Jamie-5 (5 page)

California. Jamie suddenly knew that she was the specialist. He realized that the woman was still waiting for him to answer. “Yes, can you have her call me? I have a question I’d like her to answer for me.” He gave her his cell phone number and his home number. Then gave his office number. “Tell her if I don’t answer for her to leave a number and I’ll call her back. Thanks.” Jamie didn’t know why he was angry with Dane, but he was. He didn’t like her giving false hope in child cases. He had seen enough in his lifetime with his mother working in the different state departments dealing with children and less desirable types to know what sort of people fed off them. Lawyers and scumbags who would make a quick buck off others’ pain. He wondered if she charged for her “advice” and looked up at the building in front of him. Yeah, he thought, probably a bundle.

He was just sitting down to his dinner when his phone rang. Looking at the blocked caller ID, he nearly didn’t answer it, but did anyway.

“Grant.” Taking a huge bite of pizza, he waited for the person to speak and was wondering if it was one of those telemarketers that had the computer dial the number and then expected you to wait until they got to you.

“It’s Dane Wallace, Mr. Grant. What can I do for you?” His mouth full and burning the crap out of him, he suddenly felt stupid. And for some reason, that made him angry and snappy.

“How’s the weather in California, Dr. Wallace? Is it all right for searching for missing children in the woods? Or is that beneath you and your talents?” Her hiss of breath had him feeling ashamed. He nearly told her he was sorry when she came back at him.

“Dead children who have been mutilated by their loved ones never has good weather, Mr.

Grant, but I thank you for asking. Perhaps when they find the body of the six-year-old that her father says he raped then murdered, I’ll make sure I note the sunny conditions and report it back to you as your earliest convenience. If all you called about was that, then I think we’re through here. Good day.”

The connection was cut off in a heartbeat and he put his phone on the table. It was that or throw it and he was sure that the shop would not be very happy if he did. He had been an ass. A prick and an ass. Christ, his mother was going to kill him and he deserved it. No longer hungry, he had them box up his dinner and left. When he got home, he turned on the news and waited for the reports to come on about the missing little girl and the daddy who had killed her.

~CHAPTER 5~

Dane put her phone in her pocket and stood next to the tent just outside the site where little Mercedes Evans was being dug up. Her father had confessed after he’d been arrested and had told them where she was. Dane had already told Markus, but they needed to have the father confess for the record. It was horrific work and though Dane knew the extent of her injuries intimately, she was still shocked at the little body when it was pulled from the shallow grave.

She didn’t even wonder how the man she had just hung up on had figured out what people had been wondering about for years. She just knew that Detective Grant had told him her story and from there she didn’t know, but he did not strike her as stupid. The tears threatened again, but she blinked them away.

It hurt to be thought of the way he did about her. But it hurt more coming from him for some reason. He had been so kind to her in the hospital and she had felt his sincerity too. When Markus went to the cameras to make a statement, Dane stepped back and faded into the background. She was on her way to the airport when he called her.

“I can’t thank you enough, Dane. We couldn’t have nailed him without the body and I doubt he’d have confessed without the extra that you gave us. Mercedes was just as you said she’d be, I’m sorry to say.”

“Me too. I’m going home. And I’m not…please try to not call me for a few weeks, Markus.

I really need to detox from this and to set up my practice. I have to have some sort of normal life.

I can’t keep…it takes too much from me. I can’t keep doing this all the time.”

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. Why don’t you meet a nice man and settle down, have a few hundred babies and raise them to be nice people? There has to be someone out there to appreciate a beautiful woman like you. I know I would if you’d have me.” He had asked her out so many times over the years, but she had always said no. He was just not what she was looking for in a person to spend her life with. She was not sure if there was such a man, but she was not going to settle. Not this time. Once was enough.

“I’ll talk to you sometime. And Markus? Thanks. You’re a great friend.” She closed her phone before he could answer her. More tired than she’d ever been, she was nearly fully asleep when the cab driver pulled up in front of the airport.

On Saturday morning, she was in the yard pulling weeds when Pi came out. She had a message from the police department and they would like for her to come by as soon as she could.

“Call them back and tell them I’m busy. Unless they want to arrest me, I don’t have anything to say to them. I’ve filed my report on what happened at the Quad and they can fuck off.”

“Missy Dane, you should have soap in your tongue. That man, Tucker, he say tell you that it important. You come down or he come here. I no think that good, so I tell him you come there.”

“Pi, please tell me he didn’t call and you told him this address? Please. I told you it’s important that no one know where we live. I explained that as a doctor, it’s important that I keep the house separate from the office, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Missy Dane. He not have address. He hinted, but I no take the worm. I never said, promise. You go there now? You pick up fake Chinese on way back. I need to try other place before I open restaurant with real food. Shoo, shoo. Garden be here when you come back.” Dane was pulling into the lot when she realized that Pi had mentioned restaurant and wondered where that had come from. Laying her head on the steering wheel, Dane tried to imagine Pi trying to run a restaurant with American employees trying to understand what she said even half the time. Dane was still chuckling when she got out of the car.

~~~

That was how Jamie saw her when she walked toward the station. She was standing in the afternoon sun with a pretty sundress on her shoulders, kissed by the sun, smiling.

“She’s here. She just got out of her car. If this doesn’t work, Devin, I’m going to kill you.

Mom said she’d talk to her first. This is really stupid.” Jamie never took his eyes off the woman nearly to the door below them.

“It has to work. Mom needs her, the evidence is here. If it’s not her, then we made a mistake, but you know as well as I do that Mom believes it’s her. She’s the specialist from out west and she needs her.”

Cait and their mom walked in a few seconds later. His mom was still angry with him for what he’d done and said to Dane, but she loved him and would eventually forgive him—he hoped. Cait was pacing the room and he wondered what Dane would say to her too. This whole thing was a really stupid idea and he suddenly knew it was going to go badly for them all.

“I think we should call this off. This is really—” Dane walked in, cutting him off. He could tell immediately that she was not happy to see them. When she stopped in the doorway, Captain Tucker, Donny to his friends, gave her a little nudge to get her moving again.

“If this is some sort of joke, then I’m not laughing. You said this was about the case with Mr. Grant. You never said neither his family nor him was going to be here. I’d like to go, please.

I have things I want to do; a root canal or a pap smear would be better than this.”

“Please sit down, Dr. Wallace. Or is it Dr. Messenger? Either way, we need your help. I realize that some of my family has been…let’s say, less than civil to you, but there is a problem and I know you can help me.” Jamie blushed at his mom’s pointed look.

“What on earth do you think I can…ah, I see.” She stared at him and Jamie began to squirm in his seat. “You don’t believe me, so why are you even here? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.

What do you have, Mrs. Parker.”

“You know me? Well, I mean, I…okay. I have a missing child, well, three as a matter of fact. Their father says the mother took them, the mother says he did. Regardless of who did what, they’re still missing and have been for several weeks.”

“You know that the longer they’re gone, the more likely they are dead, don’t you? I can’t help you without something that belongs to each child.” She looked at Devin, anger evident in her voice. “What are you doing here, Mr. Grant? Do you believe I’d do something to your family that you’d need to sue me for?”

“I’m here to negotiate your fee, doctor. And to give you this. It’s an agreement that states whatever you say in here, whatever information you give us, is confidential and will not go beyond these doors. Everyone in here has signed it.”

“Even you, detective? That must have hurt. Knowing that you have to keep quiet this time.

I’ll talk to you, Mrs. Parker, and to you, Mr. Grant, but the other two leave or I do. Mr. Grant”—

she pointed at Jamie—“here has made his position on what I do very clear to me and I don’t need the negative energy when I help—if I help.”

“Dane, I’m sorry. I had no right to—” Jamie started only to be cut off.

“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Grant. You had no right to judge me or what I can or can’t do.

If you want me to help, then I’d like you to leave. Now, please.” Jamie looked at her and saw the tears in her eyes. He’d hurt her. Hurt her badly, and he couldn’t even begin to tell her how sorry he was. He stood and walked to the door with Cait.

Cait turned back to Dane. “I’m sorry too. You have no idea just how much I’ve regretted the way things ended between us. How I felt when I found you there. Hunter is dead, I know you remember him. I killed him several months ago when he killed my Uncle Paddy and Aunt Dee. I know it’s no excuse, but I was so young and so were you. Hunter seemed to know just…I’m so sorry.”

Jamie followed her out and held her while she cried. When she went to the bathroom, he called Spencer and asked him to come and get her, that she was upset.

“It’s that damned woman again, isn’t it? I told O’Malley to stay here that there was no reason to be near her. She thinks to talk her into forgiving her. As far as I’m concerned, the bitch can just bite me. It’s been ten years, give it up already.” Jamie let go on his brother what he wanted to say to himself. “You think this has been easy for her, for Dane? You think it’s been easy knowing that the one group of people you were taught to trust betrayed you, let another child die because they were too pigheaded to listen to you? How do you think she’s lived with herself knowing that she held that little girl’s life in her hands and couldn’t make anyone believe her, help her? Yeah, it’s been ten years, but do you think you’d forget if Cait hadn’t been able to save Meggie? That you knew that someone out there had the ability to save her and they didn’t because others were too stupid to listen to her?” Jamie closed his phone and bounced it in his hand several times before he did what he’d wanted to for several days. He threw it across the room with enough force to shatter it and dent the wallboard beneath it. Pieces of it sprayed around the room a good ten feet from impact.

Someone clapping their hands brought him around quickly.

“Do you feel better? I know I would if I could do that. But I have enough trouble with keeping phones around without destroying them myself. Spencer already complains about my inability to have one for more than two weeks.” Cait moved in the room and sat on the chair closest to her. “I take it you were speaking to my husband. I hope you gave him an earful. He’s been telling me for days that I need to move on from this girl. I can’t, Jamie. I let her down, or that little girl. I’ll never forgive myself for that until Dane does.”

“I know, sweetie. Me too. I didn’t believe you at first. Now…now I’m not sure. I called her the other day. She was in California with another case. I was…I wasn’t very nice. I don’t know what it is about her that made me want to lash out, but I did. I wish I knew what to do too.” Spencer came and got Cait, but neither man spoke. Jamie was sorry for that, but then he knew that once they got home, Cait would tell him. Or she’d hurt him. Either way, Jamie would get a call. He sat in one of the chairs and waited until they were done in the office. He was going to have a few words with Dr. Wallace before she left if he had to throw her to the floor and hold her there.

His mother had called her family by the Messenger name. He remembered her name had been that as a kid and wondered at the change. He knew from Devin that Dane had been in China since a week after she’d been found in the garage. She had come back to the States a few times over the years, once when her mother died then again when her grandmother had passed away.

Jamie also knew that she had inherited from her grandmother and not her mother. The Messenger estate had been worth millions and the older lady, Mrs. Sharp, had inherited from her daughter.

Jamie figured that the grandmother had left her monies to Dane. He was not sure what the going rate for finding people was, but he was sure it paid quite well.

When the door opened an hour later, Jamie stood up. He’d been about to go to the bathroom and was now glad that he had not. If he hadn’t been there, he was sure Dane would have left. He wasn’t even sure she was going to stay long enough to talk to him now.

“Thank you, my dear. You don’t…I thank you so much for what you’ve done for me. If you ever need anything, just let me know. You’ll have it,” his mom was saying when Jamie walked up behind Dane.

“Just remember our promise, Mrs. Parker. I’m sorry about everything. I wish I could have had better news.” Suddenly, Dane swayed and Jamie scooped her up before she hit the floor.

“I’m fine, please put me down. Of all the nerve, do you usually pick women up like a sack of potatoes?”

“Yes, especially when they practically fall into my arms. Now hush and let me hold you until you get some color back in your face. You look like death warmed over.”