The Woman Most Wanted

by Pamela Tracy

  Caught the accomplice of Max’s killer.

  “Looks like her,” Lieutenant Lucas Stilwater said. “Only older.” Lucas—near retirement age—was one of a few officers left who’d worked with Tom’s previous partner. The rest were new, hired within the last three to five years. Good cops, every one of them. Sometimes, listening to their banter, he wanted...

  Wanted to go back in time.

  For the first few months after Max’s death, when Tom had looked across the busy room, by habit he’d still been looking for Max. The room hadn’t pulsed with activity then. Instead, it was like someone had turned down the volume, changed the scene to slow motion. For a long time, Tom felt as if he didn’t belong, that he was role-playing. Then, when the chief retired, Tom had been approached by the mayor, Rick Goodman.

  The pluses: Tom was a captain, Tom had a master’s in criminal justice and the people of Sarasota Falls knew and trusted him.

  The minuses: Tom’s whole life was his job, so much so that his wife had left him.

  In the end, Tom hadn’t turned his back on his job, nor had it turned its back on him. He’d found that being chief gave him a renewed sense of purpose—just not in his late partner’s case.

  Until today.

  There were still things to do, he reminded himself. Unless Tom missed his guess, Heather Graves was either a crime stamped “solved” or a new door opening on an old case that had troubled him through to his soul.

  He headed for the cell, thinking he’d personally escort Rachel to booking, but she wasn’t there. For a moment, he felt fear. Immediately, his phone beeped as if someone knew he needed an answer. He glanced at the caller ID. Captain Daniel Anderson, in records, was always quick to deliver information. He was someone Tom could rely on and, in fact, he called the man a friend.

  “Give me good news,” Tom barked.

  Daniel didn’t react at all, just stated, “She has no criminal record.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HEATHER HAD ANSWERED every question she’d been asked, but the police hadn’t known to ask about her parents’ real names, Raymond Tillsbury and Sarah Tillsbury, née Lewis. They’d accepted her history because everything checked out. Of course it did. Her life story hadn’t changed until recently.

  She thought about telling them the truth, but the chief was already so certain she was guilty of a crime. What if her mother and father had done something awful? What if that was why they’d changed their names and moved to Phoenix? If that was correct, Heather wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth.

  But really, Melanie Graves a crook? Her dad a killer? They were the kindest people she’d ever known. They’d loved her, she loved them, but... No, no, no.

  “Ma’am, if you’ll just give me a minute.” The booking officer had led her from her cell to sitting across from him at his desk. Then, he stood and walked over to the chief, who was looking at her and clearly wasn’t happy.

  She continued wiping at the black residue on her fingers. They’d taken her fingerprints digitally, but then used ink and paper, saying something about an international component.

  This Rachel Ramsey person must be in a lot of trouble if they thought she’d fled the country. Heather almost looked forward to her release—and she truly thought she’d be out soon—so she could go research exactly what Rachel had done.

  And what she looked like.

  Possibly, Heather would find a link between Rachel and her parents. Focusing on the two police officers, she wished she’d felt some sort of connection to them that would allow her to trust them. If she shared every detail about what she’d discovered, would they fill in some of the missing pieces? She wasn’t sure.

  Closing her eyes, she willed herself away from the police station and imagined her apartment in Phoenix. She’d left the lawyer’s office in such a daze; she didn’t even remember driving home. But she’d spent the whole of that evening perched at her kitchen table, laptop in front of her, and she’d researched Raymond Tillsbury, not Bill Graves.

  He’d said he was raised by a mostly absent father; she assumed that was still true. But her grandfather’s real name had been Terrance Tillsbury. She found three obituaries, and two mentioned children. There was no other history for him. Her father, Raymond Tillsbury, had a bit more presence. She found his military record, complete with a few photos. He’d honestly shared his accurate United States Army history. He’d been a hero. That wasn’t a surprise. He’d been her hero.

  She’d kept at it for hours before finally finding his name tagged on a Christmas photo posted by someone on Facebook. The photo was thirty years old and from a company party. She cut and pasted, enlarged and then decided it indeed was a picture of a much younger version of her dad. Going back to the original post, she wrote down the information shared. It was from a work party for the employees of Little’s Grocery Store in Sarasota Falls, New Mexico.

  So, she now owned a home there, and her father had once had a job there. Since her father’s real name was Raymond Tillsbury, did that mean she was Heather Tillsbury?

  Heather Tillsbury. She said the name out loud, feeling a little queasy, as if she’d lost her parents for a second time.

  Of her mother—real name, Sarah Lewis—she’d found too many hits to investigate, so she narrowed her search to Arizona and then to New Mexico. Still too many. So she narrowed her search to Sarasota Falls. There was a family named Lewis there, but no mention of a Sarah. Google provided a few photos but they meant nothing and might’ve not even really been Lewises. She wanted to find them, ask them questions.

  According to the photo she’d found online, the house her parents had been renting out in Sarasota Falls was a white clapboard farmhouse in need of a little tender, loving care and with a lot of land.

  Since she’d seen it, she knew it needed a lot of tender, loving care.

  Another police officer had joined the two standing at the door. They were having a meeting. No one looked happy.

  “Lawyer?” she said. They all turned toward her. “I want a lawyer. Or, at the very least, my phone call.”

  “We’ll see to it,” the officer who’d taken her fingerprints promised, but he didn’t move from the impromptu gathering. Her back was getting stiff, and she was cold. She also wanted a drink of water.

  Maybe something stronger.

  Sitting back, she was almost glad when the chair creaked loud enough to disturb the officers. Still, they didn’t move.

  She sighed and sat back. Looking out the big window, she watched as a few cars drove by, followed by a firetruck, complete with streamers. No doubt it had been featured at the Founder’s Day celebration.

  Why had her parents left and why didn’t they talk about their hometown, family, or friends. The way she figured it, this was the town where she could have been raised. Instead, from the time she was one until she turned sixteen, she and her parents had moved from one town to another, about every three years. Her dad claimed his military background had put the wanderlust in him. Her mother said it was the need to explore that drove him.

  At sixteen, her mother’s diabetes meant it was wise to stay in one place and with one doctor. Or maybe, Heather now mused, they’d decided they were safe.

  Maybe their feeling safe had something to do with Sarasota Falls. Maybe not. Maybe she was silly to come here. There were way too many maybes. But in her heart, she knew there was a piece missing from her life: her roots.

  Roots were so important to her, she’d started putting in job applications from the moment she’d arrived in town. No luck yet, but people had seemed encouraging.

  Earlier today, she wandered around the Founder’s Day celebration trying to get a better lay of the land. Once the crowds got to her, she decided to take a drive. The countryside was so different from the metropolis of Phoenix.

  Sarasota Falls: thirty-two thou
sand. Phoenix: four million and climbing.

  She wondered who her parents had been friends with, and if they’d missed this place.

  How they’d thought it would somehow remain a secret.

  Why she was crazy enough to think that moving here, even temporarily, was a good idea.

  She shook off the doldrums. Moving had been a brave and wondrous thing.

  Right.

  She’d just have to keep telling herself that.

  * * *

  “SHE’S HIDING SOMETHING,” Captain Daniel Anderson said.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Tom glared at Heather, willing her to glare back, annoyed when she didn’t.

  Daniel cleared his throat and said the words Tom didn’t want to hear. “She’s hiding something but it isn’t that she’s Rachel Ramsey. I can tell you what you already suspect, which is that everything points to a case of mistaken identity. This lady is shorter than Rachel and—”

  “Shorter? You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve had her in custody not even an hour and you can already tell—”

  “I’ve studied Rachel’s photos, almost as often as you, especially the ones from the convenience store,” Daniel said calmly. “Plus, I watched the surveillance video a hundred times.

  “She was wearing heels during the robbery! Keep talking to her,” Tom ordered before heading to his office to study the photos, even the ones that would tick him off. He switched out Heather’s photos to compare to what they had of Rachel.

  Heather Graves might indeed be legitimate and just happened to look like Rachel Ramsey.

  Right down to a red birthmark!

  The most recent photo they had of Rachel, save the surveillance video, was her driver’s license. A head shot, which while nice, didn’t tell them all that much, except that Daniel was correct. The woman he’d hauled in was shorter than the height listed on Rachel’s license But, everything else was spot-on.

  Rachel Ramsey, girlfriend of Jeremy Salinas. Guilty of robbing the convenience store—at gunpoint—and taking off. Max hadn’t been looking for them on that hot, muggy August day. He’d been responding to a call on the other side of town. Somehow, they’d crossed paths. The final radio check-in from Max gave a license plate number and reported that he’d hit the siren to warn the vehicle ahead of him—someone driving erratically, dangerously—to pull over.

  Jeremy Salinas and Rachel Ramsey.

  Guilty of murdering a cop.

  Max hadn’t even been aware that the car they were driving was stolen.

  Tom should have been with him that day, and would have, if his court appearance hadn’t taken twice as long as necessary.

  The only witness to the shooting, a frightened high school senior who’d skipped school that day and had been trying to keep a low profile heading home, said that the car Salinas was driving spun out of control and hit a telephone pole. Max had parked next to it and jumped out. Then the passenger side door had flung open from the impact, and Rachel had fallen from the car, on her stomach, acting hurt.

  Max, doing what he did best, bent down to help her up. The moment he’d made sure Rachel was all right and was straightening, the boyfriend fired his weapon into Max’s heart.

  Max’s blood was on Rachel’s hands in more ways than one.

  “Hard to believe she’s been living under an assumed identity and has been so successful.” Lucas was back and staring over Tom’s shoulder at the mug shots—left side, front, right side—of Heather’s face on screen. How she managed to keep her expression both shocked and innocent-looking was pretty amazing. Maybe she’d worn the same expression the day she pretended to be hurt.

  She was that good of an actress.

  But making herself shorter? a little voice questioned inside Tom’s head.

  “I wonder why she didn’t try to change her looks more,” Lucas remarked.

  Tom wondered the same thing.

  “Man, I’ll bet this is making your day,” Lucas added.

  “It would make my day if she’d just admit she was Rachel,” Tom muttered, knowing it wouldn’t happen.

  Deputy Oscar Guzman walked over and looked at Heather’s photo. “Maybe Rachel Ramsey was the fake name all along—maybe Heather Graves is the real name.”

  If only it was that easy, but Tom knew Rachel’s history like the back of his hand.

  “Not a chance. I knew Rachel personally. She is Diane Ramsey’s daughter.”

  Oscar raised an eyebrow. He’d brought Ms. Ramsey in twice for being drunk and disorderly. She’d died of an overdose a year ago.

  “Rachel was born to an alcoholic mother and raised by a succession of stepfathers and squatters. She even spent some time in foster care,” Tom said, momentarily feeling sorry for the girl, then remembering what she’d done. “She’s been in and out of trouble with the law most of her early life. Despite it all, I’d thought she was a decent person, until...” Reminding himself that he was talking to colleagues, he kept his voice even and his words matter-of-fact. “Both Jeremy and Rachel, we figured, disappeared across the border. Maybe we were wrong about Rachel. She—” he looked at the computer screen, hit a button and continued hoping that saying the words would make him believe them “—went to college and became a dental hygienist in Arizona.”

  No one said, “Yeah, right,” but he wondered if anyone besides himself thought it.

  Five years. He’d been looking for her for five years. Still, disappearing was nothing compared to the way she’d reinvented herself.

  He almost believed her name was Heather.

  Almost didn’t count.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HEATHER GOT THE feeling that while everyone—everyone, that is, except Chief Riley—knew they’d made a mistake, no one wanted to admit it.

  No, that wasn’t quite right.

  No one wanted to be the one to admit it and then try to convince Chief Tom Riley he was wrong.

  She didn’t get the idea they were afraid of him. More, they were afraid for him.

  “I can see why he mistook her for Rachel,” one of the cops muttered. The officer standing next to him nodded.

  “I’d avoid Tom for the rest of the day,” another officer advised.

  Heather wished she could avoid him, but he stood in the middle of the fingerprinting room, leaning against a counter and grilling the tall officer who’d taken her prints. “Find something,” he ordered.

  Luckily, the police officer who’d already introduced himself to her as Daniel didn’t even blink. He just shook his head slowly.

  Then came a few moments of waiting: the cops waiting for some action, Daniel waiting to be believed, Heather waiting for someone to yell “April Fool’s” and Tom waiting for what he would never hear because Heather was not Rachel.

  “Find something,” Chief Riley repeated, leaning against a counter and staring at her image on the computer. He seemed mesmerized by her likeness.

  He was tall; she hadn’t noticed that at first. His hair was a slightly curly and as blue-black as the crows that came to her backyard looking for food and making unnecessary noise.

  The same color as her father’s, actually, but the knowledge didn’t encourage a connection of trust.

  He looked at her now, but his eyes weren’t as piercing as back when they were on the interstate and he’d pulled her over.

  Funny how she’d noticed his dark eyes throughout this whole outrageous venture. They’d gone from shock to hate to murderous. Now they were cloudy, as if some door had closed on an emotion so near to the surface he couldn’t control it unless he locked it away.

  “It’s her,” he said. “It’s Rachel, and we can’t let her walk away. We might never find her again.”

  “Tom, I agree, physically, in looks, you picked up Rachel.” This cop, the kid who’d
retrieved her purse back on the interstate, was the one speaking.

  The cop who’d introduced himself as Officer Guzman said, “You didn’t have a warrant, Chief. No other markers, besides the physical resemblance, support your arrest. Electronically, I’m finding no criminal history. Live scan doesn’t have her in their system. We can’t charge her.”

  Frantically, Heather tried to think of what to say. Part of her was amazed they were talking so openly in front of her. If the chief of police had made a mistake, why weren’t they having this conversation behind closed doors. When she got a lawyer... No, she wouldn’t need a lawyer. If she needed a lawyer, she could use this conversation in her defense.

  “I—”

  They stopped talking and looked at her.

  Chief Riley frowned, his steely gaze accusing her, making her feel guilty.

  “I was only speeding a little,” she squeaked.

  The man flinched a bit. Kid Cop managed to portray a hint of compassion—a blink, a slight contortion of his face that was almost a smile—and then he was back concentrating his attention on Tom.

  “Look at her,” Chief Riley growled. “Unless Rachel Ramsey has a twin we don’t know about, that’s her. No mistake. There was a witness when Max died. Let’s do a lineup. Bring the convenience store clerk in, also. I guarantee he’ll confirm it’s her. That’s enough probable cause.”

  Kid Cop didn’t say anything. When Heather glanced around the room, suddenly the other officers got busy as if there was so much to do in a room without desks, without general everyday conversation, without hope. Finally, an older man, not in uniform, walked over and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “We’ll do an appearance bond for the speeding and see what we can find before the court date. You’ll have at least seventy-two hours to prove you’re right.”

  “Seventy-two hours, my foot,” Chief Riley growled again. He was glaring at Kid Cop, who already had a sheepish look on his face. “This isn’t a bailable offense, is it?”