Colleen Coble (32 page)

He patted her back awkwardly. Edith was one of the strongest people he knew. She’d managed to hold it together, but the waiting was destroying all of them. Their Raine had been gone four days, an eternity.

She finally pulled away and wiped her eyes. “There has to be something we’re missing. Want to help me look?”

He nodded. “I came in here for the same reason. I’d like to find out where she got the money for that expensive wedding dress. Or I guess someone could have bought it for her. There’s no record of such a purchase in her regular bank account.”

“Amy said it was expensive.”

“Like twenty-five-thousand-dollars expensive.”

He moved to the bed and stripped off the bedding to reveal the mattress beneath it. He removed the pillowcases and felt inside the down pillows but felt nothing out of the ordinary.

“Check under the bed,” Edith said.

She went around to the other side of the bed and stooped. He dropped to his hands and knees and examined every inch under the queen bed. Nothing. Not even dust bunnies. He heaved the mattress onto its end on the floor to expose the box springs. Was that an envelope?

Edith gasped and swooped in to grab it. The envelope shook in her hand as she struggled to open the flap, so she handed it to him. “I can’t do it.”

The paste on the flap was gummy, but it wasn’t stuck tightly.
It appeared the envelope had been opened and reopened numerous times. He lifted the flap and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “It looks like a bank statement and old receipts.” Perching on the side of the box springs, he began to go through them. “Look at this, Ede. Two large deposits made three months apart, each a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Edith’s eyes were wide. “Is it possible this is support from Raine’s father?”

He should have thought of that himself when he discovered Raine wasn’t Ben’s child. “I bet you’re right.” He glanced at the clock, then remembered it was Saturday. “We’ll have to wait until Monday to get any answers on where the deposit came from. According to the statement, they were electronic deposits, but the bank can trace where they came from. And now we have the bank information and account number.”

“Could Tom find out something sooner?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called the sheriff, but the call went to voice mail. He told Tom what he’d found and ended the call. “I’m sure he’ll check it out. The bank name and account number will tell us a lot.”

“What about Ben’s address book? The one that was in code.”

“I haven’t had a chance to work on it. I’ll see what I can figure out on it tonight.”

“Is there a purchase of the dress?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.

Line by line, he went through the transactions. “Nope, it’s not here.”

Edith frowned, then her expression cleared. “Let me go through the receipts.” She spread them out on the bed and began to go through them. “Here it is!” She stared at it, then glanced up at him. “It was bought just before Raine was born.”

He took the receipt. “Yet they never married. And where
would she have gotten that kind of money? It came from a bridal shop in Virginia Beach. I’m going to go talk to them about it. I can be there by midafternoon. You should stay here in case there’s a ransom call.”

She nodded. “Of course. The FBI has the line tapped too, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think we’re dealing with a ransom. We would have heard by now.”

“I think so too.” She exited but left the door open behind her.

He went to his room and carried Ben’s coded book back to Gina’s room. Might as well start with something simple. Once he began to look at it, he recognized the simple code he’d used in school as a boy. The beginning letters had been reversed so
a
equals
z
,
b
equals
y
, and so on. Simple enough. He found a pen and deciphered the few entries, but an hour later there wasn’t much sense to be made of it all.

The book was what it seemed—an address book. The few notations were Amy’s address, Ben’s address, and another one on Hope Island he suspected might be a fish house since it was out near the four-by-four beaches. A dead end.

Curtis looked around the room. Amy’s accusations still rang in his ears. How well did he really know his sister? He would have guessed he knew her very well, from her wilder younger years to the new Gina who had emerged a couple of months before Raine was born. That Gina had been gentle and wise. Full of faith and hope. An inspiration to him and others. But had she deceived him? Was there something much darker under the surface that he’d missed?

Her pink leather Bible was on the nightstand. Flipping through the well-worn book, he noticed she’d marked many passages. This hadn’t been a table ornament, but a living, breathing comfort to her. How did he reconcile this with the lies?

Amy stormed into the house and tossed her purse on the sofa. Her parents were in the living room and would have to be told. She found her mother curled up on the sofa reading a magazine, and her father smoked his vile pipe while he looked at his investments on his laptop.

Neither of them saw her until she cleared her throat. “I need to talk to you.”

Her mother was dressed in a silky pink top and white capris that screamed expensive. She tossed aside the
Cosmopolitan
she’d been reading and stared at her. “What’s happened? You look terrible. You should try some of my face cream.”

“Dad, shut the computer.” She waved smoke out of her face. “And I don’t want you smoking in here. Some of my patients are allergic to smoke. Come outside with me.” When he didn’t move fast enough, she shut the lid for him, then took the computer with her.

“Hey!” He sprang to his feet.

Her mother got up and followed her. “What’s this all about, Amy?”

She walked out the back door to the seating area on the back deck and dropped into a chair. She was unutterably weary. There was no way this was going to go well. “Have a seat. I have something important to tell you.”

Her mother’s face crumpled. “Is she dead?”

Amy shook her head. “They haven’t found Raine yet. But Curtis got news today. I’m sure your attorney will be calling as well since a copy was mailed to him. The DNA test came back. Ben is not Raine’s father.”

Her mother’s eyes went as wide as sand dollars, and her mouth sagged. A filmy moisture filled her eyes. “Not Ben’s? Then Raine isn’t our granddaughter?”

“No. Gina lied about it.” It was all Amy could do to choke out the words. Little Raine wasn’t hers. Every now and then, she’d thought she’d caught glimpses of Ben in the child’s expression or the shape of her eyes. Amy had deluded herself as much as Gina had deluded them.

Her father took a puff of his pipe, then exhaled a stream of smoke. “But you said Ben claimed to be the father. Why would he do that?”

“I’m assuming it was because she convinced him of the lie. Maybe she saw him as a good father for Raine. Maybe the real father was married.” Pain throbbed behind her eyes, and she pressed her hand to her forehead. “I don’t know, it’s all such a jumble.”

“So we don’t have a granddaughter at all. Ben is truly gone.” Mother’s mascara was running now, and little hiccups escaped her.

At least her mother seemed to have some real sentiment for Raine. “I’m upset too. I thought we had a little piece of Ben left to love. But that doesn’t change the fact that Raine is still missing. I love her and want us to do all we can to get her safely home.”

“I think that’s up to the FBI now,” her father said. “It’s not our business.”

“Gina was Ben’s girl, Dad. I think we still have a responsibility to do what we can. Maybe offer a reward.”

“That’s ridiculous, Amy.” He tamped out his pipe. “Elizabeth was his girl. Not some woman he was too ashamed to introduce to his family.”

“Ben had funds he left. We could use that to search. And what about that money? Why was it in a secret account? Have you looked at it?”

“All his possessions passed to me. Of course I looked at it.”

She shouldn’t have to beg her own father. Why couldn’t he see that this might be important? “I’d like to see the statements. Do you still have them?”

He shifted in his chair and frowned. “Not with me, of course.”

“What about online access?”

“Why are you pushing about this? There’s nothing in some old bank statements that will lead you to Raine’s kidnapper.”

Amy slumped into her chair. “I don’t know where else to look. Something they were involved with got them both killed and Raine kidnapped. We have to start somewhere. Dad, this is important. Please, just humor me. What could it hurt? A little girl’s life is at stake.” Her voice broke.

Her father studied her face, then shrugged. “I can give you the log-in information, and you can take a look, I suppose.” He held out his hands for his computer, and she handed it over. “I think I’ve got it saved on here.” His face intent, he navigated through a few sites, then nodded. “Ah, here we are.”

With a rising sense of excitement, she took the laptop and saw the bank was in Western Europe. “A Swiss bank?”

“Ben was always very careful. I have two accounts there myself.”

Something about it seemed fishy to her. Underhanded. “But why? Isn’t that kind of account used for hiding money from the government?” Could it be illegal money he’d stashed away there?

His eyes narrowed, and he flushed. “They pay good interest and are extremely secure. It’s smart business to sock some away there in case our economy ever falters again.”

The economy was so worldwide now that she didn’t see it would make any difference, but she didn’t argue with him. Hunching over the screen, she called up the statements one by one. “The deposits are all electronic. Two large deposits three months apart and exactly the same amount, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s it. No drafts out, no purchases. It appears you left the money there?”

“It was a good, safe place.”

“Is there a way to find out who made these deposits?”

He shook his head. “The Swiss guard anonymity with great diligence. That’s the beauty of doing business with them. So see, just as I said. This didn’t help you at all.”

“I guess not. Thanks, Dad. I’ll leave you to your pipe.” She went back inside and down the hall to Ben’s room. Tears felt very close and had ever since she’d heard the news. What was true and what was false? She didn’t even know anymore.

What if Ben had been involved in something unsavory? The idea hurt her chest. She had defended his memory over and over again, but what if she had been willfully blind? Ben had been a good man, but even good men sometimes found themselves going in the wrong direction. Maybe he’d gotten in over his head.

Her cell phone rang, and Curtis’s face flashed across her screen. Maybe Raine had been found. “Curtis, is there news?”

“Not the kind you’re hoping for. But Edith and I tossed Gina’s room. We found the bank information we’d been looking for. And I know where she bought the wedding dress. I’m heading there now. Want to go with me?”

Part of her wanted nothing less than to go with him, but she heard the note of desperation in his voice. “I’ll be ready when you get here.”

T
HIRTY
-F
IVE

T
he sun blazed down, and a few tourists strolled the streets of Hope Beach as Curtis drove his Jeep to Amy’s cottage. He breathed a sigh of relief when she came out as soon as he parked in the drive. He’d been dreading hearing her parents rail on Gina the way Amy had done.

He smiled at her when she slid into the passenger seat. “Glad you could come.”

“Thanks for asking me.” Her voice was a little stiff. “So how did you figure out where that beautiful wedding gown was purchased?”

He told her about finding the bank account information. Her face changed when he mentioned the large deposits. “What is it?”

“The exact two deposits were put in Ben’s overseas account. I talked my dad into letting me look at it. What were the dates of Gina’s deposits?”

“Last September fifteenth and then October fifteenth.”

“Those are the same as Ben’s.” Her eyes were wide. “What could it mean?”

“Obviously someone paid them both for something. We have to figure out what it was.”

She looked out the window. “It’s sort of sad to know she bought that dress and never got to wear it. Makes me think less of Ben.”

Finally.

Her eyes swam with tears when she turned to look at him. “I don’t like to think that he might have had feet of clay. I idolized him. All my life he’s been my hero.”

Just in time he bit back a caustic comment. She didn’t need to hear his opinion. Let her form her own as the truth began to come out. “How well do any of us know other people? Most keep their masks firmly in place.”

“I know I do,” she said so softly he nearly missed it.

He reached the ferry boarding and got the vehicle in line behind an old blue pickup and a tan minivan. The stench of the fuel washed in his open window, but he left it down so he could hear when he was told to pull the vehicle aboard. A few minutes later they were on the deck of the ferry.