Blame It on Texas (43 page)

“Just now.”

“Is she headed home like you thought?”

“Yes,” Tyler said.

“What are you going to do?” Dallas asked.

“I don’t know.”

Tyler called Zoe back. She answered on the second ring. “Did he have news?”

“Yes,” he said. “Windsor killed himself.”

“Oh, God!” she said.

“He left a note confessing.”

He heard her catch her breath. “What all did he say?”

“I don’t have the details.” He hesitated to tell her, but he knew she wanted the truth. “But Tony told Dallas that his letter mentioned Officer Dean, the cop who was murdered, another cop, and your dad.”

“My dad was part of the kidnapping?”

“I don’t know, Zoe. That’s all I know.”

She hiccupped again.

“I’m Googling a meeting place now.”

“Why?” The word came out low.

“You’re upset.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“We need to talk,” he countered.

“About what?”

His gut twisted. “You didn’t even say good-bye.” Neither had Lisa. He’d come home from the first day of the trial and she’d moved out. He’d had to chase her down to find out why. And now he was chasing Zoe.

“Good-bye,” Zoe said.

“Zoe… please.”

She hung up. When he called back, she didn’t answer.

Tyler drove all the way to Mississippi until he realized he was a fool. Zoe had left. Why the hell was he doing this?

On Wednesday Tyler called, and Zoe let it go to voice mail. She did listen to it, and God help her, she’d hoped he might say something crazy about how he loved her and couldn’t live without her. Instead, he told her the DNA
test came back. She was Caroline Bradford. Zoe cried. He told her about the note. Her dad hadn’t been involved in the kidnapping, but Windsor suspected he’d killed Dean, probably to save her. And the other cop who’d been involved had died several years back.

Later that day, she went to school and told her boss she could start the next day. She needed to do something besides cry. And the only thing she could think she wanted to do was walk into a schoolroom and have sixteen five-year-olds who would look up with adoration.

Before she left, her principal asked if she’d called Helen Matthews. “She called two more times.”

Now curious, Zoe called her and then drove straight to her house.

Helen handed Zoe a metal box. On it was her mom’s name and a note that said, “Give to Zoe.”

“I don’t understand,” Zoe said.

“I found it under Mom’s bed when I was cleaning out the house. I tried opening it, but it has a combination lock. It doesn’t feel as if much is in there, but it felt important.”

“How long has she had it?” Zoe asked, suspicious that in the box were answers she’d thought she’d never have.

“I don’t know, but my mom’s been suffering from Alzheimer’s for years. It was slow coming on, but we’ve known about it for a long time. I’m assuming that your mom gave it to her before she died. Unfortunately, Mom’s memory was already going downhill then.”

Zoe hugged the box and started for the door. “Thank you.”

Helen smiled. “You’re welcome. When you get it open, tell me what’s there. I’m curious.”

Zoe nodded, but she didn’t promise. She wasn’t sure
she wanted to taint her mom’s reputation. As crazy as it sounded, Zoe didn’t care what she learned. As far as she was concerned, her mom and dad had done her a huge favor by taking her away from the Bradfords.

Thursday afternoon, Rick tossed a load of whites into the machine; both he and Ricky were out of underwear. The last four days had been crazy. A good crazy. Things with Ellen were fantastic. They were meeting back at his place every day at lunch and feeding on each other instead of fast food. Things with his son were better, but not great. Ricky still didn’t laugh when he read to him, and getting him to talk was like pulling teeth. But every day was a little bit better.

In addition, he’d had two new homicides and had called Ellen twice to beg her to pick up Ricky for him until he could get away. He didn’t know what he would do without her. Frankly, he didn’t want to find out. He knew he was falling in love with her, but it was happening so fast it was scary. And with her unresolved issues with Britney’s father, nothing felt solid.

When Rick walked out of the kitchen, Ricky wasn’t on the sofa watching television anymore. “Ricky?”

The boy mumbled something from his room, so Rick started for the sofa to veg before packing Ricky’s lunch for tomorrow. Being a parent wasn’t for wimps.

He’d just about landed on his butt when he spotted the dining room chair in front of the bookshelf. Had Ricky gotten a book? His gut clenched when he remembered what else was on that shelf. The key to his gun safe.

His gaze went to the safe. The door wasn’t open. He
still popped up to check. He passed his hand over the spot, and the key wasn’t there.

His gaze shot to the safe again, and from this angle he could see the door was ajar.

“Christ!” He started running toward Ricky’s room, and that’s when the gun went off.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

R
ICK’S HEART STOPPED BEATING
. Tears filled his eyes as he pushed open the door. Ricky sat on the bed.

Rick lunged at Ricky and ran his hands up and down the kid’s body looking for blood. “Are you okay? Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the boy screamed, and tried to pull away.

Rick didn’t stop until he convinced himself Ricky wasn’t hit. At first he didn’t see the boy’s tears. Rick didn’t realize he was crying, either, until he felt the wetness on his face.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” his son sobbed.

Rick sat on the bed and picked the boy up and wrapped him in his arms. “It’s okay.” And then Rick started sobbing with his son.

The boy stopped screaming, and Rick realized his son was hugging him around his neck. Finally, the kid pulled away and stared up. “Are you crying because you’re mad at me?”

“No, son. I’m crying because I love you so much, and if you’d gotten hurt, I couldn’t have lived with myself.”

His bottom lip quivered. “I just wanted to help Ellen.”

Rick wiped his cheeks. “Help Ellen what?”

“If she had a gun, then maybe Britney’s father wouldn’t be so mean to her. Britney says he’s always like that to her. That he never says nice things to her like you do. And she was right, he wasn’t nice.”

“What? Did you see Britney’s father?”

He nodded. “Yeah, he came to see Britney, and when he went to leave, he and Ellen walked outside. We hid under the living room window and heard him talking to Ellen. He treated her like the bad men who always yelled at Mom. She told him to just leave. But he told her he had a right to be there with his daughter. He said an ugly word, too. And he didn’t even apologize like you did.”

When Ricky fell asleep, Rick paced his apartment until he decided he had to do it. Not him personally, but it had to be done. He snatched up his cell phone and called Tyler. “What do you need?” Tyler asked, sounding even more miserable than he’d sounded these last few days.

Rick dropped down in a chair. “You know how you kept trying to pay me for things?”

“You need some money?”

“No, I need a job done. I’d do it myself, but with Ricky and work, I’m booked. And it might take some time.”

Zoe set the box on her kitchen table and got a knife to pry it open. Then setting the knife down, she punched the date of her birthday into the combination. It opened. Inside she found several newspaper clippings about the kidnapping—the one with her picture on the tire
swing—and about her real parents’ plane crash. Beneath that was a letter. She recognized her mother’s handwriting. Zoe’s chest grew heavy.

Dear Zoe,

I’m a coward, or I would have told you this myself. Your father had planned to tell you when you were eighteen. But when I lost him, I just couldn’t imagine losing you, and I was afraid if you learned the truth, you’d hate me.

But how do I tell you that you are not my daughter when in my heart, you are. You are the most precious gift I’ve ever known, and I have loved you like my own. But the truth is that you are not my biological child. Even as I write this now, my heart is breaking in fear that you will not understand. That you will blame me and your father. Please, baby, let me explain before you toss away the love you hold for us.

Our little girl, Zoe Adams, died at four months old. We had resigned ourselves to not having any more children. And it was not easy for us, because having children had been a dream for both of us. Then one day your dad brought home a very scared little redheaded girl and a story that was almost too hard to believe.

His cousin, Marcus Dean, had become a cop and moved to Miller, Texas. Another of your dad’s friends, Randall Windsor, moved up there as well. Both these men, in spite of his cousin being a cop, were not good men. Your father would still meet
them and their friends once a year to fish or hunt. On one trip, they were drunk and came to your father with a crazy idea for a get-rich plan. They wanted to kidnap a little girl and get the ransom money.

Your father thought they were just drunk. But a few months later, he read in the paper about a kidnapping. He didn’t want to call the police in case it was just a weird coincidence. So he tried to call his cousin. He never answered. He finally reached Marcus’s girlfriend who told him that Dean was in Barker, at the family’s lake house.

Your dad found his cousin drunk and talking out of his head. He said things had gone bad, that you had seen someone’s face, and they were going to have to take care of the problem. He said Windsor had gotten cold feet and just wanted to let you go, but the other guy involved insisted they had to kill you or they’d all go to prison.

Your dad couldn’t let him do that. They argued and Marcus pulled a gun. They fought and he accidentally killed his own cousin.

Your dad was a good man, Zoe. He would never have hurt anyone. He was so scared because Dean was a cop. He called Windsor panicking, thinking since Windsor had wanted to put a stop to it, he might help. But instead he told your dad that there was another cop involved and he was on the way up there now to finish the job. He told your dad to keep quiet or they’d pin everything on him since he’d been with them on that fishing trip a few months back.

He got you out of that closet, and brought you home. You were in shock and dehydrated. We took care of you. We don’t know how long you were in that closet. You didn’t talk for a week. Your dad didn’t know what to do. Windsor called him furious asking where you were; your dad lied and said when he found you in the closet you were already dead and he took you out and buried you.

We decided to wait awhile until we got enough money to leave town, a week, maybe two, and then we’d drop you at a police station. But Windsor kept calling saying the other kidnapper, the other cop, didn’t believe you were dead. Then a little girl about your size died in our town. Your dad worked at his father’s funeral home, and he had a crazy idea. He fixed it so they would stop looking for you. And as soon as we sold the house, and had enough money to run, we planned to drop you off at a police station. But right after that your real parents were killed in a plane crash.

By then, we both loved you so much, but I wanted to do the right thing. So I went to see the Bradfords. Mrs. Daniels met me at the door and wouldn’t let me in. I told her I had news about you, but she didn’t believe me, and on top of that she didn’t even seem to care. She threatened to call the police if I ever came back. Oh, Zoe, she was so cold, I simply could not see taking you to her. So we walked away from everything, our families, our friends, and the house, and we moved to Alabama. And we lied. We lied to you. We lied to everyone.

We were going to tell you when you were eighteen, but your father died and I was so afraid if I told you the truth that you’d hate me. So I took this lie to my grave with me. I hope someday when you have a child of your own, you realize how easy it would be to live a lie for fear of losing that child.

Zoe left the letter on the table and went into her room and cried some more.

When she woke up in the middle of the night, she scanned the letter and sent a copy to Tyler’s e-mail. She was about to go to bed when she got an e-mail back from him. What was he doing up at this hour? The same reasons she was, heartbroken and couldn’t sleep? As she clicked the mouse to open the e-mail, she held her breath, hoping for a sign that told her he cared.

He replied with three words.
Are you okay?

Not I miss you. Or, I can’t stand to be without you.

She answered back with two words.
I’m fine.

Then she went back to bed and cried some more.

When Zoe got home from school on Friday, she was exhausted. But being at work helped. She only thought about Tyler every fifteen seconds instead of every three. Zoe heard a knock. Her heart jumped in her throat. Tyler? It wasn’t him. But they were from Texas. Mr. Bradford and another man stood outside her door.

The stranger was a big man, and his two black eyes told Zoe that he’d been the man who’d broken into her apartment.

“May we come in?” Mr. Bradford asked.

“Why?” Zoe asked.

“To talk,” he said.

She looked at the big man and back to Mr. Bradford. “You can come in, but he can’t. He broke into my apartment.”

Mr. Bradford moved in and sat on the sofa, while the big guy waited outside. The old man looked uncomfortable, and Zoe worried he was in pain. “Do you need something to drink?”

“No, I’m fine. I realize that my family behaved badly. I guess I didn’t behave much better by not stopping it.” He paused.

“If you are waiting for me to disagree with you, you’ll be disappointed.”

He smiled at her. “You’ve got your mom’s wit, you know?”

Zoe hesitated. “No, I wasn’t being funny, just blunt, and that came from my dad, Ralph Adams.”

“Didn’t Tyler contact you? The DNA test proved you are my granddaughter.”

“I know,” Zoe said. “But Ralph and Mildred Adams were my parents. They raised me. Loved me. Spoiled me a little bit, but they taught me right from wrong, and more importantly they taught me how to treat people. It’s something your family knows nothing about.”