Imposter (29 page)

A gate led to a backyard. She would be trespassing if she wandered through it, invading Katie’s privacy. She held herself back, just barely, from going into the yard, so hungry was she for details about Katie’s life.

She was about to return to her car and wait out the return of Katie’s husband when a white pickup turned into the driveway. The window was rolled down.

The man behind the wheel wore his sandy hair cut military short. It suited his features. He parked, then left the vehicle. On the driveway he stood in place facing her, his blue gaze unwavering. He appeared to be taking her measure, Clare thought, though his expression didn’t alter. She expected some degree of surprise in his eyes, but there was none, and the lack made her think he’d been expecting her.

Clare met his gaze. “Hello. I’m looking for Dean Ryder.”

“You must be the woman my sister called about.”

So this was Katie’s husband. She tried a smile. “I’m Clare Marshall.”

Ryder didn’t acknowledge the introduction. “You do resemble my wife. Her sister, that who you told Connie and our mama you were?”

So much for the pleasant greeting Clare had planned. Expecting a warm welcome for Katie’s relative might have been naive, having learned what she had about Katie leaving him for another man.

“Yes, I’m Ka- ah—Beth’s sister.” Clare was going to have to start thinking of Katie as Beth.

The temperature had to be over one hundred degrees. Ryder’s tan suit jacket was buttoned. A tie was cinched at his throat. He appeared unaffected by the heat. Unlike herself. Clare could feel perspiration trickling down her neck.

“So my sister said.” Ryder nodded. “You’re going to give Gladys quite a turn.”

Clare saw no point in withholding the truth from him. “Hank Linney is not my father or Beth’s. Beth was adopted. She was born Kathleen Marshall.”

His lips pursed. “She never told me about an adoption.”

He appeared angered by that, and Clare rushed to defend Beth. “She might not have known. She was an infant when the adoption took place.” Clare took a deep breath and reigned in her own anger, which wouldn’t be productive in getting any information from Ryder. “Your sister mentioned that Beth is no longer in town. Mr. Ryder—Dean, I’m trying to find her. I’d like to ask you some questions—”

“I got nothin’ to tell you.”

Ryder walked by Clare up the porch steps.

“Did she tell you where she was going?” Clare asked.

Ryder stuck his key in the door lock.

“Did you try to find her?” Clare called out.

Ryder stopped. Without turning around, he said, “She doesn’t want me. I don’t want her.”

He went into the house.

She’d been dismissed. Clare took a deep breath to cool the anger that had increased her body temperature and headed up the steps to the front door. While she sympathized with Ryder’s hurt over Beth leaving him, his feelings ran a distant second to her search for her sister.

He had left the wooden door open behind the screen door, and the glass on that one was raised. Clare took up a position on the welcome mat. She leaned on the doorbell for a few seconds, then waited for the chime to stop.

“If you don’t speak with me, Dean, I’ll get my answers elsewhere,” she said loudly enough to carry into the house. “I’ll speak with every person in Farley if I have to, to find out what I need to know. I’m not going away.”

Clare didn’t know Ryder and couldn’t gauge his feelings about the town’s reaction to Beth leaving him. Was he basking in the sympathy of the town as the poor jilted husband or had his pride taken a hit and all he really wanted was to put the incident behind him? If the dust was just beginning to settle on the gossip, she supposed it was unlikely he would take kindly to the prospect of having it stirred up again. Not her problem. At this point, Clare had nothing to lose. Though she had no wish to cause him more hurt, she didn’t have the time to get to know him, to ingratiate herself to him, if it were possible to do so, in order to enlist his cooperation.

She waited a little longer but Ryder didn’t come to the door.

She went back to her car. Behind the wheel, with the air conditioning on high blowing cool air across her face, she considered her next step. She knew the names of Beth’s adoptive parents. Hank and Gladys Linney might still be in town. Their daughter may have confided in them.

If she’d had her laptop with her, she could log onto the Bureau’s database and find out if the couple still resided in Farley. She hadn’t brought it with her, however. She’d planned a reunion, not an investigation.

Clare consulted the diagram of Farley and located Main Street, which she assumed would be like most other towns and house the business district.

Main Street was wide with a row of shops on the east side and a tidy park on the west. A bronze statue on a pedestal presided over an assortment of bushes and lush flowers in a manicured garden. The plaque beneath the statue identified it as town founder Walter Farley.

Driving slowly, Clare read the signs above the shops in passing.
Potter and Sons Pharmacy.
Main Street Diner
.
The Pizza Place.
Main Street Hardware and Bait. Farley Army Surplus.
There wasn’t much activity. A man sat on a bench, fanning himself with a newspaper. Two preteen boys stood beneath the striped canopy of the army surplus, taking turns looking through a pair of binoculars. Though the residents were undoubtedly accustomed to the heat, apparently they had the good sense to stay out of it.

She was looking for a gas station and came to one across from an intersection. And it had a telephone booth. Clare flipped through the directory there looking for Hank or Gladys Linney. She came up empty and went back over the names. It was possible that the parents were deceased, but what about nephews or nieces or other relatives? There were no listings for anyone named Linney.

County records would reveal if the Linneys had died. The county seat was a forty-minute drive out of town. Clare figured it could be faster to visit the local churches and speak with the resident pastors about the Linneys. In a town the size of Farley, how many churches could there be?

Two were listed in the phone book, and both located on a street called July Road. One was Lutheran and the other Methodist. The listing for the Lutheran house of worship also featured a map. Clare tore the page out of the directory.

She reached the Methodist church first. Small residences had been built around it. Two young girls spun a skipping rope on the sidewalk while a shaggy dog leaped beside them.

Clare entered the small structure. There wasn’t anyone inside. She went to the house next door that had been built on the church property, thinking it might be the pastor’s residence and rang the bell. No one came to the door. She rang again. Moments later when there was still no response, she drove on, down the street.

An old station wagon was parked in the gravel drive of the rectory built beside the Lutheran church. Clare parked and walked to it. A round woman answered Clare’s knock. Spectacles dangled from a silver chain around her neck. She lifted them to her eyes and they widened for an instant. The look she gave Clare wasn’t friendly.

Clare attributed the woman’s hostility to her resemblance to her sister, and ignored it. “I’d like to speak with the pastor. Is he available, please?”

The woman nodded once briskly. “Come inside.”

“Thank you.”

The woman ushered Clare into a kitchen. Tea bags, lemon slices, sugar—the makings for what looked like iced tea—were spread across the counter.

Two tall fans stood on the tile floor at opposite ends of the kitchen. Clare made her way to one of them as a man entered the room. He was slim and stoop-shouldered. The woman hadn’t returned with him.

“I’m Reverend Shannon,” the man said. “You wish to speak with me?”

His tone was frosty, as was the glint in his pale blue eyes.

“I’m Clare Marshall,” Clare said. “I’m trying to locate two people who may be parishioners of yours, Hank and Gladys Linney.”

Reverend Shannon nodded. “Yes, Hank and Gladys worshiped here.”

His use of the past tense wasn’t lost on Clare. “Are they not part of this parish any longer?”

“Why do you want to find them? Before I give you any information, I must know what your interest is in the Linneys. I need to be sure that your intentions are pure.”

“Fair enough, Reverend.” Clare explained briefly about the adoption and her search for Beth that led her to Farley. “I believe when you first saw me, you noticed a resemblance between Beth and myself.” The pastor’s lips tightened. Clare took that as confirmation of her statement. “Be assured that my only intent is to find my sister.”

The pastor crossed his arms at his chest. “Hank passed on about two years back. Gladys suffered a stroke shortly after. She currently resides at the Linwood Nursing Facility on Oak Road. I counsel her there.” The pastor uncrossed his arms and pointed at Clare. “You should consider very carefully before paying a call on Gladys. She was devastated by her daughter’s betrayal of her marriage vows.” He stabbed the air with his finger as he went on. “Beth Linney made her choice. It would be better for Gladys and Dean if she stays away. Better for the town. Farley doesn’t need her kind setting an immoral example to our young women.”

Reverend Shannon had worked himself up to a point that his cheeks had reddened and a fine sheen of perspiration glistened on his brow.

Clearly he preached of fire and brimstone in his sermons. Unlikely his parishioners would find a sympathetic or compassionate ear from him.

Clare eyed the pastor and said with sarcasm, “I’ll be sure and convey your good wishes to my sister when I find her.”

Back in her car, Clare found Oak Road on the map. The nursing facility was located at the outskirts of town. The drive there was too short to completely dispel Clare’s anger over Reverend Shannon’s comments. She rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension as she crossed the parking lot.

Inside the facility, the walls were painted a cheery pink, and the three staff members in sight were dressed in uniforms of the same color.

Clare approached a pencil slim woman bent over a desk, sorting a stack of papers.

“I’d like to see Gladys Linney,” Clare said.

The woman glanced up at Clare. There was no recognition in her gaze.

“Ah, okay. Yeah.” She released the papers and reached out to a computer, pushed back to the edge of the desk. “Gladys Linney. L-i-n-n-e-e?”

“-e-y,” Clare said.

“e-y,” the woman repeated. She tapped a few keys. “It’s my first day,” she said. “I haven’t met all the patients.”

That explained why she hadn’t acknowledged Clare’s resemblance to Gladys’s daughter, Clare thought.

“Gladys Linney?
Gladys Linney
.” The woman kept her gaze on the computer screen. “Room Fifteen. Down this hall on your left.”

Clare had expected to be asked her relationship to Gladys, but the woman said nothing more, and went back to the papers.

Clare made her way to Room Fifteen. Given what the pastor said, it was unlikely that Gladys would welcome a visit from Clare. How would she react to Clare’s resemblance to Beth? Bracing herself for another verbal sparring match, Clare knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

The voice was feeble. Clare strained to hear it. She pushed the door open.

“Mrs. Linney?”