Dead Giveaway (25 page)

  ''Yes,'' Lawrence said, his gaze beyond my shoulder, as if he were looking back in time. ''God, we were happy.''

  ''I'm here to help you.'' I leaned forward, hands between my knees.

  ''But Sara fell. She died. I thought our baby died with her. Died because of me.'' Lawrence's voice was strained, his expression again confused.

  Kelly said, ''We've worked on this, Lawrence. It wasn't your fault. You were in the Harris County jail when the accident happened.''

  ''But she ran away because she was pregnant,'' Lawrence said. ''Ran from her parents. If she hadn't, then she'd be alive.''

  ''There was no mission trip?'' I asked.

  ''That's what the pastor and his wife told everyone when she disappeared. She'd left them a note—we wrote it together—saying she had to leave home to take care of someone in need. It was the truth, in a way.''

  ''That's how it became a
mission trip
to them, I guess. Did she even plan on telling them about the baby?'' My guess was no.

  ''We talked about what to do, who to tell. Sara was underage and we were sure her parents would make us give the baby away, so we couldn't go to them. And if you knew Sara—'' He stopped, closed his eyes.

  ''Sara knew what she wanted, right? She wanted you and the baby?''

  ''Yes. And I wanted what she did.''

  ''You did some shopping before she left town, though. Bought some baby things?'' I asked.

  Lawrence looked at me. ''How
did
you find out about the blanket?''

  ''Not important. She ordered it, you picked it up, right?''

  He nodded. ''She'd seen that blanket when she was shopping with her mother in this British store. She said she had to have one nice thing for our kid.''

  ''She was already gone on the so-called mission trip by the time you picked up the blanket, though. You two must have been in touch, right?'' I asked.

  ''We were afraid to. Thought someone might find

out, give us up to her parents. We'd planned ahead for Sara to sneak back to Houston after I'd had time to pull together some money.''

  ''She left town, then came back?''

  He nodded. ''She'd taken a bus to Dallas, stayed in some shelter. It seemed like a good thing—they don't tell the cops anything about runaways—so she stayed in one when she came back to Houston, too. I'd asked a few uncles for some cash, worked extra shifts sacking groceries. I had a couple hundred bucks to give her.''

  ''Plus, you needed to see each other, right?'' I said, thinking how even two days away from Jeff made me crazy.

  He sighed. ''It was hard being apart. Keeping secrets from everyone.''

  ''These people you asked for money assumed you needed it for your family's medical expenses? Your mother's cancer treatment?''

  Lawrence cocked his head. ''You've been doing a lot of reading about me.''

  ''You better believe it. Go on and answer the question,'' I said.

  ''The cop who arrested me? Dugan? That was
his
theory—that I was trying to get money for Mom. I
never
said that. Anyway, the night they arrested me was the night Sara and I met.'' He paused, took a deep breath. ''I gave her the money and the keys to my car. I kissed her good-bye and never saw her again.''

  I smiled inwardly, one tiny puzzle piece falling into place. ''The police didn't find your car, but not because you dumped it to hide evidence or sold it for cash. Sara drove it away.''

  He nodded.

  ''Okay. I have to ask this next question, mostly so I can tell Sergeant Kline I left no stone unturned. Some of that money you pulled together? Did it come from Amanda Mason?''

  Lawrence hung his head, his fists clenched in his lap. It seemed forever before he looked up and said, ''I never killed anyone.''

  ''And those unaccounted-for ninety minutes? You kept quiet because you were with Sara and wanted to protect her?''

  He nodded, and I noticed Kelly was nodding right along with him.

  ''You're sure Sara never contacted her parents, told them about the pregnancy?''

  ''I don't think so. I mean, she knew they'd never accept our child. I'm
black,
if you haven't noticed.''

  I felt embarrassed then, embarrassed for my own race. ''I know this is hard, but let's keep it flowing, okay? The pastor came to visit you when you went to jail. What did he say?''

  ''First time, he said what they'd been saying since Sara ran off, that she was on a mission trip. Then the last visit was to tell me she'd died. I remember him saying that since she and I had been friends in the youth group, he wanted me to hear the news from him. He was so torn up, and meanwhile I had to hide everything . . . keep it all stuffed down while he sat there across the glass crying for her.'' Lawrence's lips tightened and he slowly shook his head from side to side.

  Kelly gripped Lawrence's shoulder. ''Hey. You've worked hard on accepting she's gone, on living here where you don't belong.''

  I was fighting my own emotions, knowing that my anger might eradicate logic. The pastor said he came to visit Lawrence to offer solace to a prisoner. Instead, he'd brought Lawrence unbelievable pain.

  ''Once you learned Sara was dead, did you ever consider telling people about your relationship? Tell them you were with her the night Amanda Mason was murdered?'' I said.

  ''What good would that have done?'' he asked. ''I'd already been tried and convicted when her father came and told me she was dead. She was my alibi and she was gone. Who would believe me if all of a sudden I said I was with Sara when Amanda Mason was being murdered? Besides, no one needed to know about us—especially not her parents. I'd lost Sara, my mother was dying and I didn't care about anything. I—''

  The chaplain broke in. ''Lawrence went from being a happy, successful young man who'd found the love of his life to a convicted felon, all in less than a year's time. He wasn't thinking clearly, and to be honest, I'm not sure he got the best legal help, either. When Lawrence refused a plea bargain—''

  ''You see what I'm talking about? Even my lawyer thought I was guilty.'' Lawrence's eyes flashed with anger.

  ''Okay, so who set you up? Because I think someone made sure you got arrested that night. Maybe someone who knew you were with Sara.''

  Lawrence looked at me. ''I have no idea. It doesn't matter anyway. No one believed me then and they won't believe me now.''

  ''I believe you,'' I said.

  Kelly cleared his throat. ''Lawrence and I have discussed this more than once. It had to have been a friend, an acquaintance, someone who knew where he lived and could plant the evidence. Since he was pretty well-known for his athletic skills, it might have been a jealous kid on his ball team who thought
he
should have had that letter of intent to A&M. Or maybe someone who held a grudge Lawrence knew nothing about. He could have just been someone's scapegoat.''

  I remembered Frank Simpson's notes. That's what he thought, too. ''You're saying you never told your lawyers about meeting with Sara that night?'' I asked.

  ''No,'' Lawrence said. ''Just the chaplain. And now you.''

  ''Were you punishing yourself? Or did you just not care about your own freedom after Sara was gone?''

  ''I promised her I wouldn't tell her parents about

the baby,'' said Lawrence quietly. ''If I gave her up to save myself—well, I couldn't do that to her.''

  ''But you were arrested in April, put in jail and stayed there until trial. She never came forward, Lawrence,'' I said.

  ''That's because she was dead,'' he said through tight lips. ''That's the only reason she wouldn't come back to help me. Besides, nothing mattered with her gone.''

  ''You
assumed
she was dead,'' I said. ''But don't you understand? She lived long enough to give birth. She could have come forward and—''

  Lawrence lifted his cuffed hands and pointed intertwined fingers at me. His voice had gone hard again when he said, ''If she was out there, she would have come back, she would have told the cops we were together when Amanda Mason was murdered.''

  ''That's why you needed to believe there was no baby, right? But there may be another explanation, Lawrence. There may—''

  ''I'm done here,'' he said, his face and voice devoid of emotion. ''Take my father home. He doesn't belong here.''

23

I would have liked to take Thaddeus home, but the nurse in the prison clinic said he should go straight to a hospital because of his soaring blood sugar. Jeff and I tried to convince him the hospital in Huntsville would be best—it was close—but he insisted he wanted to see his own doctor at the Medical Center in Houston.

  By the time we reached downtown, I could tell the insulin shots I'd helped Thaddeus give himself weren't doing much good. He was sleepy, thirsty and a little confused when I wheeled him into the emergency room.

  Meanwhile, DeShay had called Jeff to tell him they'd drawn a case and he was waiting in their unmarked car at the hospital. At least I'd had time to tell Jeff what I'd learned from Lawrence before he left with his partner.

  When I was allowed into the emergency room cubicle to see Thaddeus, he had an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Scary to watch. And did I feel guilty. The stress must have been too much. I asked him if I could call Joelle to help him out, and he said that would be good. Thaddeus wanted her to check on his house while he was hospitalized. During my cab ride home, I ordered the biggest bunch of yellow roses my florist could pull together and had them delivered to the room I'd been told he would be admitted to.

  It was nearly eight p.m. when I arrived at my house,

and Diva played pitiful this time, rubbing around my still sore ankles seeking attention. Bet she knew it hurt.

  After stuffing down a cheese sandwich, I took a glass of wine into my office and sat behind my computer. Diva tried the keyboard trick—her
I sit on this thing, you'll give me all your love
approach. I lifted her off and onto my lap, then booted up.

  After typing up notes of my interview with Lawrence, I sat back in my chair thinking about Sara Rankin's disappearance. Would she have come back to save Lawrence with an alibi if she could have? My gut said yes. She'd already committed to abandoning her life as a preacher's daughter, and that made me think she wanted to be with Lawrence more than anything.

  What would make her
not
come back to save him, then? She had to have been hurt or sick.

  If I put the events in chronological order, Sara first ran off in March, not long after finding out she was pregnant. But Lawrence and Sara didn't make up the mission trip story to explain her disappearance—the Rankins did. Then, come May, they spread the word she'd fallen from a cliff and her body wasn't found. They told one lie to begin with. Did they change to another in May? Or were they telling the truth after finding the daughter who'd been missing for several months, maybe found her suffering from a head injury and on life support?

  Important questions. It all came back to the Rankins. What did they know that they weren't telling me? And who was following my every move, destroying any link that might exist between Verna Mae and the person who placed that baby in her care so many years ago?

  
Jeff always says the higher the stakes, the bigger the crime,
and in this case the biggest crime had not been an abandoned child. It had been Verna Mae's death. What happened after Will and I left her the day we visited her home? What went through her mind? What tipped her world so much that she fell off? She knew about Sara. I'd learned that much before the storage unit went up in flames.

  Yes. She knew Sara, so why not her parents? Parents with money who could have been paying Verna Mae's bills all these years. What if she went to see the Rankins the day she was killed? What if for some reason she'd decided to tell everyone she knew about a dead girl and an abandoned baby? Clear her conscience after years of stalking and obsession? Seeing Will in the flesh, talking to him, touching him—were those the things that tipped her world? Could be. Her wishing was over. He'd come home.

  I could picture Andrew Rankin's emotional face and his wife's smile. Saw them as wearing masks. If I stripped the masks off, what would I find beneath? Grieving parents who took their grandson and gave him away—and in doing so broke the law? Maybe. I didn't know. I wasn't sure they even
knew
about a grandchild. Mrs. Rankin was too slick to give me much of anything, and the pastor was too close to insanity. And I'd been a little slow on the draw about asking the right questions.

  I sipped on my wine, stroked my purring Diva. She was content, but I sure wasn't. Could the Rankins have found their daughter? Tracked her by guessing she had Lawrence's car? Learned she was pregnant? She could have even been in Mexico, exactly where they claimed she'd gone. It's a great place to hide and was an even easier escape destination back then. The story about her fall from the mountain could be true, she was injured and, yes, add half-truths to lies by omission and some of this scenario made sense.

  But why the huge cover-up? Why were the stakes so high for these people? These were the questions that reminded me Verna Mae hadn't been the only one murdered. This had to do with Amanda Mason, too. Was that why Simpson's notes were stolen? Why I'd been followed and nearly killed. Yes. This had to do with
her.

  I picked up the phone and called Jeff, grateful to hear his voice and not a machine. ''This is about Amanda Mason as much as it is about Verna Mae's murder,'' I said, so eager to get this out, my words ran together.

  ''Slow down. Have you learned anything new?''

  ''No, I'm just certain Lawrence was set up. It's the only thing that makes sense.''

  ''Talking to him today convinced you he's truly innocent, huh?''

  ''You don't think so?''

  ''I have a little different take on this. From what you told me, Washington had even more reason to be looking for money than a sick mother,'' Jeff said. ''He had a kid on the way. He saw Amanda Mason with cash in her hands and he wanted it.''