Fearless

by Fern Michaels

  She chatted, made the rounds, talked to a few dozen people, posed for the camera, and even though she wasn’t all that comfortable, given the state of her private affairs, she had to return to the vlogging world eventually.

  “Anna, I adored those Halloween treats on your show,” said one guest.

  This was followed by others, complimenting her on the show, her recipes. No one even hinted at the scandal that had been reported on. This gave her hope that, in time, it would be forgotten, nothing more than a bad memory. She stayed an hour longer than she had planned to. On the drive home, she chatted briefly with Mandy, revisiting the events of the past few months. There was one task she needed to tend to, and she would do so as soon as she was alone.

  She pulled her Nissan through the gates and parked in the garage. Mandy was still staying over a few nights a week. Christina had a walking cast on, and tonight she’d had Tiffany over to spend the night, a celebration of sorts.

  As soon as she changed into her sleep shirt, Anna went to her personal computer and sent Barb an e-mail telling her that she would no longer continue to cover Ryan’s hotel. Then she went to the website of the credit card she had used and sent a message asking that the card be cancelled, then paid the balance. A whopping seventy-three hundred dollars. That done, she logged on to her Facebook page and read a few posts, seeing that she had a friend request from someone named Laura Jones. Anna thought she was probably the friend of a friend, and though she was not sure, she was in a good mood, so she accepted the request.

  She clicked on the page, a bit surprised to find photos of the event she had just attended. She recognized a few of the people in the photos, but she wasn’t sure who this Laura Jones was. She clicked the mouse and enlarged the picture, and though she had never met this woman, she knew she’d seen her recently.

  Then she remembered. This was the face in the photographs Daniel had taken of the pictures in Renée’s luggage. Only, she was much older and hadn’t aged well. She looked rough, unlike the usual glammed-up women who attended the event. These weren’t photoshopped, some kook trying to play mind games with her. This was real.

  The implication behind the photos blew her away. How could this be? Was she seeing more than was actually there? She examined the pictures again. This was definitely an older version of the woman in the pictures he’d shared with her.

  If she put two and two together, and she was quite capable of doing so, she had to conclude that Laura Jones was none other than Ryan Robertson’s dead wife.

  She glanced at the clock, saw it was after one in the morning but didn’t care. She called Daniel. He needed to know what she’d just discovered.

  Ryan’s wife was alive and well.

  “Hey, it’s late. This better be important.”

  “It is.” She relayed the evening’s events, then explained about the friend request. “I’m going to send these pictures to you while you’re on the phone, and I need someone to tell me I haven’t completely lost my mind. Give me a minute.” Anna clicked and pasted the photos in an e-mail, then sent them to him. “You should have them any second.”

  “Let me boot up my laptop. Two seconds,” he said.

  Anna heard his fingers clicking across the keyboard.

  “Okay, I have them. Give me a minute to look at them.”

  “Sure,” Anna said. This had to be the ultimate lie. And his kids? Did they believe their mother was dead? And if so, what could possibly keep a father from telling his children the truth?

  “You’re right, it’s her. Aged, and not too kindly, but it’s her. She’s using a different name, obviously. I don’t know what this means or how it relates to your case, whether or not she’s involved in some way. It’s hard to get something past me, and this, well, let’s just say I’m shocked. I’m going to make a few calls, see what I can find out. Are you going to be up for a while?”

  “I’ll never be able to sleep unless I pop an Ambien, and I’m trying to ease off those things. So, yes, I’ll be awake.”

  “Talk soon,” Daniel said, ending the call.

  Anna was also in a semi state of shock. Nothing made sense. Poor Renée. She didn’t like the girl. She had tried to kill her daughter; whether that was her intent or not was yet to be determined, but still, to not know your mother was alive. It couldn’t be good, whatever the reason for her disappearance, if that’s what it was. Or maybe she’d left and decided after all these years to return.

  The publicity surrounding her daughter—had it brought her out of hiding? Anna was at a total loss for any reasonable explanation.

  Her phone rang, and it was Daniel. “Did you find out anything?”

  “I did, and I hope you’re sitting down because you’re not going to believe what I learned about this woman. This story just keeps getting stranger by the minute.”

  Daniel told her what he’d found out. As he had predicted, Anna was shocked. Though she’d just told Daniel she was trying to lay off the Ambien, she took a whole one and didn’t even bother to crawl beneath the sheets.

  Epilogue

  The media went crazy when news of Ryan’s very-much-alive wife was made public. So many questions Anna had had were now answered, though the why behind the answers was something she would probably never have.

  Laura Jones, also known as Leticia Elise Robertson, had spent the last eleven years locked away in Texas’s Huntsville State Prison. Patrick had suffered extreme abuse at the hands of his mother. Not beating, whipping, or slapping. No, the abuse Patrick suffered was much worse than that.

  It started when he was three. So-called viruses. Seizures. High potassium levels. The list was lengthy and horrifying. Anna’s heart broke with each word she read, the suffering Patrick had gone through as a child. When Renée came along, he was six, old enough to know that he was only sick with Mommy, according to the records Daniel had. Wanting to protect his baby sister from all the trips to the doctor, getting poked and pricked, and needles, the endless emergency room trips, he’d finally told a doctor that Mommy made him sick.

  An undercover investigation was launched after the child told the doctor, and Leticia Elise Robertson had been arrested, the papers said, a clear-cut case of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but was released after only serving eleven years, her sentence reduced by four years for good behavior.

  “No wonder that kid is so freaking evil,” Mandy said. “Looks like she’s taken after her wack job of a mother.”

  Anna and Daniel, along with Mandy, Jeb, and Mona, were enjoying a break after a long workday. The holidays were right around the corner, and it had been nonstop for all of them.

  Christina was out of her cast, and had been able to return to school right after Thanksgiving. She walked with a limp, but her physical therapist said Christina was a bit fearful she’d break it again. But she was getting stronger by the day.

  Given the history of the Robertson family, the prosecutor declined to press an attempted-murder charge against Renée. However, she didn’t go scot-free. She was placed in a psychiatric hospital until her twenty-first birthday. Anna doubted she would be released before then. If she were, Anna would do whatever she had to in order to keep her in a safe place, where she couldn’t harm anyone else.

  Ryan. A liar, a player, and a con man, just as Mandy had said.

  And then there was Patrick.

  A mixed-up young man who was going to need lots of therapy before he was ready to face the world. Anna had set up an account for him to finish college in California. He wanted to get back into his swimming, and she felt it was her obligation to support his choice. Given what he’d been through, she was glad she could help him out even if it was just financially.

  Daniel smiled at her, and yes, she felt all mushy inside. She wasn’t sure if her friendship with her attorney would go beyond that, but something told her it was going to be so much more than that. He winked at her, and it almost took her breath away.

  “Gar
y is sure Renée set fire to the house. Clever, but nonetheless insane. She used a pushpin to put the string in the ceiling, hung the balloon filled with kerosene, lit a candle, and left the house. It didn’t take long for the balloon to meet the candle. That’s why they asked you about your trips to Candle City. The metal part of the candle where the wick was attached is their brand. Renée had been seen the night before at the mall, in Candle City, purchasing the exact kind of candle used to start the fire. She denied it, tried to blame it on her dad, said he needed the insurance money. Little did she know that Daddy hadn’t kept up with the premiums.”

  “They’s one messed-up bunch o’ folks, is all I got to say,” Jeb observed.

  “Hell, messed-up, that ain’t good ’nuff. All of ’em is downright nut jobs,” Mona said, as always adding her two cents whether you wanted to hear it or not.

  “So what do you think they’ll do when they find Ryan and Leticia?”

  “Leticia is a free woman. I can’t imagine the two of them are together, but it is what it is. Patrick told me that his father always blamed him for the breakup of the family. He told Patrick that his mother died in a car accident, and that that was his fault, too. No wonder he was so aloof. I think that girlfriend he had, the one from Spain, has contacted him. They had a baby, though he or she was put up for adoption. I think that was for the best, but still, if Patrick walks away with a normal life a few years from now, maybe his suffering all those years can be put in the past, where it belongs.” Anna took a sip of her coffee. Amazed at the events since she’d taken that cruise, she still hadn’t told Daniel all of her suspicions about Ryan. What in his life had caused him to be such a mean, demented man, such an uncaring and cruel father? She would never have those answers, and she could live with that.

  “I think Ryan was your first stalker,” Mandy said. “If you think about it, what were the odds? The guy had no money. Apparently what he did earn was spent on trying to impress people.” Anna had told her this a few nights ago during one of their girl talks.

  “He said his colleagues gave him the cruise as a birthday gift. I remember thinking what an extravagant gift. Those friends, colleagues, never made an appearance in the short time I knew him, so who knows? Maybe he was stalking me. I guess a person can have two stalkers. What are the odds of that? He was quite familiar with my shows. He said he never missed them, and I’m sure he was telling the truth. Maybe he had some sick hang-up? I don’t know. But what I do know is that we’ve beaten the subject to death. I say it’s time we bury it and move forward. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m calling it a night.” Anna put her cup in the dishwasher, kissed Mona and Jeb, and told Mandy she could go home.

  “What about me?” Daniel said. “Can’t I at least get a good night kiss?”

  Anna turned around so fast, she lost her balance. A strong, muscular hand steadied her. “I haven’t had a girl fall at my feet since . . . never.”

  Anna stood on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek. “’Night, Daniel.”

  “ ’Night, ’night, pretty girl.”

  ANNA’S RIB RUB

  INGREDIENTS

  ⅓ cup chili powder

  ⅓ cup light brown sugar (dark can be substituted)

  ¼ cup kosher salt

  ¼ cup crushed black peppercorns

  1½ tablespoons cumin

  1–2 tablespoons garlic powder

  1–2 tablespoons smoked paprika

  1 tablespoon onion powder

  1 teaspoon lime zest

  1 teaspoon Mexican oregano

  ½ teaspoon chipotle pepper (seeds removed)

  ½ teaspoon coriander

  ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

  INSTRUCTIONS

  Mix all ingredients together, mashing any lumps of brown sugar, and store in an airtight container. Give a good stir before using.

  HOW TO USE

  Use paper towels to pat the ribs dry.

  Cover ribs with a light coating of olive oil on both sides.

  Rub Anna’s Rib Rub into the meat, giving it a good massage and working the spices in.

  Seasoned ribs can be refrigerated overnight, covered with plastic wrap.

  Allow ribs to reach room temperature before cooking or grilling.

  ENJOY!

  Anna