"You said that you adopted me from your sister," Ella said accusingly to her father. Angry and confused, she'd walked out of the kitchen for a time after they'd told her the story but now she was back and wanting to know details. "That she was sick and dying and you adopted me when I was just a few months old. You lied to me."
Both of her parents were crying and a part of Ella was crying with them. They were close and always had been and normally she would have thrown her arms around them to offer comfort, but right now she couldn't even fathom that act. She was livid and she didn't even have the words to express how hurt and upset she was.
They'd lied.
"Laney was sick and dying," Will replied, his arm around Dana's shoulder. They looked far older than they had only thirty minutes ago. "That part is true. We just told you that she was your mother so you wouldn't have to live with the doubt and wonder why your parents gave you away. We didn't want you to hurt and think that you weren't wanted. Because we wanted you so very much. We were desperate for a child and then you came into our lives. We didn't ever want you to think that you weren't wanted."
Ella reached up to her hot cheeks and found that they were wet. She was crying and she didn't even realize it. That's how angry and turned around she was.
"So you lied to me," she repeated, scrubbing at her face but the tears kept on falling. "You led me to believe that I was biologically connected to you. That I was family."
Will jumped up from his chair, his once pale cheeks now red. "You are family. You're our child and it doesn't matter whether we share DNA. You're our daughter and we love you more than anything in this world, Gabriella. You're everything to us."
Ella didn't doubt their love. It was plainly written across their face along with fear and regret. But at the moment she couldn't summon the forgiveness that her mother and father sought. Inside she felt...cold. Frozen. Not because she didn't love Dana and Will Scott. If anything she loved them too much and their betrayal sliced far too deeply. She simply didn't have the tools to deal with the blow they'd dealt her.
Dana held out her arms, beckoning to Ella but she couldn't move. Not now. "I'm your mother, Ella. We just didn't want you to have any doubts."
What am I supposed to say? Or do?
How am I supposed to react now?
"Well...I have them now," Ella finally said as the silence stretched on. She sat down on the bar stool and used her sleeve to rub at the tears. "If you've lied then it's time to come clean. What do you know about my mother and father? And don't leave anything out this time. Tell the truth."
Her parents exchanged a glance and then Will began to speak.
"We don't know much. We weren't given the names of your biological mother and father nor any reason as to why you had been surrendered."
Depending on the timing, Jane could be Ella's mother. It was possible. She might be a relative as well. Or she might not be any family and the resemblance was simply a coincidence.
"So my mother or father abandoned me?"
Will paced the small space between the island and the cabinets. "This. This right here is what we sought to keep from happening. We never wanted you to feel abandoned. We wanted you to feel wanted and loved."
"I do," Ella replied automatically. Because she did feel loved and wanted. She had all her life but she couldn't walk away from the fact that at one point she had been abandoned by her mother. "You've always made me feel that way. But at some point, my biological mother decided I was too much trouble or work. She bailed."
Dana wiped away a stray tear. "We always liked to think that your mother knew she couldn't give you what you needed in life so she stepped aside and let you be adopted by a family that could. We like to think that she loved you so much she wanted you to have a good life, Ella."
That did sound like a great story. It might even be true.
It could also be true that Ella's mom just got tired of being a parent or that Jane was Ella's mom. Death was a pretty decent excuse not to be a mother.
"Do you know anything about my father?"
"Nothing," Will said quietly. "We never heard anything about him."
A reasonable assumption in those circumstances.
"Did you hear anything about my mother? Age? Name? Where she was from? Anything at all?"
"No," Will replied again. "We don't know anything."
It left open several explanations. Too many of them.
"What are you going to do?" Dana asked anxiously, her lips trembling. Will reached for her mother's hand and held it tightly. "We're so sorry for not telling you, sweetheart. We were just trying to keep...this...from happening."
This. This was a clusterfuck alright. Ella didn't want to hurt her parents but the need to know if Jane was a relative, or even her mother, was strong. It burned in her gut like a lighted match.
"I don't know exactly what I'm going to do," Ella finally said, reaching out for her wine glass and taking a gulp. Alcohol wasn't the answer but then it wasn't the problem, either. "But I do know that I'm going to continue to investigate this Jane Doe. I also know that taking a DNA test is a possibility. I just haven't decided for sure if that's what I want to do. I do know one thing for sure and it's that I love you both. Very much. I'm just not happy with you right now, but I do see why you did what you did."
Another glanced exchanged by her parents, an unspoken message passed between them.
"We'll help you in any way that we can," Will said. "Whatever you need us to do."
"That's more than I could ask for."
"You were more than we ever dared hope for," Dana said, a fresh spate of tears falling down her face. "I love you so much, Ella. More than you can possibly ever believe."
"I love you, too. I just know that I need the truth."
Whatever that was.
I can handle it. I can. I'm sure of it.
When Ella left her parents' home she wasn't sure where she was going but she found herself back at the station. The great thing about a twenty-four-hour news channel was that there were people around at all times and no one would think it was strange for Ella to be there. She slipped into the foyer, waving at the night guard as she headed for her desk, but then changed her mind at the last second and took a left instead of a right. Directly to the research department. What she wanted probably wasn't going to be found on the internet.
The research department was like a small, private library without any of those pesky fiction books. But they did have every Seattle newspaper going back to the turn of the century.
On microfiche.
Ella hadn't even known what that was when she'd taken the job here. Starting out as an entry level reporter, she'd often been asked to do background research for the reporters which meant that she'd spent a great deal of time right here in this dusty old room. Shelf after shelf of books. Drawers of old black and white photos each catalogued carefully with the date, time, location, and the subjects in the picture. Stacks of blueprints and maps, too. It was all there if you knew where to look.
Lujack, the head of the research department was working hard to move it all to digital but that took time and money, something there never seemed to be enough of. So for now she'd have to pretend it wasn't the twenty-first century. The nineties had been fun.
Quickly she found the microfiche she was looking for and whirled through the newspaper articles around the date that Jane was found. It wasn't long before she was reading the article written by...
No, it couldn't be. The newspaper story about finding Jane's body was written by none other than Ella's current boss. Galen Winters. Why hadn't he said something when she'd talked to him about the case? It didn't make any sense.
Making a note to corner him tomorrow about it, she printed off the articles - there were two - and highlighted the important parts. The name of the man that had found the body. The detective in charge of the case. She'd start with them first thing tomorrow morning.
In the meantime, she'd go home and try not to think about her p
arents or her life. She'd deal with her personal problems later when she could wrap her head around the mess. And a mess it was. No matter what she was going to do, somehow her parents were going to be hurt. She couldn't go back in time and pretend she didn't know what she knew now. She could only go forward.
That could be the most painful path of all.
8
The next morning Chris was up before dawn to get on the road for his meeting with the detective who had headed up Jane's murder case. Now retired, Wallace Wade lived in a small town about three hours east of Seattle.
Knox was driving because he was an obnoxious pain in the ass whenever Chris tried to drive.
"You have control issues," Chris told Knox when he climbed into the truck, the cab warm despite the chilly temperatures. It was also still dark as hell but the morning traffic was already beginning to build at this ungodly hour. "You need to relax and unwind a little bit. Let someone else drive for a change."
"I like being in control. I don't think it's a bad trait," Knox laughed, pointing to the two paper cups situated between them. "I stopped to get us coffee. You're welcome."
"Thanks," Chris said, taking a small experimental sip. Delicious. Knox must have listened the last time they'd gone through a drive thru. "So you're a control freak and you pay attention to small details. A little stalkerish, don't you think?"
"That's what makes me a good cop." Knox shrugged and then changed lanes to pass a slower vehicle. "I suppose those qualities would be helpful to a stalker as well."
"Maybe that's what it was."
"I'm not following you. What was it?"
"Jane," Chris explained. "Maybe she had a stalker. Law enforcement wasn't as sophisticated about that back in the eighties."
"It's a possibility. The most dangerous person in a woman's life is her husband or boyfriend. Statistically speaking, that is."
"Do you have another theory?"
Knox shook his head but never took his eyes from the road. "I don't have any theory. Not yet. We don't know shit about this case. I'm just glad they gave it to you and not me."
With Knox talking a mile a minute, the time flew by and soon they were pulling into the tiny town of Fern Ridge, population 2,016. The main drag through town appeared to be bustling with activity. There were several restaurants, bed and breakfasts, along with antique shops dotted in between.
"Looks touristy," Chris commented. "I didn't expect this."
He knew a hell of a lot about Montana but not so much about Washington state.
"Good fishing," Knox replied. "Hiking trails and camping. There's always something to do around here."
"GPS says to turn right at the next corner. Third house on the left."
Wallace Wade's home was a large rambling Victorian with a big porch that wrapped around half of the house. Knox parked behind a little blue Civic while Chris gathered up the file and tucked it under his arm. He had brought it in hopes that it might jog the detective's memory. Thirty years was a long time.
They both bounded up the front steps just as the door swung open. A tall, thin man with silver hair stood in the entryway, smiling and waving them inside.
"Come on in and get out of the cold," he said, closing the door behind them. "I think we might get some snow tonight. I'm Wallace Wade and you must be Chris Marks and Knox Owen."
Chris stuck out his hand. "That's right. I'm Chris and this is Knox. It's a pleasure to meet you, Detective."
The older man chuckled and shook his head. "I'm retired now, son. You can call me Wally. Everyone does."
"Wally it is, then."
"Come on in and join your partner. I've got her drinking coffee and eating a bear claw. She beat you by a good fifteen minutes. I told her we ought to wait for you. No sense going over the same information twice."
Their partner?
Knox and Chris exchanged a puzzled glance but followed the former detective into a sitting room off of the foyer. They passed a front desk of sorts with a sign that read Mountain Breeze Bed and Breakfast.
There was a coffee service set up on a cart when they first entered. A fireplace took up most of the far wall and two couches sat perpendicular with a low table in between.
Their partner was sitting on one of those couches drinking coffee.
Ella Scott, the reporter.
Dressed in an almost identical outfit to yesterday with dark blue slacks and a cream colored sweater, she appeared at ease with the retired cop. Her dark hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail and tied with some sort of fluffy scarf. She looked pretty and professional at the same time. From the look on Wally's face, she'd charmed him completely.
But what in the hell was she doing here?
Chris nodded curtly to the woman as he accepted a cup of coffee. "Ella."
"Chris," she murmured in response, her cheeks going pink. "You made good time on the drive."
Knox was watching all of this with great interest, his gaze darting back and forth between them.
"We did make good time," Knox agreed. "It's nice to see you again...Ella."
She looked up from her cup, her eyes pleading with them not to give away that she wasn't one of them. Chris decided to play along if only to see what she was trying to do. She was a reporter so she obviously wanted a story, but he wasn't sure that there was one here. There could be but it was all still very much up in the air. Still...any publicity regarding Jane would probably be a good thing. The more people heard about her the better chance they had of perhaps finding someone who knew her.
They settled onto the couches, Chris and Knox flanking Ella while Wally sat across from them. Chris shot Ella a warning look. He wouldn't blow her cover but he was in charge. He and Knox had had that discussion on the drive here.
His case. His interview.
Chris placed the file on the table between them before reaching in and pulling out the rendering of Jane. Wally had worked this case with little information, including what his victim looked like.
"This is what the forensic artist came up with." Chris turned the drawing so Wally could see it. "This is our Jane."
The older man's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward to study it for a long time. Finally, he reached for it with shaking fingers, but at the last minute he pulled his hand back as if he'd changed his mind.
He looked up at Chris. "That's what they think she looked like?"
"They do."
Sighing, Wally rubbed his chin. "Damn, technology sure has come a long way, hasn't it? We didn't have all of that fancy CSI stuff back in my day."
"It has come a long way," Chris agreed. "Wally, I'm trying to put a name to Jane's face. Can you tell me what you remember? Do you mind Knox recording our conversation? I have a shit memory."
"Not a problem," the older man replied with a weak smile. "I'm not sure what I can tell you. It was so long ago."
Anticipating this, Chris pulled some of the other papers from the file. The diagram of the body dump site. The coroner's report. Wally's own police report. A few grisly photos.
"I know it was a long time ago but whatever you can remember might be of help. I brought these to help jog your memory."
This time Wally did reach for the photos, but instead of looking at them he turned them facedown. He did pick up his own reports and seemed to be scanning them. Chris stayed quiet as well as Knox and Ella while the man gathered his thoughts.
"I got the call during dinner," Wally finally said, his gaze somewhere far away. Maybe back there in 1989. "Jenny, my wife, wasn't happy that I didn't stay to finish my meal but she should have been used to it. A detective's hours can really suck. She hated that I was a cop. She wanted me to be anything else but that."
Chris understood that well.
"When I got there they had cordoned off the area and placed some lights so we could see when the sun went down. At that time of year we would have had good sunlight until around eight but it was already almost seven. The coroner was still doing their work so I talked to the guy that had
found the body."
"Robert Trask," Chris said, pulling another piece of paper from the file. "This is his statement. There's not much to it."
Wally nodded in agreement. "Because there wasn't much to tell. He had a flat, pulled off the road to fix it, went to take a leak behind the bushes and found her. He got in his car and drove to the nearest service station and called 911. He met two patrolmen back at the site. Told them his story, and then waited to tell it to me again."
"So what did you do then?"
Wally folded his hands, one thumb tapping on the other. "We combed through missing person files and did the usual plea to the public for help. Didn't get much. We followed a few leads but they were dead ends."
"But someone did come forward," Ella said, scooting forward to the edge of the couch. "Leo Gates. He came forward and said his wife Susannah was missing."
That information wasn't anywhere in Chris's file. He didn't like not knowing all the details and what was going on. He also didn't like Ella butting into his interview.
"Gates did come forward," Wally replied, rubbing his chin again. "But we never made any headway there. When we talked to his neighbors, they claimed to have seen her load a suitcase and drive away. If you'd met Leo Gates that wouldn't surprise you. He was a drunk who couldn't hold down a job. Friends said he was abusing Susannah and the neighbors corroborated that with stories of their fights. But we couldn't find any link between her and the Jane Doe."
"What about dental records?" Knox asked.
Wally shook his head. "Susannah Gates had never been to the dentist so we had nothing to match."
"Never been to the dentist," Ella echoed. "Ever?"
"They were poor."
"And the clothes Jane was wearing?" Chris asked, finally able to get a word in. "Did they match anything that Susannah Gates had been seen wearing?"
"No, and they were one size too large, too. Jane Doe isn't Susannah Gates."
The way Wallace Wade spoke it made it sound final. But... One size didn't seem like a big deal to Chris. Maybe she'd put on a few pounds. She probably wasn't going to announce it to the world that she was buying a larger size in clothes.
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