Lonestar Angel

by Colleen Coble

  “Who gave you money. I saw them leave it.” Eden remembered the rolls of cash left on the table or on her mother’s pillow. Cash that bought them pizza or milk or electricity.

  Her mother’s eyes welled again, but Eden squelched her flash of sympathy. Her mother’s actions might have been bearable if she had done it to keep them together or to feed her daughter. But too many times the cash had gone for pretty dresses or jewelry. Trips to get a manicure or a pedicure. Then she’d just walked away without caring if Eden had food or heat.

  Her mother took another sip of coffee. “I thought I had no choice. That you’d be better off without me.”

  “Which makes no sense. How could an eight-year-old be better off alone, fending for herself?” Clay put in.

  Eden glanced at him, heartened by his passionate defense. Did he see how inappropriate her mom’s excuses were? But what about her own? She didn’t want to see herself in her mother’s behavior, but the notion kept popping up.

  “Give Nancy a chance,” Omar said. “She’s trying to apologize for what she did.”

  The apology had seemed thin to Eden. Was that how Clay saw her own excuses?

  When Eden said nothing, Omar rose. “Perhaps we should go,” he said, putting his hand on his wife’s shoulder.

  Eden’s mother took his hand. “Sit down, Omar.” Her voice trembled. “I’ve gone about this all wrong. There is no excuse for what I did. All the rationalization in the world doesn’t change the fact that I left my child to fend for herself. Without food. Without comfort. Without anything.” She caught Eden’s gaze. “I hope you can forgive me someday, Eden. I don’t think I can ever forgive myself.”

  With no warning, tears flooded Eden’s eyes. A simple, heartfelt apology. That’s all she’d ever wanted.

  Clay scooted his chair closer and put his arm around her. “You have a tissue?” he asked Nancy, who nodded and passed one to her daughter.

  Eden took it and dabbed at the moisture in her eyes. How embarrassing to cry in front of them all. She never cried. She’d sworn never to let someone hurt her like that again. Now here she was, blubbering away.

  “Why?” she asked. “What made you think it was okay to leave me? Did I do something?”

  “What?” Her mother shook her head. “It was never about you. If I’d thought of you instead of myself, I wouldn’t have left. I didn’t think I could ever have a life saddled with a child. I was selfish, pure and simple. I rationalized to myself that you’d go to school and tell the teacher. Someone would come.”

  Eden mopped her streaming eyes again, willing herself to stop. “I never cry,” she gulped. “What about my father? I don’t even remember his name. It was all so long ago. I can’t even remember what he looked like.”

  Her mother exchanged a glance with Omar. “It was Omar’s brother, Hector.”

  Eden absorbed the news. Maybe that’s why the man seemed vaguely familiar. “Where is he now?”

  Omar shifted in his seat. “He’s a drug dealer in Colombia.”

  19

  SHE’D HANDLED IT BETTER THAN HE DID. THREE HOURS LATER CLAY STIRRED HALF-AND-half into Eden’s coffee and slid it across the table to her. The coffee shop was deserted this late. Only a few customers plunked down money for a latte and hurried out into the sunset. The scent of cinnamon and yeast from a bakery down the street was tempting for dessert, but he didn’t want to leave her long enough to buy a treat.

  “Do you want to see her again?” he asked her.

  She sipped her coffee. “No. Maybe.” She gave a watery smile. “I don’t know.”

  “You did good, honey. Handled it all with grace.”

  She dabbed at her eyes. “Hardly. I wish I could quit crying. I hate crying. And what was the point of this? To assuage her guilt?”

  Had he ever seen her cry? He didn’t think so. She’d screamed and hit things when Brianna was gone. Sobbed hysterically and hadn’t slept for days, but her eyes had been dry. “I’d guess so. And to assure herself that you’re all right. Maybe you can both move on now.”

  “Thank you for bringing me. I wouldn’t have been able to get through it without you.”

  At her words, a curl of warmth encircled him. “I wanted to be here for you.” He wanted to be there for her forever, not just for a day. Didn’t she see that?

  She sipped her coffee. “My father is a Santiago. The kidnapper who died was Jose Santiago. What does that mean?”

  “A weird coincidence? Santiago is as common a name south of the border as Jones would be in the States.” He shook his head. “But you’re right, there might be a connection. But why would your father want to hurt his own daughter?”

  “None of it has made any sense. Maybe your friend Brendan will have some insight. What time is he supposed to meet us here?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Any minute. Rick was picking him up at the airport.”

  “Amazing that he was willing to come all this way as a favor.”

  “He saved my hide down in Colombia. I was taking pics of kids in a village along the river. A Jeep full of commandos rolled in and started firing rounds for fun. No good reason. They were laughing and joking while bullets flew. I confronted them. The kids got away and I got thrown in jail.”

  “Lucky you weren’t killed,” she said, her eyes huge.

  “Actually, they were saving me for sport. My execution by firing squad was going to be in two days.” He’d never told her all this. He hadn’t wanted her to worry. “Brendan broke me out in the middle of the night.”

  “How did he know about it?”

  “He’s special ops. He knows everything.” Clay grinned and took a drink of his Americano. “I guess he’d been at a neighboring village and heard about the gringo taking pictures.”

  “What happened to the pictures?”

  “My camera and film were lost. I hated that. I had some really good shots that would have shown the lives these kids lead in drug towns. The only thing I got out with was that pendant I gave you when I got back.”

  Her eyes widened. “The one with the mother and baby?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You told me a little girl gave it to you in exchange for a piece of hard candy.”

  “She did. I just didn’t tell you the backdrop.”

  “I loved that pendant.” Her voice was wistful. “Where is it now?”

  “I’ve been carrying it around in my pocket.”

  She gave him a startled look. “How long?”

  “Since I jumped in the truck to find you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled it out.

  Her eyes were soft as she plucked it from his palm. “It’s always been special to me.”

  “I’ve been wanting to give it back to you, but I wasn’t sure you’d take it.”

  She rubbed the pendant in her hands. “Did the child make it herself?”

  “I don’t think so. She was only five or six.” He wanted to fasten it around her neck, but he waited for a cue from her. “I’m not sure what it’s made of. I just like it because it reminds me of the little girl. The design looks pre-Colombian.”

  “Here, you keep it safe.” She started to hand it back to him but he closed her fingers around it.

  “It’s yours.”

  She stared at him a moment, then lifted it to her neck and started to fasten the chain. It must have missed the clasp, because it slipped from her fingers and landed on the tile patio. He heard something crack, and when he looked down, the piece of jewelry lay in two pieces.

  “Oh no!” She scooped up the nearest piece and it crumbled in her fingers. “I’m so sorry.”

  He looked at it in her hand and it was different now. Sparkly. “What’s that?”

  “Wait, it’s not exactly broken. A covering has come off.” She held out her open palm. Green and gold glittered in her hand.

  “Wow.” He scooped it up and examined it. “I bet this is worth money. Someone must have covered it over with the other stuff to hide it.”

  �
�How exciting!” Her eyes were shining. “Is that jade?”

  He looked more closely at the baby. “I think so. And the gold is high quality.”

  “How would a peasant girl get something like this?”

  “She probably didn’t know what she had.”

  A truck maneuvered into a parking space across the street under the streetlight. Two men got out, and he recognized Rick and Brendan. “The reinforcements are here,” he said. He stood and greeted the men.

  Brendan hadn’t changed much in five years. Broad shoulders filled out a casual blue shirt. His khaki pants were a little wrinkled and stained. His dark hair needed a trim, but those brown eyes that missed nothing were sharp and inquisitive.

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” Eden said, taking his hand.

  “Same here.” He squeezed her fingers, then glanced at the pendant on the table. Frowning, he pointed to it. “May I?”

  “Sure.” Clay handed it to him.

  The other man examined it with care. When he turned it over, he inhaled sharply. “What are you doing with a Santiago heirloom? They’d kill to get this back.”

  Clay wrapped his fingers around the bauble. The trinket was worth so much more money than he’d dreamed, but even more than that, it was prized by a drug family connected to Eden. The cool weight of the jade in his hand convinced him it was real.

  He held it up to the light. The veins and color of the jade were exceptional. “Are they looking for this?”

  Brendan nodded, swiping a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I heard it was stolen by a rival about seven years ago.”

  “Stolen?”

  Brendan leaned back in his chair. “The Santiago family is a rival of Juarez, that guy you had a run-in with in Colombia.”

  “Juarez stole it?”

  “That’s what Hector Santiago claims.”

  He heard Eden gasp beside him. “Hector Santiago?”

  Brendan nodded. “Dangerous guy. He’s blamed all the bad luck that’s hit his family on its disappearance. Does he know you have it? It’s worth more to him than the monetary value. Much more.”

  “I didn’t even know I had it until Eden dropped it. It was covered with this.” Clay stooped and pinched a sample of the material that had covered the jewelry.

  “So why is it important?” Eden asked.

  “It’s been in his family for generations. Legend has it that the man who owns it will hold his wealth and power until death. Since it came up missing, his star has been waning.” Brendan turned the stonelike substance over in his hands. “Someone took pains to disguise this. Tell me how you got it.” He dug a plastic bag out of his pocket and dropped in the remains.

  Clay told him how he’d come to have it in his possession. “It was in my pocket the night you busted me out of jail.”

  “I can tell you now that I’d been in the neighboring town investigating the shooting of someone Santiago thought had this thing. And you had it all along.”

  Rick came from the coffee shop with two cups in his hand. “Hazelnut latte, extra hot,” he said, handing it to Brendan before sitting in the last chair. “What have you found out about the girls?”

  “We haven’t gotten that far yet.” Clay brought him up to speed on the piece of jewelry.

  “Is there any way this Santiago could know you have this? Maybe he took Brianna to get it back,” Rick asked.

  Eden plucked the pendant from Clay’s hand. “The ransom demand was for money, not this. I think they’re unrelated.” Her voice was defiant, and she shot Clay a glance that warned him to say nothing about her father.

  Clay held her gaze. “But I never thought money was the real issue. There are a lot of possibilities. I’d always thought they were luring us out into the open for some other reason.”

  “What about the camera?” she asked, wrinkling her forehead. “What pictures did you take?”

  “Like I said, kids, the village.” It had been so long ago. Though the trauma of the night in jail was burned into his memory, the village itself had faded into the mists of time.

  “No pictures of this?” Rick asked.

  “Nope.” Clay tried to remember if there were any pictures of the pendant in existence. A dim memory tried to surface, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

  “What?” Eden asked.

  “Nothing. Let’s talk about the girls.”

  She bit her lip. “Just a minute. We have to tell Brendan and Rick.”

  “Tell us what?” Rick asked, his face troubled.

  “I just met my birth mother after twenty years. She’s married to Hector’s brother.”

  Brendan sat upright. “His brother?”

  She nodded and exhaled harshly. “Omar. And my mother says Hector is my father.”

  “Holy cow,” Brendan said softly. “This is a strange wrinkle. Where is your dad now?”

  “I have no idea. The last time I saw him I was a little girl.”

  “And you have something he’s been searching for a good six years,” Brendan said. “That’s ominous to me in light of your daughter’s kidnapping.”

  “There’s more. We found a picture of the dead kidnapper in an old yearbook at the ranch. His name was Jose Santiago.”

  “Hector’s son.”

  Clay felt as though he’d been sucker punched. “Brianna’s own uncle took her?”

  “I . . . I killed my own brother?” Eden’s voice trembled. She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, I can’t bear it.”

  Clay scooted his chair closer and put his arm around her. “It was an accident, honey.”

  She raised a white face. “How could he do something like that? And why not just ask for the pendant back?”

  Brendan shook his head. “Makes no sense, does it? I’ll see what I can find out.” He pulled the file toward him. “These the bios?”

  “Yep,” Rick said. Then to Clay: “And Brendan brought a copy of everything in the files about the kidnapping. We thought we could compare the two, see if there are any connections.” Rick flipped open the file. “Let’s look at Madeline.”

  “We know her mother was in a mental hospital. She showed up here,” Clay said. “They look enough alike that I think we can rule her out. She has blond hair just like Madeline. Though she looked too old, it might just be that she’s had a rough life.”

  Brendan pulled the file over to scan it. “In my line of work, you assume nothing.” He began to read and his brow furrowed.

  “What is it?” Eden asked.

  “This makes no sense. The woman who claims to be Madeline’s mother had a hysterectomy when she was fifteen, following a car accident. That seems to be what sent her over the edge. She’s fifty now. So there’s no way she could be Madeline’s mother.”

  “But she came to the ranch,” Clay protested.

  “Maybe she’s another relative, but she’s not a mother. Has anyone talked to Madeline about her mother? Or the foster parents who have her? Maybe the mom contacted them and they know something.” Brendan made a note.

  “I’ll do that,” Eden said. “She likes to chat with me while I brush her hair. Or rather, she did. She’s a little miffed with me since I had to give her a time-out.”

  “What about the kidnapping?” Brendan asked. “How did this all go down?”

  It was going to be painful for Eden to relive it. Clay took her hand. “Brianna was six weeks old. Eden was making cupcakes for my birthday. The baby was sleeping in her room.”

  “I had the baby monitor in the kitchen,” Eden put in, her voice soft. “The dog needed to go out. I stepped outside to put him on his chain. When I came back in, I heard something bang. It almost sounded like the door, but I wanted to check on Brianna first so I ran up the stairs. Sh-She was gone. All that was in her crib was her blanket.”

  Brendan winced. So did Rick.

  “Man, that had to have been hard,” Rick said.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Clay said. “She called me hysterically. I started to dial the police, but before
I could, my phone rang. It was the kidnapper demanding ten thousand dollars.”

  Brendan lifted a brow. “That was all?”

  “My thoughts too. He said not to involve the police or we’d never see Brianna again. We had that much money in our account. We were saving to buy a house.” He glanced at Eden, hating the pain he saw in her eyes.

  “We were supposed to make the exchange at the river,” Eden said. “It was all set. But I got in too big of a hurry on the wet roads and rammed into the vehicle. It fell into the water. That was the last time we ever heard from them.”

  “One body was found but never identified. Until we saw his picture—Jose.”

  “And then you got that picture of the girls at Bluebird Ranch,” Brendan said.

  Eden cleared her throat. “I tend to think Lacie might be Brianna,” she said, shooting a glance at Clay. “She was left outside a church when she was six months old.”

  “Dressed in an expensive sleeper,” Clay added. “So she came from a wealthy family. Or at least a family that could spend fifty dollars for a clothing item she would only wear a couple of weeks.”

  “Sounds possible,” Brendan agreed. He studied the paperwork on the little girl. “What about this Sister Marjo? Has anyone talked to her?”

  “There hasn’t been time yet,” Clay said. “She’ll be at the ranch in a few days.”

  “You talk to her when she comes and I’ll handle Madeline’s so-called mother.”

  His friend knew his stuff. Clay felt empowered just having help. “Katie seems unlikely. Her father was killed in a burglary. The murderer never apprehended. So she had a family.”

  “Maybe. Let me check into it.” Brendan made another note. “Hard to say how he got her. I’ll check hospital records and nose around the neighborhood.”

  “Then there’s Paige,” Eden put in. “She’s also rather likely. Two men left her in the toy department at Walmart.” She looked down at her lap. “To be honest, I hope she’s not our Brianna. I dearly love her, but her foster parents want to adopt her. She seems to adore them and they’re crazy about her. It would hurt them all.”

  Brendan’s gaze softened. “You’re a good woman, Mrs. Larson.” He read through the report. “I’ll see if I can take a look at the Walmart security tape. We’ll figure this out, friends. We’ll find your girl.”