by Sharon Sala
“Marshall Baldwin. I own this property,” he said, eyeing Trey suspiciously. “What does the Dallas Police Department have to do with this?”
“Maybe nothing, sir, but I’ve come to check it out anyway. I understand you’re the one who found the suitcase?”
Marshall nodded, then shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Yes, I did, and it was terrible, just terrible. Pansy and I will never get over it.” Then he gave the area a slow, agonized look. “This was going to be our dream home, and instead, it’s a nightmare.” Tears pooled in his eyes, then spilled unashamedly down his cheeks. “Poor, poor, little baby girl.”
Trey took a slow breath. This wasn’t making the trip any easier.
“Since you’re here, would you mind walking me through the discovery?”
Marshall took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes, then used it to blow his nose.
“I suppose one more time won’t kill me,” he said, and then rolled his eyes as he realized what he’d said. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, Mr. Baldwin. I appreciate anything you can tell me.”
Marshall stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket as he led the way into the house.
“As you can see, we were in the midst of some remodeling,” he said, pointing to a stepladder leaning against a wall and a pile of drop cloths near the door. “Pansy was getting ready to repaint the kitchen, and I was knocking out this wall here to make these two small rooms into one big living room. I was using a sledgehammer. Hit a stud, and as the Sheetrock shattered, I saw something drop past the opening I’d already made. Right off we figured it for a suitcase.” He tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace. “Pansy thought we’d found a treasure.”
“Must have been tough,” Trey said.
“You have no idea,” Marshall said. “Pansy still cries about it. We’ve got five grandbabies of our own, you know. Can’t imagine anyone doing anything so evil to a baby.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Baldwin, chasing evil is my business, and I’ve seen a lot of it. But when it involves children, it’s rough on all of us.”
The old man nodded. “I expect so.” Then he pointed to a large hole in the wall. “Well, this is where we found it. If you don’t mind, I’ll just be loading up the last of our stuff. I don’t want to have to come back here again.”
“Yes, sir, and I thank you,” Trey said as he shook Marshall Baldwin’s hand.
Marshall made himself scarce as Trey began to poke through the rubble on the other side of the wall, even though he knew that all the findings from the scene were noted in the duplicate file that Blue Jenner had given him.
He tried to imagine the mind-set of someone who would do this. Had the baby died of an accident and someone panicked—or had it been something uglier? Had the intent been to hide a murder most foul? Whatever the reason, the treatment of this innocent’s passing had been as cowardly an act as he’d seen.
He leaned into the opening, eyeing the dust and debris, as well as the area above his head where the suitcase had been shoved. He wrinkled his nose to stifle a sneeze and wondered how much asbestos he was breathing, then frowned at himself. It damn sure wasn’t asbestos that had killed that baby.
He pulled back from the opening and then stood for a moment, absorbing the silence. Dust motes highlighted by the sunshine coming through a curtainless window hung motionless within the air. Trey wasn’t a man given to flights of fancy, but he felt the burden of this crime in a way he’d never felt before. The system might have let this child down once before, but now he had a chance to put things right.
He took a slow, deep breath as a soft vow left his lips.
“We’ll find ’em, baby girl. I promise I won’t let them get away with this.”
***
Bile hung at the back of Foster Lawrence’s throat as he walked toward the outer gates of Lompoc Federal Prison. He wouldn’t draw a good breath until he was standing in free space and the gates had closed behind him. When he finally passed through them, he swallowed the bile and inhaled with a smile. Even the air smelled different outside those walls.
For the first time in twenty-five years, still riding on the high of freedom, he started to shake. It was hard to believe, but it was true. It was over. He was free.
Then he amended the thought. He was free, but it wasn’t over. It would never be over until he got what was owed him. He’d spent all these years behind bars for kidnapping, when the true perpetrator had gone free. And while he admitted he had been a party to acquiring the ransom, he considered he’d been wronged. He hadn’t known that murder had already been done, or that revenge had been the reason. Still, when he’d learned of the outcome, it had been too late to amend his participation.
When all was said and done, the way he looked at it, there had been little harm in asking for money from a man rich enough to pay it. He had just needed some money to make a new start.
He’d gotten the money—and the new start. He just hadn’t planned on it being in a federal prison. And while he could have turned evidence against the other person involved, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome of his sentence. So, out of both spite for the powers that be and a sense of obligation, he had kept the rest of the truth to himself and served the sentence, knowing full well that when he got out, the money he’d hidden would all be his, and to hell with old ties and promises. He was out now, and going to take back what he’d stashed all those years ago. The way he looked at it, he’d more than earned it.
As he moved away from the gate, he saw a taxi coming toward him. As soon as it pulled up, he jumped in, gave the driver a destination and never looked back.
3
Trey’s report to Lieutenant Warren was enough to warrant further investigation but not enough to firmly link the skeletal remains at Lake Texoma to the Sealy kidnapping, although Warren felt in his gut that they were related.
Sheriff Jenner had faxed the Dallas PD an addendum to the report he’d given Trey and shipped it to Dallas along with the suitcase and the remains. They now had a complete list of the different property owners since the man-made lake and the house had been built, and had identified the owner of the property at the time the baby had been killed. It didn’t prove that the child had been killed on the property, but the body had been hidden there, and it gave them a place to start.
Warren frowned as he continued to read. According to the notation at the bottom of the page, the owner, David Lehrman, had died in a car crash a year before the Sealy kidnapping. In despondency, his wife, Carol Lehrman, had immediately moved back to her hometown of Boston. For the next three years the house sat empty, until Mrs. Lehrman finally sold it at auction, which was two years after the kidnapping. Instead of narrowing the field, that information blasted it wide open. With the house sitting empty during those three years, anyone could have had access to it. As if that wasn’t enough grief for Lieutenant Warren, he had the media to contend with, as well.
Stories ran in the newspapers daily, dragging up the old tragedy of the murder of Olivia’s parents during her kidnapping, along with reminders of how broken Marcus Sealy had been by the events. Pictures and film clips of Foster Lawrence’s arrest, as well as the ensuing trial, came next. Then yesterday, a whole new aspect of this case was revealed. It began when a hotshot reporter did a follow-up on Lawrence, stating that Lawrence had recently been released from prison, it started a whole new shock wave of speculation that Warren was having to deal with.
They couldn’t ignore the possibility that he might show up in Dallas to collect the missing ransom money. A million dollars would have been worth the twenty-five years in prison his conviction had cost him.
Coupled with Foster Lawrence’s release and the discovery of the baby’s remains, Warren had a sense of foreboding. It was past time to talk to Marcus and Olivia Sealy. He set his jaw and picked up the phone.
***
He hadn’t slept worth a damn last night, Trey thought, maneuvering his car through the Da
llas traffic. And what sleep he had managed to get had been filled with dreams of high school and the girl who’d stolen, then broken, his heart. He hadn’t seen her since she’d announced it would be in their best interests to see other people, but at the time, thinking of her with another guy had been enough to bring him to his knees. He hadn’t let another female get that far under his skin since. The fact that he was less than ten minutes away from seeing her again should have been secondary to the questioning that would take place, but it wasn’t. The knot in his belly twisted ever tighter the closer he got.
***
Dennis Rawlins was also tense, but from anticipation. Before long, he would make sure the world knew of the Sealy family’s involvement in a baby’s death. It didn’t matter to him that the truth was being bent to his way of thinking. He desperately needed the outlet of protesting to assuage his own soul.
***
For the first time in Olivia Sealy’s memory, she felt threatened. She was at the mercy of something completely out of her control. In her heart, she felt she was where she belonged. She’d seen the family pictures. She’d seen the family resemblances. She had her father’s eyes, as well as his smile, not to mention her grandfather’s reassurances. But it was difficult to ignore the timing of the other child’s death, or the anomaly they had shared. She glanced down at the tiny scar on her left hand, absently rubbing the place where the extra thumb had once been. It seemed impossible to accept the similarities as nothing but coincidence, but she had to believe that was all they were.
And now a detective from the Dallas Police Department would be arriving soon to question them about the kidnapping—a kidnapping she didn’t remember.
She glanced at her watch. It was almost ten. Time to finish dressing. She reached down into the bottom of her closet, pulled out a pair of shoes and then glanced at her watch again. She didn’t want to keep the man waiting. The sooner they got started, the sooner this nightmare would be over. With a shaky sigh, she stepped into the shoes, then turned toward the full-length mirror and gave herself a final look.
She was taller than her mother. She knew because Marcus told her so, but she wasn’t taller than her father. He’d been tall—so tall, and very handsome. When she thought about it, she hurt for all the lost years she should have been able to spend with them, then felt selfish for dwelling on it when she still had her life—and she still had Grampy.
She smoothed her hands down the front of her shirt, absently eyeing the moss-green color against the rust-colored slacks, then wondered why she cared how she was dressed. It wasn’t her clothes the detective was coming to see. She swallowed around the lump in her throat, and then lifted her chin and blinked rapidly, dispelling the urge to cry.
As she did, the doorbell chimed.
“Please let this be okay,” she muttered, then left her room and started toward the stairs.
Rose was already opening the front door when Olivia reached the landing. The man on the threshold walked inside, and as he did, Olivia felt as if reality began shifting to slow motion.
Oh my God! Trey? Trey Bonney?
From the corner of her eye, she saw her grandfather coming out of the library, then moving toward the man standing in the foyer. Sunshine was beaming through the stained-glass arch above the front door, leaving a Monet-like pattern of color splattered upon the blue-veined marble at his feet. Her heartbeat slowed down and then suddenly sped up as an old memory filled her mind.
***
“Oh, Trey, I’m scared.”
“I’m scared, too, Livvie. I’m afraid that I’ll do something wrong, or disappoint you. And I know it’s going to hurt you.”
She locked her hands behind Trey’s neck as she gazed at him with passionate intent. They’d come so close to this moment a dozen times before, but each time they’d stopped. Making love was a big thing. Making love for the first time was even bigger, and Olivia was a virgin and Trey knew it.
“I’ll stop, Livvie. Just say the word and I’ll stop.”
Olivia shivered. “No, Trey. I want this… I want you. I love you so much.”
She felt Trey shudder as he leaned down and gave her a kiss.
“Olivia Sealy, you are everything to me.”
Olivia sighed, then gave herself up to the inevitable.
***
Rose shut the door behind Trey with a firm thump. The sound broke Olivia’s mood. As if in a trance, she moved forward, feeling for the top step with the toe of her shoe. Unable to look away from him for fear he would disappear, she stepped down without caution. It was instinct that got her to the bottom of the stairs, but it was fear that held her there. She had seen those dark eyes and that crooked smile too many nights in too many old dreams, but what did he have to do with the present chaos of their lives?
***
Trey had caught himself holding his breath as he rang the doorbell. It wasn’t until the door was opened and he saw a woman he took to be the housekeeper that he pulled himself together.
“Detective Bonney to see Mr. Sealy.”
Rose stepped aside as the policeman walked in. “Yes, Detective. He’s expecting you.”
“I’m here,” Marcus said as he hurried down the hall and quickly shook Trey’s hand. Then he turned to Rose.
“Thank you, Rose. Bring some coffee to the library, will you?”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
Marcus was the picture of congeniality as he turned to Trey.
“Detective Bonney?”
Trey nodded as he shook Marcus Sealy’s hand and tried not to think of the irony of the situation. This was the man who had ended his relationship with Olivia because he considered neither Trey nor his family to be good enough for a Sealy. Now Trey was here to judge the veracity of Marcus Sealy’s past. Marcus obviously didn’t recognize Trey or remember the name.
“Yes, I’m Detective Bonney. Thank you for seeing me. I know this must be a difficult time for your family.”
Marcus kept a polite smile on his face, but Trey noted that the smile never reached his eyes.
“I’m happy to do what I can to help you find the identity of the child who was murdered.”
“Thank you,” Trey said. “I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”
Marcus eyed the detective, then sighed. There was no getting past the inevitable. “Follow me, Detective Bonney. We can talk more comfortably in the library.”
As Marcus turned, he saw Olivia at the foot of the stairs.
“Olivia… darling… I didn’t know you were there. This is Detective Bonney. Detective… my granddaughter, Olivia Sealy.”
Olivia was pale and shaking. Concerned that she felt so distressed over having the police in the house, Marcus slipped an arm around her shoulder and led her into the library, not even noticing the fact that the detective and Olivia had said not a word to each other.
The moment Trey saw Olivia Sealy’s face, the last eleven years seemed to fade away. He felt the same panic he’d felt the day she walked out of his life. Then, he hadn’t been sure he would know how to live without her. Now, he didn’t know what he thought, but he did know that he wished this meeting was under different circumstances.
He took no satisfaction in the knowledge that he’d been right to worry about seeing her again. Age had been kind to Olivia. She’d been a pretty girl. Now she was stunning, and, from the look on her face, none too happy to see him.
***
Olivia couldn’t think. The moment she’d seen Trey on the doorstep, she’d gone numb. Now, to find out that he was the detective they were expecting was overwhelming. She felt sick to her stomach. It had been years since they’d seen each other—teetering on the brink of adulthood, so in love. Sometimes, when she let herself think about those years, she felt guilty that she had lacked the courage to stand up to her grandfather. The fight they’d had over Trey had been one of the worst times of her life. Marcus had insisted she was too young for romance and the boy was unsuitable, besides. She’d argued, but in
the end, she’d given in to Marcus and walked out of Trey’s life. She knew it had hurt him, but what he would probably never believe was that she’d suffered, too. To this day, she still measured her relationships by the feelings she’d had for him, and so far, they’d all come up lacking.
Now, by a cruel twist of fate, he was here to question her grandfather about a murdered child. Surely he couldn’t think that they had anything to do with something so horrible?
She didn’t know what to do, what to say, and she was afraid to turn around for fear of the look she might see on his face. If Trey held a grudge, he had the power to make their lives miserable.
Oblivious to the undercurrents, when they entered the library, Marcus seated Olivia, then gestured for Trey to sit nearby.
Trey did so without comment.
The brief moment of silence seemed to swell and lengthen until speaking aloud felt wrong. Still, it was why he’d come. As Marcus fiddled with some papers on his desk, Trey chanced a look at Olivia.
Her face was pale, and she was staring at a spot on the wall over the fireplace. He couldn’t tell if she was upset because the discovery of the baby’s body threatened her identity, or because he was the cop who’d come to do the questioning. Either way, he had a job to do, and the sooner he got out of here, the better for the both of them. Finally Marcus Sealy moved into place and took a seat on the sofa beside his granddaughter. Trey saw the old man give Olivia’s hand a gentle squeeze before he leaned back and faced Trey head-on.
“So, Detective, how can I be of service?”
“I have a couple of questions,” Trey said, and removed a notebook from his pocket. They had already decided that the original owners of the lake house had nothing to do with the baby’s death, but he had to cover all the bases.
“Did you ever know a couple by the name of David and Carol Lehrman?”
Marcus didn’t hesitate. “No. Why? Who are they?”
“You’re sure? It would have been years ago.”
Anger was evident in Marcus’s voice as he answered.
“I’m old, but I’m not senile… at least not yet. I said I don’t know them, which means, no.”
