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She’d been the passenger, not the driver, back then. Her boyfriend, Jeremy Salinas, was a punk kid who’d been sent to Sarasota Falls to live with his aunt. The idea had been that maybe a small town would be good for him.
That hadn’t quite worked out.
Rachel hadn’t pulled the trigger, but according to the witness, she’d been the distraction.
Every bit as guilty.
Watching Rachel’s every move—no way was she escaping this time—he radioed in a 10-29 so his men would know where he was and what he was doing, then, not even giving her an inch, he motioned for her to pull over.
If she tried to lose him, he’d use his car as a weapon.
He cared that much.
She carefully coasted to a stop on the shoulder, apparently pretending to be nothing other than a law-abiding citizen.
How could Rachel seem this safe or look even remotely carefree? Obviously, she didn’t recognize him. Well, he’d enjoy nothing more than shoving a photo of his partner in her face. He’d make sure it was an eight-by-twelve complete with Max’s wife and kids. He intended to tattoo their likenesses on Rachel’s brain. He wanted to remind her of what she’d destroyed. She hadn’t just killed a cop, she’d helped erase a husband, son, brother...
* * *
HEATHER GRAVES DIDN’T feel at home in Sarasota Falls, New Mexico, and doubted she ever would. Already she missed her job working as a dental assistant in Phoenix.
She’d been safe there.
She wasn’t so sure she was safe here.
Friday, two full weeks ago, had been her last day of work. She’d spent the next few days packing up her parents’ house—she’d let it go too long, even paying rent on a home with no occupants—keeping only what had memories for her, like a train clock that had a different whistle for every hour. No matter where they lived, she’d grown up with the sound.
When she’d finished, she gave the house keys to the rental company and her own apartment key to her best friend, Sabrina. Sabrina thought Heather was foolish. Heather figured Sabrina was right.
Heather had been in Sarasota Falls ever since, renting a room at Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, a quaint older house that came with a happy, somewhat mothering proprietress.
Yes, she was foolish, but she also liked to think of herself as brave. According to the lawyer who’d reviewed her parents’ will with her, she now owned a farmhouse in this town, one with the same tenant for the last twenty-five years.
Her parents had acquired the farm and acres around it when she was a little over one year old. Yet, to her memory, neither they nor she had ever stepped foot in Sarasota Falls. The lawyer had provided the name of the local company that handled collecting the rent as well as maintaining its upkeep. Apart from her parents’ basic details, the leasing office wasn’t much help.
Heather kept trying every avenue, though, because she had a lot of questions and knew of very few people who might have the answers.
She’d also gone out to the farmhouse and knocked on the door. No one answered. It looked empty; it felt unloved. It didn’t look like the type of house her city-loving parents would invest in. There was too much land, the location was too remote.
Bill and Melanie Graves had gone up in a helicopter to tour the Pacific coastline to celebrate their twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. She and her dad had planned it. Mom had said it was her dream. Dad’s dream, too, then.
Thirty minutes later, a sudden electrical storm had hit. No one on board survived.
In the space of minutes, she’d lost the only people who loved her, who applauded her, who thought she was the best thing that had ever happened. Period.
Everything was passed down to her: their belongings, both their cars and their secrets.
It was the secrets that had inspired the move, not the rental house. She might have been able to wrap her mind around them having property she didn’t know about. Might being the operative word. She’d have still investigated and tried to figure out why.
But soon after visiting the lawyer’s office, armed with their death certificates, she’d gone to her parents’ bank to close their account and was asked if she was aware that her parents also had a safe-deposit box.
No, she hadn’t been aware.
The steel drawer was long, hard and half-full. It contained the deed to the property in Sarasota Falls, her dad’s discharge papers as well as a bible, two birth certificates, a marriage license and two old drivers’ licenses.
She doubted the cop, who’d suddenly appeared behind her, would take her angst over family issues as a good excuse for her meandering style of driving. Surely, though, he had better things to do than pull her over for a warning.
She couldn’t shake the memory of standing in the bank’s vault, the safe-deposit box open in front of her, and finding the identification: the photos on the drivers’ licenses were of her parents.
The photos, not the names.
CHAPTER TWO (#ua2a5596a-5edb-5c72-be84-cd057c3d561a)
THE COUNTRYSIDE HEATHER was driving past was stunning—it was mostly grazing land, and a few small homes with long driveways nestled between trees with their leaves still green but turning yellow, orange and brown as the October weather took control. She tried to focus on the giant pines because what wasn’t stunning was the cop who was beside her, staring. His siren was screeching and he was frantically motioning to the side of the road.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she murmured as she pulled over. She hadn’t been speeding that much. Her tags were current and her cell phone was in her purse, not plastered against her ear or in her hands while she texted.
Rolling down her window, Heather waited while the cop did his thing. Boy, he looked stoic sitting back there in his chief-of-police SUV. The siren hadn’t been enough for this officer, as his rapid do-or-die gestures actually had Heather considering her gas pedal and showing him what speeding really looked like.
That would have been a mistake.
What was taking him so long? She wanted to drive by the rental property, see if she could meet the tenant and visit a local farm that advertised a country store, a petting zoo and more. Then she would return to Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, enjoy a hot bath and relax. Maybe even visit with Bianca a bit and discreetly ask about her parents.
This cop—or chief of police, as his vehicle indicated—was slow. Although Heather knew she should stay in the car, this wasn’t Phoenix, it was Sarasota Falls, so she pushed open the door. In a flash, the cop was out of his vehicle and striding toward her. He made it to her car in seconds, kicked her door shut before she could step out and looked through her open window.
Okay, time to get worried.
She swallowed, trying to push back the fear threatening to surface. “What’s the problem, Officer?” She twisted, trying to get a good look at the man who stood next to her car.
“Put both hands on the steering wheel.”
“What?”
“Both hands on the steering wheel. Now.”
“But—but, why? What’s going on?”
“Don’t. Make. Me. Repeat. Myself.”
She put her hands on the steering wheel while the fear came, roiled in her stomach. This cop had an agenda and for some reason she was it.
Not where she wanted to be. Somehow, she had to make him realize he’d made a mistake, a serious mistake. “Look,” she sputtered, “I have to tell you, you’re really scaring me. I have my driver’s license and proof of insurance. Write me the ticket if you have to, but stop acting like this.”
In the distance came a siren, its sound gradually getting louder. Then came another and still another. In the blink of an eye, three squad cars—their wheels screeching—surrounded her vehicle.
Clearly, they thought she was public enemy number one instead of a random speeder. Two other cars slowly drove by, one a family and the other a lone female. From the expressions on their faces, they offered no pity, only curiosity and accusation.
“Open your door slowly and keep your hands where I can see them at all times.” The cop’s voice didn’t sound any friendlier now that he had backup.
“I will open the door. I don’t have a weapon.” Her teeth started to chatter, even though it wasn’t cold. Her mind, ever logical, grasped at any possible reason for the cop’s behavior.
She heard more doors opening, the sound of voices, all coming her way, and her fear escalated.
Apparently, she wasn’t moving fast enough. He jerked open the door for her, and she threw her purse out, not caring where it landed. “I can do it!”
But he had control of the door and was partially in the way. Instead of a graceful exit, she spilled awkwardly from the car—maybe what he intended. Her knees hit the road first. Her jeans offered little protection. Her palms hit hot, rough pavement, and bits of rocks pressed against tender skin. Her purse was right in front of her. She started to reach for it.
Simultaneously, she heard the chief of police drawing his gun and his steely warning. “Keep your hands where I can see them at all times.”
Her purse stayed where it was, and the cop pushed her closer to the hot pavement while yanking her hands behind her back and handcuffing her. Another cop—this one younger, a kid really, but looking just as stoic—went for her purse, while another read her rights to her. Oddly, all she wanted to do was talk, tell them the truth—that she’d done nothing. Instead, her throat closed and she swallowed.
“Do you understand?” the cop snapped.
She swallowed again and managed to answer. “I understand my rights, yes, but I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”
“Tom, she wasn’t going for a gun,” the cop who’d picked up her purse said. He looked no-nonsense and had a military haircut. “At least there’s not one among her things, and her license says Heather Marie Graves.”
“Considering who she hangs around with, getting a fake ID is as easy as ordering a pizza,” the chief replied.
She lost her breath... Her parents had fake ID. Is that who he’d meant? She’d thought maybe they had been in witness protection, but surely her parents’ identification would have been destroyed. They wouldn’t have been so careless as to keep it. No way could her parents have been involved in something criminal, not a chance.
“Tom, her vehicle’s clean,” said an officer.
Clean? Of course it was clean. She’d washed it just yesterday. Tom? His name was Tom? Okay, maybe it fit him. Tom was the kind of name that belonged to a guy grilling steaks in the backyard, keeping an eye on the neighborhood, right? A good cop? Make that chief of police. Well, this one might look like a serve-and-protect type, but he acted a little too much like a fight-to-the-death title contender.
Tom straightened, a line of sweat dotting his forehead.
“Sir, I haven’t done anything wrong,” Heather protested, no longer looking at him but now focusing on the ground at her feet because she was afraid to look up, especially at the gun being aimed at her. “I’m a dental assistant. I just moved to Sarasota Falls, and I’m trying to find work. And, of course, I don’t have a gun.”
In one of the police cars, the radio crackled. An officer she couldn’t see yelled, “The plates are registered to Heather Graves, age twenty-seven, of Phoenix, Arizona.”
“I didn’t want to get a New Mexico license until I was sure I could find a job here,” Heather offered.
“Why did you come back here?” Tom snapped.
“I’ve never been here before, not that I remember.” Maybe she’d been born here, maybe some woman she’d passed in town today had carried Heather in her womb, but other than that, until her parents’ death, Sarasota Falls hadn’t existed.
“Right.” None too gently he hauled her to her feet and turned her to face her car. With her hands cuffed behind her, she couldn’t rub at her sore knees or even brush away the dust and dirt of the roadway clinging to her clothes. A female officer stepped forward and quickly patted her down.
“Nothing,” the female told the others.
“I told you. I’m a dental assistant. I don’t need a gun. What’s go—”
They weren’t listening to her. Instead, the woman cop frowned at Tom. “You’re going to have to fill out a report for drawing your weapon, Chief Riley.”
“You saw everything, right?”
Heather noted the slight trembling of the chief’s hand.
The one still holding the gun.
“Her purse. When she went for it, I thought...” He looked at Heather and his expression shut down, unreadable. Silently, he stepped back.
“You’ll be all right taking her in?” the cop who’d read her rights asked.
The chief nodded.
“Let’s roll,” the female officer said.
Her mind screamed protests that her mouth didn’t utter. She was so numb that she blindly allowed the chief to escort her into the back seat of the SUV, no questions asked.
She witnessed the female officer attach an orange sticker to the back window of her car.
She could consider it impounded.
All this was for real.
Chief Riley climbed behind the steering wheel and quickly radioed in a code she didn’t know and then reported both the current time and the mileage on his vehicle.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Ex-excuse me,” she said softly. Chief Riley glanced in his rearview mirror.
Anger came off of him in waves. Wait. Innocent until proven guilty, right? The cops were the good guys, right?
What if they weren’t cops?
Yeah, right, only Heather Graves could have such a ridiculous thought after one SUV and three squad cars surrounded her little hatchback.
“I—I...” Words fought to form but didn’t leave her throat in even the semblance of a sentence.
Come to think of it, every time she had a nightmare, she lost the power of speech.
Since this was the biggest nightmare of all, she’d most likely lose a lot more before the ordeal was finished.
* * *
FINALLY.
Tom was almost afraid to take his eyes away from the rearview mirror. She might disappear. She’d done it before, leaving the Sarasota Falls Police Department frustrated and amazed.
He’d taken it the hardest. The chief of police back then had finally taken him aside and said, “If you intend to keep your job, focus on what you can change and leave what you can’t for another day. Otherwise, you won’t get anything done.”
Good advice. If he’d taken it, he might still be married. Instead, he’d spent hours driving the back roads, stopping by Rachel Ramsey’s friends’ houses.
They were all convinced of her innocence. Not him. He continued to drive, even though he knew it was a long shot.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she protested again, eyes wide open, with a little shimmer. Too bad. Tears really didn’t work on him anymore. Still, she continued to amaze him. He’d expected her to be mad, resist arrest, pretend surprise. The only thing she’d done was cooperate and try to get his attention.
