All the Beautiful Brides (6 page)

He had the skull ready to bleach in his workshop, but decided he’d better check on his mother. She needed her shot.

He helped her out of bed and into her wheelchair, then pushed her to the kitchen for breakfast. He’d hated to tie Constance to the chair, but a man had to do what a man had to do. And the sedative he’d given her had worked nicely.

After all, he didn’t want her keeping Mama awake. She needed her rest.

“You need to go about your schedule as normal today,” Mama said. “You don’t want anyone asking questions.”

“But it’s Constance’s first day here, Mama,” he said. “I don’t want to leave her.”

Mama squeezed his hand. “I know, but don’t worry. I have a lot to teach her while you’re gone.”

That was true. And she was right. He didn’t need anyone nosing around.

“Please let me go,” Constance said as she stirred. “I won’t tell anyone about last night.”

“No, you won’t.” He brushed her ear with his lips. “Listen and pay close attention today. When I get home from work, you can show me what you’ve learned.”

Terror filled her eyes, and she tried to hit him with her bound hands. Will tsked at her. “The first lesson is to respect your husband.”

She screamed and kicked at him, rattling the chair. He picked up a knife, one he used to carve out the eyes of the bobcat he’d worked on the day before, and waved it in front of her face.

“What did I say rule number one was?”

She went stone still, although her body trembled. He hated to frighten her. He really did.

But she had to learn.

“What is the rule?”

“Respect your husband,” she whispered.

He kissed her cheek. “That’s right.” He angled his mother’s wheelchair to face her. “Now, watch and listen to Mama today.” He grabbed his coat and headed toward the door.

“Don’t leave me here with her!” Constance screamed. “Please, don’t leave me.”

He smiled to himself as he stepped outside and locked the door. Constance’s cries echoed through the window, but the wind choked out the noise as its shrill sound bounced off the ridges.

Mama had taught him how to be a good son. She would teach Constance how to be a good wife.

He whistled as he plowed through the snow to his truck and drove down the mountain.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mona tried not to think about seeing Cal as she studied the birth records. It seemed eerie to her that she’d been born soon after the horrific crimes that had occurred in this town. Everyone had been so busy worrying about their daughters’ safety with a serial killer on the loose that, for once, they probably hadn’t noticed a pregnant teen.

Two hours of digging and she finally found the names of three female births to teen mothers around the time she was born.

Kay Marlin had delivered a baby girl at Graveyard Falls Hospital. May Willis had given birth to a little girl at her home using a midwife. And Felicity Hacker had brought a baby girl into the world on her parents’ farm.

She scribbled down the addresses from the forms, hoping she’d find the women still in town, but thirty years had passed. No telling where they might be by now.

Still hopeful, she thanked Thelma, then checked her calendar. With a couple of hours to spare until her first appointment, she stopped in at Cocoa’s Café for coffee, booted up her laptop, and punched in the names of the women on her list.

May Willis had died in a car accident ten years ago, but apparently her daughter owned a bakery in town. So May had kept her baby.

Felicity Hacker lived outside town and owned a plant nursery. There was no mention of her daughter.

A possibility.

Kay Marlin was more interesting. She had an arrest record for prostitution.

Mona gulped. Was her father one of Kay’s johns?

She twisted the charm at her neck. No, surely not. Except . . . it would make sense. A hooker wouldn’t have been able to care for a baby.

Needing to know the truth, she searched for an address.

A few minutes later, she discovered that Kay lived in the county’s low-income housing.

She’d talk to Felicity first. Maybe she’d have some answers. And if she didn’t, Mona would track down Kay.

Anxiety needled her as she drove through town, squinting as the sun glinted off the snow. By the time she reached the nursery, her hands were strained from gripping the steering wheel to stay on the road.

The sign for Felicity’s Flowers and Garden stood tall against an oak and was painted bright yellow and orange. Mona parked and slogged through the snow to the rustic building.

Heat assaulted her when she entered the greenhouse, where a woman in her late forties wearing a big straw hat was tending a cluster of rosebushes. Although they hadn’t talked, Mona recognized her from the memorial service.

“Excuse me,” Mona said. “I’m looking for Felicity.”

The woman spun around, her hand flying up in surprise. “Yes, that’s me. But we don’t get many customers in this kind of weather.”

“Actually, I’m not here for flowers or plants,” Mona said. “I just want some information.”

The woman instantly looked suspicious. “What kind of information?”

Mona touched the charm. Maybe she should have invented a cover story, but she believed in honesty and wanted to see the woman’s gut reaction. “A few months ago I discovered I was adopted. The only clue I have is this charm.” She lifted the baby bootie to show her. “I think I was born in this town, or at least that my mother lived here. And I know you had a child thirty years ago. A little girl.”

Felicity’s face paled, and she pricked her finger on a thorn. She instantly brought her finger to her lips, but a drop of blood seeped from the prick.

“I did have a little girl . . . but she died.”

Mona sucked in a sharp breath, then opened her mouth to apologize.

But Felicity took her arm and ushered her toward the door. “Please go. Now.”

“I’m sorry,” Mona said. “I—”

“Just leave me alone and stop asking questions,” Felicity said in a raw whisper.

Mona stumbled outside, hating that she’d upset the woman. But when she turned to go back and apologize, Felicity had disappeared. She glanced at the attached house and saw the curtains being drawn.

Shaken, she slid in her car and started down the drive. She paused at the highway and pulled over to check the address for the low-income housing development.

Suddenly Felicity’s dark-green Tahoe careened past her and swung onto the highway as if she was running from something.

Cal followed Rosalyn to her den and leaned against the big club chair by the window, giving the young lady time to calm down.

“Why do you say it’s your fault?” he asked quietly.

Rosalyn wiped her eyes with a tissue, then tossed it on the coffee table and snatched another one from the box. “Because I talked her into going out with me the other night, then I left her at the bar alone.”

Now he understood the guilt.

Cal chewed the inside of his cheek, waiting for her to elaborate. Instead, she began to shred the tissue into pieces, her fingers working nervously.

“What bar was this?”

Rosalyn sniffled. “Blues and Brews. Gwyn was so sweet, but she didn’t get out much, so I convinced her to go with me.”

“She wasn’t dating anyone?”

“Gosh, no,” Rosalyn said. “She was too busy taking care of her mother. Frankly, I thought she used her mother as an excuse not to date, because she was so shy, so I encouraged her to go out. To even meet people online.”

“Did you meet some friends at the bar?”

Rosalyn bit down on her lip. “Two friends from my programming class came, but their boyfriends were with them.”

Cal sensed this conversation could go on forever. “Did Gwyneth hook up with anyone?”

Rosalyn grabbed another tissue and began to mutilate it. “A couple of men asked her to dance, but she turned them down. Then Eddie showed up.”

“Who is Eddie?”

“A guy I dated for a couple of years. We broke up last year, but he wanted to talk and said he’d made a mistake and . . .” Her voice cracked. “And I left with him.” She released a pain-filled sigh. “I didn’t think I’d be gone long. Eddie and I just stepped outside to talk, but then . . . things got hot . . .”

“And you two argued?”

Rosalyn shook her head, her cheeks flushing.

“You had sex?”

She nodded. “It had been a long time, and we were always good that way, so we ducked into the car—”

“You don’t have to justify it to me,” Cal said, trying to steer her back on track. “Then what happened?”

“By the time we went back inside, Gwyn was gone. I thought she was in the ladies’ room, but she wasn’t, then I called her cell but it went to voice mail, so I figured she caught a cab.” Rosalyn brushed at more tears. “I tried again the next morning and she still didn’t answer, then she didn’t show up in class and I got worried.” Rosalyn choked on another sob. “Then this morning I read in the news that she was dead.”

So she’d only been gone one night. Not enough time for anyone to realize she was missing and file a report.

It also meant that the killer hadn’t kept her very long.

Cal gave her a sympathetic look. “Was there anyone in the bar who stuck out to you? A man who asked Gwyneth to dance and got angry with her?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Both the men she turned down wound up with other girls.”

“Do you know if she’d talked to these men before? Had she met them online?”

Rosalyn bit her lower lip. “She didn’t say.”

“Was anyone watching her that night? Maybe a guy who looked creepy or kept staring at the two of you?”

Rosalyn rubbed her forehead. “I didn’t notice anyone.”

“Would Gwyneth have left with a man if she’d met up with someone she liked?”

Rosalyn shook her head vigorously. “No. She didn’t do one-night stands.”

So if she had left with a man, it was possible he’d coerced her or drugged her.

He stood, jamming his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to talk to the bartender. Maybe he saw something.”

Hopefully they had security cameras and he could get a glimpse of the person she’d left with.

Mona drove to the county housing project, still disturbed about Felicity’s reaction. Even thirty years later, it was obviously difficult for her to talk about the baby she’d lost.

Although Mona hadn’t carried her baby to term, she understood the grief of losing a child.

Dark-gray clouds hung heavy over the sky, threatening another storm as she parked at the development. Brent had told her about this complex, that the town had built it ten years ago to help residents who couldn’t afford housing. The brick units were sturdy against the stiff winds and close enough to town for the tenants to work in Graveyard Falls or the neighboring clothing factory.

She parked in front of the unit where Kay lived, cut the engine, and hurried through the sludge up to the door. The curtains were drawn, making it seem no one was home, or they wanted to be left alone. But she knocked anyway.

A young woman carrying a baby exited a unit and paused to stare at her. For a moment, Mona sensed the woman was upset, and she wanted to go to her, but suddenly the woman rushed back inside her apartment.

She knocked on Kay’s door again. Footsteps sounded inside, shuffling, then the door opened a crack. A dishwater-blonde woman in a terrycloth robe stood on the other side, her hair disheveled, her eyes glassy with alcohol or drugs.

“I ain’t buying nothing,” the woman snarled.

Mona offered her a friendly smile. “I’m not selling anything, ma’am. Are you Kay Marlin?”

The woman lifted a coffee mug and took a sip, although it smelled like it held whiskey. “Yeah. Who wants to know?”

Mona introduced herself and explained the reason for her visit. “I’m looking for my birth mother. She left me this.” She showed her the baby bootie charm.

Kay’s eyes flashed cold. “Well, you come to the wrong place. I don’t have a daughter.”

“But you gave birth to a little girl, didn’t you?” Mona persisted.

Kay’s pale face twisted into a grimace. “Yeah, but I got rid of that kid. I don’t have any idea what happened to her, and I don’t wanna know.”

Mona sucked in a breath at the woman’s harsh tone. She started to say something, but Kay slammed the door in her face.

Disappointment flared inside her. If Kay was her birth mother, she obviously didn’t want to reconcile with her.

She blinked back tears and ran to her car, a well of emotions balling inside her. She’d been foolish to indulge in this fantasy that her mother might have missed her, that she might be looking for her, too.

Cal took Gwyneth’s computer to the lab to have the IT department analyze it and asked a crime unit to process her apartment.

When he made it to Blues and Brews, he had to wait for the night bartender to arrive, so he listened to a guy sing the blues, and found himself contemplating what he would say to Mona when he saw her.

I’m sorry for the lies Brent told you. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you.

I wish I’d asked you out before Brent had. But then he did, and I owed him, and . . . Brent always got what he wanted
.

A seed of resentment wormed its way to the surface. He hadn’t realized until now that Brent was just calculating enough to use Cal’s debt to him to his advantage. A little reminder here and there—subtle, but it had worked.

Brent had risked his life and the wrath of their foster father to keep Cal from being beaten and tossed in the place the man called the “thinking hole.”