because, in the time she’d lived in Provincetown, she’d never been tempted to share her story with anyone.

  She frowned, her gaze shifting to the Halifax place.

  It was the antithesis of every home she’d ever shared—warm and welcoming, nurturing and wholesome. She longed to be part of that, but being part of anything under false pretenses was wrong. And, she supposed, a false identity was the same.

  She sighed, shoving her hands in her pockets to try to warm them.

  “It’s an awfully cold day to be out walking,” a man said, and she whirled around, saw Henry standing beneath the streetlight near his in-laws’ driveway.

  “You scared me,” she said, her heart racing for reasons that had nothing to do with terror.

  “I’m sorry about that. I was sitting on the porch when you walked by. I thought you’d seen me.”

  “I would have said hello if I had,” she replied as he walked toward her.

  “Would you have?” he asked, shrugging out of his coat and wrapping it around her shoulders.

  “Is there a reason you think I wouldn’t?” she responded, the scent of pine needles and wood fires drifting in the air.

  “There you go again. Answering a question with a question.”

  “And there you go, asking more questions than I want to answer,” she replied. She slipped the coat from her shoulders, ignoring the twinge in her bad arm as she handed it back to him. “You’re going to freeze out here without a coat.”

  “According to Rachelle, you were going to freeze on your way to work,” he said.

  “Is she the reason you were sitting on the porch?”

  “You did tell her that you planned to walk to work today.”

  “We had lunch together yesterday.”

  “That’s what she said. Brett is in Boston teaching at a medical seminar, and he has their car. Since she doesn’t have a vehicle, Rachelle decided to hand you hot chocolate and a blanket on your way past. She laid out the plan when I arrived with the girls last night.”

  “You talked her out of it?”

  “She’s seventy. I didn’t want her waking up before dawn to do something I could easily handle. I promised I’d waylay you and drive you the rest of the way to Ernie’s. So, here I am.” He smiled, taking her arm and leading her back to the Halifaxes’ place. “My SUV warms up quickly. Hop in. I’ll crank up the heat.”

  He opened the door, and she did as he asked, telling herself that this was no different than any other time she’d been in the SUV with him. Since her surgery, he’d driven her to doctor’s appointments and physical-therapy sessions, taking time off from work to be there on several occasions.

  It had felt odd to have someone inconvenience himself for her sake. Aside from Hester, there’d been no one in Tessa’s life who would willingly do that. Her past relationships had always been inequitable, and she’d often burned out in her efforts to make the other person happy. In Los Angeles and Napa Valley, relationships had been difficult and fraught with tension and violence.

  With Henry, things were easy.

  She wasn’t sure what to make of that, or how to respond.

  Heat poured from the vents as he pulled out of the driveway, and she held her hands in front of them, warming her fingers. Henry didn’t complain, didn’t demand that she sit still, didn’t call her a silly little twit who should have known better than to walk in fifteen-degree weather. He hummed along with the radio, his
fingers tapping the leather steering wheel.

  “Is this what it’s supposed to be like?” she asked, the words slipping out before she could think better of them.

  “What?” he asked, taking the turn onto Commercial Street slowly. If he was bothered by the fact that Rachelle had convinced him to get up at the crack of dawn to drive Tessa to work, he didn’t show it.

  “Friendship? Companionship? Is it supposed to be this easy? Not that I’m saying we’re friends or companions. I know you’re just doing these things because I helped your daughter. I’m just curious. I’ve never—”

  “You haven’t let me answer the question,” he said quietly as he pulled up to the curb in front of the diner.

  “Sorry,” she responded, embarrassed because she’d asked, and because she couldn’t seem to stop her verbal spewing. She spent hours every day with strangers, making small talk as she took orders and served meals. It seemed silly to get nervous while she was talking to Henry, but that’s how she felt.

  He put the SUV in Park and shifted to face her, his eyes silvery blue in the dashboard light. “I think that a good friendship is easy and comfortable, but not like a worn shoe or a threadbare and pilled blanket. Like a familiar song or the patter of rain on a tin roof. It’s the kind of thing a person can come back to again and again and never be bored with. It’s familiar, and yet, somehow, always brand-new.”

  “That’s very...poetic,” she murmured, a lump in her throat because it hadn’t just been poetic, it had been beautiful. She’d never had that kind of friendship. As a child, she’d had a few pals that she’d walked to school with. Most of them had left the projects or joined local gangs when they entered middle school. Eventually, Tessa had decided to go it alone. To do as her grandmother had suggested and mind her business, take the path of kindness and avoid the troublemakers of the world.

  She’d done a good job of that.

  Until she’d met Patrick.

  “You didn’t know I had a little poetry in me, huh?” he asked, offering a half smile that made her pulse jump.

  “You seem more the rock-climbing, outdoor type,” she replied, and his smile broadened.

  “I am. When I was a kid, I used to camp under the stars. If it got chilly, I’d build a fire and listen to it crackle and spit in the darkness.”

  “Were you a Scout?”

  “I was a dirt-poor country boy,” he replied. “My mother and I lived in a single-wide trailer on the edge of a defunct farm. Cheap rent and an understanding landlord who never once evicted us, but hot as Hades in the summer and stuffy and dank in the winter. Sleeping outside was preferable.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He left when I was three. I’ve seen a couple pictures of the house he and my mother shared. It wasn’t much better than the trailer.” His smile had faded but there wasn’t any self-pity or embarrassment in his voice. Why would there be? He’d come from nothing and made it into the FBI. He had nice suits and polished shoes. The girls had clean clothes, plenty of toys and lots of love.

  “What you’ve accomplished is incredible. Your mother must be very proud of you.”

  “She passed away before the girls were born, but she was definitely a proud mama. The year I graduated college, I was able to rent her a place in a nice apartment complex. Brand-new appliances, hot and cold water, heat and cooling systems. She loved it. She also loved to brag about my degree and my job in law enforcement. We had a couple of great Christmases there. The last Christmas we spent together, she cooked the meal. The turkey was awful, but the joy was real. Diane and I had just gotten married, and we spent Christmas day with Mom.” He looked softer when he spoke of his family, and Tessa’s heart ached with longing for the kind of relationship that put that expression on someone’s face—fondness, admiration and respect, all gleaming from the gentle-eyed gaze of the one remembering.

  But, of course, she would never have anything close, because she could never tell the truth about who she was, where she had come from or what she had done to leave the past behind.

  “I had better get inside. Ernie likes the diner a certain way before it opens, and I need to prove that I can still manage that,” she murmured, her voice husky with useless emotion.

  She wasn’t going to cry over what she couldn’t have.

  She wasn’t going to mourn a silly dream.

  She opened the SUV door, frigid air sweeping in and cooling her hot cheeks.

  “You didn’t let me finish.” Henry grabbed her hand before she could exit the vehicle. His grip was loose, but the connection between them so strong she couldn’t make herself pull away.

  “Finish what?”

  “Answering your question.”

  “I thought you had.”

  “Not quite.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers drifting across the thin scar that disappeared into her hairline. “You said I was doing this because of what you did for Everly. I wanted to tell you that my being here this morning has nothing to do with that.”

  “Then, what does it have to do with?”

  “You.”

  That one word made her pulse jump and her heart ache.

  She wanted to believe it was the truth. That he hadn’t driven her to the diner because he had some false sense of obligation, or some erroneous belief that he needed to balance the scales. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Henry.”

  “Why not? I have the girls and my in-laws, and I’m grateful for that, but it’s nice to add to my small circle of friends.”

  “Your circle of friends isn’t small. Everyone in Provincetown knows you.” She’d noticed that when they’d gone to doctor’s appointments or taken the girls for walks on the beach together. People always called Henry’s name, greeting him and the girls as if they were old friends.

  They probably were. She’d heard the stories about Diane and how much she’d loved the Cape. This had been the family’s favorite place to spend time together. Henry had been visiting the huge Victorian and the quaint town since he’d met Diane during their junior year of college. She knew all that because she listened. Not because she asked.

  “The circle of people that I would trust with my daughters is tiny. You’re in it. That means something to me. You mean something to me, and not just because you saved Everly’s life.”

  The words were sweet, and she wanted to believe them, but she’d been swept up in pretty words before—she’d allowed herself to believe in things that weren’t true.

  She’d sworn that she’d never repeat the mistake.

  “That’s nice of you to say, Henry. I appreciate it.”

  “But, you don’t believe it?” he raised a sandy eyebrow, and she could see the questions in his eyes.

  “We’ve been tossed into this together, but eventually you’ll find the man who kidnapped Everly. Once you do, we’ll go our separate ways again.”

  “Is that what you’re hoping?”

  “It’s a fact. People meet. People connect. People walk away.”

  “Sometimes, they don’t.”

  “Do you have any updates on the DNA results?” she asked, changing the subject and not caring that it was obvious. She didn’t want to talk about what might be, because she was afraid to believe in it. Afraid of being hurt again.

  His jaw tightened, his eyes flashing with something that looked like irritation. “You are very good at sidestepping things.”

  “Does that mean you don’t have an update?”

  “We do. That was the other reason I wanted to talk to you this morning. One of the ancestry businesses we contacted has a potential match.”

  “So, you know his name?” she asked, excited by the possibility, hopeful that she could finally put to rest any concerns that the kidnapper would come after her.

  “Not yet. We subpoenaed the company and got a name, but the DNA match is sho
wing as a distant male relative.”

  “Which means what? A cousin?”

  “Or an uncle. We’re doing some research, trying to find someone in the family tree who matches the criminal profile Jessica worked up.”

  “White male. Twenty-five to forty. Professional. Well-educated,” she said, repeating what she’d been told, and he nodded.

  “And someone who has a job in the medical field.”

  “I didn’t realize that was part of it.”

  “It wasn’t. Jessica predicted that the guy traveled for work, but it looks like he may also have connections to hospitals. Every kidnapping victim has a relative who works for a hospital near the town where she was abducted.”

  “Brett is retired,” she pointed out.

  “Semiretired. He consults at Boston General and at Cape Cod General.”

  “I hadn’t realized that.”

  “Two weeks before Everly was taken, Brett took the girls to a fund-raising event at the hospital here. There was face-painting. Food. Therapy dogs. They had a blast.”

  “And you think the kidnapper was there?”

  “Not just me. The FBI special crimes unit has been investigating all the cases. After Brett mentioned the fund-raiser, we checked with the other families. Every one of them had brought the victim to an event at the hospital in the weeks prior to the kidnapping.”

  “So, maybe he doesn’t have a job in medicine. Maybe, he’s part of a fund-raising organization? Or, an event-planning company?”

  “Good thoughts, and we’re checking in to all those possibilities.”

  “This could be over soon.”

  “And when it is, you’ll want my family to step out of your life?” he said, the comment so surprising, it almost didn’t register.

  “I never said that, Henry.”

  “So, it’s just me you’ll want to say goodbye to.”