Cold Target (36 page)

Another silence. Then, “I'm sorry to hear that.”

Gage noted a catch in his voice. “Can we have a drink together some time?”

“With you, always,” Dom replied. “By the way, I was sorry to hear about the shooting. But I've heard bad things about Fuller.”

“I would like to hear more about that.”

“When we get together,” Dom said. “Speaking of the Rawsons, I see that Meredith Rawson was involved in the shooting.” It sounded more like a question than a statement. “How is she?”

How much did he have the right to say? “There's been some other incidents. I think they might trace back to her mother. Something that happened years ago.” He waited for a reaction.

There was a long silence.

“Dom?”

“Call me when you're available,” Dom said.

“Thanks again for Clint.”

“I think he means it this time.”

“God, I hope so.”

Dom hung up.

Gage held the phone for a moment. Dom's reaction to his questions had been so muted it was difficult to read. But Dom had always been difficult to read.

He looked at the photo again. The young man had been a teenager. He'd been clean-shaven with dark hair that needed a cut. Dom's face was fuller and he had a noticeable scar on one side, a souvenir of prison. He looked, in fact, a little like a prizefighter whose nose had been broken once too often. However, he had an intensity and charisma that drew people to him, and he certainly had magic with alienated youngsters.

Gage would have liked to explore the matter more, but Meredith was more important at the moment. He called Meredith's cell phone. He was invited to leave a message.

Frustrated, he found Sarah's phone number and called.

“Are you all right?” Sarah asked.

He wished everyone would stop asking that question. He wasn't sure of the answer and he didn't like that feeling. Not at all. “Perfectly,” he replied. “I'm looking for Ms. Rawson.”

“She'll be gone for the next few days. She said she had to get away.”

“Dammit! Did she say exactly where she was going?”

“If she didn't tell you …”

“She might believe she's no longer in danger. I don't agree.”

“Then you don't think Rick Fuller was involved in the other …”

“If he was, I don't think he was the only one. I knew Fuller. He wasn't that complicated a man.”

Sarah hesitated.

“She told me about Memphis,” he finally said. “Where in Memphis did she go?”

He waited patiently, letting her reach her own conclusions in her own time.

“I don't know. Just Memphis. She went to look for anyone who might have known her great-aunt.”

“The address?”

Again she hesitated.

“Sarah, her life might depend on it.”

Sarah gave it to him.

B
ISBEE

The steaks were wonderful.

Holly hadn't realized men could be such good cooks. Doug had grilled the steaks outside on the grill along with corn on the cob and kabobs of fresh vegetables. He had prepared tamales as an appetizer.

Harry was enthralled. He helped at the grill, occasionally squirting water on the fire.

“It's nice having another male in the house,” Doug said as they all sat down at the table.

She couldn't remember tasting a better steak. But it might have been the company, and the knowledge that he had been cooking for her.

Jenny showed Harry her collection of stuffed bears, then took him out to see a garden where Doug grew a number of vegetables, including the corn they were eating.

Doug poured a glass of wine for himself and for Holly and they watched as dusk approached and shadows shaded the land with different hues. She felt more relaxed than she had in years. Perhaps more than she ever had.

She had been popular as a child, mainly, she knew, because of her looks. In turn, she had envied the studious girls who made good grades and served as president of the Latin club. At the urging of her mother, she'd tried out for the drama club but she'd been abysmal. Even she understood that. Her one talent had been her hands. And a whimsy that no one recognized.

Now she relaxed. She had merely run a brush through her hair and added a dab of lipstick. Her only concession to a “date” was a pair of slacks and a checkered short-sleeve shirt rather than shorts and a T-shirt.

Doug was relaxed as well. He stretched out in a pair of jeans and a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked masculine and confident and … sexy.

He took a sip of wine. She noticed he was very careful about how much he drank. He'd probably had a total of two small glasses. But then he was the driver.

“We had better go,” he said reluctantly. “The movie's at eight.”

It was going to be a late night for Harry, but this was a special treat. For both of them.

When they arrived at the movie, Doug spoke to nearly everyone. She knew several of the crowd and everyone eyed her curiously. Apparently, he was a prized bachelor.

The movie was excellent. Jenny sat on the outside with Harry next to her and Doug sat on Holly's other side. She was uncomfortably aware of his proximity, of his hand resting on the arm of the seat. She kept her hands clasped in her lap but at some time during the movie, his left hand inched over to take her right one.

Their fingers intertwined.

In a particularly scary part, Harry took her other hand.

She felt loved and secure and safe.

She wanted tonight to last forever.

M
EMPHIS

Not one of the immediate neighbors of her late great-aunt had lived in the community more than fifteen years. Certainly none for thirty years.

Several remembered her great-aunt, who had been killed in a brutal robbery several years ago. But none knew of a young girl who might have lived there briefly decades ago. Neither did they remember her great-aunt mentioning one.

All of them had been horrified by her death. Apparently, they had truly liked her.

A brutal robbery
.

Another violent death. There were a lot of them around. Coincidence?

The fact that murder may have been continuing for years was chilling. What secret was so desperate that it drove someone to kill again and again?

She couldn't even begin to answer that question.

Instead she asked the neighbors about doctors in the area, particularly obstetricans. She gathered a list of three that she would call first thing in the morning.

That evening she checked the yellow pages for local hospitals and used her laptop to find websites. Most included the hospital's history. She immediately discarded those that were less than thirty years old. The list was narrowing.

But that was a long shot and she knew it. Hospitals didn't keep medical records that old. Her only hope was to find someone who might have remembered a heartbroken teenager who gave up a child.

She had to eat, yet she had no appetite. She took a notebook with her and doodled as she waited for the ultimate comfort food she'd ordered. Hamburger and fries.

She noted every event that had happened since she learned of her sister, making a chart of them. Other than speaking with Mrs. Laxton and locating Mrs. Starnes, who was now dead, she had not gone further in searching for school friends, nor had she located the man in the photo.

She probably should have done the latter before she left. But she'd had to get away from New Orleans and the reporters and phone calls and sympathy. And her growing reliance on Gage. That reliance had cost him dearly.

If only she could find a clue here. One tiny thread. She knew how to pursue threads.

The comfort food was not at all comforting when it came. Usually she didn't mind eating by herself, but tonight she felt terribly alone. Terribly vulnerable.

Don't do that! Don't think of that! Think of your sister out there, possibly in danger
.

She went back to her chart.

B
ISBEE

Holly paused at the door of the office of Daniel McIntyre, Esq., Attorney at Law. She looked at her watch. She had changed the appointment to a day when the local church had a “Mother's Day Out.”

She didn't want her son to hear the conversation. He was much too bright. He would remember bits and pieces and pop up with a question about them at unexpected times.

She opened the door. A middle-aged woman with a quick smile sat at the desk. “You must be Liz Baker,” she said. “You can go on in.” She gestured to a door and Holly opened it.

A pleasant-looking man in his fifties stood up and came over to her. He reached out his hand and she took it. It was a grip meant to convey confidence. She liked the way his eyes met hers directly.

He sat down, inviting her to do the same. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Baker?”

“I would like to retain you first. What is your fee?”

“I take it you want the client-attorney relationship from the beginning?”

“Yes.”

“Then fifty dollars will do for the initial interview. I charge a hundred dollars an hour.”

Holly gave him the money. She sought assurance. “You can't say anything to anyone now?”

“Unless I know a crime is to be committed.”

She nodded. “Two things. One is my son. I want to make provisions in case anything happens to me. I want a will naming a guardian for my son. Marty Miller, who owns Special Things.”

He looked surprised. “No relatives?”

“No.”

“That's easy enough. I'll draw up the papers and you both will come in and sign them. What else?”

She took the envelope containing the letter she'd written. “I want you to hold this. If anything happens to me, there are instructions inside.”

His eyes sharpened. “Do you expect anything to happen to you?”

“No. But it's a letter to my son,” she lied. “I would feel better if it were in a safe.”

“I can do that as well.”

“How much?”

He shrugged. “You've paid me fifty. I would say a total of two hundred would cover the will and guardianship.”

It was less than she'd expected.

“Thank you.”

She spent the next few minutes giving him lies about her son, and his name and birth date.

Then it was over.

She thanked him.

A small protection.

twenty-three

M
EMPHIS

Meredith exhausted every possibility over the next three days.

She double-checked with the bureau of public records. No adoption records under her mother's name.

Next were local hospitals. None had records that reached thirty-three years back. A check of obstetricians proved equally as fruitless. The hospitals refused to—or couldn't—release lists of obstetricians on duty at the time.

She accessed the American Bar Association's Internet listing of Memphis-area attorneys. There were more than 2,800 listings. She narrowed it to Germantown. No downtown attorneys; those involved wouldn't risk large corporate practices for something like a black market adoption.

And that, she knew, was what must have happened.

It was the longest of long shots. She discovered that when she came up with forty candidates. She researched each firm. Three had been in practice thirty-three years ago in the general area of Germantown. One specialized in taxation, one in family law and the third was a general practice, which usually meant wills, estates and the like.

She called the latter office Monday morning, identified herself as an attorney in New Orleans and said she was looking for someone in a large inheritance case and there would be a substantial finder's fee. She said she would be in town only today—could they possibly squeeze her in?

A male attorney came on the line. She said she couldn't explain on the phone.

He finally agreed to an appointment at five
P
.
M
.

She hung up. It would be an amazing coincidence if that particular attorney had been involved, but then it would be amazing if she found the right attorney, regardless. At the very most, he might remember other attorneys active in the field of adoption.

Of course, there might not have been an attorney involved at all, though most people adopting a child would want some legal security.

The visit proved more fruitful than she'd imagined. It was a father-son practice, and while the older man was clearly just coming into the office, he'd been very active in the local bar association and never threw anything away.

William Hartley was in his seventies but had a spring to his movements that would put to shame most men decades younger. His gray eyes sparkled with curiosity and interest, and he obviously was a raconteur of stories about his profession. He wasn't shy about his assessments.

“I'm old enough not to give a damn about being politically correct, young lady.”

“And I'm not old enough,” she countered.

He sat back and laughed at that, and his son, William Junior, smiled. “Attorneys weren't as pretty as you when I first went into practice.”

“I imagine you find plenty of them elsewhere,” she said.

“Ah, but there was only one for me.” The laughter left his eyes. “She died two years ago and I came back here to bedevil my son. Was going crazy by myself.”

She was moved by the emotion behind the words. So there
were
happy unions. She knew that, of course, but her own personal experience and being an attorney who specialized in marital disasters sometimes made her forget that.

She explained that she had a client who had just died and left a very large inheritance for a daughter she'd given up at birth. There were no records. She was trying to find the attorney who might have handled it. As she'd said on the phone, there would be a substantial finder's fee.

It was the son who asked the amount.

“Fifty thousand dollars,” she said. She'd already arrived at that sum. Any larger would be suspicious. Any lesser may not bring the cooperation she needed.