The Woman Most Wanted

by Pamela Tracy

  Tom had said birthmarks usually weren’t hereditary. He’d been wrong.

  Heather fell asleep holding the album and dreaming about her parents, wondering why her father wasn’t in any of the photos before she’d been three.

  Later, in the morning, she dressed for work and hurried down to breakfast to sit across from Bianca, thinking of a dozen questions to ask about the people and places in Sarasota Falls. Even if Bianca could only answer one, that would be one answer closer to finding out the truth.

  “I guess you heard about the robbery?” Bianca said, placing a blueberry muffin on a plate and putting it in front of Heather.

  “I did. Tom says he’s confident they’ll catch whoever did it.”

  “Especially since the robber returned items to Shelley. Pretty amazing. Makes the chief’s job easier looking for a crook with a conscience.”

  Heather nodded, thinking that finding the cookie bandit was not even a thought in Tom’s mind. “I’m kinda glad no one else is here,” she said. “I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”

  Bianca smiled, and Heather half expected her to rub her hands together and say, “Good.”

  The proprietor didn’t; instead, she said, “I was hoping you’d ask. But first, you’re going to need to tell me exactly who you are and what you’re looking for.”

  A year ago, before her parents died, Heather had known exactly who she was. A week or so ago, when she’d arrived in Sarasota Falls, she’d known that there was something more to know. Today, she felt a bit lost.

  “I’m Heather Graves, daughter of Bill and Melanie Graves.” Heather set her photograph album in front of Bianca. “They apparently used to be Raymond Tillsbury and Sarah Lewis.”

  “Oh, my.”

  In the end, Bianca had related the same scenario that the Turners had, but she had one piece of information that made a huge difference.

  “I know this living room.” She pointed to the one where Heather had been wearing the pink sweatpants and was all of two or three. “See all those Precious Moments collectables on the shelves. Well, that was Renate Penny’s place. She did childcare. Sarah Lewis, your mother, worked there.”

  “Does Renate still live here?”

  “No. She moved quite a few years ago to be near one of her daughters.”

  “Can you find out her address for me, maybe a phone number?”

  “I can do that. Sarah Lewis was always a favorite of mine. She and her sister, Debbie, were Girl Scouts. I must have bought enough cookies to feed an army, or at least enough cookies to feed my nephews.”

  “What about the little girl? I mean, it’s me. And surely you’d know if Sarah Lewis had a baby. Plus, if I understand the time line correctly, she married my dad after she left Sarasota Falls. Add to that, Debbie says that Sarah couldn’t have children.”

  “Oh, my.” It seemed to be Bianca’s favorite utterance. “I don’t have all the answers. I don’t recognize the little girl. I mean, I realize you say it’s you, but I didn’t have children, so I wasn’t always around the children in town. You’d want to ask a few of the kids near your age.”

  “Probably not. If I left Sarasota Falls when I was two-ish, then the kids my age would have been two-ish, and they won’t remember anything.”

  “Which takes us back to Renate,” Bianca agreed.

  Ten minutes later, Heather had an address and was on her way to the dental office. She tried calling Tom, but he didn’t answer. Shouldn’t cops always answer?

  Bianca would probably be a bit annoyed when she found out about Rachel being arrested and Heather not sharing. Maybe Tom was still dealing with Rachel.

  Who looked so much like Heather.

  Whose daughter looked even more like Heather, at least at age two, wearing pink sweatpants.

  * * *

  IT WAS ALMOST noon when Tom finally woke up. He checked his phone: dead. After plugging it in, he took a shower and then shaved because the features staring back at him from the mirror looked scraggly and tired.

  Not an unusual look for a cop, but he didn’t feel scraggly and tired. He felt scraggly and somewhat rejuvenated.

  He had Rachel Ramsey in a cell.

  That wasn’t why he’d slept so good.

  Having answers, having a new direction to take and, yes, having Heather Graves to work alongside added a dimension to his life that had been missing.

  He doubted very much that Heather would appreciate being considered a dimension.

  After he dressed, he checked the charged phone and smiled. Three messages from her, all with Call Me.

  For the last five years, every “call me” had to do with a police situation or a civic duty.

  His smile faded. Alongside Heather’s messages were six from the owner of the local Sarasota Falls newspaper. Tom deleted them.

  He tapped Heather’s highlighted number and waited. She didn’t answer, so he called Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, another number he had stored because Oscar Guzman used to live there.

  “Hey, Bianca. Is Heather there?”

  “She’s at work.”

  He debated all of twenty seconds before finding Sarasota Dental and calling. Maybe he should have taken the full minute. Maya answered and Tom said, “May I speak with Heather, please.”

  “Chief Tom Riley, is this you?” Maya quickly replied. “What’s this I hear that Rachel Ramsey was arrested last night? Really? She was living in the house she pretty much grew up in? How’d you miss that, Tom?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give any details.”

  “It’s all anyone is talking about.”

  “Great. Is Heather available?”

  “You mean is the new town celebrity available? I can’t tell you how many people have come in just to introduce themselves to her. We finally took her off the front desk.”

  “Why would people think to do that?” Tom sputtered.

  “Ah,” Maya said, “you’ve not watched the news this morning.”

  Tom grimaced. Great, more publicity they didn’t need. Things were still complicated enough. And Tom knew, just knew, that the Rachel Ramsey–Heather Graves connection would mean a sequel to that TV movie about the case. If the same guy played him, Tom would dye his hair gray. Distinguished was better than doofus.

  “I’ll get her.”

  A moment later, Heather came on the line. “Hey.”

  “Have you seen the news? Because I haven’t.”

  “I have. Someone got footage of all of us entering the hospital. There’s a great shot of Rachel and I, standing next to each other. I’ve been trying to deny it, but...hold on.”

  Tom look a deep breath. He didn’t need to see the footage to acknowledge the similarity. He’d recognized it while glancing out of his SUV at a tiny car traveling just a bit beside him. It hadn’t just been a visual thing, either. It had been an electric current of connection.

  Heather came back on the line. “Dr. Goodman says for me to take the rest of the day off. He’s being pretty good about it. Seems worried even.”

  “You want to get something to eat?”

  She hesitated. “No, I just ate a few hours ago. I do have something I’d like us to do. Are you on duty?”

  “No, the mayor made an appearance late last night. He doesn’t want me to be lead on this case. Says I’m, as well as anyone who worked alongside Max, too close to it. Oscar’s in charge. I have today off.”

  Personally, Tom was glad. After listening to Rachel last night, his heart and his sense of justice were at war. There would be no perfect ending to this case. He still planned on stopping by the department, overseeing a few things, getting the most recent updates.

  “Then I need to talk to you, in person.”

  He heard Maya sputtering in the distance, “I can keep a secret.”

>   “Nothing’s going to be secret for long,” Heather predicted softly.

  “I’ll come pick you up.”

  “No, I want to change clothes. Come get me at the bed-and-breakfast. I need about thirty minutes.”

  It didn’t take him thirty minutes. It only took him ten, and that was because he called Leann to tell her about a storm to their east. Nothing to worry about, just to be aware. Visiting the bed-and-breakfast was becoming a habit. He sat in the living room with Bianca and ate a blueberry scone from Sarasota Sweets. He hadn’t even swallowed the first bite when he realized that Bianca had missed her calling and should really be a counselor.

  “You going to be able to live with her being related to Rachel?” she asked.

  “We haven’t proven that connection,” Tom said.

  “Yet,” Bianca said.

  “We’re all related to each other if we go back far enough.”

  Bianca laughed. “Not going to stand up in a court of law, Officer, and you haven’t answered my question.”

  He finished the pastry, chewing with gusto so she’d not expect him to answer. He was frustrated, curious and scared. Usually during an investigation, he wasn’t scared.

  Bianca handed him a glass of milk. He wanted coffee, but drinking the milk saved him from having to answer her. Truth was, he wished more than anything that Heather wasn’t related to Rachel. Bigger truth was, he’d fallen in love with her anyway.

  She came hurrying down the stairs, wearing jeans and a red T-shirt and red tennis shoes. Her hair was in its usual ponytail, and her face was half serious and half smiling.

  “Bianca and I figured something out,” Heather said.

  His gaze swung to Bianca. Apparently, she knew more than he did about the connection between Heather and Rachel—no wonder the question.

  “Look at this,” Heather insisted.

  She sat down beside him and dropped an open photograph album into his lap. She leaned in, showing him picture after picture, clearly wanting him to notice what she was noticing.

  He wasn’t. He didn’t.

  He only had eyes for her. At the moment, he didn’t care what she looked like at age two. He cared that she was so close to him that he could reach out his hand and stroke her soft blond locks. If he wanted, he could tilt her face toward him and run a finger down her cheek. It would be silky smooth, warm, tender.

  Yes, he could completely ignore, forget, her connection to Rachel because the connection she had with him obliterated it. He cleared his throat, hoping that he’d managed to hide his feelings, and looked back down at the album.

  The photo was of a little girl smiling at the camera the way the fully grown woman was smiling at him.

  Beautiful.

  “You said you had something you wanted to do.”

  “Bianca gave me Renate Penny’s address. It’s in Springer, a town—”

  “I know where Springer is.”

  Heather’s smile widened. “Of course you do. I want to drive over there, visit her and get some answers to questions I’m beginning to wish I’d never asked.”

  “I could do it. Alone. That way—”

  “That way you could tell me just what I need to know when I most need to know it,” she said, seeming to read this mind. “No, thanks. I need to hear all this myself.” Immediately, to Tom’s consternation, she switched gears. “What’s wrong with me? I’ve had a great life. Why didn’t I just leave it like that?”

  This time, Bianca answered. Tom had almost forgotten she was in the room.

  “Because humans, by nature, are curious. And it’s too late to turn back the clock. You won’t rest until you know the truth.”

  “I can’t believe that I never noticed that my dad wasn’t in a single picture until I was two.” Heather claimed the photograph album from Tom. “Yes, I know he claimed to be the one taking the photos. Then, note that every single picture of me is in the same house, nowhere else.”

  Tom agreed. All Heather’s baby photos seemed to be in one house, a house that, according to Bianca, belonged to Renate Penny. After age two, Heather had her picture taken at Disneyland, camping at the Coconino National Forest in Arizona, on a steamboat even.

  “Come on,” Heather ordered, reaching out a hand to help him up. “Let’s go to Springer.”

  “I’ll pack some scones for you to take. Renate always loved them. She’s a baker, you know, and...” The words dropped off as Bianca left the room.

  “You sure you want to do this? You don’t have to.”

  “We’ve already gone over this. Besides,” she said, her hand still in his from helping him up, “I’ll have you right beside me.” She slipped her fingers between his and squeezed.

  “Okay.” Helpless, he felt helpless.

  “We’ll take my car,” she added. “I don’t want to pull up in her driveway in a police vehicle. That always puts people on the defensive.”

  “Not always,” Tom argued.

  “Always.”

  Tom wasn’t sure about her car. It was a tiny old two-door compact. It was clean and had a small cross hanging from the rearview mirror.

  “How fast does it go?” he queried.

  “Fast enough.”

  He didn’t bother to tell her how fast his SUV went, or that he liked both speed and reliability in his vehicle. Neither of which hers appeared to have. “This isn’t a car. It’s more like a toy. In a pinch, I could pick it up, tuck it under my arm and chase down a mugger.”

  Heather huffed. “It gets me where I need to go and has great gas mileage.” She frowned in the direction of his SUV. “Unlike yours.”

  “Yes, well, I did say a mugger, one mugger, because if there were two and I was driving your vehicle, I’d have to handcuff one to the side mirror and bungee-cord him to the top, and that would only work if he was a small guy.” Tom opened her door for her, adding a gallant swoop of his arm before stepping back as she slid behind the wheel. He closed her door, jogged to the passenger side and made a great production of maneuvering in. “If any of my officers see me in this, I’ll lose my cop card.”

  “You have a cop card?”

  “Have you ever heard of a man card?”

  “It’s not that bad,” she scolded.

  She started the car just as a zap of thunder rumbled overhead. The white clouds shifted to gray.

  “Bianca,” Heather said, thankfully changing the subject, “called Renate. She’s home and willing to talk to us.”

  “Good.”

  “Bianca suggested I ask all my questions over the phone, but I wanted to do it in person. Renate remembers my mother and has nothing but good things to say.”

  “I’ve found,” Tom said, “that talking face-to-face, laying a few photos or details on the table, often jogs a person’s memory.”

  “I’m hoping she’ll have more photos of my mom, and maybe, maybe of me.” Heather pulled out her phone and found Renate’s address.

  “We won’t need directions,” Tom reminded her. “I know how to get there.”

  “You’ve been before?”

  “To Springer, yes. To Renate Penny’s house, no, but Springer is smaller than Sarasota Falls. It’s basically four blocks of downtown and twelve blocks of residential. They’ve pretty much got one industry.”

  “Which is?”

  “The prison.”

  The first tiny drop of rain hit the windshield. Heather hit the wipers and didn’t so much as flinch. He liked the way she drove, both hands on the steering wheel, a tiny wrinkle of concentration in the middle of her forehead. It hadn’t been there before the rain. Or before he mentioned the prison.

  “Will Rachel be sent to Springer?”

  “No, Springer is a men’s penitentiary.” He didn’t offer to tell her where Rachel would probably be sen
t and she didn’t ask. Instead, for the next hour she queried him about how he felt with Oscar taking lead on the case, and about his parents. She sure knew how to jump around.

  Maybe she talked that much so she could pretend the thick, dark clouds weren’t rolling in. The car’s headlights were almost useless.

  “Maybe I should pull over?” she suggested.

  He was of two minds.

  “Can you make out the yellow stripe?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Other cars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s keep driving. You’re doing fine and the other drivers are just as nervous as you are.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Of course not.”

  “It almost feels like evening but—” she checked the time on her dashboard “—it’s only two.”

  “A New Mexico storm. Nothing like them.”

  “They happen often?”

  “No, not in October, but they have a way of knowing the worst time to hit.”

  “Like now.”

  He nodded. “Chances are in Sarasota Falls, Leann is getting a dozen calls, everything from downed tree limbs to strange noises being heard.”

  “You want to turn around?”

  “No, my team can handle it.”

  “Maybe you should call in or something?”

  He shook his head. “No service. Storm’s the best interrupter Mother Nature could manage.”

  The smell of rain entered through the vents. Heather switched on the heat mostly to help defog the windshield. Then she turned on the radio, some light rock, and leaned forward as if it helped her to drive.

  “You don’t seem affected at all. If anything, you look even more relaxed than when we left.

  “You don’t worry me a bit,” he lied before switching to the truth. “Springer is about twenty minutes ahead. They have a two-man police force. I’ve sent officers to help them a time or two.”

  “You didn’t say much when Bianca brought up Renate Penny. What do you know about her?”

  “Well, I can tell you she babysat me a time or two. Usually my aunt watched me while my mom worked, but once or twice she went on vacation. I remember that Renate has three kids, all older than me and scattered. When her husband retired, she and her husband moved nearer his folks.”