One True Heart (17 page)

Kare worked on her research, prowling the Internet looking for a detail that marked one of the thirty people Captain McAllen had on her list of possible suspects. The man hiding out would fit most of the profile she'd listed, but maybe not all. He'd be new to the area within the last five years. Independently wealthy or showing no obvious means of income. He'd try to fit in, maybe a little too hard. Computer knowledge. Disappears from time to time. No family in area. Might fly planes or have airstrip on his land. Fast cars. Large amount of cash. Maybe speak more than one language.

Millanie had also provided her with possible jobs he might have or say he had. Stockbroker, banker, accountant, something freelance like writer or painter. He might tell people he was a trust fund baby or had recently inherited money. Only whatever he claimed wouldn't be traceable.

Two facts kept knocking on her brain like pesky neighbors who wouldn't go away.

One, Millanie had put Kare's brother, Drew, on the list as a person of interest. He should be on the “good guy” list.
The captain was dating him; surely she'd figured out what kind of person he was by now.

Maybe Millanie was simply testing her. If so, should Kare tell the truth? Her brother's secrets were none of the captain's business until he wanted to tell Millanie himself.

Since the day she walked into his office at Clifton College, Kare had wanted to tell Drew that she knew about the shooting, but then she'd have to admit that she'd stalked his every move for years. Just knowing he was there was enough when she was a kid. By college she'd begun making up stories of how they'd meet and how he'd be happy to be her big brother. When the shooting happened, she changed all plans. Within days he'd disappeared from the public eye and she knew she'd have to, first, find him and, second, help him through what happened.

Only two years ago when she'd stepped into his office and met the shy, intelligent man who was her brother, she couldn't admit to knowing about the shooting. It would have changed things somehow. The joy of finding him would have been shadowed.

As much as he kidded her about it, Kare really could read people. And she knew for his peace of mind he needed to keep one slice of his life a secret. She thought of how upset he might be when he learned that she knew about his past, so Kare promised herself that when, or if, he ever told her, she'd act like she'd just found it out.

Two years ago when he'd asked how she found him, she said she was checking colleges that might take her and noticed his name. Then she'd told Drew how her father talked about the boy he left behind who was ten years older than her.

She couldn't admit she'd known about Chicago or the real reason she'd come to Harmony. He was everything she'd dreamed a big brother might be and that was enough.

Kare often saw a sadness in her brother's eyes and knew he was remembering. When he made his annual trip back to the graves, she didn't ask where he'd been. She just did
what she always did. She tried to cheer him up. Only this year she hadn't had to work her magic on his dark moods. He'd brought Millanie home and she'd changed his world. The two didn't match at all. A captain and a professor, but for some reason, they worked.

Kare shivered as she locked her office and walked out the back door of the bookstore. There was so much Drew didn't know about her. Her secrets seemed piled far higher than his. She'd told him she found him two years ago when she was checking out colleges in Texas and noticed a man named Cunningham had signed on to teach at Clifton Creek, but that was a lie too. Her father used to joke about how he'd left one child and he'd leave her if she didn't at least try to act normal.

Growing up, Kare sometimes thought of the big brother she had somewhere and guessed maybe he was the lucky one not to have their father around. If dads were ranked on a scale from one to ten, her pop would have been a negative two.

When she was alone in her teens, she'd talk to Drew, dreaming that since he was ten years older he was looking for her. After a few years she figured out that he couldn't know about her. To find her, he had to know where his father was, and that wouldn't have been possible. Her dad used to say he and his second wife
lived off the grid
. Their farm was fifty miles from any town and the deed had been registered to Kare's mother because she'd inherited the land just before she married. He'd also mentioned a few times that neither of them wanted children and Kare had been an accident, making both children he'd fathered mistakes.

Kare finally found Drew on the Internet when she was twelve. One night after her father had been drinking and telling her how awkward and homely she was, he mentioned that he should have kept Andrew and thrown her away. Unknowingly, he'd given her the piece of the puzzle she needed.

Searching, she'd typed Andrew Cunningham's name into
her computer.
Honor graduate from Yale
came up, complete with a picture. From then on she followed him like a silent stalker.

Two years later he had his master's in education and Kare had hidden away a dozen articles he'd written for the
Yale Review
. One newspaper article about him said he planned to teach history in one of the roughest high schools in Chicago. Kare was so proud. Her big brother was going to be one of those rare people who changed the world.

From then on there were other articles in professional teaching journals and once in a while in a parenting magazine. Drew wrote about his teaching and the tricks he'd learned to engage students. He said his goal was to make history come alive.

Four years after she found him online, he was very much a part of her and he didn't even know she existed. While her mother thought she was working on her homeschool lessons, Kare continued to keep up with her brother. He was working on his Ph.D. and winning recognition as one of the best teachers in Illinois. He was going places. She was staying home starting online classes from a junior college at sixteen.

When she was nineteen and away at college for her junior year, she saw a one-line news bulletin saying that an Andrew Cunningham had been shot in a school shooting. A few days later she mentioned it when she went home for the weekend.

Her father looked up from his supper, only mildly interested.

“Do you think this Cunningham could be kin to us?” she'd asked, already knowing he was.

“Nope,” her dad answered. “The kid I left had a druggie for a mom; he'd be more likely the shooter than the victim. Biggest mistake of my life, marrying that woman when she got pregnant. I stayed with her until after the baby was born, but she got back on drugs and expected me to take care of the kid after I worked all day. Well, I showed her. I knew if I ever checked on the kid she'd come after me for child support, so when I hooked up with your mom I made sure
everything was in her name. The old girl will never find me and neither will the kid.”

Kare had heard it all a hundred times. Growing up on a farm, being homeschooled because her folks wanted her to finish her lessons by noon so she could help out, she'd heard every story. When they finally let her leave home for her last two years of college, she'd spent the first semester just listening to the way all the other girls talked and all they had to say about subjects no one in her family had thought to ever bring up.

She'd made a few friends, but Kare didn't fit in. She was alien to their world. She had no idea how to dress or what movies had been popular during her life, or a hundred other things.

Her social life, even while living in the dorm, became the Internet mostly. Her best friend, the computer. It was no wonder her closest relative was a brother she'd never met and who didn't know about her.

Tonight Kare walked toward the dried-up creek behind the Blue Moon Diner, thinking how college had also saved her five years ago. A few days after Drew had been shot while teaching, Kare lost track of him. She switched her major and studied harder, finishing in the top of her class as a forensic accountant. When the offers for jobs came in, she went straight to the IRS. If she was going to find Andrew, there would be a place to start. It took her two years, but one day his social security number showed up at a small college in Texas.

She saved and worked until finally she was on her way to Texas with a story prepared, enough money to carry her awhile, and a brother she'd been waiting half her life to meet. Her parents had thought she'd come home to work the farm, but when she didn't, they weren't upset. It turned out they didn't like people and that included her.

Holding on to a branch, Kare stepped down into the dry creek that wiggled through downtown Harmony. Her thoughts were on the day she'd found Drew. She couldn't have dreamed of a better brother. He'd accepted her as
family, and somehow by being herself, the people in town accepted her too.

Her apartment was a few blocks away from the bookstore, and crossing the creek cut her walk in half. Most nights she liked to walk the streets downtown, but tonight she wanted to see Captain Millanie McAllen and drop off a few details she'd found. Nothing that would solve the mystery but enough to cross a few more suspects off the list.

The light shining over the back door of Winter's Inn told her she was expected. She'd sent Millanie a text. The captain would be waiting by the door. It wasn't much past dark, so someone at the bed-and-breakfast might be up. If they were, the captain would probably invite her in like Kare was simply a friend stopping by to visit. Maybe they'd share some iced tea. Kare would like that.

Her foot bumped into something along the path, almost toppling her over.

Kare looked down, pushing on the object with the toe of her shoe. The back porch light offered just enough glow for her to see a body. Long, lean, and dressed in black.

She screamed and ran toward the house. When she scrambled up the incline on all fours, she heard her skirt ripping but she didn't slow.

Millanie was on the back porch by the time Kare reached the steps. “There's a body in the creek bed! A body!”

“Alive or dead?”

Kare panicked. “I didn't take time to look. Was I supposed to look? Oh no! I didn't look.”

Millanie seemed as calm as Kare was frightened. The captain leaned inside and ordered, “Martha Q, call the sheriff and an ambulance. Mrs. Biggs, bring flashlights. There's someone hurt in the creek bed.”

“I should have checked,” Kare repeated. All her life she'd felt like every other person got a rule book and somehow she'd lost hers before she'd had time to read it. “What if he's dead? What if he's not?”

Millanie moved slowly down the steps on her crutches. “Calm down, Kare. I don't think I can get down there on
one leg, so you'll have to go back to where he is. Whoever it is might very well be hurt and need our help. If he's dead, he won't hurt you so there is no need to be afraid of him.”

Millanie shoved a flashlight in Kare's hand as Mrs. Biggs joined them carrying two more.

The captain's request came as a command. “We'll be right above you, Kare. Go down and see if he's still breathing. Mrs. Biggs will keep a light on the body and I'll keep one on you.”

Kare wanted to scream that she only worked part-time for the IRS. Nothing like this had ever been in her job description, but looking at an old woman and an injured captain, she seemed to be the only one for the job. If Martha Q or these two tried to slide down into the creek bed, there would probably be a pileup of bodies before the sheriff could get here.

“All right,” Kare said, and marched back in the direction she came. The incline wasn't as steep on this side. She turned sideways and, one foot at a time, clomped her way to the bottom. Then she turned the light on her toes and took one step at a time until the glow splashed on a hand.

“What do you see?” Millanie called out.

“Black shirt. Black hat. One hand.”

Mrs. Biggs screamed and Kare realized she probably should have said that the hand was attached to a body.

“Details, Kare,” Millanie ordered from above.

It took all her courage to touch the hand. “It's a man's left hand. Warm. No ring.”

“He's not married and he's still alive. Around here that's good news.” Martha Q had joined them and felt the need to put in her assumptions. “I should have never let those steps go to ruin. If I hadn't, I'd be down there now helping. If there is one thing I know it's how to handle a man.”

“Facts,” Millanie repeated to Kare as she ignored Martha Q.

Kare moved the light over the body until she saw blood on the back of his head. “He's hurt. Bleeding from an open wound.” She moved closer. “I hear his breathing. Oh dear God, there is so much blood.”

The body moved, his fingers brushing her ankle. Kare yelped, then bolted, scrambling back up the side of the creek bed. She appeared so suddenly both Martha Q and Mrs. Biggs screamed in unison.