“Where have you been?” his brother, Mac, asked after answering the phone. He still sounded mad and Riley supposed he would be for a long time.
“I’ve been out of town, dealing with a few things.”
“You missed Michelle’s funeral.”
Pain and dread squeezed Riley’s heart, making him gasp. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. I…” What could he possibly say? That he’d forgotten? It had slipped his mind? He’d been too busy chasing phantom demons and falling in love?
“I thought Michelle meant something to you,” Mac said, emotion straining his voice.
Riley rubbed his face. “I know you want to blame me. Do it, blame me. If it will make you feel better. I should have paid more attention. I should have watched her better. If only I’d been more—”
“Protective?”
Riley gave a bitter laugh. “Yes, protective. She needed it, Mom needed it and now Devra needs it, and I seem to be letting them all down. And for that, we’ve all been paying the price.”
“Do you think you could be any more arrogant? My happiness, Michelle’s happiness, did not weigh on your
shoulders. We would have been perfectly fine, perfectly happy without you. In fact—”
“In fact, if I weren’t around, Mom wouldn’t have gone looking for me at the park and gotten killed, and I wouldn’t have become a cop, and Michelle wouldn’t have followed me onto the force….” Riley couldn’t say another word, his throat was blocked with emotion.
“I was going to say in fact, we are all responsible for the decisions we make, good or bad. Don’t take
that
away from us, too. And if you still don’t get it, then there really isn’t anything that can be said.” Mac paused. “Why is there a drawing of John Miller in your kitchen?”
Riley tightened his grasp on the phone. “The police sketch? You know him?”
“He’s a friend from work. Michelle and I had him over for dinner a few weeks ago. What’s this all about?”
Did he know about me? About Mom?
That would explain the picture in the tree house. The killer was playing with him, playing with them all. “Mac, do me a favor and take the sketch to Tony. Tell him about this guy, this John—”
“Miller,” Mac supplied.
“Miller.” As he said the name, he knew it couldn’t be yet another coincidence. This man had to be connected to Devra.
“Tell him he knew Michelle.”
“Riley, if you’re right and John did…” Mac’s voice broke. “I’ll kill him, Riley. I swear on everything I have, I’ll kill the son of a bitch.”
“Not if I get to him first,” Riley muttered.
No sound reached him from the other end of the line.
“Thanks, Mac. You’ve really helped.”
“Riley, there’s something else.”
Riley’s heartbeat stilled at the serious tone of Mac’s voice.
“I don’t blame you for what happened to Mom.”
“Mac…”
“I told her where you were.”
Riley didn’t speak, just tried to process the meaning behind Mac’s words. All these years and he’d never said a thing.
“She wouldn’t have gone to the park if I hadn’t told her where to find you. She died because of me.”
Riley’s throat squeezed shut and he could barely get the words out. “No, Mac. She died because of a doped-up kid. I think the two of us have been playing what-ifs for too many years and it hasn’t done either of us any good.”
Mac paused, then said, “I just wanted you to know that I don’t blame you.”
Riley took a deep breath as years of pent-up guilt broke free in his chest. “Thanks, Bro. You don’t know how good it feels to hear you say that.”
“Riley?”
“Yeah?”
“Go nail the SOB who killed my wife.”
As Riley hung up the phone, he felt as if he could touch the moon. Finally they were getting somewhere. He dialed Tony’s number, deciding to beat Mac to the punch. After he hung up he raced back to the chief’s office. But the room was empty. “Chief Marshall!” he yelled down the hallway.
“What is it?” the chief asked as he came out of a room carrying a fresh cup of coffee.
“We’ve got a lead, a real good one.”
“Lead in what?”
“In who killed your son.”
“I know who killed my son.” Chief Marshall passed him and walked into his office.
“You’re wrong.”
“And what about all this?” He pointed to Devra’s file, to the books lying on his desk.
“I told you, she’s psychic. Somehow, she’s connected with the killer. She sees what he sees. That’s how she knows so many details. That’s why her parents think she’s insane.”
“Sounds insane to me.”
“Hear me out for a minute,” Riley insisted.
The chief leaned back in his chair. “Why not? I’ve been waiting fifteen years for this opportunity, and now you’ve brought her back to me. I can afford to give you a couple minutes.”
Riley sat down and leaned across the desk. “We have a sketch of a suspect we believe could have killed Officer MacIntyre.”
“MacIntyre, huh? Any relation?”
“My sister-in-law.”
Surprise crossed the chief’s face.
“Believe me,” Riley said. “I want her killer found and convicted as much as you want Tommy’s.”
The chief nodded. “I’m listening.”
“When Devra saw the sketch, she identified the man as the same person who killed your son.”
“Mighty convenient if you ask me.”
“Perhaps, but my brother also saw the sketch. He’s identified him as a man he works with, a Mr. John Miller. Do you know anyone by that name?”
The chief shook his head. “Can’t say that I do.”
Mandy poked her head in the doorway. “Chief, sorry to interrupt, but this just came through on the fax machine. It’s from a detective Tony Tortorici at the New Orleans Police Department.” She walked into the room and handed him the sketch of John Miller.
“Tony’s my partner. I just filled him in on the details and asked him to fax over the sketch. Have you ever seen that man before? Is there any chance he’s related to Devra?”
“I’ve never heard of a John Miller around these parts.” The chief looked thoughtful for a moment, then placed his mug and the sketch on his desk and started rifling through Devra’s file. He pulled out an old sketch yellowed with age and not nearly as detailed, but they were obviously both of the same man.
The Chief stared at the two sketches, deep lines furrowing his brow. Then he looked up and said, “Fifteen years ago, Devra was so insistent that a man killed my boy that we brought a sketch artist down from Seattle to work with her.” He laid the two sketches side by side and pointed to the aged paper. “This is the man she said killed my boy.”
Riley looked at the sketches, a sense of foreboding racing down his spine. Even in graphite, the eyes were dark enough to make his blood run cold. They held the same evil stare as the eyes depicted in the sketch of John Miller.
“I didn’t believe her. None of us did.” Something broke in the chief’s face, and Riley had to look away. “All these years, he’s been out there killin’ and I could have stopped it, I could have found justice for Tommy. Dammit!” The chief swept Devra’s books and all the papers from her file off his desk. “Mandy!” he bellowed.
“Yeah, Chief,” she said a little reluctantly, as she swung her head in through the opened door.
“Go into the bathroom and bring Miss Miller back in here.”
Startled, Mandy stood rooted in the doorway.
“Now!”
“Could, Chief, but—er—she’s not here.”
Riley looked up in surprise, his gut tightening as the implications of her words set in.
“Then where the dickens is she?”
Mandy’s eyes widened as her tone dissolved into a defensive whine. “She said she left something back at the hotel that she wanted you to see. She said she’d be right back. I’m sorry, Chief.”
Chief Marshall looked at Riley.
He shook his head. “There was nothing.”
Mandy cleared her throat. “Would you mind if I take another look at that fax from New Orleans?”
The chief handed her the fax. “Why, do you know him, Mandy?”
“No, sir, but I’ve seen him.”
The chief stood. “When? Where?”
“Just a few minutes ago, lurking around outside on the sidewalk. Right before Miss Miller left.”
Chapter Fifteen
Devra needed answers. She tried to focus on the winding road ahead of her, but tears kept filling her eyes and blurring her vision. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, but she’d fallen in love with Riley. She’d even started to believe her life was going to be different. That she wouldn’t have to live under a cloud of suspicion and danger, that they actually had a chance at a future together.
She’d imagined Sunday dinners with his family, going for rides on Babe, boating across the bayou, making love day and night. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. They might even have had children of their own. But she’d been kidding herself, and now she would pay the price.
She pulled to a stop in front of her parents’ home. This time, she wouldn’t leave until she learned the truth of who she was, and why they’d given her up and left her at the sanitarium. She turned off the car, then ran around the side of the house to the kitchen door. Through the window, she could see her parents sitting at the kitchen table, each lost in their own thoughts.
Her mama looked up as she pulled open the door. “Devra, you came back,” she said looking pleased.
Devra didn’t say a word, just walked into the kitchen and sat down across from them. “I need to know the truth. It’s just us now. Spill.”
Surprise and confusion crinkled her mama’s brow. “What are you talking about?”
Her papa just stared, his face a blank mask.
Devra took a deep breath, then asked quickly before she lost her nerve, “Are you my parents?”
Her mother gasped. “Of course we’re your parents. Your papa and I love you, Devy. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”
“You’re right. I don’t believe it. And the chief wants to know where I was born. Where did we live before we came here? How did I break my pinky?”
Her mama’s eyes widened, her fingers fluttering up her neck to cover her mouth.
“What happened to me?” Devra asked. “Who am I?”
“We raised you,” her papa said. “We tended you when you were sick, we pulled you into our bed at night when you were scared, we love you.”
“But are you my parents? Did you give birth to me? I need to know, because it’s the only justification I can find as to why you dumped me off in a mental institution and never came back.”
An anguished moan ripped from her mama’s throat and her eyes filled with tears. Devra watched her, heard her, with an odd sense of detachment. A part of her knew she should back off, knew she should give her mama a chance to pull herself together, but she couldn’t.
She’d lost too much of her life to give any more, and now she’d lost Riley, too. She sighed. “Please, just tell me the truth.”
Her mama stood. “We need to tell her.”
“Lydia,” her papa warned.
“It’s time, William.” Lydia walked to the closet in the hall, opened it and pulled a metal box off the top shelf way in the back.
“Don’t, Lydia,” her papa said, fatigue etching heavy lines into his face.
Devra stared at her papa, then focused on the box in her mother’s hands. A strange trepidation kicked up her heartbeat. Her future was in that box, along with all the secrets from her past. It was the key to unlocking the nightmare that had been her life and, all this time, it’d been right there in the hall closet of her childhood home.
“I have to, William. I should have years ago. We both should have.” With a thud, her mama dropped the box on the yellow Formica table, then fished in the drawer next to the refrigerator for the small key. Her hands shook as she turned open the lock and lifted the lid. Inside was a manila envelope that had discolored with time.
Suddenly, Devra was finding it difficult to breathe. Her mama sat in the chair next to her. “Your papa and I promised the Lord to love you and protect you each and every day of our lives, and we’ve tried to do that. That is why we chose not to tell you what I’m about to tell you now. It’s only because we feel—”
William grunted.
“—I feel it would serve you better to know the truth
about your past that I’m telling you now. Because behind it all, Devra, it doesn’t matter where you came from or who your parents were, because we are your family and you are loved.” Tears misted her eyes.
Devra didn’t respond, couldn’t. A lump had formed in her throat making it difficult for her to swallow. With trembling fingers, her mama dug into the envelope and pulled out a yellowed photograph of a smiling man standing with his hands on the shoulders of a young boy. Sitting next to them was a woman bouncing a toddler on her knee. Devra took the picture from her mama’s fingers.
As she looked at it, she thought she should feel something. Obviously, these people had some connection to her. But she didn’t feel anything but numb. “Who are they?” she asked.
“That’s my brother and his wife,” her papa said.
“You have a brother?” she asked, surprised.
“He was killed a long time ago,” her mama said softly. “So was his wife.”
Devra stared closely at the picture, at the little baby in the frilly white dress with a head full of tight yellow curls. “Is that me?”
Her mother’s eyes closed as pain filled her face. “Yes,” she said softly, so softly Devra almost didn’t hear her. She stared at the baby a moment longer, awed by the happy smile and chubby little legs. Then she perused the faces of her real mother and father. They looked like such nice people. They looked as if they loved her. They looked as if
they
would have fought for her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t my parents? Why didn’t you give me the chance, give them the chance to—” She’d meant for the words to come out strong, demanding, insistent, giving them no room to back down or retreat, but at the last moment, her throat tightened and tears filled her eyes.
As they cleared, she focused on the boy in the picture. Something quivered inside her. “Who is the boy?” she asked, unable to keep the tremor out of her voice. Because she knew, deep down, she knew who the boy was.