The Other Daughter (45 page)

The last few pieces clicked into place in David's mind, and then right on the heels of that came the thought that Harper really could be driven to kill Melanie. Shit!

As if reading his mind, a gun blast suddenly ripped through the air.

“Help Melanie,” Brian cried. “
Run
!”

David ran.

MELANIE WENT DOWN on her knees in the grass, ignoring Harper and his gun. Jamie's blue eyes were locked onto hers, his hand fluttering at his side, his lips searching for air. She heard a sucking sound and realized that he'd been shot in the lung. The air was literally leaking out of him.

Oh, God. Though she didn't know why, she looked at her father for help. Harper didn't move. He seemed to be in a state of shock. Maybe he hadn't meant to pull the trigger. Maybe he hadn't meant to harm any of them.

“Please,” she whispered. “You're a doctor. Dad…”

He didn't reply.

Melanie gave up on him and turned her attention back to her godfather.

“I'm …s-s-sorry,” Jamie gasped.

“Shh …it's all right. You just rest, you can explain everything later.”

“You …w-w-w-wouldn't remember. I w-w-wanted you …to …r-r-r-emember…”

Blood was foaming on his lips. His eyes started to roll back, and Melanie gripped his hand more tightly.

“No, dammit. You won't die on me, Jamie. I won't let you….”

He looked at her sadly, and she knew it was too late. He whispered, “Selfish …like Harper. Annie right. I am no better. Meagan…”

“Jamie.”

“I love you, lass …my little girl.”

“No, Jamie, no—”

His body convulsed. She tried to hold him still, tried to plug the bullet hole with her shaking fingers. Blood, so much blood, leaking from his ribs, from his lips. She could feel him shudder again and again.

“God damn you,” she cried. “Don't you dare die on me. Don't you do this to me now!”

You will always be my little girl
, he had said.
And no place you go will you ever be alone
.

I forgot, I forgot. I never remembered a thing. Oh, Jamie, I am so sorry.

“M-M-Meagan,” he whispered.

“What, Jamie? What is it?”

“Say it …once…”

“Say what?”

“Call me …Dad.”

“Dad,” she wept. “Dad.”

The last breath escaped him as a soft sigh and finally the struggle was over. Jamie O'Donnell lay perfectly still. He was gone.

Crashing emitted from the underbrush. Patricia Stokes and Ann Margaret suddenly burst forward, their hair filled with brambles. Another sound of scattering birds from the right. David Riggs burst onto the scene, his gun out.

Everyone stared. Jamie O'Donnell's bloody body on the ground. Melanie leaning over him with tears staining her cheeks. Harper Stokes standing there —

David pointed his gun at the same moment Harper recovered and leveled his 9mm at Melanie.

“Back away,” David said. “FBI.”

“Harper, for God's sake,” Patricia cried.

“Shut up!” Harper snapped. “Anybody move, and I'm going to open fire!”

How strange, Melanie thought. She felt as if she were seeing her adoptive father for the first time. The features she'd always found golden were faded and lined by strain. The square chin was really weak, the bright blue eyes uncertain.

This was the man she'd loved as a father for most of her life. A spineless, self-centered, insecure man who'd traded her away for a million bucks, and had single-handedly destroyed his own family.

She said savagely, “Say it, goddammit. Stand right there and tell everyone once and for all what you did.”

“You don't know anything!” Harper spat out. “I did what had to be done. I did what was in the best interest of my family.”

“You took away our daughter!” Patricia shouted. “How was that in our best interest?”

“She wasn't
our
daughter. She was your brat. Yours and O'Donnell's, and you foisted her on me as if I'd never know. Did you think I was stupid? God, Pat, you of all people. I
loved
you.”

“Did you, Harper? It was so hard to tell, when you were always at work.”

“I was trying to build something for both of us. Or didn't you ever think about where the money was coming from when you went out shopping?”

“I went out shopping because there was nothing else to do! For heaven's sake, if you'd only said something. You stupid man, I would've lived like a pauper for you. I even gave up Jamie for you. I really did love you, and I owed it to you to make it work. I really did want — oh, God, I was planning on how to save our marriage and you were kidnapping our daughter! Did you tie her up? Did you drag her screaming from the nanny's car?”

“It wasn't anything like that! I didn't even do it. Jamie did.”

“Because he had to,” Ann Margaret interrupted. “Because you went so far as to imply that if he didn't help you fake Meagan's murder for the insurance money, you might commit the crime for real.”

“I was hurt, I was angry—”

“You were greedy,” David stated flatly. Melanie could see him appraising the scene, moving slightly to the side so he'd have a better line of fire. He nodded toward her slightly. She realized he was trying to tell her that he was more in control than anyone thought, and it would be all right.

She didn't care. Her real father was dead at her feet. Her adoptive father had a gun pointed at her. She was feeling betrayed and angry. And then she remembered that Jamie's gun was still tucked beneath his jacket.

“How did you do it?” David was asking Harper, sidling a bit more to the left, where he could take his best aim. “You were angry, you were broke. You decided you would have to make the situation work to your advantage. Get rid of Meagan and gain a million dollars. Very clever.”

“Brains have always been my strong suit,” Harper said. “Don't bother, Agent. I'm not going to confess it all to you.”

“You don't have to,” Ann Margaret responded contemptuously. “I know it all. I was there too. As Russell Lee Holmes's wife.”

She gave David a brittle smile. “Let me start at the beginning for you. Harper hatches his horrible plan. He knew Meagan wasn't his daughter — no matter that she'd adored him for four years — and he wanted her out of the house. Jamie would do anything for the girl, so he agreed. He'd fake a kidnapping of Meagan, take her someplace safe—”

“A goddamn shack!” Harper exclaimed. “
That's
how he treated his child.”

“Well, what was he supposed to do, Harper? As a friend of the family he'd be expected to help out with the search and recovery. Plus, he couldn't very well magically have a new little girl traveling with him. If he left her with a friend, that person could blackmail you later. If he put her in a hotel, someone would surely notice a weeping girl all alone every day. You were the one insisting it be so perfect. So, yes, he locked her in a shack in the middle of the woods, where no one could find her. It was hardly ideal, and it tore him up. But it also worked.

“She was tucked away, you could fake the ransom demand, and Jamie could cough up another hundred thousand dollars to help you out.”

“The ransom money that Brian knew Harper had never delivered,” David stated. “God, Harper, even when you're greedy, you're greedy.”

Harper wasn't looking so steady with the gun. Every time someone spoke up, he'd jerk a little in that direction. David had noticed it. Melanie too. She was sinking toward the ground, edging closer to the front of Jamie's jacket.

“The police,” Ann Margaret continued, “started investigating immediately, just as Harper and Jamie figured. Harper was smart, however, and no one could trace the ransom note back to him. On the other hand, you immediately realized you had overlooked a few details, right, Harper? You'd gotten yourself a quick hundred thousand, but you couldn't exactly start spending it — the police would notice. No, you needed money you could account for. The life insurance. Of course, for that you needed a body, and none was appearing the way you hoped. So once again you went to Jamie. To pull this off, he had to find a body for you. A body of a four-year-old girl who roughly matched the description of Meagan.”

Her hand already on Jamie's jacket, Melanie froze. “He didn't …he didn't kill anyone, did he?”

“Of course not. Identifying bodies was his job, remember? He waited until he saw one that was close enough. It took four months, four nail-biting months while the police turned on your whole family. Then he stole the body from the Mississippi morgue. He mutilated the fingertips. He cut off the head so the body couldn't be ID'd from dental records. And then he wrapped the body in a blanket. He told me about it years later. Alone in the woods with that little body. Digging the shallow grave, making sure he covered his tracks. Feeling lower than low, as if he really were a child murderer. He felt so bad, he almost couldn't do it. She was so small, some beautiful little girl who would never go home. He wept. Then he placed her in the grave for the cadaver dogs to find. She was so close in height and size to Meagan, so the police simply accepted it when Harper confirmed her ID as Meagan. God, that was a sad day.”

Patricia nodded gloomily. Even Harper looked pained. Then he swore.

“But the damn police wouldn't go away,” he said. “We had done everything as planned and then they went and caught Russell Lee Holmes and realized he had nothing in his little shack that belonged to Meagan. Jesus Christ, how were we supposed to know they'd actually catch the bastard the next week?” He looked at Ann Margaret mutinously. “Your husband was certainly nowhere near as smart as me.”

She replied dryly, “Thank heavens.”

“And then what?” David said conversationally. He had gotten three feet closer to Harper. With so many people around, it was best to shorten the distance to the target. Then David realized that Melanie had moved as well. She was almost sitting on top of Jamie's body now, her hand beneath the jacket. What the hell was she doing?

“Harper sold his soul to the devil, that's what,” Ann Margaret stated. “Sent Jamie into prison to deal with Russell Lee himself. And what a deal it was. All Russell Lee had to do was confess to yet another kid's death, and in return Harper Stokes and Jamie O'Donnell would personally guarantee that our child was raised in style. Everything we could never give him, he would magically have. And while Russell Lee was surely the devil himself, he was damn proud of that boy. What is it about men and their sons?”

Melanie looked at Ann Margaret quizzically. “They really did agree to take care of Russell Lee's child? Then, who is that?”

“William, sweetheart. William Sheffield was my son. I turned him over to the boys' home the day they arrested Russell Lee, terrified some reporter like Larry Digger would find us both and make his life hell. I honestly thought it was for the best.

“Then, when Russell Lee and Harper agreed on the deal, I drew up papers. Harper and Jamie both had to sign a confession to all they'd done, and then I put it in a safety deposit box with instructions that it was to be opened and turned over to the police if anything happened to me. Finally I moved to Boston, where I could start over too, make something of myself, and, of course, keep an eye on Harper. As for William…”

She hesitated, and then she flushed. She said quietly, “I was so sure he was better off in that boys' home. I sent money every year so he would have the best of everything. The brothers promised to take very good care of him…. He could get a clean start, never have to worry about some reporter connecting him with his father. And with all that money …I grew up so poor myself, I was so sure money was the one thing that would make a difference. I guess I'm not so much better than Harper after all.”

“No,” Melanie said. Something had come over her, and it showed in her face. Something cool. Something fearless. “We are all better than Harper. Because it didn't stop there, did it,
Dad
? Five years later Russell Lee is finally due to be executed, then no one will ever be the wiser. But how is your family? Your family you thought would be so thrilled with a million bucks? Mom's drinking, Brian's still in therapy. You work all the time just so you don't have to face your own handiwork. And even then you didn't do the right thing.

“Jamie called you. I can remember being in the study of the hotel room in London, hearing it all but not understanding. Jamie telling you that your plan had worked, you'd done well, and now couldn't you give something back. I was so miserable without my mom. And Mom and Brian were so miserable without me. He could set it all up. Erase my memories so not even I would ever know. Drop me off at the hospital for Harper to ‘find.' Then you could literally adopt me back. You wouldn't even have to pretend to be my real father this time. This time you could be the generous adoptive dad taking in an abandoned little girl. You liked that, didn't you, Harper? It made you look good.”

Harper glared at her stubbornly.

“And even then,” she said, “you
fucked it up
! Kept spending, didn't you? Became a brilliant surgeon, making more and more money, but it was never enough. You learned
nothing
from ripping your family apart. Suddenly it's twenty years later and you're not the great provider you pretend to be. You're slicing up healthy patients for profit. You're violating your own doctors' oath. Why not? You've already committed a heinous act and gotten away with it—”

“I never hurt anyone!”

“
You hurt everyone
! You hurt my mom, you hurt my brother. You hurt me! And you risked your patients who trusted you with their health. And then you got mean.

“The man who shot Larry Digger, who tried to shoot me, that was your doing. Someone had found out, someone was sending you little notes, and you were afraid that finally, after all these years, the truth would come out. So you hired someone to kill me. And did you kill him too? Because you were too cheap to part with the payment money?”

“No, no,” Harper protested. “Jamie did that. Jamie shot the man. He's the killer!”

“Jamie is the protector! He did what he had to do to keep me safe. Just like he dove in front of me when you opened fire. For God's sake, he was your friend, and you killed him!”