Crossing her arms over the steering wheel, Nicole leaned her chin on one forearm and squinted toward the garden that looked as if it had been left to grow wild. Weed-green poked up amidst the white heads of Shasta daisies and orange tiger lilies. Ivy groped along the face of the building, tendrils drooping over windowpanes like shaggy lashes above dark, brooding eyes. With its location next to the graveyard and unkempt appearance, no wonder the town kids made up stories about this place.
What had she been told one moonlit night when she hung out in a neighboring kid’s tree house? They sat in a tight circle, five of them, foreheads nearly touching, warm breath mingling, as ghost stories whispered from lip to lip. “There’s a boogeyman in the Ellings’ basement,” lisped one sharp, eager face. “He steals babies and eats them!”
A remembered shiver passed down Nicole’s spine. So deliciously frightening then, so silly now. Or maybe not. Her pulse stalled as images of an infant’s remains flashed through her mind. Only the child hadn’t been found here. Yet the police chief shot straight to the boogeyman’s lair. Was there some nugget of truth in the small-town legend?
Her gaze swept the property. In the midst of the garden, a slumped figure caught her eye, and she stared. A person, yes, but limp and still on a bench. The head hung low, face covered by what looked like a dark shroud. The figure’s shoulders drooped, arms flopped to the sides, as if some life-size rag doll had been flung onto the bench.
Swallowing a sour taste, Nicole eased out of her car and shut the door. The sound drew no movement from the hunched form on the bench. Was the person all right? Did they need help? Nicole’s legs carried her without conscious command toward the garden. Breath labored in and out of tight lungs. She prayed she wasn’t about to discover another dead body.
Rich held his expression deadpan. “Do you recall what your boy was wearing when he disappeared?”
A blank stare answered him. “Can’t say that I do.” Simon pursed his lips.
Rich nodded and made a notation. Of course, a guy not remembering what someone was wearing didn’t strike him as too surprising.
“How about if any object went missing with him?” Rich held his pen poised.
The man’s forehead wound into a knot of wrinkles. “I seem to remember something about an item, but can’t recall what it was.” He polished off his drink then surged to his feet and stalked toward the wet bar. “Can I get you anything?”
“Sorry. I’m on duty.”
Simon snickered. “You wouldn’t drink with me anyway.”
Rich let silence speak for him.
Simon lifted a decanter and brown liquid glugged into the snifter. “We paid the ransom, and do you know what we got in return?” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Bubkes!” Simon charged toward the desk, flesh a mottled red. “When a man sinks his whole world into an heir, he ought to get him back, don’t you think?”
Rich held himself motionless as Simon ground to a halt inches from his position. The man was almost as tall as Rich, but all bone and sinew, as if his almost eighty years of life had drained the juices from him.
“An heir to carry on the name may not mean much to most people.”
Rich’s skin tightened. Simon may as well have said peons instead of people. No wonder this whole family set his teeth on edge.
“But the Ellings must have a namesake!” Simon’s hiss blew a waft of booze-breath, and Rich took a step back.
The words sounded like a litany Simon rehearsed often in his head, probably passed down from male heir to male heir. Rich made a note on his pad. He hated to break it to the guy, but there weren’t any namesakes running around this mausoleum. Nicole Keller may have unearthed the last of the line in her grandparents’ backyard.
Who put the child there—and why—was Rich’s business to find out, and Simon’s reaction sounded…off. He didn’t hear fatherly grief in this man’s tone. More like an investor’s outrage at a swindle. He’d known Simon was a hard man, but this hard?
Nicole’s steps slowed as she neared the hunched figure who sat on a wooden bench beneath the shade of a maple tree. Nicole stopped on the weed-grown remnants of a stone path a few feet away and held her breath. The ample figure indicated that the person was female. She wore a vintage 1950s dress with a wide Peter Pan collar and a full, swing skirt. Nicole wouldn’t be surprised if there was a crinoline beneath it. Only one person in town dressed as if they’d never left the era of saddle shoes—Hannah Breyer, Fern Elling’s sister. And thank goodness, the woman’s chest moved up and down with even breaths. Hannah was asleep, not dead, and the shroud over her face was merely a dark scarf flopped forward in her sleep.
Nicole slowly exhaled. She’d leave Hannah to her nap. Pivoting, Nicole’s shoes scraped against the dirt coating the paving stones, and a breath stuttered behind her.
“What?… Oh, my. Who are you?”
Heart sinking, Nicole turned toward Hannah. The woman brushed her scarf out of her face and back on top of her gray curls. Faded-green eyes squinted up at the intruder.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.” Nicole lifted apologetic hands. “It’s Nicole Mattson. Er, you probably know me as Keller. I thought…” She hesitated. “You looked…” How did she tell the other woman she’d mistaken her for dead? “Oh, never mind. I was just passing by and stopped to check on you.”
“Keller? Really?” A debutante’s giggle left Hannah’s throat. “How kind of you. Not many folks around here check on this old gal. Have a seat.” She patted the bench beside her.
Nicole glanced toward her car, half hidden in the trees, and then back toward Hannah. The poor thing looked so hopeful for human companionship, Nicole didn’t have the heart to turn her down, even though her feet wanted to carry her back to her vehicle. She settled on the edge of the bench. A faint lilac scent drifted to her from the other woman.
“Tell me about yourself, Nicole Keller.” Hannah’s pudgy hand patted Nicole’s knee. “My, you’ve gotten grown up. Are you visiting your grandparents, like usual?”
Nicole stiffened and met Hannah’s open gaze. The older woman remembered her? To Nicole’s knowledge, they’d only met once, and that was by accident years ago. “I’m staying with Grandma Jan for a while. Grandpa Frank passed away ten years ago.”
Hannah’s face puckered like a child presented with a puzzle. “Mercy me, how could I forget something like that? Where is my head going to?”
Nicole smiled. “It’s all right. He went peacefully in his own bed.” Not like her father or her husband. She shook off the pinch of grief.
Sadness drooped Hannah’s lips. “He was a good man. A very good man.”
“I agree.” Nicole clasped her hands together in her lap. Frank Keller had nothing to do with the baby buried under his rose garden. Surely, everyone would know that.
Gentle fingers brushed a sweep of hair from Nicole’s cheek. Hannah’s green eyes searched her features. “You look troubled, dear. Do you want to talk about it?”
Nicole shrugged, words crowding to her lips. She did want to talk, to rant, to pull her hair, maybe even scream. But none of those reactions would change anything. They wouldn’t bring her dad back, or her husband, or put that poor child’s bones back into the ground where they couldn’t cast a shadow over everything that still mattered in her life.
“I was just driving around thinking.”
Hannah bobbed her head, scarf tips wagging in rhythm under her full chin. “I do the same thing when I’ve got something on my mind.”
Nicole cast a glance toward the rear door of the house. A small canopy wrapped the portal in deep shadows. What