Wanted Woman Read online

He got a half dozen latents off the newspaper clipping and one good clear one from the back doorknob. He was hoping the burglar had taken off his gloves to peek at the articles. Maybe he hadn’t planned to steal the file, didn’t want to throw up a red flag when Charity found it missing.

  So when he heard Jesse’s and Charity’s cars pull up out front after everything in town was closed and the sidewalks practically rolled up for the night, he’d just grabbed the file and run, dropping the one clipping and leaving a print on the back doorknob.

  Of course there was a good chance the prints would all turn out to be Charity’s. Or Blaine’s, the high-school kid who worked for her.

  BACK AT HIS OFFICE, Jesse called Mitch. Charity had made it home safe and sound although Mitch was upset that someone had broken into the newspaper office, especially after the last time.

  “Can you walk me through the process for sending fingerprints to the state lab?” Jesse asked his brother, taking a bite of his sandwich and booting up the computer.

  Jesse did as he was instructed, figuring it would take a while to get an ID, if he got one at all tonight.

  But to his surprise, the results came up immediately. He let out a curse and pushed the remaining sandwich aside.

  “What?” Mitch said on the other end of the line.

  “I didn’t think they would come back so fast,” Jesse told him. One print, the one from the back door, had come up with a match.

  “That means there’s an APB out on this person,” Mitch said.

  No kidding. The clean print on the back doorknob belonged to Margaret Jane Randolph of West Seattle.

  “Tell me Charity hasn’t gotten herself into trouble,” Mitch said.

  “Not to worry, little brother,” Jesse said. No reason to tell him about Maggie just yet. “I’ll call and see what’s up and get back to you in the morning.” He hung up before Mitch could argue.

  Jesse stared at the number on the screen. Damn. Maggie wasn’t on her way to Mexico. She was busy breaking into the newspaper to read the Angela Dennison file. For some reason this woman on the run from a murder investigation had stopped long enough to read a newspaper file on kidnapping.

  Now what kind of sense did that make? None. And yet, it made perfect sense to him.

  He opened the container with the cherry pie inside and took a few bites before he dialed the telephone number he’d scribbled down earlier. It was way too late but maybe big city detectives worked late.

  Maggie had broken into his soon-to-be sister-in-law’s newspaper. It was high time he found out just what the hell was the story with his mystery biker.

  He got Detective Rupert Blackmore’s voice mail. Blackmore had a deep, rough-sounding voice. An older cop, hardened from time and the streets, Jesse thought. He’d met a few of them. He hung up without leaving a message.

  “Now why the hell did you do that?” he asked himself and swore.

  He couldn’t explain it. Just a gut feeling that he needed to talk to Maggie Randolph before he talked to the cop.

  Disgusted with himself, he got up from the desk and went to the window. “Some deputy you are.” He stared out at the dark night. It had started to rain again. Soon he would have webbed feet if he stayed in this town.

  He’d have to find her. Find out what the hell she was doing in Timber Falls. What she was searching for. But he had a bad feeling he already knew, had known longer than he wanted to admit.

  Chapter Eight

  In the dark tent, Maggie stared at the thick file. Her heart was still pounding. That had been a close call back at the newspaper. She’d never expected anyone to show up, not after hours and certainly not in a town that was dead by eight at night.

  How long would it take the deputy to find out that she’d broken into the paper and taken the Angela Dennison file? How long before he notified Blackmore?

  She should have left the file, but there wasn’t time to cover her tracks, and she had to know what was in it. She’d only just started reading through the clippings, hiding in the darkroom with her flashlight, when she’d heard the cars pull up out front.

  Would they have realized by now that she took the file? Maybe not. Maybe no one would know for a while. But if it came out, then Blackmore would not only know she was in town but that she’d stumbled onto the truth.

  She shone the flashlight on the file, her fingers brushing the bulging worn folder. It seemed she had been the news for twenty-seven years.

  After reading for a few minutes, there was no doubt in her mind that she was the baby who had been kidnapped twenty-seven years ago from her crib in a house a few miles from here. She was Angela Dennison, youngest daughter of Wade and Daisy Dennison, owners of Dennison Ducks, a plant where decoys were carved.

  The file contained not only articles published by the Cascade Courier, but copies of ones from larger newspapers where the kidnapping had made front page news when it happened years ago.

  Angela Dennison was only a few weeks old when she was taken from her crib in the dark of night, never to be seen again. Not only was Angela the same age as Maggie, they shared the same birthday—March ninth.

  And Maggie had been adopted not twenty-four hours after Angela Dennison’s disappearance.

  Many of the local stories had been written by Charity Jenkins for the Cascade Courier. She read through all the articles again. If she was right she was the daughter of the most written about family in town.

  Maggie put the articles back in the file and snapped off the light, plunging the tent in darkness. Her head ached and she felt sick to her stomach. Closing her eyes, she listened to the sound of the river and the wind in the trees…and the frantic beat of her heart.

  It was all mind-blowing. According to the articles, the mystery had been solved a few months ago when the plant production manager had been killed after admitting to Charity Jenkins right before he died that he had taken the baby. But it was clear from the newspaper articles written after his death that he had not acted alone.

  Apparently both parents, Daisy and Wade Dennison, had been suspects. Might still be suspects. She had studied the photo of Wade and Daisy Dennison for a long time. It was a black-and-white, grainy and not clear enough to see any resemblance.

  Or maybe she just didn’t want to see a resemblance. Didn’t want to be part of this infamous family.

  As she sat in the darkness, she tried to tell herself it could be worse. Wade Dennison was in jail for shooting the Timber Falls sheriff during a recent domestic dispute with his estranged wife Daisy. How could it be worse than that?

  Maggie felt hot tears on her cheeks. She hadn’t let herself cry. Not at the pier when Norman had been killed. Not after, when she knew it was only a matter of time before Blackmore caught up with her.

  She’d focused on only one thing: learning the truth. Once she knew, she’d thought that she would be safe.

  But now she saw that that wasn’t the case. She still had no idea why Blackmore wanted her dead. Her throat constricted as she fought back the sobs that made her chest ache. Scared and tired and sick over what she’d found, she curled around the pain as the sobs racked her body and tears burned down her cheeks.

  She was Angela Dennison. Like it or not. And for some reason, her life was in danger because of it.

  After a few minutes, she dried her tears and pulled herself together. Enough crying. She couldn’t just hide out in this tent and feel sorry for herself.

  If Blackmore had been behind the kidnapping, that would explain why he didn’t want the truth coming out. So he must have had some connection to Timber Falls. All she had to do was find it.

  The obvious place to start seemed to be her biological family. Wade Dennison was a powerful man in this town but he was in jail. Was it possible he had influence as far away as Seattle? Or was it his wife Daisy who might have known Blackmore?

  Maggie turned on the flashlight long enough to hide the stolen file under her mat, then pocketing the light, she left the tent and headed for her bike. She ha
d hours before daylight and a lot to do before then. It was only a matter of time before Blackmore found out she was in Timber Falls and came to finish what he’d started.

  DETECTIVE RUPERT BLACKMORE was tired and cranky and his whole body ached after driving for hours. He still had miles to go to get to Timber Falls, Oregon. A waitress in an all-night truck stop refilled his coffee cup. He’d drunk too much coffee to try to stay awake and his stomach was killing him.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked, drawing her order pad from her uniform pocket. She didn’t look up as she tore off his bill and laid it on the table. She glanced at him then.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Thank you.”

  She gave him a smile, a granddaughterly smile. “Good luck. Hope you catch a bunch.”

  He watched her walk away. Hope you catch a bunch. Fish. She’d gotten the idea that he was going fishing no doubt from his hat with the lures on it and the old jacket and flannel shirt he was wearing. He smiled to himself.

  Yesterday, he’d only gone home long enough to take a shower, change his clothing and collect several of the unregistered weapons he’d picked up over the years. At least the weapons weren’t registered to him. They’d been ones he’d found at drug busts, ones tossed out of moving vehicles he’d chased down, ones he’d taken off dead gang members. Ones that could never be traced back to him.

  At first he’d just collected them, like trophies of wild game kills. At least he thought he had. But maybe he’d known all along that the day would come when he would need a gun.

  Blackmail was an insidious thing. Even when you didn’t hear from the blackmailer for years, you always knew the day would come when payment would be demanded. And unless you wanted your entire world to unravel like the yarn of a slashed sweater, then you paid—no matter the price.

  He’d taken the pickup he used for his fishing trips. Thrown in his tent for good measure, along with his fishing jacket and hat. When he’d finally gotten everything loaded into the pickup and slipped behind the wheel, the fishing hat perched on his head, he’d glanced in the rearview mirror.

  He’d been shocked at how much he’d aged. It was as if his hair and beard had turned completely gray overnight. When was the last time he’d looked into the mirror, really looked? Obviously not when he shaved in the morning.

  He recalled old fishermen he’d met over the years, tottering along the edge of the water, squinting into the sun from a face wrinkled and weathered with age and water and wind, and realized he could have been one of them.

  That’s when it hit him. What the people of Timber Falls, Oregon, would see. An old fisherman. Not a cop.

  Not unless they looked into his eyes. That was the only part of him that would give him away. The life-hardened ice-blue eyes that even he didn’t like to look into.

  He’d picked up a pair of sunglasses off the dash of the truck, put them on and looked in the mirror again. He couldn’t have picked a better disguise.

  He left the waitress a good tip, paid his bill at the cash register and bought himself two of the best cigars the truck stop had to offer. As he headed for his pickup, he felt better than he had in days.

  Maggie Randolph would never see him coming.

  JESSE STARED at the computer in the empty office. He knew he should go home and try to get some sleep. He could start looking for Maggie in the morning.

  He leaned toward the computer, remembering what Sissy had shown him. Maggie Randolph had broken into the newspaper to research the Angela Dennison kidnapping case. While Charity’s paper was too small to have an online morgue, a large paper in the Seattle area would, wouldn’t it?

  He went online, called up one of the two largest newspapers there, typed in the name Margaret Randolph and waited. Maybe there wouldn’t be anything on her. Maybe she hadn’t lived there long enough. Maybe—

  A long list of articles appeared on the screen. He scanned down them surprised that most had run on the sports pages. He shook his head in wonder. It seemed Maggie liked to race motorcycles, participate in extreme skiing competitions and scuba dive in dangerous waters. How about that?

  He started back up the list, spotted one marked Obit and clicked on it. Maggie’s name was listed as the only surviving child of Paul Randolph who had been killed in a plane crash less than two months ago. He started to click off the obituary when he spotted another one farther down. He clicked on it. Again Maggie’s name was listed as the only child. The obit was for Mildred Randolph, Maggie’s mother. He skimmed it, noted that the mother had contracted polio as a child and had been in a wheelchair, and at the bottom saw something that made him catch his breath.

  Memorials were to be made to an organization the Randolphs had started to assist older, disabled couples in adopting a child.

  What were the odds that Maggie was adopted?

  Jesse swore, more sure than ever he was on the right track. He moved the cursor back to the top of the list and clicked on the most recent article under Margaret Jane Randolph.

  It was a story about a legal assistant named Norman Drake. His body had been fished out of the water near an abandoned pier on Puget Sound this morning. His death was being investigated as a homicide. Margaret Randolph was wanted for questioning in the man’s murder along with that of Drake’s boss, a local attorney named Clark Iverson who was murdered in his office last week. Iverson had been a longtime family friend and attorney for Randolph’s father, the recently deceased Paul Randolph.

  Jesse let out a low whistle. Maggie seemed to have left a trail of bodies behind her. And now she was in Timber Falls doing a little B and E to research an old kidnapping case?

  Locking up the office, Jesse climbed on his bike. It was late but there was something that couldn’t wait. He’d put it off for too many years already.

  LEE TANNER came out onto his deck, squinting into the darkness, as Jesse shut off his motorcycle. “Son, I was hoping that was you.”

  Jesse saw with relief that his father was sober. It had been a long time now but he wondered if he would always feel that instant of fear just before the relief no matter how many years his father had been on the wagon. “I know it’s late….”

  Lee shook his head. “I’m glad you stopped by. I was just enjoying the night sky.” The rain shower had passed, leaving the sky clear and full of stars.

  Jesse joined him at the deck railing, trying to see his father the way Daisy Dennison must have almost thirty years ago. Lee still had a thick head of dark hair, but at fifty-five it was shot with silver. When Lee Tanner used to ride horses in the woods behind the house with Daisy his hair had been as black as Jesse’s.

  His father was still an attractive man, strong and lean, his dark eyes more solemn than Jesse remembered them, his demeanor more serene. Was that just from being sober? Or had his father found some kind of peace with the past?

  Jesse was reminded that he’d thought the same thing of Daisy, that the years had mellowed her, as well.

  “What’s on your mind, son?” Lee asked, tilting his head back as he looked up at the glittering stars and sliver of silver moon overhead. A light breeze stirred the tops of the nearby pines, whispering softly to the night.

  Jesse hesitated, afraid he was about to destroy any peace his father had found and send him back to the bottle. “The newspaper office was broken into tonight.”

  Lee looked over at him in surprise. This rainy season had been the worst. Murders and shootings and all interrelated in some way to the Dennisons.

  “The burglar took Angela Dennison’s kidnapping file.” Jesse saw his father tense. A deep silence stretched between them. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

  “As a lawman or my son?” Lee inquired quietly.

  “Both. I need to know if there is any chance Angela Dennison is your daughter.”

  Lee closed his eyes and sighed softly. “Why would you ask me that after all these years? What possible difference could it make now?”

  “I think she’s alive,” Jesse sa
id, the words tumbling out, words he hadn’t dared even think let alone say until this moment. “I think she’s in Timber Falls. And I think she’s in bad trouble. I have to know the truth. It might be the only way I can help her.”

  His father’s eyes came open slowly. He stared at his son, his whole body seeming to quake as he gripped the rail. “Angela alive?” Tears welled in his dark eyes, now no longer at peace. “Does Daisy know?”

  “I don’t even know for sure myself yet,” Jesse said, but maybe part of him had known from the moment Maggie had lifted her head beside that rain-soaked highway last night and he’d felt as if he’d been hit between the eyes with a two-by-four. He hadn’t wanted to see the resemblance. So like Desiree and yet so different.

  “My God, if Angela really is alive…” Lee Tanner stumbled over to one of the deck chairs and lowered himself into it, looking suddenly older than his fifty-five years.

  “I have to know, Dad.”

  His father was shaking his head in wonder, staring off into the darkness as if caught in the past again. “Everyone thought she was dead.”

  “Dad? Is there a chance that Angela is your daughter?”

  Lee Tanner looked up. “It’s been so long, Jesse. You have to understand, we’re different people than we were then. I know part of you believes the affair was why your mother left me—”

  “I don’t care about that. I have to know if Angela could be your daughter. My…half sister.”

  “Why would the truth ever have to come out? What difference—” Lee Tanner seemed to see the answer in Jesse’s gaze. “Don’t tell me that you’re—”

  “I’ve only laid eyes on her once,” Jesse said quickly. “But if I’m right about her…” How could he explain to his father that he was instantly drawn to this woman, felt things he’d never felt? He couldn’t explain it to himself. And his greatest fear was that this woman would always be forbidden to him.

  “Oh, Jesse.”

  “I need to know the time frame.”

  His father seemed about to deny it, then said quietly, “I honestly don’t know. But it’s possible both girls could be mine.”