Authors: Beth Loughner
Nathan seemed at a loss. “Could you have placed it somewhere other than the jewelry box? Maybe you put it somewhere for safekeeping and forgot.”
“It was in the box!” She wasn’t crazy. The pin was left where it had always been. It was more than just the loss of an expensive gem. It was all that was left of her grandmother and a mother she barely knew. To be motherless was difficult enough, but the less than respectable reason for her mother’s departure had marked her with embarrassment and then anger throughout her childhood.
She’s run off with another man
, her father explained to her one hot summer day so many years ago. She never asked again why she had no mother. It was easier to make believe her mother left unwillingly than to cope with the reality that her mother didn’t care enough to take her only daughter with her.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Nathan finally said, breaking the silence. He cocked his head sympathetically. “Maybe God let it happen so I would come looking for you.”
Judi pulled a face at him. “God didn’t come down and take it.”
“I wasn’t suggesting God physically came into the room and took it,” he softly returned. “I only know the ruby pin was not in your jewelry box when I went through your things. It seems an odd thing to go missing. I’m only suggesting that God may have orchestrated its disappearance—
how
I don’t know—to cause me to begin a search.”
Nathan was right! If the pin was missing, it was missing. There was nothing she could do about it now. How ironic! She had left the ruby behind to make a clean, total break from her former life and to prevent any suspicion. Yet the ruby had started a search ending in her discovery.
“Listen,” Nathan said soothingly. “We’ll add the missing ruby to our list of things to resolve. We’ll find it!”
She lightly waved her hand in resignation. “You’re right! It’s not that important in light of my current situation.” What good did it do to hold on to a pipe dream that didn’t exist? The jewelry brought her no closer to the mother who abandoned her at the age of four. It did nothing to keep her father from drinking away his sorrows. No power was held in the red sparkle other than what she chose to believe. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. “Tell me what happened after you found the ruby missing.”
Nathan seemed to hesitate as if waiting to see if she really wanted to move on.
“It’s all right,” she assured, taking the plate up again in her lap to prove it. “I’m ready to hear the rest of the story.”
“If you’re sure, but I have to warn you that my methods of tracking might put you to shame—I’m almost as clever as you,” he remarked with an impish smile.
“Really?”
“Really! I did a thorough search of everything and came up with nothing. But then I took a long shot and it paid off.” He wagged a finger at her. “I knew one day your addiction to that awful Angelic Hash fudge would be your downfall.”
“You can’t be serious,” she sputtered in disbelief. “There is no way you could have traced me from that.”
He only gave her a knowing glance and took another bite of the ham sandwich.
“You’re telling me that you were able to get a list of customers buying this particular fudge and with that list you found me?” He was bluffing. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who ordered that exact fudge flavor.
He held up a waiting finger as he finished his bite. “The job was daunting. Did you know that there are over seven hundred people who regularly mail order the Angelic Hash? Five hundred eighteen of them are women, and 362 of those women have been customers for more than three years. That left me with 156 women who were customers for less than three years to check on.”
“You are kidding, right?”
“Quite serious.” He smiled, evidently amused by her befuddlement. “If you were alive, I knew you would somehow obtain this fudge. You wouldn’t risk buying it in person from the shop, though. No, you would mail order it. So that’s where I started.”
“Even at that,” she protested, “I used the name Amanda Rydell, not Judith.”
“I know. The birth certificate you acquired was for Amanda Judith Rydell.” He leaned back. “It was the process of elimination that narrowed it down.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Tell me.”
“Back to the 156 women,” he directed. “Of those, 61 were over the age of 55 and 10 were under 25. That left 85.”
“You obtained their ages?” Fascinated now, she watched him intently.
“That’s where my assistant, Thomas, comes in.” He gave her a knowing look. “He first was able to secure the list with a little persuasion, and he did a basic, systematic check on every female customer who ordered that particular fudge, including their ages. Then he did an in-depth search of the remaining eighty-five and eliminated several more by profession, race, and marital status over the past two years. He arrived at nine names and you were one of them. Once he perused the driver’s license photos of the nine, you seemed like a good bet. Then he came to Bay Island.”
“Your assistant was here?”
“He even came into the church office one day to ask directions,” Nathan went on. “You gave him directions to Levitte’s Landing.”
“I remember him,” she exclaimed, thinking back just a week ago. “Clean-cut, tall fellow with black hair.”
“That was Thomas.”
Judi mockingly tapped at her forehead. “I should have been suspicious. He would have passed Levitte’s Landing on his way to the church from the ferry dock. He shouldn’t have needed directions.” She gave a mental shake of her head. “You’d be surprised, though, at how many tourists get lost on an island no more than three miles long.”
“Thomas followed you around for two days.” He raised his eyebrows her way. “Did you know that?”
Slowly she shook her head. “No idea!”
“He even took pictures of you outside the pastry shop.”
“This is sounding more and more like an espionage flick.”
Nathan smiled. “I’m quite impressed with Thomas’s abilities in this area. He might be more clever than either of us.” Then he sobered. “But you can imagine my shock when he showed me the pictures. I almost couldn’t believe it was you, but I knew it was. What I didn’t know was why.”
“Which now you know.”
“Yes! It’s still mind-boggling.”
“I know!”
He nodded meaningfully, and then as if switching gears, placed his plate on the table and slapped his hands lightly together. “Now it’s your turn. I’ve explained the breakthrough that brought me here. I have a few questions for you.”
“All right.”
“I figure you traveled to Allegheny County two times using your legal knowledge and a computer-forged court document to gain access to birth and death certificates. I’m guessing this happened in February of that last year when you were supposed to be visiting an old college roommate.” He sat up straighter. “You searched for several days until you found a birth and death certificate that matched; an infant with the name of Amanda Judith Rydell. How am I doing so far?”
“Keep going.”
“You obtained an official copy of this birth certificate and began to build your new identity—a false apartment address, driver’s license, and even a credit card that you had the postal service forward from an apartment you never lived in to a post office box. What I haven’t figured out is how you were able to gain a Social Security number.” He gave her a fixed look. “It’s not every day a thirty-two-year-old woman comes in for a number.”
Judi nodded. “It took me a long time to figure out that logistical problem, but obtaining a legitimate Social Security number was crucial if this new identity was to work,” she explained. “I had to get a job. To provide a false number would only gain me a year, maybe two at most, before the jig would be up and I’d be on the run again.”
“But you came up with a plan,” he remarked assuredly, regarding her with new awareness in his eyes.
“Do you remember my work with the Hampton House?”
“Of course,” he acknowledged. “You volunteered once or twice a week with the developmentally delayed handicapped children and adults.”
She smiled, remembering those she had come to care a great deal about. “I came up with a plan to take one of the adult patients with me. Tracy Stecky! I took the birth certificate I’d obtained in Allegheny County and told the Social Security clerk that Tracy was Amanda and that she would need to apply for benefits soon. Since she was never able to work due to the severity of her disability, they never questioned why she didn’t have a number previously.” She shrugged. “Actually, it was easy.”
“And unbelievably ingenious,” he remarked as Judi sensed a note of wonder and then disappointment in his voice. “Ingenious, but quite illegal.”
Sadly, she had to agree. “Disappearing completely required more than the law would allow.”
“You’ve broken a number of laws—some very seriously.” He drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Even the federal government will be on your case with the fraudulent Social Security number.”
“After the city, county, and state have a go at me,” she added grimly. “I know the law well enough to easily envision the mile-long list of charges that will flow from one prosecutor to another. It should be enough to keep several of them busy for quite a long time.”
“Along with the life insurance company asking for their money back,” he speculated. “That might be a problem.”
Judi’s head jerked up and she felt a pang of hurt. “You’ve spent it?”
“Not exactly,” he answered, taking a deep breath. “Twenty-five thousand dollars of it I gave to the Hampton House in your name. The rest is sitting in a bank account.”
Judi’s heart swelled with hope and fear at the same time. “You did that for me?”
“I knew you would have wanted it,” he responded awkwardly. Sadness overtook his face. “I couldn’t have spent a penny of the money on myself.”
She sagged back into the seat. “This is getting complicated.”
“I agree!” Nathan bent forward and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. “It might have been better if I’d never searched for you and even better if I’d never found you. It’s been like opening Pandora’s box.”
“What you really mean,” Judi clarified, “is
I’m
like Pandora’s box.” When he let his hands drop and looked at her with a degree of uncertainty, she could see extreme exhaustion in his eyes. “Oh, I already know it. Everything I touch and everyone I know is somehow affected by me that way. Even my own mother left, and eventually my brother took off for Florida and never returned.”
“You really believe you’re the cause of these events?”
“Yes,” she told him quietly. “Just look at your family. Did I ever do anything to your parents? Yet they treated me like the plague.” Reluctantly, she met his gaze. “And you let them.” Saying the words ripped through her chest like fiery knives. It was true! Nathan always tried to soothe the tensions between them and his parents, but not once had she ever heard him defend her honor. Because he knew what everyone else knew—she wasn’t good enough.
“I had no idea you felt that way.”
Judi heaved a sigh. “Why is it that other people just live their lives, but I have to scratch and claw for everything?” Their eyes locked. “When I came to the island as Judi Rydell, they accepted me for who I was. I was finally free to live life as others do.” A fresh wave of despondency came over her. It was a freedom that would soon end. The prospect of losing what she valued so highly hurt terribly. The very people who taught her how to truly love God and trusted her implicitly would soon find out her secret and realize how undeserving she was of that trust. It would devastate those in the church. “I’m tired of fighting life by outwitting others with tricks up my sleeve.”
There was a moment of silence until he said very gently, “Then it’s time you stop trying to bend life around you and begin bending yourself. Maybe you need to start trusting a little more in yourself and giving others the benefit of the doubt.” When she began to protest, he stopped her. “We promised to face this thing God’s way and that will require both of us to bend. I never realized you blamed yourself for your family’s troubles, and I suppose I have to share part of that responsibility for not seeing this before. Besides, you’re right, as a husband, my place was to protect you—even from my own family.”
“Nathan—”
“Wait until I finish,” he interrupted softly. “I’m convinced that with God’s help, we can get through this thing.” He rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. “I’m equally convinced we need to keep clear minds to continue sorting through the details of what everything means.” He swiped his hand across the back of his neck. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve just about hit my saturation level for one day.”
Judi let her gaze roam over his face. She was again struck by the lines of fatigue on his handsome features, the dark five o’clock shadow accentuating his deep chin cleft, and the vulnerability of his candid gaze. Her throat constricted at the sight and more at the fierce emotions accompanying her thoughts. Love! It was love stretching out from behind the locked door of her heart. Right now, at this very moment, she loved Nathan more than she’d ever loved anyone.
“I’m going to head back to my cabin,” he told her, obviously unaware of her churning emotions. He stood up. “We both need our sleep. Tomorrow morning I’ll start working on a way to help you. I’d like you to go about your day as usual at the church.” He looked at her questioningly. “Can you do that? Then I’ll stop by and pick you up for lunch.”
Quickly, she drew herself out of the chair. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look beat.” Thankfully they had retrieved his car earlier so he could leave right from her place, but the truth was—she didn’t want him to go. Then the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “There’s an extra room here.”
Something passed across his features she couldn’t read. He shook his head. “That’s not a good idea.”
Disappointed, she only nodded. “It was just a suggestion. But please be careful.”
He moved toward her and gave a weak smile. “I will.”
When he paused long enough, she waited in hope that the look on his face was more than just concern over the situation, but concern for her. Slowly, he bent and gave her a quick peck on the forehead. “Everything will be all right.”