The fight had left her. She sagged in her seat, turning morosely toward the window.
“Why do I know the shack, David? I keep picturing that damn shack and Meagan Stokes,” she whispered after a moment. “Why can I smell gardenias, plain as day? Little girl sitting in the corner. Little girl suddenly getting a chance and bolting for the door. Running away through thick, brambly underbrush. But she won't run fast enough. I know. I know.”
David was quiet for a moment. “Maybe Larry Digger steered us wrong. He was the one who made the big leap that you were Russell Lee Holmes's daughter. The rest of us merrily followed him into the sea like a pack of lemmings.”
“But I can see—”
“Can you, Melanie? Remember what Quincy said. He had a picture of Russell Lee's shack in front of him and he told you that you were wrong, that you
were not
picturing Russell Lee's hut. At the time we both just ignored that. Maybe we shouldn't have.”
“But then, how come I can picture Meagan and Russell Lee Holmes?”
“There's always the power of suggestion. You never knew where you came from, a whole part of you is blank and probably hungry. Then suddenly a man appears and gives you a morsel of fact. You know what Meagan looks like, Mel, her picture has hung in your house for twenty years. Maybe once you even looked up Russell Lee Holmes. His name wasn't completely new to you.”
“No,” she admitted. “I remembered having heard it before.”
“So the seeds were sown deep in your subconscious. And when Larry Digger appeared, your impressionable mind took over. Turned his snack into a five-course meal, adding all sorts of details to round it out. But of course you couldn't get it all right.”
Slowly Melanie nodded. Larry Digger had appeared so out of the blue and had made such a big impression…
She was rubbing her temple. “If that's true, David, why did the scent of gardenias work? You were the one who told me that scent would trigger memory. If it was all a fantasy, why would it be triggered by a scent?”
“Let's back up,” he announced curtly. “What do we know? Someone murdered Meagan Stokes, and it was not Russell Lee Holmes.”
Melanie nodded.
“Your mother and brother didn't do it because they seem to have an alibi and they have been as destroyed by it as anyone.”
“Okay.”
“But your father may have been involved. We know he needed the money. And your godfather probably helped him.”
“To approach Russell Lee.”
“Exactly. So we know Meagan was killed for money, but they botched the ‘copycat' crime, so to speak. Thus they went to a backup plan, approaching Russell Lee to confess and get them off the hook. Now, Russell Lee did confess to the murder, so he must have been promised something.”
Melanie hesitated. “The blood on the fabric. Maybe Russell Lee is alive. Maybe that's what he was promised. He could be the one pulling all the strings, messing with everyone.”
“No,” David said forcefully. “I don't buy it. The man was executed in front of witnesses. Even if the state coroner had been bribed to pronounce him dead when he was really still alive, his hands and feet blew off. You can't fake that.”
“Unless it wasn't him in the death chamber.”
“And who could they have gotten instead? What kind of moron agrees to be fried in someone else's place? It's just too far-fetched. Besides” — David's voice picked up suddenly — “the blood on the fabric is
not
Russell Lee's. The DNA test said it was
your
genetic father's. So if you're not Russell Lee Holmes's daughter, then someone else is your father. Who the hell is your father?”
David became very excited. Melanie shook her head. Her head hurt. Dim pictures of a time and place that had been …Dizzy. White lights. She closed her eyes futilely and rested her forehead against the car window.
But David was obviously feeling better about things. “You were right, Mel!” he said excitedly. “Dammit, you were the one who was right all along.”
“I — I was?”
“Your family honestly loves you. Your family isn't violent. Your family is exactly who you thought they would be. That's why the pieces never fit. We've been trying to solve a murder that never happened. Shit!”
“What?”
David was no longer talking. He glanced over his shoulder, shot the car in reverse, and while she was still jerking forward, he put the pedal to the floor and squealed them onto the freeway.
“It's going to be okay,” he declared.
“My head hurts.”
“I know. Hang in there for me. I have one last place for you to see. And then, if my theory is correct, you'll know exactly who you are, and we'll finally get to the bottom of all this.”
“I
want
to get to the bottom of all this.”
“Of course you do, Melanie. Or should I say
Meagan
.”
"I CAN NEVER THINK of Texas without feeling like a failure,” Patricia Stokes was murmuring. “As a wife, a mother, a lover. When Harper told me we could move, I swore I would never come back. I never wanted to see Texas again. I blamed the whole state for breaking my heart.”
“I made a similar vow myself,” Ann Margaret said, “but more out of necessity, I'm afraid. I always figured Larry Digger would keep pecking away at things, or, if not him, then someone else. When I was a child, I used to think a mistake was simply a mistake. You make it, you pay for it, you move on. Now I think some mistakes are more like a pebble hitting a pond. They start as a small ripple, then get bigger and bigger, an exploding circle of mistakes, until they become a tidal wave and you simply drown.”
Patricia glanced at her. They'd been traveling since dawn, and up talking for most of the hours before then. There were things that had finally been said and many more things each was still struggling to grasp.
“How could you love a man like that?” Patricia had to ask.
Ann Margaret smiled. “Don't you think that's my line?”
Patricia winced. The more she learned about Harper, the less she had a right to judge others.
“When you're young,” Ann Margaret added gently, “you love who you were raised to love.”
“Our fathers.”
“Exactly.”
“And when we're old enough to know better—”
“It's too late to do anything about it.”
“I can't believe I didn't know,” Patricia sighed. They finally reached their destination, and Ann Margaret pulled into the grand old Georgian that had been Patricia and Harper's first home. The white pillars still stood tall, but the paint was peeling and looked mildewed on the top. This house had been so beautiful to Patricia as a young bride flushed with the heady rush of newly pledged love. It was dated now, one of those tired homes real estate agents labored to sell.
The house had been on the market for a year, she and Ann Margaret had learned that morning. The rooms were empty, the owners already off to Florida and retirement. The grass could use mowing, the flower bed needed weeding.
The house wasn't the way Patricia remembered it; its obvious age reminded her too much of her own.
“Oh, God, Annie, I failed my little girl.”
“We all did.”
“But I was her mother!”
“I know, that's why you adopted her again. Haven't you ever realized why you loved Melanie from the moment you saw her? Because a part of you knew, Patricia. Even though your mind had accepted that Meagan was dead, the mother in you knew.”
“What must she have been thinking these last few days? And then that scene with William. My poor baby, having to shoot a man she'd once cared for. How do you get over such a thing, even when you know you're right? It's too much. She shouldn't have had to go through any of that! We should've taken better care of her!”
“She's tougher than you think, Pat. Maybe she has more of her mother in her than you realize.”
“I don't want her to have to be strong. I want her to be safe. I want her
back
!” Patricia fisted her hands. She wanted to strike something, lash out again in hurt and rage. She could do nothing but calm herself and remain focused for her daughter's sake.
“So tell me,” she said after a minute, when she'd gotten her hands to relax. “We're here. I know what happened twenty-five years ago. Now what do we do?”
Ann Margaret shrugged. “If she's seeking her past, sooner or later she'll come here. And if Harper and Jamie are looking for her, sooner or later they'll try here as well. So now we wait.”
DAVID WAS FINALLY slowing the car. Melanie opened her eyes. She had fallen asleep almost the minute they reached the interstate, her mind hitting a wall and shutting down. Now, her limbs felt sluggish, her body heavy, as if a great weight were pressed against her. She could feel moisture on her face, sweat dampening her upper lip and brow. Her throat was parched.
She fumbled for a can of Coke on the floor by her feet, then took a long sip. The liquid didn't lighten the thick cloak of impending doom that had settled around her.
David quietly asked, “Does any of this look familiar? Take your time, Melanie. We'll go slow.”
They'd arrived at a crumbling group of houses built into a curving hillside. It might have been well kept once, but it looked neglected now. Tall weeds waved along the cracked asphalt roads. Small groves of trees that might have once been pleasant, shady retreats, were now tangled and overgrown with brambles.
When Melanie rolled down her window, she caught the unmistakable scent of gardenias.
Her mind lurched. She clutched her soda as if for balance.
“I've been here,” she murmured. “I've been here.”
“This is where your family used to live. Patricia, Harper, Brian, and Meagan Stokes.”
A minute later a tall white house emerged into view.
Big white columns. Grand Georgian style. A huge gnarled cherry tree on the front lawn, perfect for climbing.
Help me up, Daddy. Help me up
. A tall, overgrown hedge, once perfect for hide-and-seek.
You're never gonna find me, Brian. I'm smart
! A graceful curving drive once marked up for hopscotch.
Look at me, Mommy, look at me
!
Two women standing next to a red rental sedan in the driveway. Crisp gray hair. Golden, gleaming blond.
Mommy, Mommy, I'm going to grow up someday to look just like you.
Melanie turned toward David slowly. His eyes were concerned. And as she watched, he suddenly seemed to spin far away.
She was falling back in time, a tumbling down into a gaping black abyss …until she was in a dusty wooden shack and she was four years old.
“I want to go home,” she heard herself murmur. “Dada Jamie, why can't I go home?”
“It's okay, Melanie. You're here with me, David, and you're safe. You are Meagan Stokes. Your family never hurt you, they never even abandoned you. Your father just faked it for the million dollars. Insurance fraud. Very clever insurance fraud. It's Harper's MO.”
“You don't understand,” she said. “You don't know…”
In the distance, a car engine suddenly gunned and roared. Another car, coming up behind them fast. The two women turned and stared. David glanced in the rearview mirror. Melanie watched them all fatalistically. They didn't know. They couldn't understand. She had tried to run once too. She had learned…
“Shit,” David said. He stepped on the gas. Melanie looked at him sadly.
“You shouldn't run,” she declared softly. “It's only worse if you run.”
“Hang on, Melanie. Dammit, hang on.”
He roared down the hill toward a grove of trees. Melanie heard shouts. The women were running. Everyone was running, even she was running in her mind. She remembered it clearly now. The fourth day, the desperate bid for freedom. Just wanting to see her family again…
Not fast enough though. Never fast enough.
Ah, lass, can't you see that when you run away, you only hurt yourself
?
Melanie was snapped back by a savage curse. She glanced at David and saw sweat pop out on his face as he frantically cranked the wheel. A sharp turn had suddenly appeared in the road. And they were going so fast. Much too fast. When you run, you hurt only yourself.
David swearing again. Back tires squealing, trying to break loose. David fighting them, yanking at the steering wheel so hard, the muscles in his arms bulged. David praying, maybe, then at the last moment, glancing at her apologetically. David whispering her name.
She thought, I love him. And a heartbeat later, I'm so sorry.
The back tires won. The whole car snapped around. So much screaming. Oh, God, that was her voice, screaming.
You hurt only yourself when you run.
The other car hit them hard. Melanie had a brief impression of Harper's shocked face. Then the front of their car snapped over the top of the other and they sailed through the air.
David's hand found hers. She felt the warm, rough texture of his fingers entangling with her own.
Then the ground rushed up fast. The car landing. A new screech of metal. A scream cut short. Black.
JAMIE O'DONNELL'S BREATH was coming out hard as he frantically focused the binoculars on the street overlooking the Stokeses' old home. He felt like he'd been running a marathon since six that morning, but more likely he was too old for this, and now that the moment was at hand, it was too real. His hands were shaking, and he had not felt this afraid in a long, long time.
First he followed Brian to the airport because he was worried about the kid. Then, when he figured he must let Brian forge his own way like a real man, he bought a one-way ticket to Houston for himself.
He'd landed at Houston Intercontinental, a place that always brought back too many memories for him and few of them good. It had occurred to him for the first time that none of them ever came to Texas. They avoided the entire state as if it carried the plague.
That was a shame in some ways. For as many of the memories were bitter, a lot were sweet. Patricia. Texas nights. Watching baby Brian grow. The miraculous birth of Meagan. Christ, the first time she'd gripped his index finger, such a tiny, tight fist. His baby. Jamie O'Donnell's girl!