She didn’t want to think about any of it. She ran up the hill, around the cars lining the church grounds, past the people waving orange flags, and she kept moving until she reached the church doors. All the while, she never looked back.
* * *
Dylan raced after Tammie. She’d looked as if she were ready to pass out. But when he walked out the library doors into the crowd, he’d lost her for a brief moment, until he saw her running through the parked cars and up the church steps.
He kept running until he reached the church, then took the granite steps two at a time. He yanked the door open and stepped inside, pausing only long enough for his eyes to adjust to the change in light.
As he slowly walked into the church, turmoil continued to churn deep inside. Tammie was sitting in a pew in the center of the church. Her light sobs echoed off the walls and tore at his heart.
Not wanting to disturb her, he slipped into a seat, but kept his distance, close to the end of the aisle.
“I should have told you,” he said quietly, regret eating at him. “Even if I didn’t know for sure, I should have prepared you for it.”
Her face was wet with tears when she looked at him. “You knew about all this?”
“That your father was a pastor here in this church, and that there was a question about money that was missing? Yes, I found that out yesterday. But I didn’t want to tell you until I knew it was more than just rumor. Rumors have a way of getting out of control and I didn’t want to say anything salacious that turned out to be false. That was wrong of me.”
“I don’t know what I expected,” she said quietly. “I don’t even know why I came here. My father used to work here. He used to stand at that pulpit and give sermons. I don’t know that man. He was a faithful man. But a pastor? And…a thief?”
“You don’t know that for sure. Nothing was proven. No one knows what happened to those church funds.”
“I wanted the truth. But I had no idea the truth would be this hard to hear.” Tammie rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t know them at all, Dylan,” she said, looking at him with an expression that told him she’d given up.
He hated to think she’d been brought to that. Even when there was no hope, there was something that kept you moving forward. You had to fight for it. It was the only way he’d find Cash. And the only way she’d find out the truth about why she’d been taken from the Davcos by her parents.
But any fight Tammie had had in her before was gone now, and it shattered something inside Dylan to see it.
“You’ve come this far, Tammie. There’s still more to learn. So much more we don’t know.”
She laughed—sounded almost like a small sob—and shook her head. “I’m not sure I want to know more. Maybe Bill was right. No good can come from me finding out the truth. I should have listened to him and never come here.”
He felt a stab to his gut. “Bill?”
“A friend. He didn’t want me to come. Maybe he was right.”
Jealousy wasn’t a feeling Dylan had very often but right now he was wrestling it hard. He didn’t want to think about who this Bill guy was to Tammie. She’d never mentioned a boyfriend, and he’d have thought she would have by now. Especially after last night.
“You don’t mean that,” he said, reaching across the back of the pew and placing his hand on her shoulder. He gave it a gentle squeeze, but pulled it away when she tensed.
“Are you sure? I keep trying to figure out if there is some possible reason why I ended up with them instead of Byron Davco. If I survived the fire and Eleanor didn’t, then someone had to know. Yet there was no mention of a baby in those newspaper clippings. As much as I don’t want to believe it, I…I think they stole me, just like the church funds, Dylan. If it were any other reason, they would have said something. They would have told me I was adopted. But if they were...criminals…”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“How can I not? The people of this town believed my parents, Aaron and Connie Gardner, were criminals, that they stole that money. Did they know about me, too? Did anyone even ask about me or wonder about the baby Eleanor was pregnant with before she died? Or did they just assume I died with her?”
“There was no mention of a baby in any of the articles we read. Just an investigation of the church funds.”
She swayed in her seat.
Dylan couldn’t stand it anymore. She was shattered, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to make it better for her. He moved closer and drew her into his arms. She didn’t fight him or grown tense this time. Instead, she sank against his chest and sobbed with her hands covering her face.
“They lied to me. My whole life, they lied to me.” She looked up and took a deep breath. “And I think that’s what I’m having the hardest time with. I can’t...forgive them for it. I know I should, and I’ve tried. But every time I learn something new about my life, it’s so awful. I’m just so...angry with them, and I can’t tell them that. I can’t look my mother and father in the face and tell them how angry I am they kept all this from me or ask them why they did it!”
“If you felt any different, I’d question it,” he said. “You have a right to feel hurt and betrayed about something so important. Don’t forget that, or be too hard on yourself because you can’t let it go.”
She closed her eyes, trying to compose herself, and he waited. He’d wait all afternoon if he had to. He was struck by how incredibly right Tammie felt in his arms, as if this was where she was meant to be. It should have terrified him. He’d never felt this way about a woman before, and certainly not after such a short time. It had only been a few days. But he couldn’t deny this attraction, or the way it moved him.
“Do you think Cash knew about this? Do you think that’s why he’s missing?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Don’t forget, Cash has only been missing for a few months. Your parents have been gone almost two years. And all this happened nearly three decades ago.”
“But you said you thought the two were somehow connected.”
“Yes, in some way. But if the evidence doesn’t point in that direction, I can’t allow myself to get muddled by what-ifs.”
Tammie sniffed. “Then what? What could he possibly have found out from Serena? And what about the drug charges?”
“Cash worked for the DEA, which is why it was so easy for the authorities to believe the charges against him. It happens—good cop turns bad. In his case, good agent gets caught with the goods. But it didn’t go down that way. He was framed. I just need to find out why.”
“If someone was really framing him for something, and it had to do with Serena, it had to be more than him finding out that Eleanor Davco’s baby had survived the fire. I mean, after all this time, why would it matter? Who besides Byron Davco even cared? Eleanor’s not alive. Byron Davco is in a nursing home and doesn’t even remember his family. Who’d have something to gain from this that possibly had that kind of power to frame Cash?”
Dylan swallowed. “Aztec Corporation.”
“The company you mentioned yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
She swiped her face of wetness. “The reproductions that were smashed when the armoire went over. That same Aztec Corporation?”
“It kept nagging at me. I’d seen the emblem on the truck before. And then Sonny uncovered some information about them. But this morning I remembered something I’d seen at Cash’s apartment after he’d gone missing.”
“What was it?”
“It was just a package with a few scraps of paper tucked away. I’d gone looking for pictures, and when I found it, I didn’t pay it any mind. After I saw that statue at the Davco mansion, it triggered my memory. My sister Sonny uncovered some information about them and it got me thinking about the papers I’d seen at his apartment. So she went looking for them and then did some research. She’s very good at research.”
“Did she find out anything?”
“Not much on Aztec
Corporation other than that they sell fake Aztec statues that aren’t even remotely correct. Sonny was appalled.” Dylan shrugged, knowing that if he’d been there, his sister would have gone on all night about it. “But this morning she emailed me about some postcards clipped together with the info on Aztec.”
“What was it?”
“They were pictures of a shipment of paintings that were stolen some years back. One of them surfaced on the black market about six months ago and opened an investigation.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“The paintings were stolen about two months before you were born.”
“Do you think it’s related?”
He cocked his head to one side and thought a moment. “Maybe. I can’t say for sure. It could be a coincidence.”
With one eyebrow raised, she said, “There are no coincidences.”
He smiled at that “That sounds like something I’d say. Why Cash would have either of those things hidden in a drawer, I can’t say. But I don’t want to jump the gun. It’s worth checking Aztec Corporation out a bit more. Sonny said it’s quite a large company, though, and it may be hard to find anything useful.”
“What about the stolen piece that resurfaced?”
The church was quiet except for their voices. But the window was open, and every so often the sound of a blaring horn from a car stuck in traffic cut into the quiet.
“I have a friend in Providence, Jake Santos, who is pulling some strings to get a copy of the police report. But all that is low priority.”
“Valuable paintings being discovered is low priority?”
“The original owner is dead, and the painting was returned to the estate. The police aren’t looking for the thieves, because they can’t prosecute. The statute of limitations is up. From what Sonny uncovered, there isn’t any information about where the paintings came from or where they’ve been. It simply said private collection.”
“Strange.”
He hadn’t been in any hurry to let go of Tammie. He liked a whole lot how it felt, just sitting there holding her. But the realness of just how dangerous a world Cash had stepped into was becoming startlingly apparent.
He bent his head and kissed Tammie’s lips softly. She closed her tear-filled eyes. When she opened them, he brushed his thumb across her cheek to wipe it dry. It was only then that he saw the pastor standing in the doorway, staring at them.
#
Chapter Twelve
The pastor lifted his hand. “Is everything okay? Are you in need of a prayer?” They returned to their position on the bench as the pastor slowly walked over to them.
Tammie stood up. “I’m sorry, Pastor. I…was just a little upset.”
“I don’t often see people in prayer inside the church during auction week. It’s nice to see some friendly faces.”
“You must be Pastor Robbins,” Dylan said.
“That I am,” he answered with a smile.
The pastor looked at Tammie, took in her red-rimmed eyes. “What’s troubling you, Serena? Has your father taken a turn for the worse?”
His face was sympathetic, and Tammie could feel tears surging to the surface again at his kindness. She was infinitely glad Dylan spoke.
“Pastor, this isn’t Serena Davco. Her name is Tammie. Tammie is not from Eastmeadow.”
His eyes widened. “I didn’t realize Serena had any other relatives.”
“We believe Tammie is Serena’s sister.”
He nodded. “The resemblance is uncanny. You could almost be twins.”
Tammie flipped a lock of hair behind her ear. “Did you know the pastor that was here prior to you?”
“Just briefly. I was only here a short time before the Gardners left.”
“Then…you know about the scandal regarding the church funds?” Tammie blurted out.
He looked thoughtful. “Why all these questions about the prior pastor?”
“They were my parents,” Tammie said quietly. “They raised me.”
Pastor Robbins sat down in the pew in front of them. “Oh, I see. I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t think anyone knew that. Until now,” Dylan said. “The Gardners left Eastmeadow the night of the Davco mansion fire, right?”
“These are probably questions better asked of them, not me. It was a very long time ago.”
“Twenty-seven years,” Tammie said. “But I can’t ask them. They died nearly two years ago.”
He drew in a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t know them well, but what I did know was they were good people. I always wondered if it was the money scandal that made them leave.”
“Then you do remember it?”
“Yes, I was part of it.”
Tammie sat down slowly again, her attention fully on the pastor now. “You were?”
“Of course. Many of the townspeople were involved, as well. We’d been trying to raise money for a new youth program for the children. Eleanor Davco and the pastor’s wife—Connie, I believe her name was—were very active in it. From what I understand, they’d been very close friends since childhood. We’d managed to raise quite a sum of money. It surprised us all how generous people had been. But then it mysteriously disappeared.”
“No one knows what happened to it?” Tammie asked.
“No. It never turned up. But you know how these things work. This is a small town. People were very upset when the project fell apart because the funds were missing.”
“What happened?” Dylan asked.
“It did what all scandals do. It blew way out of proportion. Suddenly, we weren’t just talking about a few thousand dollars. The church books were suspect. The pastor was accused of stealing money from the church. Many of the church members called for an investigation.”
“Hence, the scandal,” Dylan said.
Pastor Robbins shrugged. “Right. Of course, the books were audited, and in the end they were found to be in perfect order. There was no money missing, except for the money that was raised for the youth group. The final investigation listed the charity money as probably being lost in the Davco mansion fire that night. It was a terrible fire.”
Tammie rubbed her eyes, which were stinging from her tears. “The papers never said anything about that.”
“Unfortunately, scandalous news gets better headlines. And the fire was front-page news for weeks. It was awful. Of course, you must know about all that.”
Dylan nodded. “Do you remember what happened that night?”
The pastor rubbed his chin. “I don’t recall the cause of the fire. Because Pastor Gardner had already left, I gave the services for Mrs. Davco and the unborn baby.”
Tammie’s head shot up. “You gave services for the baby?’
“Yes, at Mr. Davco’s request. He was quite devastated by their deaths, as you can imagine.”
Dylan placed his hand over Tammie’s. “Yes, I’m sure he was.”
“Pastor, I believe that baby was me.”
The pastor’s eyes widened with shock, and he looked at both of them. He cleared his throat. “Well, that is a surprise.”
Tammie had no doubt her biological father mourned both the loss of his wife and baby, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d known she’d survived the fire. Someone had to have known.
“Are you folks staying in town?” the pastor asked.
“I’m staying with my sister.”
He nodded knowingly and smiled. “I’m happy to hear that. Serena could use some family around her right now.”
“Why do you say that?” Dylan asked.
“She’s been very troubled this last year. She didn’t begin coming to church services until about two or three years ago. I didn’t really know her while she was growing up. Byron Davco had a lot of anger after his wife’s death. But he knew Eleanor Davco went to this church so it was important to have her funeral here. I remember her bringing Serena here as a little girl.”
He looked around the emp
ty church and then added, “I always thought Byron would one day bring Serena back. Eleanor would have liked that. But God seemed to have reached her through that young man she’d met.”
Dylan leaned forward and asked, “What young man?”
“I don’t know his name. But they seemed to be quite in love. I never saw them around town, but they came to Sunday services a few times. Serena began to come see me around that time for guidance. I don’t think the man lived here in town. But I don’t think I’d ever seen her as happy as she was when she was with him.” The pastor laughed and added, “I’m not foolish enough to think it was just my sermons that made her smile.”
Tammie smiled, as well. Serena had been in love with Cash. Somehow it made her feel good to know that all the sadness and pain Serena had experienced in her life was at least balanced by love.
If nothing else, Tammie had been gifted with love from her parents, had known the love of a mother for at least twenty-five years. Even if Connie Gardner hadn’t been her biological mother, she’d shared that bond. Serena had been robbed of that.
Dylan pulled a picture of Cash out of his pocket and showed it to the pastor.
Pastor Robbins’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Yes, that’s the young man.”
“Have you seen him recently?”
“Oh, not in quite a few months. Maybe longer than that. Nor have I seen Serena. But maybe now that you’re staying with her, you can persuade her to come out to Sunday services. With the two of you, of course.”
“Thank you, Pastor,” Dylan said. “We’ll see what we can do about getting Serena here. She’s not feeling very well right now.”
The pastor nodded.
“Maybe you could take a trip out to the Davco home for a visit,” Tammie added. “I’m sure Serena would like that.”
“Thank you for the invitation. I’ll do that. I have some work to do in the office now. If you need anything else, even some counsel,” he said, speaking directly to Tammie, “be sure to stop in. I always make time.”
“Thank you. I’ll remember that.”
As Pastor Robbins walked away, Tammie turned to Dylan and gently placed her hand on his arm. Words were jumbled up in her brain, and she couldn’t think of any that could adequately express what she was feeling. He seemed to understand, and told her so with a quick smile and the light brush of his hand across her back.
Reckless Hours: a Romantic Suspense novel (Heroes of Providence Book 3) Page 16
