by Beverly Long
“How did he die?”
“He was shot. Taking his garbage to the curb. His wallet was missing and the police thought it was a robbery.”
“Was he married?”
“Yes. I didn’t know it at the time. But when I went online to read his obituary, I saw the name of his wife. Ariel. And—” she stared at him, then swallowed hard “—there was a child. A little girl. Hannah Collins.”
Her niece. She, who had lost so much, had found a blood relative. Her brother’s child.
“I wanted to meet Joe’s wife and I especially wanted to get to know Hannah. I didn’t even know if Ariel knew about me and if she didn’t, it might be quite a shock to learn that her dead husband had a sister. That her daughter had an aunt.”
“So I’m guessing you didn’t send an email?” he said.
“I was living in Memphis at the time, working at an outpatient clinic. I drove to Nashville and I went to their house. She answered the door and sweet Hannah was right behind her. I’m telling you, my heart almost burst from the joy I felt when I saw her. She was so cute and the resemblance to her dad was strong. She was a little piece of my brother who I had loved very much.”
He had a feeling where this was going. “But it didn’t go as you’d hoped.”
“No, it didn’t. I explained who I was and that I wanted to meet the two of them. I had hoped she would invite me in, that we could talk, that it would be a beginning. But she basically told me that I’d wasted my time coming to Nashville, that there wasn’t a place for me in their family and to go away.”
He could still hear the heartbreak. “What did you do?”
“I went away. That night, anyway. I mean, I wasn’t going to force my way in. But I also wasn’t going to give up. I went back the next day, early enough that I saw a man leaving the house. Probably on his way to work.”
“Who was he?”
“Her husband. I discovered that after I drove away and did some research. Ariel Collins remarried less than sixty days after my brother’s death. To a man named Hodge Rankin.”
“Wow,” he said.
“Yeah, wow. I tried to tell myself not to judge, not to be angry on my brother’s behalf, but I was having a hard time with it. I went back to Ariel’s house. This time, when she answered the door, I told her that I knew about her recent marriage. And she got a weird look in her eye. A look that I couldn’t decipher. But she wasn’t going to share with me. I get that. I was basically a stranger. Anyway, I asked to see Hannah and she said that would be impossible.”
He wished he’d been there with her. He’d have stormed the damn house.
“I had only arranged to be away from work for a couple days so I went back home. Just sick that I hadn’t had any time with Hannah. And I tried to think of a way that I could approach one more time, get her to listen to me. But I wasn’t coming up with much. Then, about three weeks later, out of the blue, Ariel calls me. Tells me that she and Hannah want to come see me, stay for a few days. I was ecstatic. Then she said that she thought she might have made a very big mistake. I wanted to know more but she said she had to go. I told her to come. To definitely come.”
She took a sip of her coffee. He knew that it had to be cold by now. He hadn’t touched his tea, either.
“But they didn’t come,” she said. “Didn’t call, didn’t cancel, just didn’t show. I waited all night. I didn’t have her cell phone, just her email. I sent a couple messages but didn’t hear back. I was furious. The next day I drove to Nashville, determined that I was going to give Ariel a piece of my mind. I got to the house and I pounded on the damn door. Knocked so hard that the next-door neighbor came out. Sweet little woman told me that Ariel Collins was dead.”
Laura was so pale. He started the SUV and turned the heat on high. Didn’t know why he thought the two things were connected but damn it, he needed to do something. “How?” he asked.
“Gunshot. She was at the mall. The police believed that she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught a bullet aimed at somebody else. Some gang thing. The old lady didn’t tell me this. I got that part from the police. Because that was the next place I went once I pulled myself together. After all, my brother and his wife had both died within six months of one another. Both shot.”
“And after she’d called you unexpectedly and suddenly wanted to visit.”
“Exactly,” she said, sounding grateful that she didn’t have to explain more. “I told the detective everything. His name is August Phillips. And to his credit, Detective Phillips didn’t treat me as if I was a kook. But I also don’t think he totally bought into the idea that the two deaths were connected. I think he basically thought my brother and his wife had a whole bunch of bad luck.”
Hannah believed her parents were in heaven. Watching. Still with her in some way. He hoped she was right. “And Hannah is suddenly an orphan?”
“Through the detective, I learned that Hodge Rankin had legal guardianship of her.”
“He’d adopted her.”
She shook her head. “Ariel left it in her will. Her very recently signed will.”
“This is muddy,” he said. “Stinky, slimy mud.”
“Detective Phillips told me that odd circumstances are not necessarily bad circumstances.”
“He’s right,” Rico said. “But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...”
She smiled. “Exactly. I decided that I needed a closer look at the duck. I quit my job and moved to Nashville. I got a job at Hannah’s daycare. I was a little afraid that she might remember me from coming to her house the one day but she didn’t seem to. And I was so happy because every day, I was getting to be with my niece. My absolutely wonderful niece who had lost so much, so damn much, and had so much disruption in her short life, but had maintained her sweet disposition. I worried constantly when she’d leave for the night that the next day would be the one where she’d show up and be a totally different kid. Angry, withdrawn. All the things one might expect. And then morning would come, I’d see her and everything would be okay again. Until the next night when I would go home to my quiet apartment.”
“You were all alone, dealing with something like this,” he said. He was in awe of how strong she was.
“Almost alone. I had a friend from Indiana who had moved to Nashville twenty years earlier. Melissa had known Joe, too. I reconnected with her, and ultimately told her what I was doing in Nashville and why. I trusted her and I had to tell someone if only to have another perspective that I wasn’t losing my mind. She was wonderfully supportive. Occasionally, she and I would do something social but she had her own life. So most nights I would sit on my couch and worry until it was time to go to bed, where I would lie awake and worry some more. Sleep eluded me.”
Little wonder. “Your life had been disrupted, too,” he said.
“Nothing like Hannah’s,” she protested.
She left her profession, her home. Lost family. But now wasn’t the time to convince her. “What was your interaction with Rankin?”
“Limited. Purposefully. I didn’t want him looking too closely at me. I had no idea if he’d known Joe or if Ariel had shared my visit to the house. All I knew was that he’d married my sister-in-law very quickly after Joe had died and now she was also dead. But it wasn’t all that difficult to stay out of his way. Most days, a babysitter picked Hannah up.”
“So she went from daycare to a babysitter.”
“Yes. It made me crazy. The only saving grace was that Mrs. Wise seemed like a very nice middle-aged woman who really cared for Hannah. And I could tell that Hannah liked her. Anyway, summer turned into fall. I knew that my working at the daycare couldn’t go on forever, but I wasn’t quite ready to let it go. And then something happened.”
Chapter 16
He had a feeling that the next part wasn’t going to be good. He glanced at his watch. T
hey’d been in the SUV for almost a half hour.
“It was a lovely fall afternoon and I got caught by surprise when Rankin came to pick up Hannah early. He was with another couple. And all they had eyes for was Hannah. I overheard them asking Mary Margaret, another one of the staff, whether Hannah was sick very often and whether she was polite and respectful. And Rankin was having Hannah show off, asking her to do her ABCs and count to twenty. It was so weird. It wasn’t just me who seemed to think so. Afterward, Mary Margaret seemed really bothered by the conversation.”
He took a drink of his now-cold tea because he needed something to keep down the bile that was rolling in his stomach.
“I was convinced that he was selling my niece. I knew what I needed to do. I called Melissa and told her what I was going to do. She offered me the use of her ex-husband’s vintage Mustang and also gave me the code to the door of your cabin. She did home care for Georgina Fodder and had been helping her with email. Melissa met me at the garage where her ex stored his car, with a set of keys that he’d forgotten she had.”
“I knew about Melissa,” he said. If they were going to be honest with each other, he needed to step up, as well.
“How?”
“I traced the license plate on the Mustang. Found out that it belonged to a Clovis Trane and that there had been a Melissa Trane on the title at one time. By chance, Georgina Fodder’s son had mentioned that his mother had a wonderful home care aide named Melissa Trane.”
She shook her head. “There’s a thousand ways to be tripped up.”
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he said.
She didn’t argue but he could tell she wasn’t convinced. “I don’t want Melissa to get in any trouble,” she said.
“Melissa who?” he teased gently. “How did you...uh...manage to...” He stopped. His ability to find the right words had rarely deserted him. But now he couldn’t seem to find one that wasn’t terribly harsh.
“How did I manage to take Hannah?” Laura said.
“Yeah.”
“Not only did the babysitter pick her up in the afternoons but she also dropped her off in the mornings. And she was very punctual. They arrived every morning at seven thirty. I started work at seven, so I was usually inside when they got there. That morning I waited outside, caught them on the sidewalk as they approached, made it look as if I was just arriving for work, and Mrs. Wise, probably grateful to gain a few minutes, handed her off to me. I knew where the outside cameras were and I was careful to stay out of range, just in case somebody in the office was watching them. As soon as she had walked away, I hustled Hannah to the Mustang and got the heck out of there. The night before, after picking up the Mustang, I had scouted out the location of a pay phone—you know there aren’t very many of them anymore. Anyway, I stopped there and called the daycare, pretended I was Mrs. Wise and told the office staff that Hannah was ill that day. That way, I figured I had a ten-hour head start before Mrs. Wise arrived at five thirty that afternoon to pick up Hannah.”
“What about your absence?”
“I had sent an email to my boss the night before, telling her that there had been a death in my family and I wouldn’t be in for a few days. I figured she probably wasn’t happy about it but that it would keep her from thinking anything about Hannah’s and my absences being connected.”
“That was likely the first question the police asked, whether there had been an unexpected absence of any employee,” he said.
“I imagine so. Didn’t really matter because when Mrs. Wise showed up and Hannah wasn’t there, she was going to tell them that she’d handed Hannah off to me. At that point, I’d be the prime suspect. I’m sure that I’m wanted by the police.”
“And the FBI,” he said.
“Great. Really making me feel better.”
She said it lightly and he knew that she’d considered all the ramifications. Had thought the risk was worthwhile. “So you drove from Nashville to the cabin. In one day. How long did that take you?”
“Seventeen hours. I was afraid to stop.”
“You had to have been exhausted.”
“I was. We both pretty much fell into bed that first night. The next day I cut Hannah’s hair and dyed it brown. She had long blond curls before.”
She sounded absolutely miserable. “Hair grows back,” he said.
“I know. And I wanted to be able to pass her off as a little boy if necessary. I cut and colored my own hair, too,” she said. She lifted a hunk of her own thick hair. “Normally red.”
She would make a sensational redhead. “I thought the cabin smelled like bleach that first night,” he said.
“I heard you outside that night and I was so scared. I’d thrown my dad’s old rifle in the trunk and fortunately had brought it inside. I... I don’t think I would have shot you.”
He wasn’t so sure. If he’d been a threat to Hannah, there was no telling.
“I know you probably don’t think much of me right now,” she said.
“Why?”
“It’s pretty obvious. I just told you that I took a child, across many states, without permission, and altered her appearance. And I’ve basically been lying to you since the minute we met.”
“You stepped in to save a child. You lied because you thought you had to. You’re not the bad guy here.”
“I don’t think that’s how the law would look at it.”
Unfortunately, she was right. They were going to need to figure this out. But first he had more questions. “Why were you leaving today? What happened?”
“I got a call from Melissa. Her ex unexpectedly wanted to drive his Mustang and has reported it missing. I can’t take the chance of being in that car. I needed to find other transportation and I figured a bus was my best option.”
“Let me make sure I have this straight. The car has likely been reported missing but not that you’re driving it.”
“Melissa said that she’s not going to say anything. But realistically, if she ends up getting questioned by the police, I wouldn’t expect her to lie for me and I would hope that she wouldn’t. I can’t have that on my conscience, too.”
“But she hasn’t called you and told you that has happened?”
“No. Just that her ex was going to report the car missing.”
“So the police are likely looking for you but may or may not know what you’re driving.”
“I guess. But I’m not going to make it easy by driving a car that’s been reported stolen.”
“Right. Still, I think you need to be back in Nashville.”
She shook her head. “I think that might be the worst place for Hannah and me.”
“What about the detective who you said seemed willing to question whether the two deaths were too coincidental? Do you think you could go to him?”
“I have no idea and, quite frankly, the risk is too great. I have to do everything in my power not to be apprehended. For Hannah, who has lost so much, to see me arrested, handcuffed, taken away. It would be too much.”
He wouldn’t be able to stand that, either. “Come here,” he said, stretching out his arm. It was an awkward coupling across the gearshift but he needed to hug her, to hold her.
“You’re not alone in this,” he said.
She pulled back some. “I have to be,” she said. “You can’t get involved. It could wreck your life.”
He understood the risks. He was now an accessory to kidnapping, a federal offense. Prison loomed. But her safety, Hannah’s safety, that was what mattered.
“We need intelligence,” he said. “We need confirmation that Hannah’s disappearance has been reported to the police, that they’ve tied you to the disappearance, and there’s an active search for both of you.”
“How do we do that?” she asked, almost snapping.
He understood. She’d been li
ving under a tremendous amount of pressure and unlike sometimes when you told someone what was going on, this time there wasn’t any immediate relief. The situation was as bad as ever.
It was time to call in some favors. When he’d needed information on the Mustang license plate, he’d felt comfortable reaching out to Bobby Bayleaf, Seth’s friend. But this was considerably more sensitive. Seth would need to make the inquiry to his friend.
“My partner Seth Pike can make an inquiry with the police. It will be strictly confidential. No trail to you.”
“You’re sure.”
“Seth is dog-loyal. And if he thinks that he can trust his friend, then I do, too.”
“Okay,” she said. She let out a breath. “I suppose it would be good to know for sure. But either way, I haven’t made a decision to go back.”
“Understood,” he said. He lifted her chin, bent his head and gently kissed her. “I know this is difficult. I think it might be a little like battle. You’ve got to believe that you can get through it. It’s what gives you the strength to fight just long enough. I’d like to get back to the cabin today. Then we’re close to the Mustang and can move quickly once a decision is made. Before we go, I want to see my dad one more time.” Plus, he intended to call Seth right away but didn’t want Laura to overhear that conversation.
“I have to do what’s best for Hannah.”
“I know. And you get to make the decision. Come on. Let’s say goodbye to my family.”
“Of course.”
He and Laura went back inside the hospital. Charro and Hannah were in the waiting room, coloring. Charro looked up. “I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed this,” she said.
“Thanks for watching her,” Laura said.
“Is Mom with Dad?” Rico asked.
“Yes.”
Good. He wanted a chance to tell Charro that they were leaving. “Laura, Hannah and I need to take off,” he said.
“I thought that might be the case,” she said, no trace of bitterness there. “I’m glad you were here, Rico. It made a difference. To Dad, to Mom, to me.”
