Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) (24 page)

With a heavy sigh, she said, “He knew I was leaving the last time.”

“Two words . . . Bar. Fight.”

“Fine!” Zoe pushed herself off the seat and searched the crowd. Once she caught sight of Luke, she darted across the street.

“Your friend is a fine chef.”

“Yeah . . . and you’ve only tasted her barbeque. She makes things I can’t even pronounce.”

“And lives in Dallas?”

“Yep. Left town shortly after we all graduated from high school.” When she left again, Melanie would miss her all the more. Seeing Zoe’s face around town made it feel more like home.

“I’ll have to find out where she works when I go again. I wouldn’t mind sampling her other menus.”

Melanie stood and grabbed her plate. “You won’t be disappointed. Can I grab you anything while I’m up?”

“No, no . . . I’m good. Why don’t you go enjoy your town?”

Such a thoughtful man. “Wyatt’s lucky to have a dad like you,” she told him.

William smiled and cocked his head to the side. “Where are your parents, darlin’?”

The thought had crossed her mind a dozen times once she realized Hope was going to be okay. “My mom called, her boyfriend took her on a cruise . . .” Melanie was too embarrassed to tell him that her mom didn’t offer to jump off at the nearest port to join her. When she’d called and heard Hope was going to be okay . . . she suggested Melanie call her if things changed. “My dad didn’t get word from my brother, Mark, until night before last.”

“And is he going to visit?”

She paused. “Not all family is helpful, William.”

She heard Zoe laughing from across the street and turned to see her talking with Wyatt, Luke, and Alan Crane.

“It’s a good thing you have such a tight circle of friends.”

“Yeah . . . a very good thing.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

They’d been filming all day.

Crane and the crew showed up at the inn before dawn with two huge trucks and a crew of no less than twenty-five people. There were shots taken as the morning fog lifted from the ground, and they filmed the sunrise from the vantage point of where Hope had been standing the last time Miss Gina saw her.

A small company of actors resembling Miss Gina, Melanie, and Hope were brought in, as well as a man who had the same body type and general look of Mr. Lewis.

The fake Mr. Lewis went through the motions of being checked into the inn by the fake Miss Gina for close to two hours before they got it right. Melanie stood to the side and watched as her double told the Hope’s double to stop running through the inn. It took four takes before getting it right, and each one was a tiny knife in her side.

In the dining room, Mr. Crane had set up the interview room for the real players in the
American Fugitive
program.

Watching Miss Gina fidget under the hand of the makeup artist was almost comical. Eventually she settled down to recall, for the camera, as many details as she could about Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Crane was a gracious host who asked questions with real concern for the answers. He didn’t ask her to repeat anything in any way other than how she felt. “What went through your mind when you realized a guest in your inn was the one responsible for Hope’s disappearance?”

Her eyes glossed over and a blank stare went beyond Mr. Crane and to the wall behind him. “I’d rather not implicate myself on national television,” she said, deadpan.

Mr. Crane laughed . . . a knowing sound you knew he’d felt to his bone. “It’s time to get this scumbag off the street,” he said as he covered Miss Gina’s hand with his.

Someone yelled
cut
and everyone moved except Miss Gina and Mr. Crane.

Melanie didn’t hear what they said after that since the noise in the room elevated by fifty percent. But whatever it was, it ended in a hug that lingered before Miss Gina turned and left the room.

Wyatt stepped in through the same door Miss Gina exited, found Melanie with his eyes, and walked her way. “How’s Hope doing?”

“A little clingy, but liking the attention I think. Between the town picnic and this . . . she’s been the center of attention for some time.”

“It’s going to get really boring when all this settles,” Wyatt said.

“I could go for boring right about now.” Sleep still wasn’t happening without hours of tossing and turning. It only took a couple of days for Hope to kick her out of her room. And since Miss Gina all but refused anyone at the inn until they could figure out a way to stop what happened to Hope from ever happening again, with the exception of Mr. Crane and his assistant, the place was empty. Even William stayed with Wyatt at his house.

“Are you ready, Miss Bartlett?”

It was her turn for the minute or two clip that would go on the actual footage of the show. She didn’t think about the audience that would watch . . . she thought about the man needing to be caught.

“You look beautiful,” Wyatt said, pulling her out of her thoughts.

She smiled and he brushed a strand of hair off her cheek.

The man had hardly left her side. Somehow she and Hope had become a priority for him, and they’d known each other for such a short time. She cautioned herself, worried that maybe he was acting out of obligation since they’d hooked up while all the crazy unfolded around them. Then a voice inside her head slapped her around. Nathan, even on his best day, never acted the way Wyatt did around her. He never put her above himself.

More, she’d never felt about Nathan the way she did about Wyatt.

She shook the comparison from her head and leaned into Wyatt’s hand before he released her.

Wyatt winked and gave a gentle push toward the waiting chair and crew.

Sitting under the lights was a little intimidating at first.

A makeup woman stepped in and took ownership of Melanie’s face. All the while she chatted about absolutely nothing. The weather, the state of Oregon. The color of the walls.

At one point Mr. Crane sat opposite Melanie while the crew scampered around them, adjusting the light and attaching a small microphone to her shirt. At some point one of the crew started lifting said shirt to tuck the wires out of the way. Melanie ignored the uncomfortable moment and tried to smile when he was finished.

Mr. Crane waved off the makeup lady after a few seconds and started to talk. “Like I told you earlier, Melanie, I just want you to answer everything as naturally as possible. Pretend the cameras aren’t here.”

There were three of them pointed at her, and one at him. “That’s a little hard to do.”

“I know . . . but try. Just look at me. Ignore the camera behind my head.”

“I’ll try.”

Someone fiddled with his hair. “You grew up here.”

It wasn’t really a question. And she knew he already knew she had. But she started talking her nerves off anyway.

“I did. Just a few miles from here.”

“Did you spend a lot of time with Miss Gina?”

Melanie smiled. “She was like the aunt none of us girls had. The cool aunt. The kind you could really talk to and not get into trouble with.”

Someone pushed a glass of water in front of her and moved away as Mr. Crane made conversation.

“An adult you could turn to . . .” Again, it wasn’t a question, and Melanie just kept going.

“She was. I didn’t have any real issues growing up. But if we had a boyfriend problem, or a teenage ‘everyone hates me’ problem, this was where we could come to find some advice.”

Mr. Crane accepted his glass of water and set it aside. “Safe to say you always felt safe here.”

“Oh, God yes. It was the first place I thought of when I decided to return.”

“Why did you leave in the first place?”

“Typical reason. College.”

“Why did you come back to River Bend?”

The cameras started to fade as Mr. Crane asked his questions. “It started out as a promise. One I made to my best friends our senior year. We’d all return to our class reunion regardless of what was happening in our lives. I wasn’t sure I wanted to at first. My life hadn’t really turned out the way I thought it would.”

“How so?”

The room had gone silent as people started listening to their conversation.

“College ended up being a bust. Funds dried up. I met a guy.” The thought of Nathan put a frown on her face.

“And had your daughter.”

She smiled. “Hope was my blessing. Things with the guy didn’t work out, but Hope was there.”

“It must have been hard. Single mom. No college degree.”

“And a crappy car,” she added. “We can’t forget that.”

Mr. Crane smiled.

“So you return to River Bend in a crappy car with your daughter.”

“With Hope. The crappy car died en route.”

His smile turned into a slight laugh. “So no car, your lovely child . . . and Miss Gina’s beautiful inn.”

“And my friends. Friends I knew were there, but I had forgotten meant so much. True friends, the kind that will drop everything to help when you need them. You know what I mean?”

Mr. Crane had a quick moment of sorrow . . . or maybe it was memory that flashed over his face. “You returned
home
.”

Melanie glanced around the dining room. “Yeah.”

“A better life for your daughter.”

She nodded. “I couldn’t let Hope walk to school where I was living before. The crime rate in River Bend is nothing compared to the big city. Every town has issues, but this small town’s big news is when a house is littered with toilet paper.”

That had Mr. Crane laughing.

“You think I’m kidding.”

“No, I think you’re telling the truth.” He controlled his mirth and continued. “When did you first meet Patrick Lewis?”

Her laughter died instantly. “A couple of weeks ago. He was traveling through on business. At least, that’s what he told us.”

“By now you’re working at the inn, is that right?”

“Yeah. Hope and I share a room when the inn is full, or I take one across the hall when we’re slow.”

“So Patrick Lewis was a guest. Did you ever feel anything was off about him?”

She bit her lip, tried to think of something . . . anything. “No. It kills me that I didn’t catch something about him.”

“Just a businessman traveling through town.”

“Yeah. Left his room clean. Almost like he didn’t use it. Drank his coffee black.” A detail she was just now remembering. Another scratched at the surface of her memory that she attempted to remember. “Yolks. He didn’t like egg yolks. Asked that we scramble whites for him. I’d forgotten that.”

“So a tidy man who drank his coffee black and ate egg whites.”

“Yeah, then he’d pack his stuff and say he’d probably stop back down when he was on his way through again.”

“There aren’t a lot of places to stay in River Bend.”

Melanie shook her head. “A place north of town. But more of a motel kind of establishment.”

“Let’s talk about the visit preceding your daughter’s incident.”

“He was on his way through. His face felt familiar. He even reminded Hope not to run in the house. Not in a weird way, just an adult being an adult.”

“Nothing abnormal?”

“Nope. Nothing.”

“That all changed when you returned home one morning, after leaving your child in the trusted hands of Miss Gina, and found your daughter missing.”

She paused. The room was silent.

“Everything died in the moment I realized Hope wasn’t out playing.”

“So when Patrick Lewis left the inn, you didn’t think it was strange?”

Melanie shook her head. “I didn’t think about it at all. He was just a guest at the inn. He ran outside when he heard me screaming Hope’s name. At least that’s what Jo told me.”

“Jo would be Sheriff Ward?”

“Right.”

“But Patrick Lewis wasn’t simply a guest at the inn, was he?”

Melanie shook her head. “No. He lured my daughter out into the woods, telling her he was rescuing a puppy.” She stopped and stared at Mr. Crane. “A puppy.”

Mr. Crane leaned forward and placed a hand over hers. “Then what happened, Melanie?”

“We searched for hours. Jo . . . I mean Sheriff Ward called in K-9 units and they sniffed Hope out. We found her on the side of the cliff. Another foot and she could have . . .”

“Yet Patrick Lewis denied any involvement.”

“He said he saw her that morning for breakfast, and that was it.”

“He lied.”

Melanie moved her stare into Mr. Crane’s. “He left my daughter on the side of a cliff to die. Her body temperature was so low she wouldn’t have made it the night.”

“There wasn’t a puppy, was there?”

“There isn’t even a Patrick Lewis. The man lied about his name, gave us a fake ID, fake credit card. I don’t know exactly what kind of sicko he is, but this didn’t happen at random. He set us up for this.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“One more thing, Melanie. What would you say to Patrick Lewis if you had a chance?”

Her nose flared and her temples beat with the pace of her rapid heart. The image of him calling Hope across the street as she recalled it surfaced in Melanie’s head. “I used to think that only murderers were capable of murder. That only heroes were capable of walking through fire . . . then I became a mother. I would walk into a burning house to save my child. Walk over broken glass in bare feet to keep my child from one single cut.” Melanie narrowed her gaze. “I don’t think I would have much to
say
to Mr. Lewis.”

Mr. Crane paused and someone yelled
cut
.

“My fee just tripled.”

“Relax. I have everything under control.”

The voice on the other end of the line attempted to respond with ease. But he’d been around much longer than the man paying the bills and saw through it.

He released a slow, mechanical laugh, one that would intimidate a saint. “Control? You don’t know what control is.”

“You weren’t supposed to throw her down a cliff.”

“You didn’t tell me who she was.”

“I paid you to check in, check out.”

Liar!
The man knew his priors, knew his propensity for the company of little girls. The part about being a smart criminal . . . is the intelligence part. The man paying the bills might have the money to pay him, but he had the intelligence of an ex-con on skid row. “Have you ever played chess?”

“What the hell are you asking?”

“Chess . . . you know, the king, the queen . . . all those pesky minions?”

“I know the fucking game, what’s your point?”

He paused, thought of the moment his hand touched Hope’s shoulder. Thought of the moment he didn’t give in to his need. “Your minion put you in check. Her trip down the bloody hill put you in check. My fee triples daily until I see it.”

“I need time to think.”

“You might consider doing that promptly.”

“Fuck you.”

He wasn’t fazed. “No, thank you . . . I prefer . . . well, you know what I prefer.”

“You’re sick.”

“Recovering, actually. I’m starting to think picking on someone my size is a more respectable occupation. Triple, mate. You have my account information.”