Kitabı oku: «Dead Ringer»

Chapter Two

When the phone rang at the Sundown Stallion Station late that afternoon, Ledger McGraw took the call since both his brothers were gone from the ranch and his father was resting upstairs. They had been forced to get an unlisted number after all the media coverage. After twenty-five years, there’d finally been a break in the McGraw twins kidnapping case.

“I need to talk to Travers,” Jim Waters said without preamble. “Tell him it is of utmost importance.”

Ledger groaned inwardly since he knew his father had almost fired the family attorney recently. “He’s resting.” Travers McGraw, sixty, had suffered a heart attack a few months ago. He hadn’t been well before that. At the time, they hadn’t known what was making him so sick. His family had assumed it was the stress of losing his two youngest children to kidnappers twenty-five years before and his determination to find them. His father was convinced that they were still alive.

“Do you really think I would be calling if it wasn’t urgent?” Waters demanded. The fiftysomething attorney had been like one of the family almost from the beginning—until a few months ago, when he and Travers had gotten into a disagreement.

“Jim, if this is about legal business—”

The attorney swore. “It’s about the kidnapping. You might recall that we originally used my number to screen the calls about the twins. Well, I am apparently still on the list. I was contacted.” He paused, no doubt for effect. “I have reason to believe that Oakley has been found.”

“Found?” Ledger asked, his heart in his throat. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the crime had come and gone, but after their father had hired a true-crime writer to investigate and write a book about it, new evidence had turned up.

That new evidence had led them all to believe that his father’s gut instinct was right. The twins were alive—and probably adopted out to good families, though illegally. The McGraw twins had been just six months old when they were stolen from their cribs. The ransom money had never been spent and had only recently turned up—with the body of one of the kidnappers. That left whoever had helped him take the babies still at large.

Ledger was thankful that he’d been the one to answer the phone. His father didn’t need this kind of aggravation. “All those calls are now being vetted by the sheriff’s department. I suggest you have this person contact Sheriff McCall Crawford. If she thinks—”

“He has the stuffed toy horse,” Waters interrupted. “I’ve seen it. It’s Oakley’s.”

Ledger felt a shock wave move through him. The stuffed toy horse was a critical piece of information that hadn’t originally been released to the public. Was it possible his little brother really had turned up? “Are you sure? There must have been thousands of those produced.”

“Not with a certain ribbon tied around its neck.” The information about the missing stuffed animal was recently released to the press—sans anything about the ribbon and other things about this specific toy. “Oakley’s stuffed horse had a black saddle and a small tear where the stitching had been missed when it was made, right?”

He nodded to himself before saying, “You say you’ve seen it?” It was that small detail that no one would know unless they had Oakley’s horse, which had been taken out of his crib along with him that night twenty-five years ago. “Have you met him?”

“I have. He sent me a photo of the stuffed horse. When I recognized it, I drove down to talk to him. Ledger, he swears he’s had the stuffed horse since he was a baby.”

Letting out a breath, he dropped into a nearby chair. A few months ago they’d learned that the babies might have been left with a member of the Whitehorse Sewing Circle, a group of older women quilters who placed unwanted babies with families desperate for a child. The quilting group had been operating illegally for decades.

Not that the twins had been unwanted. But the kidnapper had been led to believe that was the case. The hope had been that the babies had been well taken care of and that they were still alive, the theory being that they had no idea they’d been kidnapped. His father had made the decision to release more information about what had been taken along with the babies in the hopes that the twins would see it and come forward.

And now it had happened.

“What’s his name?” Ledger asked as he gave himself a few minutes to take this all in and decide what to do. He didn’t want to bother his father with this unless he was sure it wasn’t a hoax.

“He goes by Vance Elliot. He’s in Whitehorse. He wants to see your father.”

* * *

“ABBY DOESN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING,” Wade said as he walked past his father straight into the kitchen to pull a can of beer out of the refrigerator.

He popped the top, took a long swig and turned to find his father standing in the kitchen doorway frowning at him.

“I’ll pay you back,” he said, thinking the look was because he was drinking his old man’s beer.

“What do you mean she doesn’t remember anything?”

“I was skeptical at first, too,” he said, drawing out a chair and spinning it around so he could straddle it backward at the table. “But when I told her she fell off a ladder in the garage, she bought it. She couldn’t remember why she would have been on a ladder in the garage. I told her she was going to get jars to put up some peach jam.”

Huck Pierce wagged his head. “Where in the hell would she get peaches this time of year?”

“How should I know? It doesn’t matter. She’s not putting up any jam. Nor is she saying a word about anything.”

“You are one lucky son of a gun, then,” Huck said.

“Don’t I know it? So everything is cool, right?”

“Seems so. But I want you to stay by your wife’s side. Keep everything as normal as possible. Stick to your story. If she starts to remember...” He shrugged. “We’ll deal with it if we have to.”

Wade downed the rest of his beer, needing it even though he was technically on duty at the sheriff’s department. He didn’t want his father to see how relieved he was. Or how worried about what would happen if Abby remembered what had really happened to her.

“Great, so I get to hang out at the hospital until my shift starts. That place gives me the creeps.”

“You’re the one who screwed everything up. You knew what was at stake,” his father said angrily.

“Exactly.” Wade knew he couldn’t win in an argument with his father, but that didn’t stop him. “So what was I supposed to do when she confronted me? I tried to reason with her, but you know how she is. She was threatening to call the sheriff. Or go running to her old boyfriend Ledger McGraw. I didn’t have a choice but to try to stop her.”

“What you’re saying is that you can’t handle your wife. At least you don’t have some snot-nosed mouthy kid like I did.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, crushing the beer can in his hand. “I’ve heard all about how hard it was raising me.” He reached in the refrigerator for another beer, knowing he shouldn’t, but needing the buzz badly.

Before he could pull one out, his father slammed the refrigerator door, almost crushing his hand. “Get some gum. You can’t have beer on your breath when you go back to the hospital, let alone come to work later. Remember, you’re the worried husband, you damned fool.”

* * *

LEDGER HAD JUST hung up with the attorney when he got the call from his friend who worked at the hospital.

“I shouldn’t be calling you, but thought you’d want to know,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Abby was brought in.”

“That son of a—”

“He swears she fell off a ladder.”

“Sure she did. I’ll be right there. Is Wade—”

“He just left to go work his shift at the sheriff’s department. The doctor is keeping Abby overnight.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s pretty beat up, but she’s going to be fine.”

He breathed a sigh of relief as he hung up. When it rained it poured, he thought as he saw his father coming down the stairs toward him. Travers McGraw was still weak from his heart attack, but it was the systematic poisoning that had really almost killed him. Fortunately, his would-be killer was now behind bars awaiting trial.

But realizing that his second wife was trying to kill him had taken a toll on his father. It was bad enough that his first wife, Ledger’s mother, was in a mental hospital. After the twins were kidnapped, Marianne McGraw had a complete breakdown. For twenty-five years, it was believed that she and the ranch’s horse trainer, Nate Corwin, had been behind the kidnapping. Only recently had Nate’s name been cleared.

“I heard the phone,” Travers said now. He’d recovered, but was still weak. He’d lost too much weight. It would be a while until he was his old self. If ever.

That was why Ledger wasn’t sure how his father would take the news Waters had called with earlier—especially if it led to yet another disappointment. And yet Ledger couldn’t keep the attorney’s call from him. If there was even the slightest chance that this Vance Elliot was Oakley...

“You should sit down.”

His father didn’t argue as he moved to a chair and sat. He seemed to brace himself. “What’s happened?”

“Jim Waters called.”

Travers began to shake his head. “Now what?”

“He’s still apparently the contact person for the family on some of the old publicity,” Ledger said.

His father knew at once. “Oakley or Jesse Rose?”

“Oakley. Jim says the young man has the stuffed horse that was taken along with Oakley from his crib the night of the kidnapping. He says he’s seen the toy and that it is definitely Oakley’s.”

His father’s eyes filled to overflowing. “Thank God. I knew they were alive. I’ve...felt it all these years.”

“Dad, this Vance Elliot might not be Oakley. We have to keep that in mind.”

“He has Oakley’s stuffed horse.”

“But we don’t know how he got it or if it was with Oakley when he was given to the woman at the Whitehorse Sewing Circle,” Ledger reminded him.

“When can I see him?” his father asked, getting to his feet.

“He’s in town. Waters wants to bring him over this evening. I said it would be fine. I hope that was all right. If it goes well, I thought you might want him to stay for dinner. I can tell the cook.” Their cook for as far back as Ledger could remember had recently been killed. They’d been through several cooks since then. He couldn’t remember the name of the latest one right now and felt bad about it. “Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it really is Oakley.”

His father smiled and stepped closer to him to place a hand on his shoulder. “I am so blessed to have such good sons. Speaking of sons, where are Cull and Boone?”

“Cull and Nikki are checking into some of the adoptions through the Whitehorse Sewing Circle.” Nikki St. James was the crime writer who’d helped unlock some of the kidnapping mystery—and stolen Cull’s heart.

“I doubt the twins’ adoptions were recorded anywhere, and with the Cavanaugh woman dying not long after the twins were kidnapped... You haven’t heard anything yet?”

Ledger shook his head. “They said that clues to what happened to some of the babies were found stitched on their baby blankets. But the twins wouldn’t have quilted blankets made for them because of the circumstances.” Pearl Cavanaugh had been led to believe that the twins were in danger, so she would have made very private adoptions for Oakley and Jesse Rose.

“And Boone?”

“He went to check on that horse you were interested in, remember?”

Travers nodded, frowning. Loss of memory was part of the effects of arsenic poisoning. “Maybe I’ll just rest until dinner.”

Ledger watched his father go back up the stairs before he headed for his pickup and the hospital.

* * *

“YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE,” Abby said the moment she opened her eyes and saw Ledger standing at the end of her bed. Her heart had taken off like a wild stallion at just the sight of him. It always did. “Wade could come back at any time.”

Ledger had been her first love. He’d left an ache in her that she’d hoped would fade, if not eventually go away. But if anything, the ache had grown stronger. He’d broken her heart. It was why she’d married Wade. But ever since then, he’d been coming around, confusing her and making being married to Wade even harder. He seemed to think he had to save her from her husband.

It didn’t help that Ledger McGraw had breakfast on the mornings that she waitressed at the Whitehorse Café. She’d done nothing to encourage him, although Wade didn’t believe that.

Fortunately, Wade had only come down to the restaurant one time threatening to kill Ledger. Ledger had called him on it, saying they should step outside and finish it like men.

“Or do you only hit defenseless women?” Ledger had demanded of him.

Wade lost his temper and charged him. Ledger had stepped aside, nailing Wade on the back of his neck as he lumbered past. Abby had screamed as Wade slammed headfirst into a table. He’d missed two weeks’ work because of his neck and threatened to sue the McGraws for his pain and suffering.

She knew his neck wasn’t hurt that badly, but he’d milked it, telling everyone that Ledger had blindsided him.

Wade’s jealousy had gotten worse after that. Even when she’d reminded him again and again, “But you’re the one I married.”

“Only because you couldn’t have McGraw,” he would snap.

Ledger’s name was never spoken in their house—at least not by her. Wade blamed him for everything that was wrong with their marriage—especially the fact that she hadn’t given him a son.

They’d tried to get pregnant when they’d first married. Since he’d joined the sheriff’s department and changed, she’d gone back on the pill in secret, hating that she kept it from him. She told herself that when things changed back to what she thought of as normal, she would go off the pill again.

Now she couldn’t even remember what normal was anymore.

Ledger took a step toward her. He looked both worried and furious. It scared her that he and Wade might get into another altercation because of her.

“I didn’t come until I was sure Wade wasn’t here,” Ledger said as he came around the side of her bed. “When I heard, I had to see you. You fell off a ladder?”

She nodded even though it hurt her head to do so. “Clumsy.” She avoided his gaze because she knew he wouldn’t believe it any more than she did.

“What were you doing on a ladder?”

“Apparently I was getting down some canning jars to put up peach jam.”

Ledger looked at her hard. “Apparently? You don’t remember?”

“I seem to have lost the past twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, Abby.”

She could tell that he thought she was covering for Wade. It almost made her laugh since she’d covered for him enough times. This just wasn’t one of them. She really couldn’t remember anything.

Ledger started to reach for her hand, but must have thought better of it. She tucked her hand under the sheet so he wouldn’t be tempted again. She couldn’t have Wade walking in on that. It would be bad enough Ledger just being here.

“It was a stupid accident. I probably wasn’t paying attention. I’m fine.”

He made a face that said he didn’t believe it as he reached out to brush the dark hair back from her forehead.

She flinched at his touch and he quickly pulled back his fingers. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Did I hurt you?”

Abby shook her head. His touch had always sparked desire in her, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “My head hurts, is all.”

She looked toward the door, worried that Wade might stop by. When he’d left, she could tell that he hadn’t liked leaving her. Even though he was supposed to be on duty as a sheriff’s deputy, he could swing by if he was worried about her, especially since he was determined to take her home.

Ledger followed her gaze as if he knew what was making her so nervous. “I’ll go,” he said. “But if I find out that Wade had anything to do with this—”

“I fell off a ladder.” She knew it was a lie, and from the look in Ledger’s eyes, he did, too. But she had to at least try to convince him that Wade was innocent. This time. “That’s all it was.”

She met his gaze and felt her heart break as it always did. “Thank you for stopping by,” she said even though there was so much more she wanted to say to him. But she was Wade’s wife. As her mother always said, she’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it for better or worse.

Not that her mother didn’t always remind her that Ledger hadn’t wanted her.

“I’m here for you, Abby. If you ever need me...”

She felt tears burn her eyes. If only that had been true before she’d married Wade. “I can’t.” Her heart broke as she dragged her gaze away from his.

As if resigned, she watched out of the corner of her eye as he put on his Stetson, tipped it to her and walked out.

* * *

ATTORNEY JIM WATERS looked at the young man sitting in the passenger seat of his car as he drove toward the ranch later that evening. Vance Elliot. Here was Waters’s ticket back into the McGraws’ good graces.

He’d bet on the wrong horse, so to speak. Travers’s second wife, Patricia McGraw, had been a good bet at the time. Pretty, sexy, almost twenty years younger than her husband. She’d convinced him Travers wasn’t himself. That she needed a man she could count on. She’d let him believe that he might be living in that big house soon with her because Travers had some incurable ailment that only she and Travers knew about.

He’d bought into it hook, line and sinker. And why wouldn’t he? Travers had been sick—anyone could see that. Also the man had seemed distracted, often forgetful and vague as if he was losing his mind. He’d been convinced that Travers wasn’t long with this world and that Patricia would be taking over the ranch.

Little did he know that she was poisoning her husband.

As it turned out, Patricia was now behind bars awaiting trial. Since he had stupidly sided with her, things had gone downhill from there. He was hanging on to his job with Travers by the skin of his teeth.

But this was going to make it all right again, he told himself. He couldn’t let a paycheck like McGraw get away. His retainer alone would keep him nicely for years to come. He just needed to get Travers’s trust back. He saw a lot more legal work on the horizon for the McGraws. If this young man was Oakley, he would be back in the McGraw fold.

His cell phone rang. Patricia McGraw again. Travers’s young wife wouldn’t quit calling even though he’d told her he wasn’t going to help her, let alone defend her.

Nor did he need to hear any of her threats. Fortunately, no one believed anything she said. Since Travers McGraw was idolized in this county, people saw her as the gold digger who’d married him—and then systematically tried to kill him. She got no sympathy. In fact, he doubted she could get even a fair trial.

“I’m innocent, you bastard,” she’d screamed the last time he’d taken her call. “You did this. You framed me for this. Once I tell the sheriff—”

He’d laughed. “Like anyone will believe you.”

“I’ll take you down with me!”

He’d hung up and the next time his phone had rung it had been Vance Elliot.

Waters slowed to turn into the lane that led up to the main house. He shot the man next to him a glance. Vance looked more like a teenager than a twenty-five-year-old.

The man who might be Oakley stared at the house, a little openmouthed. Waters remembered the first time he’d driven out here and seen it. The house was impressive. So were the miles of white wooden fence, the expensive quarter horses in the pasture and the section after section of land that ran to the Little Rockies.

He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to learn that he was part of this even at his age—let alone twenty-five. If Vance Elliot really was the long-ago kidnapped McGraw twin, then he was one lucky son of a gun.

“You all right?” he asked Vance as they drove toward the house.

The man nodded. Waters tried to read him. He had to be scared to face Travers McGraw, not to mention his three older sons. But he didn’t look it. He looked determined.

Waters felt his stomach roil. This had better be real. If this wasn’t Oakley McGraw he was bringing to Travers...

He didn’t want to think about how badly this could go for him.