Cold Target

by Potter, Patricia;

  Meredith always thought it was to avoid her husband and daughter. As a child she’d thought it was because she was not pretty enough. So she’d decided to be smart and please her father. But she could never quite do that, either.

  What had happened so many years ago? Why had her mother given up the child if she cared so much? What had happened to Meredith’s sister?

  Meredith couldn’t imagine what it must cost a mother to give up a child. She loved children, though she’d resigned herself to never having any. Growing up as she had in a loveless atmosphere, she had never seen marriage as a desirable state. Most of her friends’ parents were divorced. Love, if it existed, seemed to be a fleeting thing, a condition more of pain than joy.

  She didn’t let herself think of loneliness. She had friends, interests, a career now veering off in an entirely new direction that gave her life purpose. She loved good music. She enjoyed art. It was all she needed.

  It was what her mother had had.

  Obviously it had not been enough. The despair in her eyes had not come from the knowledge of impending death, but of regret for things not done. Meredith had recognized that.

  She continued to hold her mother’s hand, planning out her next moves.

  She could not stop thinking of the woman who was her half sister. What kind of life had she had? And would she even want to be found?

  Gage went over the files dropped on his new desk. Mostly cold cases, the rest reaching that stage.

  He was surprised. There was a special office for cold cases.

  But this might well be an effort to keep him away from the other homicide detectives. His immediate superior had been curt when Gage reported in, and it was obvious—at least to Gage—that he had been foisted upon the lieutenant. Gage wasn’t surprised. He knew he was a pariah in the police department. He’d broken the blue wall of silence.

  He remembered Lieutenant Bennett. The officer had been in robbery when Gage had testified against two of his men. It had been a black eye for him.

  Gage wondered exactly how he had been forced on Bennett. But he was an experienced homicide detective and had a good record in solving cases. That was probably why he was getting cold cases that were almost impossible to solve.

  Still, he was so damned glad to be back on the streets. And it wouldn’t be long before Bennett was forced to send him out on new cases. Budget cuts had sliced the homicide unit in half.

  He sifted through the ten old files. New scientific techniques often turned up something that hadn’t been obvious before. The FBI now maintained a nationwide bank of fingerprints. And DNA technology allowed the police to explore avenues that had been closed years ago.

  Only one case really interested him: the murder of a socially prominent man fifteen years earlier.

  He remembered the case. He had been a rookie then, and he had followed the investigation. The victim—Oliver Prescott—had been an officer in his father’s bank.

  The death had apparently devastated the father, who died two years later. The father’s brother had assumed the position of chairman of the board, a position the son unquestionably would have had. A good enough motive.

  The reports sounded a little odd to Gage. Though Oliver Prescott was a member of the city’s most prominent Mardi Gras Krewe, no one really called him a close friend. And despite the publicity surrounding the case, its active stage had ended fairly rapidly. Too rapidly, Gage thought.

  He’d wondered then, and wondered again, whether it was because of the public figures involved. Prescott’s family was one of a tight group of city leaders, including city officials, prominent political donors, judges and attorneys. Any cop who pursued the case would probably open closets some wanted kept closed.

  Gage didn’t give a damn about offending anyone. He’d made a career out of it.

  He would poke around, see what could be stirred up. Perhaps it would take his mind away from Meredith Rawson. He was damned if he knew why she aroused such strong reactions in him. Although her blue eyes were striking, she was not his usual type. She wore her hair in a no-nonsense feathered haircut and her suits were severe. He liked long hair and casual clothes. He was a beer guy. He suspected she was a champagne woman.

  One detective wandered over and peered down at the files. “I got those last year,” he said. “Apparently they give them to the new guy in the division.”

  Gage raised an eyebrow. “Or people they don’t like. Did you have any luck?”

  “Broke my ass on the Cary case, but nothing. At least nothing I could take to the DA.”

  “What about Prescott?”

  “Couldn’t find a damn thing. No one would talk to me. Maybe you being from here …” He held out his hand. “Name’s Wagner. Glenn Wagner. They call me Wag.”

  Gage took his hand and studied him. Wagner was a big man, probably about forty. He had the cautious eyes of a cop and his cheeks told Gage that the man probably drank too much. “You might as well know I’m bad news around here,” Gage said.

  “You also have a great rep in solving cases.”

  “That’s one reputation,” he said dryly. “The other is why I have these cases rather than current ones. I expect the lieutenant intends to get rid of me as soon as possible.”

  “Then he’s a fool.”

  Gage didn’t answer. He was suspicious of such an obvious overture.

  “Wanna grab a bite? I haven’t had time for lunch.”

  He was hungry, so why not? He also wanted to know why Wagner was making an effort toward a man most other cops steered clear of.

  “Sure,” he said.

  They went to a sandwich shop not far from the station and ordered at the counter before finding seats.

  Once seated, Gage started his own interrogation. “Why the welcome?”

  The other man shrugged. “I’m an outsider, too. It’s a closed shop here.”

  Gage could understand that. The department had always been insular, self-protective. Newcomers were regarded as threats to the old way of doing things.

  But he was a loner. He didn’t want pals, particularly in the police department. Years ago it had led him into compromises that still haunted him.

  “The Prescott case,” he reminded Wagner. “Who did you talk to? I didn’t see any update in the file.”

  “Nothing to update,” Wagner said. “I found zero. Nada. But I can give you a list of people I talked to.”

  “Your impressions of them?”

  “Mainly impatient that such an old case had been revived. Nothing that made me suspicious.”

  “I’d like that list this afternoon.”

  “Why that case?”

  “It just interests me.”

  “Well, you’re a hell of a lot better than me if you get anywhere.” He changed the subject. “You married?”

  “No.”

  “Smart guy. I’m in the middle of a divorce. She couldn’t take the hours.”

  So that explained the approach. Wagner was probably lonely.

  Gage finished his sandwich and rose. He didn’t want any more confidences. “Time to get back.”

  “If I can help …”

  “Thanks,” he said, his mind already going back to the pages in the Prescott file. He wanted to study the case files more thoroughly, then make a list of possible interviews. One particular name had emerged from the file. Charles Rawson. He’d been the last person known to see Prescott alive.

  Charles Rawson. Prominent attorney. And father of Meredith Rawson.

  KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

  THREE WEEKS EARLIER

  Holly held her son’s hand tightly as she roamed among the sentiments engraved on plaques in Baby Land.

  Although the section was only a small part of the cemetery in Kansas City, it had to be the most heartbreaking. What must it be like to lose a child?

  All her emotions seemed to pound against the dam that had held them back during the week since she unbelievably killed a fellow human being. It didn’t matter that he apparently h
ad intended to kill her. She felt as if she had lost a part of her soul.

  She was going to lose even more now. She was about to steal the identity of the most innocent of victims.

  But she had to elude her husband and his resources. She needed a completely new identity. She hoped—prayed—she could find one here.

  A dead child left behind a bronze marker, a birth certificate and little else but love in the hearts of those who mourned. Nothing that could be traced. She could request a birth certificate and use it to get a Social Security card and other forms of identity, including a badly needed driver’s license. It would take weeks, but she had to have those documents. In the meantime, she would obey every speed limit sign in the country.

  She’d grabbed her son that horrifying night and little else: a few clothes, what money she had saved from the small sculptures she loved creating, two sculptures, and a few of her sculpting tools. She hadn’t taken them all. She didn’t want Randolph to notice she had taken any. Randolph called it her “little” hobby. He’d had no idea that she’d secretly sold her works to a craft shop and had been hoarding the money they brought.

  She’d wanted to leave him long before, but knowing his power and his alliances, she’d been terrified of losing her son. She knew Randolph would find a way of getting custody. He had warned her over and over again that he would. She could never leave her son under his control and influence.

  He had threatened her into inertia. Still, she had been saving and hiding money. She’d built a fantasy escape, had researched places to go.

  Bisbee, Arizona. That had been her Mecca. She’d read about it in a magazine, then researched it on the Web at the library. A haven for artists. She could lose herself there and make a living for herself and her son.

  She never would have had the courage to do it, though, if not for the intruder. Then she’d had no choice.

  She made herself look at the small bronze markers. She couldn’t linger here. She’d carefully laid a trail to Florida, having driven east for four hours. She had cashed out her credit card in Mobile, then continued across Alabama. In Pensacola, a navy town, she’d abandoned the Mercedes in a bad-looking section of town, hoping it would be stolen or looted of parts. She didn’t dare try to sell the car. It was in her husband’s name, not hers.

  She’d hocked her engagement and wedding rings for a fraction of their worth and bought bus tickets to Miami, then cut her long, blond hair and dyed it a dull brown. She dyed Mikey’s sandy hair the same brown color.

  The dye and ragged haircut made a difference. Randolph had always wanted her to look her best. She’d been what so many called a trophy wife, always impeccably groomed and dressed. She couldn’t change the high cheekbones, the heart-shaped face or the wide blue eyes, but she could downplay them by scorning makeup and wearing a pair of cheap glasses.

  After the transformation, she purchased two more bus tickets from a separate ticket agent for Mobile. In Mobile, she bought bus tickets for Chicago. They had been wandering since. No, not wandering. Running in sheer terror.

  Until they’d reached Kansas City. She felt they were far enough away from New Orleans and had taken enough twists and turns to throw off the most determined follower. Despite all her precautions, though, traveling with a child on a bus might be traceable. She couldn’t go farther before getting a car and starting work on a new identity.

  She planned to search the auto ads in the local paper. Cars for sale by private individuals. They wouldn’t require identification, not if she offered cash.

  But first …

  She continued her search, among the small graves. She finally found one that met her needs. Elizabeth Baker. It even had the day of birth and death. And a sentiment: Our Little Angel.

  Everything she needed. She felt like the worst of villains. An opportunist benefiting from a death.

  But then she looked at her son and knew she would do anything for him, anything to protect him.

  She wrote down the dates from the plaque, said a small prayer for the child, then took a city bus back to the small motel where they were staying.

  Once there, she settled Mikey down for a nap. “Why did we go there, Mommy?”

  “To visit a friend,” she said, giving him a tight hug.

  “Do I know her?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Was it a girl or a boy?”

  “A girl.”

  “Is she in heaven?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  For once, she wished he wasn’t so precocious, so curious. “I don’t know, love. I think she was sick. Now I want you to go to sleep for me.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “But Henry is,” she said, putting his battered and much beloved stuffed dog next to him.

  “’Kay,” he finally acquiesced.

  She waited until he was asleep, then started to call the sellers who’d listed cars in the classifieds. She explained that her own car had died on the road and the mechanic said it wasn’t worth saving. She needed a car. Would he be interested in bringing it to her?

  On the third call, the seller agreed to bring the vehicle to the motel. The car was dark and eight years old. But she drove it around the parking lot and, though not smooth like her Mercedes, it appeared to run well. The seller swore by its condition. New tires. Recent tune-up. The odometer said a little over eighty thousand miles. It was a lot, but it convinced her he hadn’t turned it back.

  Desperate people couldn’t be choosy. She couldn’t stay here.

  “You said it was forty-five hundred. Will you take thirty-seven hundred in cash?”

  “It’s worth every bit of my price,” the seller said.

  “I don’t have that much. And I compared that model to other advertised cars. I think my offer is fair.” Desperation was making her stronger.

  He eyed her speculatively. “Would you like to talk about it over supper?”

  “My son is with me, and my husband is overseas in the army.”

  He looked down at her hand. No wedding ring. Damn.

  “I sold it to buy the car. I have to get home. My mother is ill.” She felt as if her nose was growing longer.

  He looked as if he saw it, too. She wondered if he saw, or felt, her desperation. Perhaps he did, for after a moment, he nodded. “You can have it,” he said simply.

  She smiled for the first time in three days. “I have the money with me. Do you have the bill of sale?”

  He looked at her curiously. “You don’t want a mechanic to check it out?”

  “Do I need to?” She opened her eyes wide.

  “No, but most people—”

  “I really do have to get home,” she said. She was using every acting skill she had, even forcing—or perhaps not forcing—a tear.

  “Are you sure I can’t take you and your son to supper?”

  “We’ll be leaving very early in the morning,” she said. “But thank you.”

  In minutes, she had the bill of sale and had given him half of her money. She felt both victorious and apprehensive. She had accomplished something on her own. But her money was very short. And once it was gone …

  She had a glimmer of satisfaction that Randolph paid for her escape. The sale of her rings had made it possible.

  If only the fear didn’t linger inside like some deadly snake ready to strike.

  three

  BISBEE, ARIZONA

  Holly and Mikey reached Bisbee three days after leaving Kansas City.

  She found a cheap but clean motel where she paid cash. She explained that she was a new widow and had not yet had time to get her own credit cards.

  This time she was prepared. She’d bought a ring at a discount store along the way. A ring was protection. A ring verified her story of being a bereaved widow.

  Bisbee was everything she’d expected, and more. She and Mikey walked through the old town and Brewery Gulch, a once blue-light district now filled with funky restaurants and craft shops, the kind that might
carry the type of work she hoped to sell.

  Mikey was obviously bewildered and delighted by the odd town, where houses perched on hills and tiny lanes meandered among them. “Mommy, look at that funny house,” he kept repeating.

  She stopped in a small cafe where he happily ordered tacos and she started to order a salad. Then she changed her mind. Her husband had always noticed when she gained a pound and let her know about it. She had lived on salads and skinless chicken.

  “Three tacos,” she said. She felt like a kid playing hooky, but this was a moment’s indulgence that she could, and would, enjoy.

  After they finished, she wandered into a real estate office. Bisbee, she already knew, was where she wanted to stay.

  The agent on duty was a loquacious middle-aged man dressed casually in blue jeans. She soon learned he was a California banker who’d migrated to a simpler life in Bisbee.

  She quickly caught his enthusiasm for the area. “Bisbee is a way of life,” he explained. “Once you’ve been here awhile, you’ll never want to leave.” He rattled on. “Bisbee was a thriving mining town—billed as the largest town between St. Louis and San Francisco. It all but became a ghost town when the mines closed in the fifties.”

  Then what he termed “the aging counterculturalists”—hippies, she thought with a smile—discovered it and quickly moved into homes they bought for a song. “Now it’s attracting craft people and retirees, along with us Californians looking for something more relaxed and inexpensive.

  “Unfortunately,” he added as he showed her some listings of rental properties, “it’s not as inexpensive as it was even two years ago. Newcomers are moving in, transforming old homes into bed-and-breakfasts and deserted buildings into art galleries.”

  Still, compared to most places, Bisbee offered cheap housing. The real estate agent showed her a tiny furnished frame house for four hundred fifty dollars a month. Best of all, it had a fenced yard and the landlord allowed pets.

  Worst of all, it was little more than a slum. Even her son looked dubious as they were shown the two small bedrooms, the small bathroom, the small living room and the even smaller kitchen. The furniture was cheap modern.