The Stranger's Sin

by Darlene Gardner

  She forced out her suspicion. “I’m afraid Mandy might have kidnapped Toby, too.”

  She expected shock or dismay, but he exhibited neither. “And how did you reach this conclusion?”

  Her lips trembled. She bit the bottom one with her upper teeth to stop it, trying to gather herself. “You said you didn’t have Toby’s birth certificate. Or any identifying papers at all. Mandy could have kidnapped Toby before you met her.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “You don’t believe me,” she stated.

  His arms stayed crossed. “You don’t exactly have a track record of telling the truth.”

  She’d been so worried about Toby that she hadn’t considered how telling him the truth would impact her. The worst had happened. She’d put her heart on the line and he’d stomped on it.

  “I’m telling the truth now.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. “I can show you my driver’s license.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come off it, Kelly. You must know I’ve already seen it.”

  “What? How?” She thought back over the past few hours and remembered returning from the restroom to discover her wallet and some other items had fallen out of her purse. “Did you go through my wallet?”

  “I picked up your wallet and it came open,” he said.

  “Did you have somebody run my driver’s-license number?” she asked. “Was that why you needed to make a phone call after breakfast?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s why.”

  “Then you know I told the truth about who I am and the charges I’m facing.” She could tell she’d hit a nerve.

  He continued to stare at her, giving away nothing.

  “I’m telling the truth, Chase. Don’t you see what this means? Mandy kidnapped one baby that I know of. She could have done the same with Toby.”

  Some movement caught Kelly’s eye and she noticed a woman wearing short shorts and a Dancing Turtle T-shirt walking on a path leading from a cabin in the back of the restaurant.

  The woman’s gait was instantly familiar. Kelly leaned forward, waiting for her to get closer so she could get a better look. The woman was neither a brunette nor a redhead. Her hair was cut short and bleached blonde, but there was no mistaking who she was.

  “It’s Mandy,” Kelly said.

  Mandy rounded the corner of the restaurant, walked past the ridiculous turtle statue and disappeared inside.

  “Wait in the Jeep,” Chase said. “Give me ten minutes and then come in after me.”

  He reached for the door handle, but she stopped him from getting out of the vehicle with a hand on his arm. She felt his muscles tense.

  “I’m telling you the truth, Chase,” Kelly said with as much conviction as she could muster.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” Chase said. “The answers are inside the bar.”

  CHASE TRIED TO FALL BACK on his law-enforcement training as he headed away from the parking lot. If he could stay detached, he had a better chance of sorting out what was truth and what was fiction.

  His sweating palms and pounding heart told him he didn’t have a chance of keeping his emotions uninvolved.

  Too much was at stake.

  The boy he loved as a son might belong to another family. A family that could be experiencing tremendous heartache and fear.

  Stubbornly refusing to put a label on what he felt for Kelly, he continued on his path. He discovered upon entering the building that the Dancing Turtle was two establishments in one.

  An entranceway with a wooden bench seat built into the wall and doors leading to his and her restrooms served as a bridge between two large rooms. On the right side was the bar, which seemed deserted. On the left a restaurant stood empty, aside from an elderly couple who sipped from glasses of water.

  The rustic decor featured wooden booths and tables situated on a worn hardwood floor. Chase settled into a booth that had a view of the kitchen. He could hear people moving about and pots and pans clattering as the staff got ready for the lunch crowd.

  Within minutes, Mandy emerged from the kitchen carrying two cups of coffee. She wore black shorts and a snug-fitting pink T-shirt sporting the image of the dancing turtle. With her short, bleached blond hair, she was almost unrecognizable.

  She set the coffee on the couple’s table and took an order pad from the pocket of her shorts, focusing on the male of the pair. She leaned too close to him, touched him on the shoulder and laughed at something he said.

  Chase knew now that the flirtatious act was Mandy’s way of getting what she wanted, whether it be a big tip or a man who’d support her until she was ready to move on.

  Mandy finished scribbling down the couple’s orders and repocketed the pad, then seemed to notice for the first time that there was someone else in the restaurant. She headed toward him, her step faltering only slightly along the way. She didn’t stop until she reached him. She even smiled, although there was a tightness around the edges of her mouth.

  “Why, if it isn’t Chase Bradford.” She cocked a hip and placed a hand on the waistband of her shorts. “Isn’t this a surprise.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” he said. “You must know I’d be looking for you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  He gestured to her T-shirt. “You left one of those behind. The logo is pretty distinctive.”

  “So you missed me.” She batted her eyelashes, the same way she had that night in Harrisburg exactly six months after his mother’s death. But today he was no longer drunk or grieving.

  “Drop the act, Mandy,” he said. “I’m here because of Toby.”

  She instantly sobered. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. Doing great, actually. No thanks to you.”

  Her lips thinned. Gone were both the flirtatious waitress and the concerned mother, replaced by the woman who’d manipulated him. “Are you trying to lay a guilt trip on me?”

  “I’m trying to do what’s best for Toby.” He found he couldn’t refer to Toby as her son, not until he checked out Kelly’s claim.

  “And you think I’m not?” Her voice rose at the end of the question, drawing the gazes of the elderly couple. She cleared her throat, then spoke in a lower, yet no more insulted, tone. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “You don’t want to know the answer to that.” She looked around, determined nobody else was coming into the restaurant and slid into the booth across from him. “I left Toby with you because that was the best thing for him.”

  Chase regarded her, noticing her resemblance to Kelly, even understanding how an eyewitness could have gotten them mixed up.

  “Don’t you mean you did the best thing for you?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said roughly. “Maybe I do. What’s so terrible about that?”

  “A mother’s supposed to put her baby’s needs above her own.”

  “You don’t think I know that?” Mandy hissed. “You don’t think it’s been hell for me to admit I’m not cut out to be a mother?”

  “I don’t know, Mandy. After the way you played me, I don’t know anything about you.”

  “I did what I had to do. I got Toby a good home,” she bit out, then seemed to tense. “Unless you’re here because you don’t want him anymore.”

  “Of course I want him,” Chase refuted. “I love him.”

  Her posture relaxed. “So what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t have a legal leg to stand on. I’m not his father. I’m not even his guardian. DPW could take him away from me in a heartbeat.”

  “DPW?”

  “The Department of Public Welfare,” Chase said. “I want you to sign over custody. I want to adopt him.”

  He watched her carefully for a reaction. If she agreed, she’d have to provide Toby’s birth certificate and Chase would have proof that the boy wasn’t a kidnapping victim.

  But if she didn’t…


  “Kelly!” Mandy was no longer looking at him, but at a point beyond his shoulder.

  He didn’t have to turn around to determine that Kelly had gotten tired of waiting in the Jeep.

  “What are you doing here, girl?” Mandy was smiling so broadly nobody would have guessed she’d just been asked to give up her son.

  Or that the woman at whom she was smiling had been charged with a crime she claimed Mandy had committed.

  What the hell was going on?

  KELLY HAD ENVISIONED COMING face-to-face with Mandy a hundred times since her arrest.

  Not once had she anticipated Mandy smiling and greeting her by name.

  But it was going to be all right. By calling her by name, Mandy had just admitted she knew her. Chase would have to believe Kelly now.

  Keeping her composure, Kelly sat down in the booth next to Chase. She wet her lips and said, “I’m here because I was arrested for a crime you committed.”

  “Crime?” Mandy screwed up her features. “What you talking about, girl?”

  Kelly’s heart sank. Kidnapping was a felony. She should have known Mandy wouldn’t own up to the crime, but she hadn’t anticipated the other woman would act as though she was auditioning for a part in a play.

  “The little boy you kidnapped in Utica and left with me,” Kelly said. “You said his name was Corey, but it was really Eric.”

  “What?” Mandy laughed loudly enough that the elderly couple looked in their direction. “Are you playing with me? Is this some kind of joke? Because I don’t know anything about a kidnapping.”

  Chase hadn’t said anything during their exchange. Was he buying Mandy’s act?

  “She’s lying, Chase,” Kelly insisted. “You’ve got to believe me, please.”

  But why should he believe her? No matter Kelly’s reasons, she’d done a lot of lying herself since she’d met him.

  “You two know each other?” Mandy looked from one of them to the other, a hand at her throat. “How did that happen?”

  “I came to Indigo Springs, searching for you,” Kelly said.

  “Because you say I kidnapped some kid?”

  “Because you did kidnap him.”

  “Oh, come on!” Mandy said. “Why would I leave my son behind and then go kidnap another kid? It makes no sense.”

  “Maybe you kidnapped Toby, too.”

  Mandy laughed harshly. “Why would I kidnap my own son?”

  “Because he’s not your son,” Kelly ventured.

  “You have a hell of a lot of nerve coming in here and making trouble for me.” Mandy shook her head back and forth. “You were always a little off, but I never thought you were crazy.”

  “Why are you acting like we know each other?” Kelly asked.

  “Because we do,” Mandy said. “You teach elementary school in Wenona. At some private school.”

  “I told you that when we met in the park,” Kelly said.

  “What park? We met at the University of Buffalo.”

  “I told you that, too.”

  Mandy turned to Chase. “I didn’t go to school at UB, but I had some friends who did. I used to run into Kelly at parties. People were always telling us how much we looked alike.”

  “That’s not true!” Kelly cried.

  Mandy fingered her short blond hair. “Not anymore it’s not.”

  Kelly’s brain raced, trying to come up with a strategy to get Mandy to incriminate herself but she could already feel the bars of the cell closing in on her.

  “How long have you worked here?” Chase asked Mandy. A smart question. The kidnapping had occurred two weeks ago. If Mandy hadn’t yet started at the Dancing Turtle, she would have had opportunity to kidnap the child.

  Did that mean Chase was leaning toward believing Kelly, or was he merely asking the question any law-enforcement officer would?

  “Three long weeks,” Mandy said. “We’re shorthanded so I haven’t had a day off since I started. Good thing this job comes with a place to live or I’d have quit by now.”

  Kelly understood that Mandy was providing an alibi. If she’d been at the Dancing Turtle every day for the past three weeks, she couldn’t have kidnapped a baby in a different state a week and a half ago. Except Kelly knew she had.

  “Can anybody vouch for that?” Chase asked.

  “My boss can.” Mandy stood up. Was there a certain smugness in her attitude? “I’ll go get her. I need to put in this order anyway.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Chase said. A smart move, Kelly thought. That way, he could make sure Mandy didn’t ask her boss to lie for her or try to make a run for it.

  Chase got out of the booth and followed Mandy into the kitchen, barely sparing Kelly a glance. She told herself his cool demeanor meant nothing, that he was trying to get to the bottom of a sticky situation, but her nerves were on edge.

  If she couldn’t get Chase to believe her, what chance did she have of convincing anybody else that she’d been wrongly accused?

  She expected to have to wait for a while, but Chase returned within minutes. He was alone, and his face was grim. He sat down across from her.

  “Mandy’s boss was in the kitchen,” he said in a monotone. “She confirms that Mandy hasn’t had a day off since she started three weeks ago.”

  “Then she’s lying, too!” Kelly cried.

  “She showed me her ledger,” Chase said. “She keeps a record of how many hours her employees work for payroll purposes. Mandy’s name was on every page.”

  “Then she falsified it. I’m telling you, Chase. They’re both lying.” Kelly bit her lip, wondering how she could convince him. Then it hit her. If Toby was also a kidnap victim as she suspected, then the police would be forced to take her claim seriously. “What about Toby?”

  “What about him?”

  “Did you ask her about custody?”

  “I did,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And I’m pretty sure she’s going to give it to me. She even told me his real name is Toby Johnson, not Toby Smith. You were right about Mandy running from her father. He was in jail for assaulting her.”

  The hope in his face was so palpable Kelly hated to dash it. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any impediment to Chase being awarded custody of the boy. In a perfect world, what Kelly and Chase had begun last night would turn into something beautiful and lasting. Then Toby would have two parents instead of one.

  But the world was far from perfect.

  “I doubt Mandy has the authority to give you custody, Chase,” she said.

  “Because you think Toby’s a kidnapped child, too.”

  She nodded, feeling unutterably sad.

  “Mandy claims he isn’t,” Chase said.

  “Of course she’d say that. Why would she tell the truth about Toby when she lied about the child she kidnapped in Utica?”

  “She says she has proof that Toby isn’t kidnapped.”

  Before Kelly could ask what kind of proof, Mandy strode through the restaurant with some sort of document in hand.

  “Here it is.” She laid the paper on the table with a flourish. At the top was the seal of Pennsylvania. It was a birth certificate, Kelly realized. Her heart began a slow, painful thump. Happiness over what this could mean for Chase and Toby warred with despair.

  Chase picked up the birth certificate and read it over, then gazed at Kelly with unreadable eyes and handed it to her. The father’s name was listed as unknown, but the blanks were filled in for the mother’s name and the baby’s name:

  Amanda Elizabeth Johnson and Toby Aaron Johnson.

  Mandy jerked her head toward Kelly. “I told you she was lying.”

  “Why would I do that?” Kelly asked dazedly, a last-ditch attempt to convince Chase she was telling the truth. “Why would I spend all this time looking for you if I was lying?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” Mandy said. “Because you’re in a heap of trouble you want to pin on somebody else. Who better than a woman who looks just like you?”


  The explanation sounded credible even to Kelly. Chase said nothing.

  It was patently obvious that Kelly had reached the end of her trail. Nobody was going to believe she’d been a victim of mistaken identity.

  Not Chase.

  Not her lawyer.

  Not the cops who arrested her.

  And especially not the district attorney who was prepared to prosecute her.

  Even if Kelly could get somebody to reexamine the case, the bottom line would come down to the testimony of the eyewitnesses.

  Now that Mandy had cut and bleached her hair, nobody would ever confuse the two of them. Even Kelly knew she looked more like the woman with the shoulder-length brown hair who’d snatched the child than the kidnapper did herself.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TOYS LITTERED THE FAMILY ROOM at the Bradford house, but Toby wasn’t paying attention to any of them. He batted at Kelly’s nose as if it was a plaything, an unfortunate habit of which she’d been trying to break him.

  Now she wouldn’t get the chance.

  “No, sweetie.” She gently but firmly took hold of his wrist. “That hurts.”

  Not true. She couldn’t feel much of anything. The blow from her failed quest for justice had left her numb.

  “The little scamp must already be feeling better.” Charlie came up beside where she sat with Toby on the overstuffed sofa and touched the child’s forehead. “Yep. The fever’s gone. It was just a mild ear infection, like the doc said.”

  When Kelly and Chase had returned from Fox Tail less than a half hour before, Toby had crawled over to her and wordlessly asked to be picked up. He’d been content to let her hold him since, almost as though he sensed their time together was short.

  “Did you run into any trouble filling out those forms at the doctor’s office?” Chase asked his father. He’d already changed into his uniform and stood in the family room, feet a shoulder’s width apart, impatient to get going.

  “A bunch. I left most things blank and said I needed to check with you,” Charlie said. “Thank God we’ll be able to provide complete information now.”

  They hadn’t told Charlie everything that had happened in Fox Tail, but he knew they’d found Mandy and she’d agreed to sign over custody of Toby.