Senora parked the car on the quiet little street at the edge of town, taking a deep breath and flexing her hands on the steering wheel.
“I hate this part,” she said, looking at the quaint little house with the purple door and the tidy landscape around a welcoming porch that wrapped around the entire house. “This never gets any easier.”
“I don’t think notifying people that their loved one is gone is ever supposed to get easier,” Ty offered. “I can do it for you if you want.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I have to do this. This woman called me and expected me to save her daughter. The least I can do is give her the courtesy of being the one to tell her what happened.” Senora took another deep breath. “But I wouldn’t mind if you came with me.”
“Not a problem,” he said.
They walked up the narrow pathway to the front door, Senora’s eyes locked on the door. If Mabel came out of the house before she knocked, she wanted to make sure that she made eye contact with the woman. It was part of how she’d been trained, and she never deviated from that training.
Ty was silent behind her, only the thud of his boots on the porch steps giving his presence away. That and the warm scent of him that smelled more of fresh air and deep woods than cologne and hair products. There was something about him that oozed outdoorsman, even though he didn’t look like Senora’s expectation of a man who was one with nature. He was too clean, too shaven and much too cultured. He made the Sheriff look like a barbaric moron, which wasn’t really hard to do in this case.
She knocked on the door, shoving thoughts of the Sheriff out of her mind. She was still livid at the way the man had treated this entire case, and now that Addie was dead, he wasn’t even apologetic. If she didn’t know any better, she would think-
The door opened, and Mabel stood there, eyes swollen and sleepy, hands buried in her apron as she dried them off. She looked decades older than fifty, and it was obvious that she’d been crying since the moment Addie had gone missing and hadn’t slept much.
“Are you Miss Edwards?” she asked, her voice husky and weak.
“Yes Ma’am,” Senora said softly.
“I don’t guess you have good news for me, then?” the woman asked.
Senora shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but Mabel already knew.
“My baby,” she said weakly, clutching at her chest and looking up to the sky.
It took Senora a beat to realize that she wasn’t looking upward, but by the time she reacted, Ty had already scooped Mabel up mid-faint and cradled her against his chest as she lay limp in his arms.
“Get the door,” he said, and Senora rushed to comply.
She followed him into the house, straight back to the large, welcoming couch in the center of the cheerfully decorated room. Ty laid her down on the couch, propping her feet and her head up with pillows while Senora went into the kitchen and ran a clean towel under the cool water and squeezed the excess water out.
She sat on the ottoman in front of the couch and pressed the cloth against the woman’s head. Ty sat beside Senora, his face drawn with concern as the woman’s eyes fluttered and she started to wake up.
She took one look at Ty and then Senora, then began wailing. The cries were a deep, visceral pain that could only come from a mother mourning her child. Senora sat rigid, not sure what to do when Ty knelt between the ottoman and the couch, taking Mabel’s hand in his and comforting the woman.
Senora watched him, the tender way he spoke soft words to her as he looked into her tortured face. When Mabel started mouthing the words Ty spoke, she realized that Ty was saying a prayer with her. Mabel’s wails softened, but she continued to cry. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, and Ty sat there, waiting patiently for her to process the news.
He was so calm and his presence so nurturing that Senora was left in awe of him. His soft words and gentle heart were in stark contrast to his muscled, macho appearance. She hadn’t expected him to be like this, and it was a pleasant surprise. Unlike the other men she’d encountered during the course of the investigation, Ty seemed to have a heart of gold. The Sheriff could learn a thing or two from the man; that was for sure.
Senora saw Mabel squeeze Ty’s hand and shake her head to indicate that she was ready to sit up and face reality, as hard as that was. Ty helped her upright, then packed a throw pillow on either side of her in case the news became too unbearable again.
“Water?” he said.
“Please,” she replied, and Ty disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a tall glass.
He handed it to her and took her free hand again. She held onto him as if her life hung in the balance and he was her only connection to this world. When she’d finished half the cup, she set it down and looked at Senora.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
Senora was grateful she didn’t have to lie to spare Mabel the gruesome truth.
“We don’t know yet. It’s going to be a couple days before that information is available.”
“Did she suffer?” Mabel wanted to know.
Senora’s heart sank. There was kindness, and there was outright lying. She wouldn’t lie, but she didn’t know how to tell this mother that Addie had indeed suffered.
“She’s been missing a little over a day, and she’s been gone since at least last night,” Ty began, and Senora made no move to stop him. It wasn’t his place, but she didn’t have anything better to offer the poor woman. “She was probably gone before Miss Edwards even got to the scene, which means that she wasn’t held and tortured. That’s not much, but that’s all we know now. There’s nothing you or anyone could have done to prevent this. It happened too fast.”
“I could have moved out of this place like her therapist suggested,” Mabel said bitterly. “But I wanted Addie to try to make it here, and she was doing so well. I thought I was doing the right-”
She choked on a sudden sob, and like a wave crashing into the shore, the grief washed over her again. She buried her face in her hands and shook as the tears flowed. Senora’s heart broke with each muffled moan, but there was nothing to do but let the moment pass and give Mabel a chance to regroup before she asked the next question.
Senora let Ty comfort the woman. He was doing well without Senora’s help, and in truth, Senora didn’t really know what to say to her. This was her first dealing with a family from a town this small, and it seemed that people ran by an entirely different set of social rules than they did in D.C. Not only that, but many of the calls Senora received were days and weeks after the abduction, and by then, many of the families had already begun to lose hope or accept that their loved one was dead. But Addie had come to dinner a few hours before she disappeared, so Mabel was still trying to process the fact that Addie was really missing when they showed up to give her the worst possible news.
When Mabel reached out to touch Senora’s hand, Senora almost jumped. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed that Mabel was calmer now, and looking like she was ready to talk.
“I’ll do my best to answer any questions that you have,” she said, her voice and demeanor eerily calm. “Anything to catch the monster that did this to my baby.”
“Thank you,” Senora said. “The quicker we get every piece of information that you can think of that might help, the better chance we have of finding Addie’s killer.”
“That’s all I want. That poor girl had the worst start in life, and it never seemed to get better until recently. She deserves to rest in peace, even if I wish she was still here with me.”
Tilting her head, Senora waited for the words to settle in before she responded. She heard something in the woman’s voice that didn’t make sense.
Maybe I misunderstood, she thought, looking for the words to ask her next question without offending the woman and making her shut down. If Senora was wrong, Mabel might be hurt by the question. But if she was right, that changed everything.
“Mabel, was Addie adopted?” Senora asked, cringing inwardly and hoping that she hadn’t misread what Mabel was saying.
“Yes. What does that have to do with what happened to her?”
“Probably nothing,” Senora said.
Or maybe everything, she thought.
“And what about her therapist?” Senora continued. “Was she seeing the therapist about something related to being adopted?”
“No. Not as far as I know. She started going to work through her need to be found. There was something about faking her abduction and having people search for her that fulfilled a need inside her. She didn’t want to be like that, but she couldn’t stop herself. She started going after her last faked abduction. Something about that one shook her to her core and made her realize that she couldn’t keep going on like that.”
“What was different this time?”
Mabel shook her head.
“I couldn’t tell you, to be honest. The Sheriff came down hard on her, just like he had every time before. And she lost a lot of friends, just like all the other times. But other than that, it was the same crap, different faked abduction. The only real change was the nursing home. They didn’t fire her, even though she left a group of seniors in Granbury at the mall. They should have fired her, but they told her that they understood.”
“Understood? That seems kind of off,” Senora said, after listening intently to Mabel.
The more Mabel spoke about Addie, the more intrigued Senora was. And lost. She felt more out of the loop now than she had when she’d started investigating Addie’s disappearance the day before. She didn’t know how more information could feel like it was leading her further away from the truth, but that’s exactly how she felt.
“I was surprised, too. I thought for sure that she would be fired, but when Mark called her the Friday night after she was found and asked her if she needed more time or if she would be there on Monday, Addie was elated. I think that was part of what made her seek treatment after I begged her for years to talk to someone about the faked disappearances. I guess the mercy they showed her really touched her heart. Maybe that mercy was the attention that she was looking for, though goodness knows I gave that child all the mercy I could spare and then some.”
Mabel smiled, then her face crumpled and she quietly sobbed into a handkerchief she held tightly in her right hand. Ty was still holding her left hand, offering his strength and waiting patiently while Senora led Mabel through the seemingly endless line of questions she needed answers to.
Ty looked to Senora, and she nodded. They were done with Mabel, at least for now. They had enough to go off of to start investigating Addie’s death, and they were going to start with the therapist’s office.
“Is there someone I can call for you?” Ty asked. “Someone to come and sit with you after we leave, maybe?”
Mabel shook her head.
“Loretta is next door. I imagine she’ll be over as soon as you leave. I guess there are times that it’s nice to have a busybody as a neighbor.”
Mabel laughed softly.
“Do you need anything?” Ty asked, his concern so sincere.
He was so different than the Sheriff, but in this case, Senora had a feeling that the Sheriff was the odd man out. Caring for each other seemed to be second nature to the people in this town, and everyone else she had met over the course of the investigation was kind and genuine. Only the Sheriff seemed to think that Addie was a waste of air.
Senora made a mental note to look deeper into the Sheriff’s past. He probably had nothing to do with what happened to Addie, but Senora was willing to bet that he had something he was hiding, and he wouldn’t breathe easy until Senora was gone. Maybe Senora would clean up a little corruption while she was there, so that the people of Glen Rose could actually be protected by their law enforcement.
“I need my medicine,” Mabel said, and Senora perked up.
She remembered what Mark had said about Addie stealing medication and how Mabel was on Addie’s insurance now, which was keeping her alive. Senora heard the fear in the woman’s voice. Losing Addie was hard, but Mabel wouldn’t survive if she didn’t find another way to get what she needed.
Senora was about to offer to look into a solution when Ty spoke.
“The people will take care of you,” he said. “I’ll make some calls, and someone will be here today to help get you the resources that you need to keep your medicine coming in.”
“I can’t afford the medicine without Addie.”
“We’ll take care of that, too,” Ty said gently. “We take care of our own, and Addie was one of us. You’re her mother, and that makes you part of our family.”
There were tears in Mabel’s eyes again, but this time, they were tears of gratitude.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Ty stood, giving Mabel a tender kiss on her cheek and sliding his business card into her hand.
“If you think of anything, or if you need anything, call me. Anytime.”
“I will,” Mabel said.
Mabel hugged them both, surprising Senora and squeezing her as tightly as she could in the process. She felt Mabel’s warm breath on her ear, and the woman’s words cut Senora to the core.
“Please don’t leave until you find out who did this to my little girl. You’re the only one that cares about her, and if you don’t find her killer, no one ever will.”
Senora pulled away, nodding but not wanting to give words to the false promise. She would stay as long as she was able, but she would have to leave when the next case came in or when J called her back. There was no telling how long she had, but she would do what she could in that time.
They left Mabel on the couch, and they were still on the porch when Loretta materialized from the walkway next door, a casserole dish in her hands and a grim look on her face. She nodded politely as she passed by them without saying a word.
They got into the car, and Senora turned the engine on, cranking the AC up all the way and sighing when the air turned cold. When she could breathe again, she looked at Ty and arched a delicate eyebrow.
“You said Addie was ‘part of us.’ What does that mean?”
“My people have lived in this area for generations. We live outside of town on thousands of acres as one large tribe and have for as long as anyone can remember.”
“Where does Addie fit in?”
“When her captor released her, we were the first to find her. She stayed with us for months before the state came and took her, claiming that she couldn’t just live with us indefinitely. They said that she had to go through the proper channels first.”
“And that’s how Mabel ended up adopting her?”
“It was. When the adoption was final, we made it clear to Mabel that there would always be a connection and that Mabel was part of the family now. We take care of our own, even if they come to us under mysterious circumstances.”
“I’m glad that someone is going to step up and make sure that Mabel is taken care of. I have a feeling the Sheriff isn’t going to fall all over himself to get Mabel the victim’s resources she’s entitled to.”
“You’re right. The Sheriff would much rather Mabel waste away and then die. At least then, he wouldn’t have the reminder of how he let Addie down. Addie’s abduction was his biggest failure. Once there’s no one left to care about Addie, he won’t have to deal with her cold case anymore.”
“I bet he’d like that.”
“You’d be winning that bet,” Ty said with a wry smile.
“Are you going to accompany me to the therapist’s office?” Senora asked as she keyed the address into her GPS.
“I’ll be staying with you until the case is complete.”
“Good. I could use a local to make the introductions, and the Sheriff couldn’t be bothered. People are more forthcoming when there’s a familiar face involved.”
“I’m not sure my presence will help, but I’ll do what I can.”
She smiled. It might not be much, but having him with her would make a world of difference as she worked information from everyone in town she could get to talk to her. As help went, it wasn’t a lot of work, but she would take all the help she could get at this point. She wanted to find Addie’s killer, and she didn’t have much time.