“Hope’s daddy?” Alex asked tentatively.
“No.” Sister Anne looked at Alex shrewdly. “Bailey’s daddy.”
Alex stiffened and Daniel sensed what had been discouragement was now fear.
“Alex?” he murmured behind her. “Are you okay?”
She jerked a nod. “No, I haven’t talked to her father.” Her voice was cool, careful, and Daniel knew by now that meant she was scared. “Do you know where he is?”
Sister Anne heaved a giant sigh. “Out there somewhere. Bailey never gave up hope that he’d turn from the life and come home. I know she spent hours pokin’ her head in every godforsaken corner of this town, lookin’ for him.” She gave Alex a sideways look. “She still lives in that old house in Dutton, hoping he’ll come back.”
Alex grew even stiffer, more afraid. Daniel gave in to the urge to touch her that he’d been fighting since she’d met his eyes back in his living room. He needed to connect with her again, needed her to know he was there, that she wasn’t alone and didn’t need to be afraid. So he covered her shoulders with his hands and pulled gently until she leaned against him.
“I hate that house,” she whispered.
“I know,” he whispered back. And he did. He knew what she meant by “that house” and what had happened there. Daniel had read the articles Luke had downloaded and now he knew about Alex’s mother, how she’d put a .38 to her head to end her life, how Alex had found her body. All on the same day Alicia’s body had been found.
Sister Anne was studying Alex intently. “Bailey hates that place, too, honey. But she stays, hopin’ her daddy will come home.”
Alex was trembling and Daniel tightened his hold. “Did he come home?” he asked.
“No. Leastways she never told me.”
Alex straightened her shoulders and pulled far enough away that she no longer leaned against him. “Thank you, Sister. If you hear anything, will you call me?” She tore a corner from the copy of Bailey’s driver’s license photo and wrote her name and cell phone number. “And could you talk to Hope? We haven’t been able to get through.”
Sister Anne’s smile was sympathetic and sad. “You couldn’t stop me. I don’t drive anymore, though, so it’d be hard for me to get down to Dutton.”
“We’ll bring her to you,” Daniel said, and Alex twisted back to look at him, surprised gratitude on her face. “If it wasn’t safe for you,” he murmured, “it’s certainly not safe for you and Hope.”
“It was safe for Bailey and Hope,” she protested.
“Bailey knew her way around. You don’t. When’s a good time, Sister?”
“Pick any time. I’m always here.”
“It’ll be tomorrow night then.” Daniel squeezed Alex’s shoulders lightly. “Let’s go.”
They’d gotten to the door when a young woman stopped them. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but like all the other women there, her eyes were far older. “Excuse me,” she said. “Somebody heard you in the kitchen. Are you a nurse?”
Daniel felt her change. She’d put her fear aside and was instantly focused on the woman who stood before her. She nodded, her eyes assessing. “Yes. Are you sick?”
“No, it’s my little girl.” The young woman pointed to a cot in the middle of a sea of cots where a child lay, curled in a ball. “She’s got some kind of rash on her foot and it’s hurting her. I was at the clinic all day, but if you don’t get here by six all the beds get filled.”
Alex put her hand on the woman’s back. “Let’s take a look.” Daniel followed, curious to see her in action. “What’s your name?” she asked the mother.
“Sarah. Sarah Jenkins. This is Tamara.”
Alex smiled at the girl, who looked about four or five. “Hi there, Tamara. Can I look at your foot?” She was efficient but gentle as she examined the child. “It’s not serious,” she said, and the mother relaxed. “It’s impetigo. Looks like it might have started with a cut, though. Has she had a tetanus S-H-O-T recently?”
Tamara’s eyes widened with fear. “I have to get a shot?”
Alex blinked. “You’re pretty smart, Tamara. Well, Mom, has she had one?”
Sarah nodded. “Right before Christmas.”
“Then you don’t need one,” she said to Tamara, who looked relieved. Alex looked up at Sister Anne. “Do you keep any ointments here?”
“Only Neosporin.”
“This is pretty inflamed. Neosporin won’t do too much. When I come back I’ll bring something stronger. Until then, wash it and keep it covered. You have gauze?”
The nun nodded. “A little.”
“Then use it and I’ll bring you some more of that, too. And no scratching, Tamara,”
Tamara’s lip pushed out in a pout. “It itches.”
“I know,” she said softly. “You’re just going to have to tell yourself it doesn’t.”
“You mean lie?” Tamara asked, and Alex made a face.
“Well . . . more like a trick. You ever see a magician put someone in a closet and make them disappear?”
Tamara nodded. “On a cartoon.”
“That’s what you have to do. You have to imagine all your itchiness going in a closet and you pushhh the door cloooosed.” She pushed with her hands, demonstrating. “Then your itch is trapped in the closet and not on you anymore. A girl smart enough to spell ‘shot’ should be able to trick the itch into the closet.”
“I’ll try.”
“You might have to try a few times. The itch won’t want to go in the closet. You have to concentrate.” She sounded as if she spoke from experience. “And keep your fingers out of your eyes. That’s important, too.”
“Thank you,” the mother said when Alex stood up.
“It was nothing. She’s a smart girl.” But she’d eased the mother’s mind, and Daniel thought that was a great deal more than nothing. Plus, in helping the woman she’d put her own fear aside. “Sister, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Sister Anne nodded. “I’ll be here. I’m always here.”
Dutton, Monday, January 29, 10:00 p.m.
The carousel horses were beautiful in the moonlight. He’d always enjoyed this park as a child. But he was no longer a child and the innocence of the park now mocked him as he sat on the bench, reeling from the twisted direction his life had taken.
The bench on which he sat jiggled, then settled with the weight of another. “You’re a fool,” he whispered, keeping his eyes fixed on the carousel horses. “It was one thing to call me this morning, but meeting here like this. If somebody sees us . . .”
“Dammit.” It was a frightened hiss. “I got a key.”
He sat up straighter. “A real one?”
“No. A drawing. But it looks like it could match.”
It did. He’d laid his key on the drawing. It matched perfectly. “So someone knows.”
“We’ll be ruined.” His whisper was shrill. “We’ll go to prison. I can’t go to prison.”
Like any of them could?
I’ll die first.
But he injected calm certainty into his voice. “Nobody’s going to prison. We’ll be fine. He probably just wants money.”
“We need to talk to the others. Come up with a plan.”
“No. Say nothing to the others. Keep your head down and your mouth shut and we’ll get through this.” Talking was unhealthy. One of them had talked and that one had been stopped. Permanently. It could and would be done again. “For now, stay calm, stay quiet, and stay away from me. If you freak out, we’re all dead.”
Atlanta, Monday, January 29, 10:15 p.m.
V
artanian brought his car to a stop in his driveway. “Are you all right?” His voice was deep and calm in the darkness of his car. “You’ve been very quiet.”
She had, in fact, been silent as she struggled to process all the thoughts and fears that warred in her mind. “I’m fine. I’ve just been thinking.” She remembered her manners. “Thank you for going with me tonight,” she said. “You’ve been very kind.”
His jaw was tight as he came around to open her door. She followed him up to his house and waited while he disarmed the alarm. “Come in. I’ll get your jacket.”
“And my satchel.”
His smile was grim. “I didn’t think you’d forgotten about it.”
Riley sat up, yawning again. He padded across the room and plopped down at Alex’s feet. Vartanian’s lips twitched. “And you’re not even a pork chop,” he murmured.
Alex bent over to scratch Riley’s ears. “Did you say ‘pork chop’?”
“It’s a private joke, mine and Riley’s. I’ll get your coat.” He sighed. “And satchel.”
Alex watched him go, shaking her head. Men were not creatures she’d ever fully understood. Not that she’d had much practice. Richard had been her first, if she didn’t count Wade, which she never did. So that would be . . . one. And wasn’t Richard a sterling example of her finesse with members of the opposite sex? That would be . . . no.
Thoughts of Richard always depressed her. She’d failed at their marriage. She’d never been able to be what he needed or the kind of wife she’d wanted to be.
But she wouldn’t fail Hope. If nothing else, Bailey’s child would have a good life, with or without Bailey. Now both depressed and terrified, she looked around Vartanian’s living room for a distraction and found it in the painting over his bar. It made her smile.
“What?” he asked, holding her jacket draped over one arm like a maître d’.
“Your painting.”
He grinned, making him look younger. “Hey,
Dogs Playing Poker
is a classic.”
“I don’t know. Somehow I took you for a man with more sophisticated taste in art.”
His grin dimmed. “I don’t take art too seriously.”
“Because of Simon,” she said quietly. Vartanian’s brother had been a painter.
What was left of his grin disappeared, leaving him sober and haunted. “You know.”
“I read the articles online.” She’d read about the people Simon had killed, including Daniel’s parents. She’d read how Daniel assisted in Simon’s capture and death.
I’ll see you in hell, Simon.
She needed to tell him. “Agent Vartanian, I have information you need to know. When I left the morgue today, I drove to Bailey’s house. While I was there I met a man. A reverend. And a soldier, too, I guess.”
He sat on a bar stool, dropping her jacket and satchel to the bar and focusing his piercing blue eyes on her face. “A reverend and a soldier came to Bailey’s house?”
“No. The reverend
was
a soldier, an army chaplain. Bailey had an older brother. His name was Wade. He died a month ago in Iraq.”
“I’m sorry.”
She frowned. “I’m not sure I am. I guess you think that’s pretty rotten of me.”
Something moved in his eyes. “No. I don’t, actually. What did the chaplain say?”
“Reverend Beardsley was with Wade when he died. He heard Wade’s last confession and wrote three letters Wade dictated, to me, his father, and Bailey. Beardsley mailed Bailey’s and her father’s to the old house where Bailey’s still living. He didn’t mail mine because he didn’t have my address, so he gave it to me today.”
“Bailey would have received the letters a few weeks ago. The timing is interesting.”
“I told Beardsley that Bailey was missing, but he wouldn’t divulge what Wade had said in his last confession. I begged him for anything that could help me find Bailey, anything that wasn’t privileged. Before he died, Wade said, ‘I’ll see you in hell, Simon.’ ”
She blew out a breath and watched as Vartanian paled. “Wade knew Simon?”
“Apparently so. Just like you know something you haven’t told me, Agent Vartanian. I can see it in your face. And I want to know what it is.”
“I killed my brother a week ago. If nothing showed on my face, I wouldn’t be human.”
Alex frowned. “You didn’t kill him. The article said that other detective did.”
His eyes flickered. “We both fired. The other guy just got lucky.”
“So you’re not going to tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell. Why are you so sure I know something?”
Alex narrowed her eyes. “Because you’ve been way too nice to me.”
“And a man always has an ulterior motive.” He said it darkly.
She shrugged out of his letter jacket. “In my experience, yes.”
He slid off the stool and stood toe-to-toe with her, forcing her to look way up. “I’ve been nice to you because I thought you needed a friend.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. I must have ‘stupid’ tattooed on my forehead.”
His blue eyes flashed. “Fine. I was nice to you because I think you’re right—Bailey’s disappearance is connected to that woman we found yesterday and I’m ashamed at how the Dutton sheriff, who I thought was my friend, hasn’t lifted a goddamn finger to help either of us. That’s the truth, Alex, whether you can accept it or not.”
You can’t take the truth.
As it had that morning, the taunt sprang from nowhere and Alex closed her eyes, quelling the panic. She opened her eyes to find him still staring, every bit as intently as before. “All right,” she murmured. “That I can believe.”
He leaned closer. Too close. “Good, because there’s another reason.”
“Do tell,” she said, her voice cool despite the way her heart now pounded.
“I like you. I want to spend time with you when you’re not scared to death and vulnerable. And because I respect how you’ve held up now . . . and back then.”
Her chin lifted. “Back then?”
“You read my articles, Alex, and I read yours.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. He knew about her breakdown, about her suicide attempt. She wanted to look away, but she refused to be the first to do so. “I see.”
He searched her eyes, then shook his head. “No, I really don’t think you do. And maybe that’s for the best right now.” He straightened and took a step back and she sucked in a deep breath. “So Wade knew Simon,” he said. “Were they the same age?”
“They were in the same class at Jefferson High.” She frowned. “But you have a sister who’s the same age as I am and she went to Bryson Academy.”
“So did I and so did Simon at first. My father went there, too, as did his father.”
“Bryson was an expensive school. I imagine it still is.”
Daniel shrugged. “We were comfortable.”
Alex’s smile was wry. “No, you were rich. That school cost more than some colleges. My mother tried to get us in on a scholarship, but our kin hadn’t fought alongside Lee and Stonewall.” She injected a drawl into her voice and his smile was equally wry.
“You’re right. We had financial wealth. Simon didn’t graduate from Bryson,” he said. “He got expelled and had to go to Jefferson.”
To the public school. “Lucky us,” Alex said. “So that’s how Wade and Simon met.”
“I assume so. I was away at college by then. What was in Wade’s letter to you?”
She shrugged. “He asked my forgiveness and wished me a good life.”
“What was he asking forgiveness for?”
Alex shook her head. “It could have been any number of things. He wasn’t specific.”
“But you’ve got it narrowed to one,” he said, and she lifted her brows.
“Remind me not to play poker with you. I think Riley’s dog pals are more my speed.”
“Alex.”
She huffed a breath. “Fine. Alicia and I were twins. Identical twins.”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “I got that this morning.”
She grimaced in sympathy. “I truly had no idea you’d be so startled.” He was still hiding something, but for now she’d play his game. “You’ve heard all the twin stories about switching places? Well, Alicia and I did that more than a few times. I think Mama always knew. Anyway, Alicia was the party animal and I was the practical one.”
“No,” he said, deadpan, and she chuckled, in spite of herself.
“A few times we’d switch places for tests, until the teachers wised up. I felt so guilty, cheating like that, so I told them and Alicia was so mad. I was a ‘downer,’ no fun at the parties, so Alicia started going alone. She had a string of boyfriends from Dutton to Atlanta and back and a couple times she double-booked. Once, I stepped in.”
Daniel became suddenly serious. “I don’t like the direction this is going.”
“I went to this B-list party—the one she didn’t want to go to, but didn’t want to get excluded from the next time around. Wade was there. He was never an A-list party kind of guy, although he always wanted to be. He . . . put the moves on Alicia. Me.”
Daniel grimaced. “That’s disgusting.”
It had been. No one had ever touched her there before and Wade hadn’t been gentle. It still made her sick to her stomach to remember. “Well, yes, but technically we weren’t related. My mother never married his father, but it was still gross.” And terrifying.
“So what did you do?”
“I slugged him, on pure reflex. Broke his nose, then kneed him in the . . . you know.”
Vartanian winced. “I know.”
She could still see Wade lying on the floor, in a cursing, bleeding fetal ball. “We were both shocked. Then he was humiliated and I was still shocked.”
“So what happened? Did he get in trouble?”
“No. Alicia and I got grounded for a month and Wade walked away whistlin’ Dixie.”
“That wasn’t fair.”
“But that was life in our house.” Alex studied his face. There was still something . . . But he was a far better poker player than she. “I never thought I’d get a deathbed apology. I guess you never know what you’re gonna do when the Reaper knocks.”
“I guess not. Listen, do you have that chaplain’s contact information?”
“Sure.” Alex dug it out of her satchel. “Why?”
“Because I want to talk to him. The timing’s too convenient. Now, about tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Your cousin leaves tomorrow, right? How about I bring Riley to meet your niece tomorrow night? I can bring some pizza or something, then we can see if Hope likes dogs before we take her to talk to Sister Anne.”
She blinked, a little stunned. She’d never thought he’d been serious. Then she remembered his hands on her shoulders, supporting her when her knees wanted to buckle. Maybe Daniel Vartanian was really just a very nice man. “That will work. Thank you, Daniel. It’s a date.”
He shook his head, his expression changing, almost as if he was daring her to disagree. “Not hardly. A date doesn’t typically involve children or dogs.” His eyes were totally serious and sent a shiver down her spine. A nice shiver, she thought. The kind she hadn’t had in a very long time. “And it definitely does not involve nuns.”
She swallowed hard, certain her cheeks were red as flame. “I see.”
His hand lifted to her face, hesitating a moment before his thumb swept across her lower lip and she shivered again, harder this time. “Now I think you finally do,” he murmured, then flinched. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket where it had apparently buzzed him out of what was becoming a very interesting mood.
“Vartanian.” His face went expressionless. It was his case, then. Alex thought of the woman on the table in the morgue and wondered who she was. If someone had finally missed her. “How many tickets did she buy?” he asked, then shook his head. “No, I don’t need you to spell it. I know the family. Thanks, you’ve been a big help.”
He hung up and stunned her once again by pulling his sweatshirt over his head and jogging toward the stairs. On his way he balled the sweatshirt and shot it basketball style at a laundry chute in the wall. He missed, but didn’t stop to try again. “Stay there,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, she watched him disappear up the stairs. The man had a beautiful back, broad and well-muscled and covered with smooth, golden skin. The glimpse of his chest hadn’t been half bad either.
Hell.
There was nothing half bad about that man. Alex realized she’d reached out to touch.
Ridiculous.
She considered the look in his eyes just before his cell had gone off
. Maybe not so ridiculous after all
.
She drew a shuddering breath and picked up the sweatshirt, indulging the urge to sniff it before stuffing it down the chute.
Be careful, Alex.
What had he called it?
Unfamiliar ground.
She cast a wistful look up the stairs, knowing he’d probably pulled off the jeans when he’d reached the top.
But damn fine unfamiliar ground it was.
In less than two minutes he was thundering back down the stairs, dressed in his dark suit, tugging his tie into place. Without slowing down, he picked up her satchel and kept walking. “Get your jacket and come on. I’ll follow you back to Dutton.”