Bannon Brothers

by Janet Dailey

  But Bannon hadn’t been at the stable when she’d met him for the first time. If he ever got a chance to observe how the old man acted around Erin, another piece of the puzzle might fall solidly into place. What father wouldn’t recognize his own child? An age-progression image created by a studio technician could be way off the mark, but not a parent’s memory.

  Which begged a lot of questions.

  Uneasily, he reminded himself of the distinct possibility that there was evidence out there he didn’t have, evidence that could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Erin was Ann, even without DNA testing. This case had it all. Family secrets. Money. People went to dangerous extremes to keep both.

  “Well?”

  The single word jolted him out of his thoughts. “It could be that someone else thinks that besides me. Exactly who—I can’t say for sure.”

  “I could guess.”

  She didn’t add anything to that blunt remark and he soldiered on. “The truth is going to come out.” He hesitated. “Look, Erin, I didn’t know what I was getting into. It’s not like I was assigned to the case—I just got interested. And one thing led to another.”

  “Interested in what? Can you be more specific? This is my life we’re talking about.”

  He picked up on the edge in her voice. Tread carefully, he told himself. He hadn’t planned on telling her anything until he was absolutely sure. But when she’d come out of his bedroom and latched onto that legal pad, he hadn’t had a choice. If she hadn’t, would he have been able to look her in the eye and keep his suspicions to himself much longer? Not if her safety was at stake. He took a deep breath.

  “Erin, when we were first getting to know each other, you told me some things about your family that seemed a little strange to me.”

  “Like what?”

  “The brother who died before you. The baby pictures you didn’t have. The way you grew up so isolated. Those things fit a pattern. We’re trained to look for them.”

  “Right. You’re a detective. Why do I want to forget that?”

  “Sometimes I wish I could myself.” His voice was level. “I don’t want this to come between us.”

  “Too late now. Keep going.”

  “I minded my own business. More or less,” he amended. “Then something cropped up that didn’t fit a pattern at all—the notecard that said ‘girl of gold.’”

  “You mean the one in my scrapbook? What about it?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t think anything of it. Until Doris happened to see the same three words in a letter she found in the Montgomery files.” He paused, gauging the effect of what he was about to say on Erin. “An anonymous letter. From a woman who called herself, quote unquote, Ann’s new mother.”

  Erin’s brow furrowed slightly. “‘Girl of gold’ is just a phrase. It must be from a poem or a song.”

  “I couldn’t find it online anywhere. So I took the card—okay, sorry.” He held up his hands in a placating gesture at her furious look. “You asked me to go over and walk the dog.”

  “I didn’t ask you to snoop,” she said heatedly.

  “Well, after Doris told me about the letter—look, I knew it was wrong and I take full responsibility. I wanted to examine the card under a digital microscope. It was from a store, you’re right about that. But the calligraphy inside was done by hand. I haven’t had a chance to compare it to the writing on the letter.”

  He gave her a sideways look, about to confess all and dreading it. Erin was staring straight ahead, not at him.

  “When I took the card, I photocopied your birth certificate to do a document check, compare dates, that kind of thing. Routine.”

  “Is it?” she snapped. “I don’t remember you asking my permission. I don’t even remember the certificate being in the scrapbook.”

  “It slipped out from behind the card. Took some doing to track down what I wanted to know. The hospital where you were born shut down years ago. So I went to the new one—”

  “And flashed your shiny badge at some dumb clerk.”

  Good guess. It didn’t seem like the right time to mention the fifty he’d flashed too. “Erin, I knew it was forged the second I saw your brother’s birth certificate. And when I found a translation for the Latin words on the fake seal—”

  “Truth is the daughter of time.” She fell silent. “That rings true. My father liked puzzles. The harder the better.”

  “How well did he know Latin?”

  She gave an infinitesimal shrug. “He could read it. He taught me a little.”

  “Were you familiar with that phrase?”

  “No. I only learned a few words. Nothing like that.” Her face was beginning to crumple with strain. “So what else did you find out?”

  “Not much. I don’t have a theory about how you were taken from your house and I couldn’t truthfully say who did it. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of evidence—practically none, if you want to know—and the reports in the files didn’t speculate.“

  “And you’re sure I was taken. That I’m not Erin Randall.”

  It wasn’t a question or a statement. More like an expression of profound pain. Her gaze moved involuntarily to the stacked boxes, as if the answer to all her questions was buried somewhere deep inside.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “As sure as I can be without DNA evidence.”

  Erin turned to look at him. The piercing vulnerability in her blue eyes was almost too much for him to bear. “That’s going to be tough. My parents—or the people I thought were my parents—died three years ago.”

  “I know that.” He wasn’t going to go into how DNA could still be obtained. Some other time. Let someone else tell her.

  “But someone who knew them—knew me—might have seen the broadcast.”

  “That computer-generated image didn’t look like you at all.”

  She shook her head. The movement made a couple of tears fall. Erin scrubbed them away viciously. “That doesn’t matter. You said the case was all over the news back in the day. Somebody knew my parents from before—somebody might have figured out who I was. My mother had two sisters.”

  That fact distracted him for a moment. “Do you remember anything about them?”

  “The aunties? Not their names. Just their old photographs. I was so young. I don’t remember meeting them, if that’s what you mean. I think one died and the other drifted away.”

  “Oh.”

  Erin’s voice dropped to a bitter whisper. “But someone else might have noticed or guessed and didn’t say anything.”

  “Like who?”

  She shrugged, but the gesture was far from nonchalant. “My parents weren’t always that isolated,” she added. “So I’m thinking a distant neighbor or former friend. Someone who believed in minding their own business,” she added acidly.

  He reached out to reassure her with a touch, but she jumped up and walked away from him. She ran a finger along the packing tape on the top of one of the boxes, making a thin indentation in the plastic without slitting it.

  Bannon wished he could make the damned boxes disappear. “Erin, most of those messages aren’t going to pan out. People just want to be on TV or they’re hoping to get paid for information or something. I’ll consider myself lucky if I find one truthful reply in ten thousand—”

  She whirled and pointed an accusing finger at him. “How would you know what’s true and what’s not? It’s me they’re talking about. My life. What’s left of it.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  Erin crossed her arms. He had the feeling she was fighting the urge to attack him physically. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to find out that everything about yourself is a lie?”

  “No.”

  The silent standoff that ensued lasted for over an hour. She paced. He set his jaw against the pain of a world-class headache, found some paperwork to do, and let her walk it off. Even the dog kept his distance, settling his body against a wall and keeping his head up to watch both of them
.

  Bannon wished she would go into the kitchen and smash dishes. Or scream it out. She had incredible self-control. Or maybe she had just gone numb.

  Finally she sat, glancing once more at the sealed boxes. “Did you tell that reporter about—”

  “No,” he interrupted curtly. “And I don’t intend to. Ever. You’re in charge from here on in when it comes to that. Kelly will probably contact me at some point, but I don’t have to say anything.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  Bannon looked up at her. He had detected the slightest possible softening in her tone. Not forgiveness. Call it a cessation of outright hostility.

  “Right now, none of that is important. I don’t have all of the answers, and I don’t need them. We have other things to think about. I put you at risk. Now I have to keep you safe.”

  “We?” Erin looked down at her hands, which twisted nervously in her lap. “I know you were trying to protect me, Bannon.”

  He might have blown that. Big time. He had something to say and he had no idea how she would take it. “First things first. You can’t go back to that house, Erin. Ever.”

  “I don’t want to,” she whispered. “But there’s a lot of stuff still there that I need—did you think about that?”

  “Of course we did. Linc and I disconnected the computer and peripherals and took it all with us. Plus a whole lot of other stuff. We stashed a bunch of boxes at his place. You could hide out there if you wanted—I don’t think you’re safe with me, to be honest.”

  She shook her head. “No. I said it once and I’ll say it again, I’m not going to keep running.”

  Bannon could understand that. And she had a point. Wherever she went, she could be found.

  The condo building was no fortress. There were no guards or doormen on the entrances or exits, and the doors were hollow-core junk. One kick and they’d splinter. There were decent locks on his, though, that he’d installed himself.

  Charlie was serious protection, but he wasn’t enough. Linc could set up new electronic security inside Bannon’s place—oh, hell. He couldn’t lock her up night and day.

  He looked at her. She was silent.

  Shut up and think, Bannon.

  He reminded himself that he was up against the chief of police, who seemed to be hooked up with the psycho who’d appeared in Linc’s monitor for less than a second before the vidcam had been torn out. Bannon was grateful Erin hadn’t seen that face. She’d been terrorized enough for a lifetime.

  At least they had that to go on. But Linc would have to pull off a miracle of pixel enhancement on an image from the vidcam feed or they would have no way of identifying him.

  “You know what the worst part is?”

  He snapped to attention. There was a world of hurt in her voice.

  “Even if my parents—the Randalls—took me when I was too young to know better, that still doesn’t make me a Montgomery.”

  “I thought about that too.”

  Erin reached down and picked up the folded yellow sheets of paper, crumpling them in her hands. “I feel like I don’t exist.” She threw them away from her and began to cry for real. He couldn’t stand it. Bannon got next to her and held her tight.

  She didn’t use her fists on him this time. He kept on holding her. Charlie came over, keeping a respectful distance but clearly alarmed. Bannon had tears in his eyes too. A couple of the little bastards rolled down his face and into her hair.

  Erin sobbed her heart out. He didn’t know how many minutes went by before she cried herself out. For now, anyway.

  The dog moved closer and put a paw on her thigh.

  “I know that’s not you, Bannon,” she whispered into his soaked T-shirt.

  He could almost feel her shaky smile through the wet fabric.

  “No. It’s not. Charlie, lie down.” The dog obeyed, but he didn’t move away, settling his big body protectively at their feet.

  Erin lifted her head without looking at Bannon or the dog. She gave a raw sigh and buried her face in Bannon’s neck. He couldn’t adjust his position and his back was killing him, but he didn’t care. He kept on holding her and stroking her hair. It seemed to help.

  Linc’s number flashed on the cell phone screen. Bannon flipped it open before it could ring.

  “Hey. I called to see how you two are doing.”

  Bannon glanced toward the shut bedroom door. “She’s not awake yet.”

  “Oh. Did you tell her about what happened?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess she wasn’t thrilled to hear that the creep came back.”

  “No, she wasn’t.” Bannon knew his brother was taking the situation seriously. Linc wasn’t big on drama and emotions. He just got things done, like all of them. Their father had brought up his three boys that way.

  He provided the barest outline of Erin’s reaction. That was between her and him. His brother didn’t need to know what they’d talked about. Or that she’d cried a river.

  “You going to keep her there?” Linc asked.

  “It’s not a good idea. But she has no place else to go. You got the back story on her.”

  “Yeah, chapter and verse. What is it with you and stray cats?”

  “Watch it, Linc.”

  “Sorry. You know I was about to say she can stay with me,” his brother offered.

  “I figured as much. In fact, I volunteered you. She’s not interested in going someplace else.”

  Linc didn’t seem surprised. “Not a problem. Here if you need me. Really. Look, maybe we can help her hide out of state somewhere or—at the cabin.”

  “It’s too isolated, even if I went with her,” Bannon said. “I thought of that too. Maybe I’ve got too many damn things to think about.”

  He could practically hear his brother analyzing pros and cons in his head. Linc had a knack for simplifying. Bannon could use some of that. His own head was spinning.

  “All right,” Linc began. “One. Erin is alive and safe. Two. All the rest can wait. The important thing is that we gotta get that guy.”

  “And when we do, the chief can hire some other thug. Speaking of that, did you get an image we can use from the vidcam?”

  “Not yet. I did do a screen grab. But I have to amp up the pixels, smooth out the visual noise, and do some fairly sophisticated enhancement. Give me an hour.”

  “How about dusting for prints?”

  His brother sighed. “I forgot I had all that stuff. Which box were the vidcams in?”

  “One of them. It was brown cardboard.”

  “Thank you, Bannon. That’s very helpful. We took out about twenty boxes matching that description.”

  Bannon cleared his throat. “Good thing you have that big garage.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, I get the picture. You want me to handle the forensics and come up with an ID. You defend the maiden and chop off dragon heads.”

  “What I want to do is confront Hoebel.”

  “With a receipt for his pancake breakfast? I don’t think that’s going to scare him, bro. His ugly mug didn’t pop up on the vid.”

  “I’m following up on it today. You know, have a chat with the waitress, tip her a ten for a cup of bad coffee. She might remember a name, or at least what the guy who came in with Hoebel looked like.”

  “Better than nothing,” Linc said.

  “You can’t find out everything on a computer,” Bannon retorted.

  Linc relented. “Don’t I know it. Look, receipts are a gold mine of info. Time, date, items purchased, and bingo-bango, an authentic signature that can be tied to a credit or debit card. And speaking of not finding out everything, you’d better do a sweep of your car for bugs. Forgot to check that off. There’s a gizmo for it in the box under your bed.”

  Bannon rubbed his aching head. “I believe you. Thanks for the reminder. And I’ll do the dusting on the receipt. It’s here, safe and sound. Somewhere.”

  “Don’t lose it. Our guy’s fingerprints might be on it. And why did he have i
t in the first place, hmm? Care to speculate?”

  “Maybe he wanted to forge Hoebel’s signature on something. Maybe it stuck to his shoe. Let’s not get too logical. The guy is a psycho.”

  “Guess we’re going to find out together.” He heard Linc’s swivel chair creak and knew his brother was leaning back. “Take care of yourself, Bann. And her too.”

  Hoebel pushed the budget projections away from him with one angry sweep. He preferred to have a clear desk—if any of the county or state brass showed up for a surprise visit, they’d get the impression that he was caught up. In charge.

  Of course, most of this crap had come from them. Maybe they would want to see him nose-deep in their damned paperwork. They could have e-mailed him all of this and made it easier to ignore. He glanced at his monitor, which had gone dark, and poked a thick finger at a key.

  The real-time data from the GPS beacon on Bannon’s car appeared as a glowing line on a county map. The sonuvabitch was putting in some miles today. Fifty miles east, then a jog to the south. Then back to the west, not too far away. Keeping busy.

  Too bad he couldn’t just fire the guy. Keeping him broke was about the only weapon he had at his disposal. Bannon’s continuance of claim forms were still waiting for Hoebel’s signature. But he was a little surprised that Bannon hadn’t found the thing yet. He’d pegged the detective as detail-oriented and dogged, a real never-say-die type. Intuitive too. And essentially fearless, which made him a serious threat to the chief’s idea of law and order. He glanced at the icon for the GPS gizmo. It was moving along the county road that led out to Montgomery’s stud farm. Was Bannon snooping around out there today?

  At least Montgomery wouldn’t be calling the office to give him hell. The old man’s stroke had shut him up for the moment, although Hoebel understood that it hadn’t been a biggie. Monty had been seen at his stables staggering around on the arm of some nurse, trying to show his underlings who was boss.

  Pathetic.

  One more reason for him to quit early, Hoebel thought. He wanted to enjoy himself before old age whacked him in the back of the knees. Take the money and run. He made a note to call his favorite hacker tonight. Time to steal Montgomery’s remaining loot.