by Regan Black
“I love you, Dad,” Rico said.
“And I love you, son,” Placido said. “Now go take care of those females who have stolen your heart. I know what it is to love a woman to distraction.”
His mom patted her chest in mock adoration. “Be still my heart,” she said.
Rico kissed his mom next. “Call me if you need anything. I mean anything.”
“We’ll be fine. Be careful, Rico.”
CHAPTER 17
When Rico came back from visiting his mom and dad, his eyes were bright with emotion. “Everything okay?” Laura asked.
“I think he’s going to be just fine,” Rico said. “I feel a lot better about things than I did.”
Did she? Did she feel better now that she’d told Rico the truth? In a way, she supposed. It was nice not to have to lie to him.
Rico’s cell phone buzzed and he glanced at it. “I need to take this,” he said and quickly stepped out. Hannah took that as permission to run back to the aquarium, where she’d just spent the last fifteen minutes. Laura followed her.
In a few minutes, Rico joined them. He stood close to Laura. “That was my partner Seth. He made some inquiries about your status.”
She had a status? That was an ugly word. “And?”
He looked around, as if to assure himself that nobody, including Hannah, was listening. “It’s weird,” he said.
Her chest felt even tighter, if that was possible. “In what way?”
“Hannah Collins has not been reported missing.”
She opened her mouth, shut it. “What?” she said finally.
“There is no report that Hannah is missing, that she’s a suspected kidnapping. Nothing.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Agree. It makes it even more imperative that we go back to Nashville, that we talk to Detective Phillips. Hell, maybe we even talk to Hodge Rankin.”
Involuntarily, air hissed out between her teeth. “What about the Mustang?”
“Reported as stolen by the owner.”
“Nothing about me, that I stole it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “We’re going to take that car back, honey. And park it on the street. It’s going to get found. Safe and sound. And I suspect the Nashville police aren’t going to give it too much more thought.”
“I can’t drive it back,” she said. “It’s too great of a risk. It’s too recognizable.”
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s why we’re going to put it in a covered trailer that we hook up to the back of my SUV. We’re going to tow it back. Out of sight. Low risk.”
It might work. “Will we rent the trailer?”
He smiled. “No need. Paddie and Jennie have one. They use it to haul snowmobiles and their other toys. I’m sure they’ll be willing to let me borrow it.”
But now it would be impossible for him to claim that he knew nothing about her situation when he’d helped her.
If it came to that.
Which it probably would if she went back to Nashville.
And if she went on to California and assumed a new life for her and Hannah, she would have to leave Rico behind.
Either choice was dismal.
But ultimately, it was Hannah’s welfare that was important.
And to have this mess behind them was the best outcome. The worst would be if she was arrested and separated from Hannah.
But at least if Rico was there, Hannah would not be all alone. And Rico’s family would be there, too. She took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s go east.”
He leaned closely and kissed her. But Hannah, ever observant, saw him.
“Rico kiss me, too,” she said.
He swung her up in his arms and gave her a loud smooch on the cheek. “Rico loves to kiss pretty girls,” he said.
Hannah giggled. “Rico kiss Ja-Ja.”
He did it, proving that Hannah truly had him wrapped around her little finger.
“Let’s go,” Laura said. Hannah might have him kissing strangers in the hospital lobby before long.
The trip back to Janice and Placido’s house was quiet, probably because both the adults were lost in their thoughts, and Hannah, well past her naptime, fell asleep four blocks into the drive. Rico pulled into the driveway. “I don’t want to wake her,” he said. “How about I get your things and you can wait out here with her.”
“That works,” she said. “All of our things are in the small bedroom, in our backpacks.”
He got out, without his crutches.
“How’s the ankle?” she asked, before he shut the door.
“Feeling pretty good,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”
How could she not? He was taking a tremendous risk by helping her. And she was heaping trouble at his door. She glanced at the sleeping child in the back seat. At the child who had lost so much.
“I’m all you have left,” she whispered. “Please let me be enough.”
She saw Lucky shoot out of the house and run to a bush. Rico followed, the two backpacks over one arm, and carrying Lucky’s food in the other. When they got in the car, Lucky, so excited to see Hannah again, promptly licked her face. The little girl opened her eyes, smiled and fell back asleep.
“Lay down,” Rico told the dog, who made a production out of finding just the right spot on the seat next to Hannah. “Good thing you’re not germophobic,” he said.
“I have a few worries ahead of that on my list,” she said, with some sarcasm. It was probably a good thing that he could tease her about it. Otherwise, it was going to be a really long drive back to Nashville.
“I’m going to give Jennie a call and make sure we can borrow the trailer. Otherwise, we should rent one before we leave here.” He picked up his phone.
She could only hear one side of the conversation but it appeared that Jennie immediately asked about Rico’s dad. Once Rico had given her the report, he said, “Jennie, if you still have your trailer, I’d like to borrow it for a couple weeks. Would that be okay?”
There was no further explanation from Rico and based on Rico’s nod and smile in her direction, Laura figured it was a yes.
He hung up. “We’ll swing by her place on our way to the cabin and pick it up.”
“She didn’t want to know why you need it?”
“Jennie and I have been friends for a long time. She would assume I have a good reason.”
She was silent for a long moment, thinking. “I guess that’s what hurt me the most with my brother. That he didn’t assume I had good intent.”
“He was wrong. You were simply doing what your parents had asked you to do.”
“He was also wrong when he didn’t seem to understand what a difficult decision it was.” She felt good saying the words. For years, she’d felt so guilty about the way the relationship had ended that she hadn’t wanted to verbalize anything that was remotely critical of her brother. “He was wrong to not support me more. To not help plan the funeral. To only communicate with the lawyer about the settling of the will, to never once be in a room with me again. I needed someone.”
“Of course you did,” he said, as if he understood completely.
“When I found out he was dead, I was sad that I wasn’t ever going to be able to fix it. And then when I discovered that he had a wife and a daughter, that I had family that I’d never met and that I’d already missed years of Hannah’s life, all that old anger surfaced again.”
She turned to look at him. “But something crazy happened when I met Hannah and was able to see her five days a week. I fell so in love with her that I wasn’t mad at my brother anymore. Through her, I saw all the good things about my brother and I was able to let go of the past. And I think he’d be happy about what I’m doing right now. He’d want me to have done everything I could to protect Hannah.”
�
�Of course,” Rico said.
“Which is why it’s driving me crazy that the police aren’t looking for her. Not that I want that additional complication, but it just isn’t right. What kind of person fails to let authorities know when a child is missing?”
“I’ve also been thinking of that,” Rico said. “Is it possible that Hodge Rankin knew who you were the whole time? That he was, in fact, waiting for you to make your move? Maybe he intends to bargain with you over Hannah. Maybe he’s going to name a price.”
“Sell me my niece?” she said.
Rico shrugged. “I’m just coming up with possibilities.”
“No, that’s good,” she said. “I don’t think so. I think something happened in that house to make my sister-in-law suddenly contact me and ask if she and Hannah could visit. Something that made her want to get out of town. I don’t think she would have arranged to come stay with me if it was a place where Rankin would have thought to look for her.”
“Maybe it’s as simple as he recognized you at the daycare. Maybe there was a picture of you in the house. You said that your sister-in-law remarried within months. Perhaps she still had pictures either on the walls or in boxes that he uncovered.”
She shook her head. “When I knocked on the door and explained to Ariel that I was Joe’s sister, I could tell that she had no idea that I existed. It was a bizarre feeling, let me tell you. To know that my brother had so easily erased me from his life.”
“That was probably more about him than about you. If he told his wife about you, perhaps she’d have thought less of him because of the decisions and actions he’d taken versus the decisions and actions you took.”
“Perhaps. But we’re back to square one. If Rankin didn’t know about me, and didn’t have any reason to suspect that Hannah was with a caring relative, then why hasn’t what would clearly be seen as her abduction been reported to the police?”
“Maybe he’s got all kinds of reasons to avoid interaction with the police. Maybe he’s got a rap sheet a mile long and he’s already on the cops’ radar?” Rico said. “I can see if Seth can get us any information on him. I didn’t make that part of my initial request because I didn’t want to muddy the waters too much.”
“I don’t think he does. Remember, I had gone to the police about the suspicious nature of my brother’s and my sister-in-law’s deaths. Detective Phillips told me that he’d looked at Hodge Rankin and that there was nothing out of the ordinary about the man.”
“That he was willing to tell you,” Rico said. “Cops hide information all the time.”
“I suppose you’re right. Maybe you should ask your friend.” She glanced at him. “Although I hesitate to draw him into my troubles any further.”
“Trust me on this. Seth Pike never does anything he doesn’t want to do. You can’t make the man do anything.”
Rico picked up his phone. Pressed a button.
“Put it on speaker,” she said.
He seemed reluctant but did it. “Hey, Seth,” he said. “You’re on speaker and Laura is with me.”
“Laura who might be wanted by the law but we can’t find any proof of that?”
Rico looked at her, likely to see if she was offended. She held up a hand. “That’s me,” she said.
“It’s a pleasure, Laura,” Seth said. “I hope.”
He was brash and a little refreshing. “I’m not usually a screwup,” she said. “But I’ll admit that I might have crossed the line this time.”
“Can you still see the line?” he asked.
The imaginary line between right and wrong. “I don’t know,” she said honestly.
“Then I suggest you hang on to Rico. He’s a Boy Scout.”
“Hey, listen,” Rico interjected, probably to stop his friend from going down that road. “I need you to find everything you can about Hodge Rankin. Most recently, we believe he was married to Ariel Collins. They lived in Nashville on Appleton…” He looked at Laura. “Street or avenue?”
He had remembered the name from Hannah’s one-time comment that their dog had been named after Appleton, where they had lived. He was amazing. “Avenue,” she whispered.
“Appleton Avenue. I want everything you can get.”
“How much time do I have?” Seth asked.
“We’ll take whatever you can get in a couple hours,” Rico said.
“Okay. Anything else?”
“No,” Laura said. “And thank you, Seth. I know we’re asking for a lot here.”
“It’s no problem, Laura. Just know that I’m not nearly as much of a do-gooder as my boy there. And not nearly as forgiving.”
“Thanks, Seth,” Rico said and hung up.
“I get the feeling that he may hunt me down if things go badly.”
“His bark is worse than his bite. Usually.”
“That’s comforting,” she said.
Forty minutes later, Rico pulled into a long lane that led to a much bigger house than what he had. It was an appealing combination of frame and brick and everything from the fall wreath on the front door to the freshly painted mailbox made it look as if it was lovingly taken care of. “Jennie’s?” she asked.
“Yeah. I don’t expect her to be home but she said Paddie and her granddaughter Ari should be here.”
The front door opened and two large black dogs bounded out of the house. Barking. That, of course, set Lucky off and Hannah, who’d been sleeping peacefully, woke up. “Everyone’s barking,” the little girl said.
“Not me,” Rico teased. He got out of the front seat and opened the back door to help the little girl out. “I’m tickling.”
“No,” she squealed.
They were still laughing when they reached the front door. But Rico sobered up fast when he saw that Jennie was there. Behind her was Paddie and Ari.
The look on her face told him something, and Laura didn’t think it was good.
“What’s wrong?” he said. He immediately pulled his phone, likely to look to see if there were any missed calls, that perhaps there had been a change in his dad’s condition. But when he put his phone back in his pocket, she knew the bad news was something else entirely.
Jennie smiled at Hannah. “Why don’t you and Ari go play in her room?”
She was pretty sure the bad news had something to do with her and Hannah. Once the little girls were both out of sight, Jennie motioned for Laura and Rico to follow her back to the kitchen, which was a big room that had a wall of windows that looked at the mountains.
Rico pulled out a chair for her, then sat, his elbows resting on the table, his hands clasped. He wasn’t going to hurry Jennie but she thought he might be preparing himself for whatever bad news she had to share.
She sat on her own hands, slipping them under her thighs. She didn’t want anyone to know that they were shaking.
“About ten minutes after I talked to you, so that would be about fifty minutes ago, I got a visitor at the store. An officer from the Moreville police department. Officer Rexnor.”
“Okay,” Rico said.
“And he was asking if I was acquainted with you and if so, if I happened to know where you might be.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him that I knew you had a cabin in the area, that you stopped in for groceries from time to time, but that I hadn’t seen you for some time. Of course, I added that didn’t mean all that much because I didn’t spend all that much time at the store at my age.”
Jennie had lied to the cop. For Rico.
“Did he say why he wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah. Just had a few questions for you. He said he was following up on a report of a car that was stolen in Nashville, Tennessee. That the only reason the report had caught his eye when he’d been scanning the plethora—his word, not mine—of information that came across his desk was that his
wife wanted the same kind of car. He said it was a sixty-five Mustang. And then he recalled that he’d recently seen such a car right in Moreville. And he further recalled talking to a nice gentleman on crutches and believed Rico Metez to be that gentleman given that the hotel security cameras had picked up the front plate on his SUV.”
“Okay,” Rico said.
Definitely not okay, she thought. But Rico was probably a good card player.
“I decided that this was information that I didn’t necessarily want to communicate to you in text or on the telephone and I left the store in Milly’s capable hands and came on home. I only beat you here by fifteen minutes or so.”
“The Mustang is the car Laura has been driving,” Rico said. “It’s parked in my garage right now.”
Which did not have any windows so even if the cop had found his way to Rico’s house, there was no way he could have seen it. Would he let it go or would he pursue it?
They had intended to spend the night at the cabin before heading back to Tennessee, but the idea of the police coming back, with search warrant in hand and catching them, was so scary. If she pulled her hands out from beneath her thighs right now, they’d be fluttering fast enough to create a small breeze in the otherwise silent kitchen.
Everybody was just sort of looking at everybody else.
“I suspect that you wanted the trailer so that you could get that car back to Tennessee without anybody seeing much of anything,” Paddie said.
Rico nodded.
“So like always, you’re trying to do the right thing,” Jennie said. “And I’d like to help you do that. Which is why I have a couple suggestions. You’re a grown man, Rico, and you don’t have to do what I tell you to do anymore, but just hear me out.”
“Always,” Rico said, giving her a soft smile.
“It’s going to be dark very soon. But Paddie can still take the snowmobile and do a few pass bys of your place, just to make sure that nobody is sitting down the road a ways, just waiting. Once we know it’s clear, Paddie will park his snowmobile in your garage and drive the Mustang back here. Then we’ll load it in the trailer and the two of you can take off, driving my SUV. We’ll keep yours in the shed.”
