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Andy Thorensen nodded, his expression sympathetic. “Stay objective. That’s one of the first things they teach you in the police academy. I’d like to see one of those classroom cops stay objective when they find a kid’s blood splattered all over the sidewalk in front of her own house. It never gets any easier, does it?”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to,” Walker said. “If we get used to it, we’re as bad as they are.”
“Let me know if you need any help. We’re short-staffed, but I’ll see what I can do to free up some additional units,” Andy promised. “There’s going to be a hue and cry all over town until we close this one.”
Walker didn’t care about the headlines or the calls from the mayor’s office. He’d stay on it because that little girl deserved justice. He didn’t envy Andy’s need to balance justice with politics. He just respected his friend’s ability to take the heat while letting his men do the job they were paid to do.
“I’ll try not to leave you on the hot seat too long,” he promised.
“You can’t know how much I appreciate that,” Andy said wryly. “By the way, before I forget, you had a call earlier, some woman by the name of Jackson. When she heard you were out, she demanded to speak to me.” He grinned. “Tough lady. Seems to have something on her mind.”
Walker shook his head. “Don’t know her.”
Andy fished the message out of a pile of papers on his desk. “Says she’s with Social Services down in Trinity Harbor, Virginia.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I’ve been there. It’s a great little town on the Potomac a couple of hours from here. The sweetest crabs you’ll ever taste. Victorian houses. A bunch of little froufrou shops. You know, the kind women love. Antiques, crafts, all that artsy crap. Gail was in heaven. She wants me to buy a place down there so we can spend weekends and summers away from D.C. Says she could support us by opening a shop of her own.” He sighed. “To tell you the truth, after a day like today, it’s beginning to sound real good to me.”
“You’d be bored to tears in a week,” Walker predicted.
Andy grinned. “Maybe less, but I’m willing to give it a try. Give the woman a call. She said it was important.”
“Whatever,” Walker said, tucking the message into his pocket. Strangers took a back seat to the immediacy of this investigation.
Two hours later, the message was still in his pocket, untouched, when the phone on his desk rang.
“Ames.”
“Walker Ames?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“That’s me.”
“This is Frances Jackson. I left you a message several hours ago,” she said, a note of censure in her voice.
Andy might have found her tough attitude amusing, but prissy women like this always got Walker’s back up. “So you did,” he agreed, tilting his chair back on two legs as he prepared to enjoy himself a little. On a day like this, any amusement, however slight, was welcome.
“Then you did get the message?” she asked.
“I did.”
“I believe I mentioned it was important. Didn’t your boss explain that?”
“He did.”
“Then why haven’t you returned the call?” she asked impatiently.
“I’ve had some important things of my own to deal with.”
“Such as?”
“A dead five-year-old, shot right through the chest.”
Her dismayed gasp gave him a certain measure of satisfaction. “Okay, then,” he said, ready to end his little diversion and get back to work. He wanted to hit the streets again before dark. It was destined to be another fourteen-hour day. “You’ve got me now. What’s on your mind?”
“Are you related to Elizabeth Jean Flanagan?”
Oh, hell, he thought, as the front legs of the chair hit the floor with a thud. What had Beth gone and done now? His baby sister had always been troubled. She had taken off at sixteen with a worthless piece of trash named Ryan Flanagan, who’d eventually gotten around to marrying her, gotten her pregnant two years later, then dumped her on a highway somewhere outside of Vegas when he concluded the responsibility for a kid was more than he’d bargained for.
That was the last Walker had heard from her, ten, maybe twelve years ago. She’d called him in tears, saying she couldn’t live without that jerk. Walker had badly wanted to tell her she was better off without him, but he’d managed to keep his opinion to himself.
Instead, he had overnighted her some money for a ticket back to D.C., but she’d never shown up. Nor had she ever called again. He’d tried every way he knew how to trace her, but if she was working, it was for cash. There wasn’t a Social Security number in the system, probably thanks to the gypsy lifestyle she’d led with Flanagan. The man had thought the government was evil and that the less it knew about him, the better. Some of that must have rubbed off on Beth. She didn’t own a car and hadn’t registered for a driver’s license. There was no trail of credit card debt he could follow. He’d been stymied. He didn’t even know if she’d had the baby or gotten an abortion the way she’d been talking about doing.
“Detective Ames?”
The woman’s testy voice snapped him back to the present. “What about my sister?”
“Then she is your sister?”
“You wouldn’t be calling unless you knew that,” he said tightly.
“Not with certainty,” she said. “I discovered the names of Beth’s parents through her birth certificate. Then I ran into a dead end finding them.”
“They died several years ago.”
“That explains it, then. At any rate, I checked at the hospital where Beth was born and discovered that an older brother had been born to the same parents, one Walker David Ames.”
“Maybe you should be the detective, Ms. Jackson.”
“I’m just persistent,” she said. “Besides, once I finally had your name, you were much easier to locate.”
No one went to that much trouble without a really good reason. Walker was beginning to get the uneasy sense that he should have taken a page out of Flanagan’s book and maintained a lower profile.
“And now you’ve found me,” he congratulated her. “Why?”
“When was the last time you heard from your sister?”
“Years ago.”
“Are you her closest relative?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding suddenly sympathetic. “I really am.”
“Sorry about what? What the hell is going on?”
“Your sister is dead.”
Once the blunt words were spoken, he realized he should have expected it. He’d been on the other end of enough calls like this to know exactly how they went, but Beth? Dead? It just didn’t compute. For all of her reckless ways, he couldn’t imagine her dead. She’d been beautiful and full of life before she’d gotten mixed up with Flanagan.
“How?” he asked in a choked voice, fearing the worst. In his line of work, homicide and drug overdoses came to mind quicker than anything else.
“She caught the flu a few weeks ago. She didn’t get to a hospital until it was too late. It turned into pneumonia, and the antibiotics didn’t work. There was nothing else the doctors could do. We’ve been trying to locate her family ever since.” She paused, then corrected herself. “I mean the rest of her family.”
The implications of her remark made his blood run cold. “Don’t tell me she was still with that scum Flanagan.”
“No, he died before she ever came to Trinity Harbor. A motorcycle crash, I believe. But there is the boy. Her son. Your nephew, ” she stressed in a way that suggested she had specific expectations.
“What are you telling me, Ms. Jackson?”
“I think you’d better come to Trinity Harbor, Detective. You and I need to talk.”
“About what?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.
“There’s a little boy here who is desperately in need of a family. Unless there’s someone you haven’t mentioned, it appears you’re all he’s got.”
Walker’s heart thudded dully as he considered that. If it was true–and there was little question that it was–then the kid was in one sorry mess. According to his ex-wife, he was a lousy father and a worse husband. He had no reason to dispute her. He was a workaholic, always had been. His family had taken a back seat. He regretted it now, but he doubted if he could do things any differently.
“Ms. Jackson, there must be–”
“What? Another solution? Do you have one in mind?”
Walker’s spirits sank. He was it. Heaven help the kid. “I’ll be there,” he said without enthusiasm.
“When?”
“When I can get there, Ms. Jackson. I’m in the middle of a homicide investigation.”
“And given the state of things in Washington, I’m sure there will be another one after that and one after that,” she said, her tone wry. “Meantime, your nephew needs you now.”
Walker sighed at the accuracy of her assessment. “I hear you. I’m off on Thursday. Is that soon enough to suit you?”
“I imagine it will have to be, Detective Ames.”
“Damn straight,” Walker muttered in one last display of defiance as he hung up.
Why did he have this sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that solving a few homicides was going to be a piece of cake compared to the turn his life was about to take?
Daisy had fully expected to be confronted by her father before that first day was out, but when that day passed and the one after without a visit, she thought maybe he was going to keep his nose out of her plan to keep Tommy. Not for a single minute did she believe he might not know what was going on.
Not only did her father stay away, so did everyone else, aside from Tucker, who’d been poking his nose in on a regular basis, most likely to count the silver behind her back.
At any rate, after the better part of a week she was beginning to believe that everything was going to work out just as she’d intended. Tommy was settling in. He was back in school and behaving himself, according to his teacher. He was still eating her out of house and home, but she assumed that was to be expected from a growing boy who’d gotten it into his head that his next meal might be in doubt. Daisy hadn’t cooked so much in years. Nor had she ever enjoyed it more.
Even now, the kitchen was filled with the scent of chocolate chip cookies baking. Tommy had already grabbed a handful and headed outside, swearing that his homework was done as he grabbed his cap and let the screen door slam behind him. Molly meowed indignantly at the disruptive sound, but Daisy just smiled. One of these days she’d get around to breaking him of the habit, but for now she liked the way he was filling her too-quiet house with noise.
When the doorbell rang, she froze. For a second, she consoled herself with the fact that her brothers or her father would have knocked once and walked right in. So would most of the neighbors, for that matter. Unfortunately, that left one possibility, and it wasn’t a good one. The chiming of the bell meant someone was paying a formal visit and that usually meant trouble.
“Please don’t let it be Frances,” she whispered with a quick heavenward glance. She didn’t want anything to rock this new life she was creating for herself and Tommy.
Wiping her hands on her apron, she took her time going to the door. When she found her minister, Anna-Louise Walton, on her doorstep, a welcoming smile spread across her face. The redheaded pastor had already made a huge difference in town with her blunt talk and warm compassion. Daisy had liked her from the instant they’d met. She also liked her husband, a former foreign correspondent who had taken over the town’s weekly newspaper. With his liberal editorials, Richard had already become a thorn in King’s side, which had endeared him even further to Daisy.
Now, however, when Anna-Louise returned her smile with a somber look, the likely implication of this unexpected visit sank in. Apparently King, who’d been among those on the committee to select a new pastor, was even sneakier than Daisy had imagined. He’d evidently sent Anna-Louise to do his dirty work for him. No doubt his backing of a woman for the job made him feel entitled to use Anna-Louise as his personal representative in what should have been a family matter.
“Here on a mission?” she inquired tartly as she and Anna-Louise settled at the kitchen table with a pot of tea and a plate of the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven.
“Why would you think that?” Anna-Louise asked, her expression suddenly as innocent as a lamb’s.
“Am I wrong? Are you just here to pay a call on one of your flock?”
“Absolutely,” Anna-Louise said.
“A preacher shouldn’t fib.”
A grin spread across the other woman’s face. “Okay, I did get a call from your father a few days ago. He seemed to think you required counsel.”
“I imagine what he said was that I needed to have my head examined.”
Anna-Louise chuckled. “Words to that effect.”
“And you agree with him?”
“Actually, I’m on your side on this one,” Anna-Louise said. “Which is why I didn’t rush right over. Naturally I neglected to mention my opinion to your father. No point in making his blood pressure shoot up any higher. Richard’s last editorial about the need for a riverfront development plan has already sent it into dangerous territory. King spent an hour after church last Sunday trying to convince me that I needed to look closer to home when it came to saving souls. He apparently feels Richard’s is in danger.”
“You’re right. He wouldn’t have appreciated your opinion a bit, if it disagreed with his own,” Daisy told her. “You can see that I had no choice, can’t you? Tommy needs to have someone in his life that he can count on.”
“No question about that.”
“And I can give him a good home.”
“Of course you can,” Anna-Louise agreed.
Daisy’s gaze narrowed at all the ready agreement. Despite what she’d said, Anna-Louise wouldn’t be here now if Daisy’s actions had her full blessing. “But?”
“What happens to you when he leaves?” Anna-Louise asked, her expression filled with genuine concern.
“Who says he’s going to? His mother is dead. So is his father. None of the foster families worked out. Where would he go?”
“Frances found his uncle today,” the minister said quietly.
Daisy felt a cry of dismay sneaking up the back of her throat, but she managed to keep it from escaping. She forced a smile. “That’s wonderful! Is he coming here?”
“Next Thursday.”
“Has he agreed to take Tommy?”
“Not exactly.”
