The Other Daughter (20 page)

Melanie sighed. David took that for a yes.

“Last night. She came home late, nearly midnight. She said she'd been to a bar, told me how much I meant to her. But …but I could tell she wasn't actually saying what had rattled her so much. And she was speaking too urgently, as if it was suddenly extremely important I understand how much she cared about me. You know, the way someone might speak if they thought something bad was about to happen. Something …final.”

David nodded. “So there's theory number one. Something more happened to Meagan Stokes. It involves all of your family in one way or another. And somebody else knows now. This person is rattling everyone's chains, bringing out all the skeletons. Which brings us to theory number two.”

He said quietly, “You are theory number two. Whatever happened twenty-five years ago, you hold the key.”

“My amnesia. The lost nine years…”

“Exactly. Larry Digger couldn't find Russell Lee Holmes's wife on his own, but he was betting you could help him. If we assume that you are Russell Lee Holmes's child, think of what could be locked up in your mind. Certainly someone seems to believe you know something important. Hence, the scented candles and objects you might know in your room, put there to trigger a reaction—”

“But I didn't remember anything clearly.”

“Not yet, but you might. Therefore, you, like Larry Digger, have become a threat.”

“Larry Digger was getting too close,” Melanie said slowly, filling in the pieces. “He honestly did have a lead, he was making progress. So someone, still trying to cover tracks, orders him killed. I might remember, so I'm a target too. But that makes no sense. If someone is pushing people to get at the truth, why order assassinations on Larry Digger and myself?”

“It's not the same person who ordered Larry Digger and you shot. It was someone else. This person wants the truth exposed but for whatever reason can't just announce it on his own. Maybe he has no credibility, maybe he's ashamed, mentally disturbed, I don't know. So he's trying to get at things in an underhanded way. However, he's also scaring the shit out of everybody. Think about it. Your family and friends have done very well for themselves. If the truth about the past came out now…”

He let the words trail off meaningfully, and once again Melanie understood.

“You think someone I know hired that hit man. Hired the hit man to kill Larry Digger, swipe his research, and eliminate me as well. Extinguish whatever clues might be locked in my mind. Erase, once and for all, any trace of what happened to Meagan Stokes. Christ…”

Melanie grew silent, grew haggard. She whispered, “It's a war, isn't it? Someone is trying to expose a secret no one else wants exposed. And I'm just the person in the middle, the adopted child who might hold the key to the truth behind a little girl's twenty-five-year-old murder. Oh, Jesus Christ, at this point, whatever is in my head, I don't want to know!”

“I don't think you'll have a choice.”

“I always have a choice,” she said firmly. She got up from the table, wiped it, washed her hands, paced, then sat down.

“I probably am the child of Russell Lee Holmes,” she murmured. “The memories of the shack. The notes…”

“We could look at having Holmes's body exhumed and do a DNA test. That would resolve it once and for all.”

She nodded absently. “There are just so many inconsistencies. Why would my parents knowingly adopt Russell Lee's child—”

“Maybe they don't know. Maybe Jamie O'Donnell arranged it.”

“How, by dumping me at a hospital and assuming Patricia and Harper Stokes would magically adopt me?”

“Whose idea was it to adopt you, Melanie? Did they ever tell you who suggested it first?”

“My mother,” she said instantly. “She and I …we just sort of
clicked
.”

“There you go. And it wasn't a random dumping. Your father did work there and was in the ER. Seems a fair bet that he'd hear about you, come see you for himself, maybe bring his vulnerable wife, who is hungering for a little girl…”

“Still leaving a lot to chance,” Melanie muttered.

“Fine. Spin it the other way. Your parents did know you were the daughter of Russell Lee Holmes. They agreed to adopt you for reasons we still don't understand, and provisions were made. The night Russell Lee was executed, you're dropped off at the hospital where Harper Stokes just happened to be on duty while the rest of his family was in Texas watching an execution you would think he'd also want to see.” He paused. “Larry Digger had a point about the coincidences. One or two is happenstance, but three or four?”

Melanie's gaze dropped to the table. She rapped on it with her fingers many times. But then she looked up, and there was a clearness in her eyes David hadn't expected. It nailed him in the solar plexus, made him conscious of her golden hair and citrusy perfume and those haunting eyes….

She said quietly, steadily, “But even then …I still don't believe it, David. I don't. My parents didn't just give me a home, they've been
good
parents. Not reluctant, not grudging. Whatever I've needed, whatever I've desired, they've given it to me. If you assumed they were in on ‘it,' whatever it might be, wouldn't they be resentful? Wouldn't human nature dictate that every time they saw me, they saw the man who killed their daughter? I don't care what that damn altar was trying to imply. I'm not a second-rate daughter.
My parents
have never let me
be
a second-rate daughter. That's the kind of people they are, David. That's my family. It must be relevant that I love them so much, and they love me.”

“Hey, family is family,” he tried. “Sure you care—”

“Somewhere out there I have a birth mother,” Melanie interrupted. “I have a real name, a real birthday. If you believe Larry Digger, I could be on the verge of what every adopted child dreams about — discovering her birth parents. But I don't care. I'd give it all up, David, just to have my family back the way it was. I love them. I have always loved them. I will always love them. That is how I feel about my family.”

David didn't answer right away. Faced with Melanie's earnestness, a trait he himself lacked, he studied the floor and the scuff marks made from all the long nights he'd spent pacing it.

“Loving wives take home abusive husbands all the time,” he said finally, quietly. “They get strangled for their trouble. Loving parents bail their troubled kids out of jail and give them a second chance. Then they take a bullet to the head while they're sleeping one night. Love doesn't have anything to do with it in the end. It can't save a person's life. Just ask Meagan. I'm sure she loved your parents too.”

He strode to the bedroom door, intent on grabbing his duffel bag, but Melanie caught his arm. He stopped but didn't look at her. He didn't want to see tears on her pale cheeks. For all his big speech, he wouldn't be able to handle that, and he knew it. He suddenly hated the fact that he always sounded so harsh.

“I gotta pack a bag,” he grumbled. “We should go.”

And she whispered, “My family is all I have, David. Please don't take them away from me. Please.”

He pulled his arm free and walked away.

AFTER DAVID DISAPPEARED into his bedroom, pointedly closing the door behind him, Melanie wandered the living room, rubbing her arms. Ever since the shooting of Larry Digger, she couldn't seem to get warm.

Now her head was filled with conflicting images. Her big, burly godfather whom she adored. Her strong, silent dad who'd always been there for her. Her fragile, tremulous mom, whom she loved beyond reason. Brian, her hero. Ann Margaret, her friend.

A person capable of harming Meagan Stokes. A twenty-five-year-old cover-up.

She tried to tell herself it was all a crazy mistake. Logic gone awry, conspiracy theory run amok. But her mind was too rational for her own good. She couldn't dismiss the altar and the pieces of evidence in her room. She couldn't dismiss Larry Digger's body and the shooter who had aimed right at her. She couldn't dismiss David's point that the police had never found any physical evidence tying Russell Lee Holmes to Meagan Stokes.

Melanie didn't know what to do. She was tired, frustrated, and overwhelmed. She longed desperately for the comfort of her own home, and for the first time feared it as well. She wanted to hear her mother's reassuring voice. She had no idea what she would say. She wanted her family. She was beginning to feel as if they were all strangers.

What were they so afraid of?

Nine o'clock on a Monday night. Melanie didn't have answers, so she took the low road and sought distraction instead. David's apartment boasted a bookshelf crammed full of cheap metal trophies. One had a plastic guy on top that seemed to be pointing a gun. The dust-covered brass plate declared the owner to be the Junior Champion, .22 Target Pistol 25 feet.

Tucked between it and six others were a collection of well-thumbed gun magazines and patches and bars still in their wrappers. Marksmen, Distinguished Expert, one said. So David Riggs was not only a loner but a gun aficionado as well. That didn't surprise her.

But the largest trophy turned out not to have a thing to do with guns. It was pushed all the way in the back, as if David couldn't decide whether to be proud of it or not. A baseball player was poised on top, bat positioned on its dusty shoulder. The brass plate at the bottom was worn, as if thumbed over and over again. The letters faintly proclaimed: Mass All-Star Champion.

She moved on to the picture of the baseball player on the wall.
Shoeless Joe Jackson
was scrawled across the lower right-hand corner. The name sounded vaguely familiar to her.

She looked at the picture of Fenway Park, then returned to the bookshelf and found a scrapbook.

The first picture was old, the edges crinkled, the color yellowed. The woman was young, dark hair neatly curled under at her shoulders, warm, intelligent gaze looking straight into the camera. David's mother, Melanie realized; she had passed on her rich hazel eyes to her son. She looked like a strong, sensible woman. The kind who ran a tight ship.

She disappeared from the scrapbook much too soon. The split-level ranch house with its olive-colored carpet and brown linoleum disappeared as well, the family portraits becoming a thing of the past.

David's mother died, and his scrapbook became about baseball.

Here was David Riggs, age eight and decked out in a Little League uniform. Here was ten-year-old David with his whole team. Here was David, with Steven and Bobby Riggs posed on a baseball diamond. Here was Bobby Riggs tossing balls to his sons, who were now taller, leaner.

Certificates appeared in the scrapbook, announcing pitching achievements. First no-hitter. Lowest number of hits allowed in a season. Best E.R.A. Then came the newspaper articles: “Promising Young Pitcher in Woburn” “Woburn High Grooming Best Ever” “The Major League Recruiters Arrive in Town — All Know They Are Eyeing the Riggs Boy.”

And the pictures …Pictures of Special Agent David Riggs Melanie would not have thought possible. No grim expression or lined face. He beamed in color photos, posing enthusiastically with his glove, then in mid-pitch. He played with the camera. He winked at the crowd. He was the hometown hero and the photographs documented it diligently. Young David Riggs, who was going to go to the pros and make Woburn proud.

Young David Riggs, arching up on the pitcher's mound to catch a ball, his face so earnest, so intent.

Next shot. The ball in his glove, his body descending from the sky, and his face beaming with joy.

Next shot. David holding up the ball, showing it to his father, who was screaming on the sidelines. For you, Dad, his expression announced. And Melanie could read Bobby Riggs's reply in his exulted look, his parted lips.
That's my boy
, the father was screaming,
that's my boy
!

Melanie hastily closed the scrapbook. She had intruded too far. These were private photos of a private time that had come and gone. This was David with his family, and David with baseball, which seemed to be an even more personal relationship. She should've let it be. Everyone deserved their walls.

Of course, she opened the scrapbook and looked again.

God, he was magnificent when he was happy. The passion, the fire. She could see how that would make him a good federal agent, but as a baseball player …wow.

And then Melanie entertained the worst of all female fantasies — she wondered if she could make him smile like that, if she could fill his eyes with such primitive joy. If she could heal a man and make him feel whole.

This time she closed the scrapbook more firmly, then tucked it back in its place on the bookshelf. The images were emblazoned in her mind. She did her best to tuck them away as well.

The bedroom door was still closed. She passed by closely enough to realize that he was talking in there. Phone call. To whom? Then she had another thought. Whatever he was saying, it probably had to do with her case. Which was her life. Which was her business, dammit.

Melanie cupped her ear against the wood. She could hear every word.

David was giving someone a thorough dressing-down. “Sheffield did not just stay home all night, dammit. He told Melanie's dad he won last night, which means he was out gambling. And apparently while he was out gambling, someone broke into his house. We're not even sure if anything was taken, but they left a note. Now, I want to know what the note said!

“Yeah, Chenney. Do you understand now why sticking to your target is so important? Is this getting through to you yet? Just because people go home sick doesn't mean they stay home sick.

“Look, I wasn't sure what I thought of this either in the beginning. The case did seem far-fetched. But we've moved way beyond coincidence at this point. We know Harper Stokes got a note. Melanie believes her mother may also have gotten a note. Now, I can't be sure, but I'm willing to believe someone played a game at Sheffield's house as well. We need to know exactly what happened there.

“No, don't break into his house. Go through his trash. It's much simpler.