Criminal Intent (MIRA) (7 page)

“You
let me know if you need anything. How’s the little one doing?”

“Sophie’s fine. A little miffed, maybe, at being dragged clear across the country. But she’s a trouper.”

“Just like her mother. You get some sleep, now, you hear?”

She hung up the phone, not sure whether she felt better or worse. She’d prayed that Brogan would just give up, let her go. Out of sight, out of mind. She realized now that it was a foolish, naive hope. The information in that manila envelope could destroy his life. A man like Luke Brogan wouldn’t let that happen. He was tough, he was hard, he was relentless. And he would mow down anybody who stood in his way.

Remember why you’re doing it.
Uncle Bobby was right. She had to focus, had to keep reminding herself that she was doing this for her daughter. She’d forced herself to walk away from the life she and Mac had built together, forced herself to become a stranger in order to keep herself and her daughter alive.

It had taken some getting used to, but she hardly ever slipped up any more. She hardly ever reacted when she heard the name
Robin
spoken in a crowd. She’d come to think of herself as Annie, had spent hour after hour practicing writing her new name, until it became second nature to her. Repetition was the key. Train the hand as well as the mind. It was like remembering to write the new year on every check you wrote after December 31. After enough times, you didn’t have to stop and think about it anymore. It just came naturally.

She closed down the laptop, walked barefoot to the bedroom door and opened it silently. Sophie lay in a slender thread of moonlight, bedding bunched up at the foot of the bed, her lanky limbs flung out wildly in every direction. It was true, what she’d told Uncle Bobby. Her daughter was a trouper. When she’d decided that it was time for Sophie to know
the truth about why they’d run away and just how precarious their situation was, her daughter had tried hard to understand.

“Try to think of it like this,” Annie had told her. “Haven’t you ever had a secret fantasy about becoming somebody different? Living somebody else’s life? Changing everything about yourself and starting over again?”

Her daughter had shrugged. “I suppose. Everybody feels that way sometimes.”

“Well, here’s your chance.”

Sophie had considered her words for a very long time. “But if we become different people, will that mean Dad isn’t my father any more?”

Annie’s heart had ached for her almost-fifteen-year-old daughter. “Of course not! No matter what you call yourself, it doesn’t change who you really are inside. Daddy will always be your father.”

“But won’t he be mad at us if we change our name? Spinney was his dad’s name, and his dad’s before that.”

“Absolutely not.” Annie had threaded fingers with her daughter, clasping hands tightly. “Right now, your dad is so proud of what we’re doing that he’s watching over us, every step of the way.”

“You mean like a guardian angel?”

“Exactly.”

Sophie had pondered the situation a little longer. “Can I still be Sophie?”

“Absolutely. You’ll just be Sophie Kendall instead of Sophie Spinney.”

“Fine,” she’d said. And that had been that.

Now, with a wobbly smile, Annie blew her daughter a kiss and silently closed the bedroom door.

The couch she’d bought from Trader Moe was every bit as lumpy as she’d expected. Wrapping herself in a soft blanket, she
punched her pillow into a tight ball and closed her eyes. They’d made it this far because they were strong and smart. A great deal of time and planning had gone into shedding their old identities and building new ones that would hold up when examined in the harsh light of day. She’d used her savings to purchase the little tract house in Dearborn from one of Uncle Bobby’s companies, then secretly signed it back over to him and pocketed the cash. She suspected that what she’d done wasn’t strictly legal, but she hadn’t bothered to question it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that not all of Uncle Bobby’s business dealings operated on the right side of the law.

But she and Sophie were safe. That was the bottom line. And tomorrow they would begin, brick by brick, to build their new life.

I
t
took three cups of morning coffee to work up her courage.

The day was going to be a hot one; already the thermometer registered eighty in the shade. She didn’t want to do this, but she’d promised, and the longer she put it off, the more difficult it would be. She might as well get it over with. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Like swallowing awful-tasting medicine, sometimes the anticipation was worse than the reality.

The phone rang four times before Bill Wyatt answered. “Daddy?” Annie said. “I just wanted to let you know that we got here in one piece.”

In the background, she could hear the murmur of voices. “Just a minute,” he said, setting down the phone with a dull thud. After a moment or two, he picked it back up. “Damn TV,” he said. “Why haven’t you called? I was starting to think something happened to you.”

Why was it that every word out of his mouth always sounded like criticism? Maybe she was just being too sensitive. As a child, she’d been constantly reminded that she was too much like her mother, the drama queen of Atchawalla. “I told you it might be a couple of days,” she said.

“And I’m not supposed to worry? I don’t know how to get in
touch with you. You’re not even using your own name. Something could happen to you, and they’d never find me to notify me. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

Powerless, she imagined. And if there was one thing Bill Wyatt didn’t like, it was to feel powerless.
Relax,
she told herself.
Don’t let him get to you.

But somehow, he always got to her. “I’m sorry, Dad,” she said. “It’s just been so hectic. When we got here, we didn’t even have a bed to sleep in. I had to go out and buy furniture.”

“Can you afford that?”

She wondered why he was asking, since she doubted he was about to offer financial assistance. Not that she would have accepted it if he had. “I bought secondhand,” she said. Then, with forced enthusiasm, she added, “How’s Lottie?”

Lottie Trent was a perky blond widow he’d met at a bingo game at the VFW hall eight months earlier. Annie couldn’t imagine her father, with his ramrod-straight posture and steelgray military haircut, playing bingo. But he swore that was where he and Lottie had met. A handsome if slightly intimidating man at seventy-one, Bill Wyatt maintained a trim figure and was still in possession of both the hair and the teeth that nature had bestowed upon him. That made the ex-marine a highly coveted commodity among the senior set, where single women outnumbered single men two to one. To Annie’s amusement and his chagrin, her dad was the darling of all the twittering, gray-haired widows in his retirement complex.

“Lottie’s fine. She went to Tallahassee for a few days to visit her daughter. She’s flying back tonight. Monday, we’re leaving on a Caribbean cruise.”

“Wow.” His romance with Lottie must be serious. None of Dad’s previous lady friends had managed to convince him to set foot on the deck of a cruise ship. She tried to picture him in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, but the image her mind conjured
up was unthinkable. For as long as she could remember, Bill Wyatt had worn pressed khakis and dress shirts, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

“Lottie and her husband used to go all the time,” he grumbled. “She claims I’ll love it. Seven days of sun and fun. San Juan, St. Thomas, Barbados, Aruba. Everything for one price. Meals, tips, the whole enchilada.” He snorted. “I’ll probably go stir-crazy after the first day.”

“Come on, Dad, it sounds great.”

“We’ll see. So you still don’t intend to tell me where you are.” He paused meaningfully. “Or who you are.”

Her gut twisted at the disapproval she heard in his voice. “I can’t, Dad. You know why. I don’t want to put you in danger.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard! I don’t understand any of this! If you didn’t do anything wrong, why did you uproot yourself and Sophie and go into hiding? You’re living like fugitives, for Christ’s sake!”

In Bill Wyatt’s book, running away from trouble was the coward’s way out. He believed in facing it, no matter what the outcome. In his opinion, which he voiced with maddening frequency, she should have stayed and held her ground against any and all enemies.

“We’ve been over this before,” she said with rapidly waning patience. “I had good reason for leaving Mississippi the way I did. Do you really think I’d live this way if I had any choice? Looking over my shoulder at every turn?”

“There’s always a choice. You could have gone to the authorities if you really believed you were in danger.”

Did she hear just the slightest emphasis on the word
believed?
Did her own father think she was nothing more than some hysterical housewife who’d imagined this whole scenario? Aghast, she reminded herself that he didn’t know any of the details. He didn’t know the truth about what had happened
to Mac. He didn’t know about Luke Brogan or his older brother Marcus, the most powerful man in Atchawalla County. Her father only knew that she’d somehow gotten into trouble and had run for her life. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t his fault, that his values weren’t the same as hers, that his military training was to blame for his unyielding attitude.

But in the end, it all boiled down to one simple truth. In his eyes, she was a failure, and no matter what she did, she would never win his approval.

Wearily, she said, “Dad, I have to go now. I have a million things to do. I’ll call you soon.”

“Damn it, Robin, I’m telling you this for your own good. Running’s not the answer. No matter what you’re running from, sooner or later it’ll catch up to you.”

“I’ll try to remember that, Dad. Enjoy your cruise. Give my love to Lottie.”

She hung up the phone, her body trembling with a familiar mixture of pain and anger. How many years had she spent trying to win her father’s love? As a child, she’d worshiped him, but he’d never noticed, never acknowledged his little girl’s need to be loved. His treatment of her had been cold, hypercritical, dismissive. Bill Wyatt had wanted a son, and he’d made no bones about the fact. He’d never forgiven her for being a girl, had never forgiven her mother for being unable to have more children. As an adult, Annie had vowed to move forward with her life, to bury the ache she carried inside her and to stop looking back. But she’d never quite been able to. In spite of the strain between them, he was still her dad, and some deeply buried part of her still held onto the fantasy that with her mother gone, the two of them would become each other’s mainstay.

It was a silly, childish dream, one better discarded than nurtured. Bill Wyatt was who he was, and he was too old and too stubborn to change.

She
worked off some of her frustration unpacking. Because they’d moved so frequently, she and Sophie had learned to travel light. Even so, they owned as much junk as they could possibly squeeze into her Volvo wagon. They’d put away the clothes last night, but the living room was still piled with boxes. Annie picked one at random and began emptying it. The silverware, stored in its protective case, went directly into the kitchen drawer. But the glassware—plates, cups, bowls—all had to be washed before she could put them away. She carefully unwrapped each piece, discarded the crumpled newspaper, then loaded them into the dishwasher.

The job kept her busy until ten-thirty, when she switched on the dishwasher, poured a cup of hazelnut coffee into a ceramic mug, and went downstairs. Estelle was just climbing out of a blue-and-white Ford 4x4 pickup. The man behind the steering wheel eyed Annie through mirrored sunglasses, revved his engine a bit, and leaned to kiss Estelle goodbye. Then he wheeled the truck around, and with a roar of his engine and a squeal of his tires, he pulled out onto the highway and left her standing on the Twilight’s crumbling pavement.

“My boyfriend, Boomer,” Estelle explained with a roll of her eyes. “He’d sleep with that freaking truck if he could figure out how to fit it into the bedroom.”

What kind of mother, Annie wondered, would christen her child with a name like Boomer?

When Estelle went on to explain, “His real name’s Maurice,” giving the word the proper French pronunciation, she wondered for an instant if she’d spoken the thought out loud. “His dad started calling him Boomer when he was a baby,” Estelle said, “always falling down and bumping himself on the furniture. It just sort of stuck. And with a name like Maurice, Boomer seemed the lesser of two evils.”

Maurice Chevalier notwithstanding, Annie was with her all the
way. “Thanks for coming in early,” she said. “I know it makes a long day for you.”

“No prob. I’m past the tired stage. I have so much energy these days that sometimes I forget I’m pregnant.”

They spent the next ninety minutes going over details of the video rental operation. Annie familiarized herself with the day-to-day operations and took a quick look at the books, which she intended to go over in more detail later. Estelle seemed smart and capable, and Annie decided she definitely needed to give the girl a raise. Estelle was basically running the entire operation, with a minimum of part-time help, for a wage so low it was embarrassing.

At noon, Estelle opened the shop for business, and Annie went back upstairs. When she walked into the apartment, Sophie was standing at the refrigerator, her hair uncombed, dressed in the ubiquitous black T-shirt over navy running shorts. Staring balefully at all that gleaming white emptiness, Sophie announced, “I’m starving, and there’s nothing to eat.”

“We can fix that,” Annie said. “Go comb your hair and put on a pair of shoes. We’re going shopping.”

Fifteen hundred miles away, Sheriff Luke Brogan sat on a hard wooden bench in a small riverside park and watched his granddaughter, Annabel, chase a female mallard across the lawn. It had been a dry summer so far, and the blistering sun had done significant damage to any greenery that wasn’t protected by a sprinkler system. The duck waddled comically across the withered grass, and Annabel’s delighted laughter floated back to him. Behind the little girl, past the small pleasure craft that crowded the bank, a massive oil barge slowly worked its way upriver. “You stay away from the riverbank, you hear?” he shouted to Annabel.

She paused, turned that exquisite little blond head of hers, and gave him a heart-melting smile. “I will, Grampa.”

Beside
him on the bench, Louis Farley popped open the briefcase that rested on his lap and took out a slender blue binder. “Here’s your report.”

Brogan took the binder without comment. Farley had come highly recommended. But with his manicured nails, his prissy suit and his rimless glasses, Louis Farley looked more like some pansy-ass attorney than a private investigator. Still, Brogan knew that the tough-guy P.I. image made famous by Hollywood was little more than a fictional invention. Nowadays, most investigative work was done by computer. A fifteen-year-old could do the job. In spite of Farley’s sissified ways, Brogan had been assured that if a missing person could be located, he was the man to do it.

“I’m afraid there isn’t much to report so far,” Farley said.

Weighing the slim document in his hand, Brogan said, “How about you give me the fifty-cent version?”

“Of course. I was able to trace Robin Spinney as far as Detroit. Not surprising, since she was born there.”

Brogan’s stomach muscles contracted. “And?”

“After that, I lost her.” Farley closed the briefcase with a snap and set it on the ground beside his feet. “Shortly after she left town, she withdrew her savings from Atchawalla First Federal and purchased a house in the Detroit area. A two-bedroom ranch in Dearborn, about ten miles outside the city. She paid cash for it. But she never lived there.”

An insect buzzed past Brogan’s head, and he swatted at it. “Who does live there?”

“Nobody. The house is sitting vacant. She purchased it and then disappeared.”

Annabel was still chasing the mallard, both of them making erratic circles in the grass. “She must’ve sold it,” Brogan said. “Liquefied her assets.”

“If she did, there’s no record of it. Her name is still on the deed. It’s a matter of public record. Unfortunately, that’s where
the trail ends. Since she bought the house, none of her bank accounts or her credit cards have seen any activity. She hasn’t been employed anywhere, at least not under her own social security number. She hasn’t registered an automobile, and her daughter hasn’t been enrolled in any Detroit-area schools. I checked every high school within a thirty-mile radius and showed the girl’s picture around. Nobody knew her. Robin Spinney simply bought that little tract house in Michigan and then vanished.”

Which meant that she’d gone into deep hiding. She knew he was after her. “What about her family? They still in Detroit?”

“Her mother’s dead. Cancer, four years ago. Her father’s still alive. He lives in one of those retirement communities in Florida.”

“You check him out?”

“I spent a week down there, shadowing his moves, surveilling his condo. No sign of Spinney, and no suspicious moves on the part of Wyatt.” Farley pursed his mouth in a brief gesture of distaste. “Not unless you count bingo as suspicious.”

“Somebody’s helping her,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe not her father, but somebody.”

“It looks that way.”

“I want you to keep looking. Dig a little deeper on her old man. Find out who she still has in the Detroit area. When you find out who’s helping her, you’ll find her.”

“You do realize,” Farley said amiably, “that she could be anywhere? It’s a big country. She could have headed to Canada or Mexico. Most likely, she’s living under an assumed name. She could even be dead.”

“She’s not dead. Keep looking.”

Farley shrugged and leaned to pick up his briefcase. “It’s your nickel.”

“That’s right. It’s my nickel. Two people don’t just vanish into
thin air. Keep on looking until either you find her or I tell you to stop.”

After Farley had gone, Brogan sat there for a long time, watching Annabel, watching the river traffic, wondering how it was that a single instant, a single mistake, could forever alter a man’s life and start him on a steady descent into his own personal hell.