Somewhere in Florida

 

Wren felt almost like herself again now that she was dressed in a simple suit with linen pants and a long vest over a silk blouse. She’d piled her hair up on top of her head in a messy bun, and applied a light amount of makeup to give a little color to her pale skin. She’d slipped bangles on her wrists to cover the abrasions that still marked her there.

“You’re beautiful,” Cormac said as she walked down the stairs, watching her from his casual stance against the wall.

“Compliments from my kidnapper. I’m so honored.”

He lowered his head in a mock bow. “Glad to be of service.” He held out his hand to her, helping her down the last step. Once level with him, she found herself looking up, awed by his impressive height as always. He was wearing a light suit that flowed over his angles in a way that made her wish she was that material. Simple slacks, a sharply white button-up, and a light jacket. All that was missing was a tie, but this was Florida. Who wore a tie when they could get away without one?

And he could definitely get away without it.

He led the way through a narrow door that led to a garage. She was reminded of the room she’d seen in his other house, the photographs that hung on all those boards. She found herself wondering how long it had taken him to put all those cases together, to find the evidence he needed to assign them a category on one of those boards. There were dozens of cases there. A team of investigators with the Los Angeles Police Department would have taken years to do what he’d done.

“How’d you find this guy?” she asked once they were on the road.

Wren had never known her mother was married. Her father had never told her, claiming he knew very little about the woman he’d lived with for nearly two years, the woman he’d had his only daughter with. Not that it surprised her that he would know so little. Her father wasn’t exactly an upstanding member of society, the kind of guy who made sure all the t’s were crossed and i’s dotted. Born into the era of Charles Manson and free love, he’d adopted a bohemian lifestyle as an adult, living in the moment rather than thinking too hard about the past or the future. It had made for an unusual childhood for Wren and her three older brothers. And a frustrating source of information when it came to her insatiable curiosity about her mother.

“Social security number was on the marriage certificate.”

“And you used that to track him down?”

“Exactly.”

“Does he know we’re coming?”

Cormac glanced at her. “And give him a chance to come up with a story? Not a chance.”

Wren wiped her hands on the thighs of her slacks, realizing in that moment just how nervous she was. This man had known her mother. They were once lovers, presumably in love. He might know things about her that Wren had never been able to learn from her father.

Hell, the first time she saw a picture of her mother that wasn’t part of the crime scene photographs had been just a few months back when her brother showed her one her father kept in his studio. She’d never realized how much she looked like her mother. Never imagined how many things they probably had in common.

What would her mother think of her if she could see her now? Would she be proud? Or would she be as disappointed as her father was?

Wren had worked hard to become a cop because she wanted to solve her mother’s murder. She worked her way up in a department dominated by overbearing, chauvinistic men. She made something of herself in a way that other women had failed to do. Yet, to her father, she’d bought into the corporate, government bullshit that was ruining the country. She was a symptom of the problem, not part of the solution. He was ashamed of her choices.

Would her mother feel the same way?

What did she know about her mother except that she’d been a free spirit, a traveler who’d chosen to set up camp with her father and his three sons for a couple of years? And then she left him for reasons he had never fully explained, decided to go home to her family in Texas, only she’d never quite made it there. She made it as far as Santa Monica several weeks later. She was murdered in a park, the same park where she’d been seen arguing with Devin Wilde just a few hours before.

That was the sum of what Wren knew about her mother. Would this man be able to tell her more? Would she want to hear what he had to say?

“This is it,” Cormac said after a while, slowing the car in front of an impressive bungalow that was situated in a little cul-de-sac nestled beside other beautiful houses. Cormac pulled the car to the side of the road and rested his hand on Wren’s knee. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

She stared at the house for a long moment, trying to imagine what it must be like to be part of the family that lived here. Would her mother be the kind of person who would have been happy in a home like this one? Would she be the kind of grandmother who’d have made cookies for her grandchildren, who’d have taken pleasure from watching them eat her concoctions in a warm, cozy kitchen? What would it have been like if she’d lived, if she’d stayed with this man? Would she have been happy?

“Yes. I want to do this.”

Cormac squeezed her thigh lightly before climbing out of the car. He hesitated, a frown touching his handsome face as he rounded the vehicle. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and began to speak quickly, turning slightly away from her. Wren waited, watching as he finished his call before wrenching her door open.

“Sorry about that.”

“Everything okay?”

He shrugged as he helped her out of the car.

They walked side by side to the front of the bungalow, Wren taking in the careful landscaping that had to have been done by a professional, while Cormac clearly ruminated on whatever had been on the other side of that call. Tension seemed to roll off of him in waves, making even her shoulders tense.

He rang the bell when they reached the front porch, stepping back with his hands clasped in front of him to wait for a response. She glanced at him, a part of her wishing she could take comfort from her hand buried inside of his. Instead, she turned and looked around the neighborhood, remembering the envy that had burned hotly inside of her when she was a kid and the school bus would take them past the modest, middle class homes of most of her classmates. These houses were even better than those.

If her mother had lived, would Wren have grown up in a place like this?

“Can I help you?” a warm, masculine voice asked.

Wren turned around, and the man in Bermuda shorts and a careworn t-shirt standing in the doorway of the bungalow gasped, stepping back slightly as his eyes widened. He studied her with an intensity that burned through her, his gasp turning into something of a low moan.

“Elizabeth?”

Cormac stepped between the two of them, his hand on Wren’s hip as he pushed her farther behind him.

“Mr. Mitchell? I’m Cormac Delaney. I’m an agent with the FBI.”

There was a heavy silence and then something like a sigh. “What are you doing here?”

“We’d like to talk to you about Elizabeth Thomas.”

Wren moved around Cormac, taking his hand as she did, hiding their entwined fingers behind his back. She saw the man nod, his eyes jumping to hers again.

“I apologize for my reaction,” he said, his voice lower and almost rough. “It’s just…you look so much like her!”

“She was my mother.”

He nodded like she’d just given him a fact he’d already known. “I can see that. But I didn’t realize she’d had any children.”

“You knew that she died, though.”

“Yes.” A great sadness came into his eyes. “Why don’t you come inside? I’d rather not do this in front of my neighbors.”

He moved aside, gesturing for them to enter. Cormac held tightly to Wren’s hand, leading the way. The inside of the house was as beautiful as the outside, the walls high and brightly colored, the furniture low, modern pieces that complemented one another. There was a huge living room that flowed directly into a roomy kitchen and homey dining area.

Mr. Mitchell caught Wren’s appreciative look, telling her, “My wife is an interior decorator. She changes the designs in here every six months. This is the best she’s done, though, I think.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He nodded, but his eyes were on her instead of the décor.

He led the way out onto a high wooden deck that looked down onto sloping land that led to a wide beach some hundred yards or so beyond the property line. They each took a seat, pulling up the equally modern and attractive deck chairs.

“You’re with the FBI?” Mr. Mitchell began.

“I am,” Cormac agreed. “But I must tell you upfront that I am not here in an official capacity. Ms. Ryland and I are—”

“Ryland?”

Wren nodded. “I’m Wren Ryland.”

A tightness formed around his lips, but he just nodded for Cormac to continue.

“We’re here on a personal journey. We’re hoping to learn more about Elizabeth Thomas in the hopes that any information we can gather might lead to the truth behind her death.”

“You want to know who killed her.”

“I do,” Wren said.

Mr. Mitchell sat back, resting his hands on his middle as he turned to stare down at the ocean. He was quiet for a long moment before he sighed.

“Elizabeth was…I don’t know how much you know about her.”

“Next to nothing. My father could only tell me about their time together, which wasn’t long. They lived together for two, two and a half years. He said she was a free spirit, that she didn’t like talking about her past. All he knew was that she had a family in Texas.”

“She did. That’s true.”

“Do you know where in Texas?”

He rolled his shoulders. “Somewhere near Austin, I believe.” He studied Wren’s face for a long moment. “Round Rock. She talked about it sometimes, told me it was a beautiful place.”

Wren glanced at Cormac. They’d tried searching for people in Texas with the name of Thomas, but it was such a common name that they’d had trouble narrowing down the possibilities without more information. Not even a birth certificate search for her mother had helped. There were just too many Elizabeth Thomases in the world.

Mr. Mitchell leaned forward, another long look at Wren causing him to chuckle softly. “I’m having a hard time just looking at you. It’s been so long, but you look so much like her that it’s almost surreal. Like I’ve gone back in time, and she’s come home to me.”

“You cared about her.”

“I loved her. She was everything to me!” He shook his head, glancing up for a second. “She was my first love, the only love I will ever have that felt that way.” His eyes fell to Wren again. “I hope you experience just half of what I had with your mother someday, young woman. I wish it for everyone.”

She glanced at Cormac and caught him looking at her. His face reddened slightly, and he turned away, but that momentary eye contact would burn in her memory forever.

“I met her in Seattle. I was up there working on the docks, fixing engines on the fishing boats that call that area home. She was a waitress in this little bar that me and my coworkers frequented in those days. O’Shannon’s.”

He was quiet a moment, clearly lost in the memory of it. But then he continued.

“She was so beautiful! And she laughed so easily! Everyone fell head over heels for her, but it was me she danced with, me she went home with. Let me walk her home half a dozen times before she finally agreed to go to dinner with me. Greatest night of my life!” He laughed. “We went to this terrible little Italian place. The pasta was sticky and the cream sauce broken, but we laughed, and we got so lost in each other that we didn’t care.” He sighed. “I couldn’t bear to be more than a foot from her after that night. I needed her beside me all the time, needed to be able to touch her, needed to hear her beautiful voice. I asked her to marry me just a week later, and she told me I was insane. But she gave in to me less than a month after our first date.”

He shook his head, his eyes moving back out to the ocean. After a moment, he sighed. “I thought I could give her a good life, that I could show her that life didn’t have to be dark and frightening, that it could be simple and happy. I was determined to show her that life was good, that love made it all worthwhile. But the things she’d seen in her life…they wouldn’t let her go.”

“What things?” Wren asked.

A sadness came over him, a profound sadness that was evident in everything about him, from his expression to the way he held himself to the sound of his voice.

“Her childhood was horrible. The things her parents did to her…I can’t imagine how she came out of it such a kind, delicate woman.” He sighed deeply. “She told me stories that still give me nightmares. Her mother was a college professor, but she had an addiction to anything and everything that numbed her—prescription pills, alcohol, cocaine—leaving her high and volatile most of the time. And her father was a cop, the distant, unemotional kind of person who hardly took an interest in his family. More interested in sports and the guys he hung out with than his kids. But, of course, he did take a certain interest in Elizabeth, just not the kind a man should have in his daughter, if you know what I mean.”

Cormac grunted, reaching for Wren’s hand. She let him hold her, her thoughts going places she didn’t want them to go.

“She ran away when she was seventeen. She told me some of the things that happened to her while she was on the run, the things grown men will do to a child who’s desperate. She was taken advantage of so many times…I wanted to go track every one of those assholes down and teach them a lesson or two. The darkness in this world…”

Wren rubbed the back of Cormac’s hand, not sure this was the story she’d wanted to hear about her mother.

“She was strong, though. Tough. She made it through to the other end, and, I like to think anyway, she found happiness with me. For a while.”

“What happened?”

Mr. Mitchell shrugged. “I think she just didn’t know how to be a wife, how to be part of a normal, healthy family. I think she was frightened by normalcy, you know?” He studied Wren’s face again, the shock slowly disappearing and turning into something like curiosity. “I woke up one morning, and she was just gone. No note, nothing. I always kind of thought she’d come back, up until the day I saw her face on the news.” Grief filled his eyes. “She was dead, and I never got to say goodbye.”

Wren ached inside for this man she didn’t even know. The woman they were discussing was Wren’s mother, but she hadn’t known her. She didn’t know the sound of her voice or the expressions on her face. He did. It seemed he had more of a right to his grief than she did.

Cormac squeezed Wren’s hand, then pulled away, taking his phone from his pocket as he stepped away from where they were sitting. She glanced at him, mildly annoyed.

“Could you tell me if she ever said anything about friends?” Wren said after a heartbeat, turning back to Mr. Mitchell. “Did she tell you about people she knew in Texas, someone we might be able to speak to who could tell us more about her past?”

“The only person she kept in contact with that I’m aware of was her brother.”

Wren sat forward, surprise making her a little anxious. “She had a brother?”

Mr. Mitchell nodded. “They were Irish twins, just ten months apart in age. She was older.”

“Really?”

“His name was Stephen. He would call her twice a week, and he’d get terribly upset whenever she wasn’t there to take the call.”

“You spoke to him?”

“Several times. He seemed intense. He never asked about me, never tried to get to know me. Just asked for her and hung up if I said she wasn’t there. But when she talked to him…they would talk for hours, and she was always smiling, happy, afterward.”

“They were close?”

“I’d say so.”

“Did you ever meet him face to face?”

“No. He was in Utah during my time with Beth.”

“Beth?” She smiled softly. “My father said she hated nicknames.”

“She didn’t seem to mind when I called her that.”

“Could you tell me what she liked to do? What music she listened to, what movies she liked to see?”

“Hmmm…she loved comedies. Revenge of the Nerds, Ghostbusters, Police Academy. And she liked that movie about Mozart…Amadeus. As for music, she was heavy into Cyndi Lauper. Loved everything about her. She even talked about dying her hair pink!”

Wren sat back, trying to imagine it. “She had a sense of humor.”

“She did.”

“She liked music?”

“Oh, yeah. She constantly had the radio on. Mostly pop, but she liked to listen to classical music from time to time. I think she thought it made her seem more sophisticated.”

Wren tried to imagine her father’s reaction to something like that. He hated classical music. His preferences ran more to Simon and Garfunkel and stuff like that.

“My dad said that she liked to read. I heard that her favorite book was Peter Pan.”

“That’s true. She loved the character of Wendy. She was the only person I ever talked to who saw her as tragic, as a sad character who was a victim of her situation.”

Wren nodded thoughtfully, remembering how Devin Wilde had told her that her mother had wanted to name her Wendy because of her affection for that book. The acknowledgement he’d just offered of that information took some of the wind out of Wren’s sails. Devin claimed to have known her mother, to have known her better than anyone else. Mr. Mitchell had just appeared to confirm that fact.

Was that a good thing, or a bad?

Cormac came back, rejoining them after his phone call. He glanced between the two of them, clearly trying to assess how the interview was going. Wren reached up and rubbed her cheek, this sense of being overwhelmed beginning to settle on her.

“Have you ever heard of Devin Wilde?” Cormac just asked, acknowledging the elephant that had come to sit on Wren’s chest.

“Isn’t he the serial killer they believe killed Elizabeth?”

“He never confessed and was never tried,” Cormac informed him. “And he still denies being her killer.”

“You don’t think he did it?”

Cormac tilted his head slightly, glancing at Wren. “We spoke to a witness who positively identified him as being a person who was in the same park with Elizabeth Thomas the night she was murdered, but hours earlier.”

“That seems like evidence.”

“It could also be a coincidence,” Wren said. “It could be the real killer saw them together and brought her back there for that reason.”

“Do you have an idea who else might have wanted to kill her?” Mr. Mitchell’s eyebrows rose. “Elizabeth was a good person, a kind person. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her for any reason.”

“But someone did.”

He nodded slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. “I drove down to Sierra Madre once.” His eyes moved knowingly to Wren’s. “I wanted to see the man she’d lived with after she left me.”

“The man everyone thought did it for eight long years.” Wren scratched her cheek again, remembering how hard it had been growing up under a cloud of suspicion. “My father.”

Something changed on Mr. Mitchell’s face when she said that last bit. He looked away, his gaze once again turning to the ocean. He was quiet for a long time, making Wren wonder if he’d decided this interview was over.

“He was a dignified man,” he finally said. “Looked like a bum, what with his paint-stained clothes and his long hair, but there was something about him, some sort of confidence. I saw him walking his boys home from school, walking through a group of judgmental neighbors, and he held his head high, laughing and joking with his children like he didn’t notice their stares. He was something to be…” He hesitated, like he couldn’t think of the word he wanted. “Admired,” he said, almost in a whisper, like he was embarrassed to say it.

“I’m not sure he ever knew about you.”

Her mother’s husband nodded, leaning forward slightly as he studied her once more. “Can I show you something?” He left them alone without waiting for an answer. Wren looked at Cormac and saw the same unsettled surprise on his face that she felt was on hers.

“What is he doing?”

Cormac shook his head, his hand resting on her thigh. “You okay?”

She shrugged. “I just found out my mother has a whole family I never knew about, that her mother was an addict and her father was a child molester.” She sighed softly. “I’m as okay as I guess anyone would be in this situation.”

He squeezed her thigh gently, then gestured toward the door. Mr. Mitchell was coming back out, a stack of small photo albums in his hands.

“This is your mother about the time I met her,” he said, settling back in his chair and flipping through one of the books where he’d set them all on a low table. Wren leaned forward, her heart in her throat as he turned the album around and showed her a picture of a lovely blond woman dressed in a waitress’s uniform.

It took Wren’s breath away a little to see it, the resemblance between this woman and the face she saw in the mirror most every morning. She had the same blue eyes, the same long nose, the same oval jaw. It was eerie, really. Wren had never felt as though she looked like anyone in her family. Her brothers and her father were all dark, dark hair and dark brown eyes. She was the only blond, the only one with blue eyes. She was the only one with pale skin.

But here it was, the source of her appearance.

“She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

Wren nodded slowly. Mr. Mitchell flipped through the book, showing her more pictures, some of her mother laughing, some of her looking pensive. There was one where she was on the phone, staring off into space, a thoughtfulness about her. That one struck her more than any of the others. That one showed a beauty like nothing Wren could compare it to.

She’d never seen her mother like this. It made her more human in a strange sort of way, these pictures. It made what Wren had lost seem that much more profound.

“How old was she when you met her?”

Mr. Mitchell sat back and thought about it for a moment. “Nineteen.”

Nineteen. Her mother had only been twenty-four the day she died. Wren had already lived six years longer than her mother ever had.

Nineteen. Wren had already chosen her profession and was working hard toward it when she was nineteen. Hell, she’d already taken her detective’s exam by the time she was twenty-four.

Nineteen. Had her mother known where her life would end, would she have done things differently? Would she have had more fun? Spent less time worrying about the things she couldn’t control? Would she have stayed with her husband, or taken off faster? Would she have figured out a way to avoid her killer?

Would Wren’s life be different if her mother had known where life was taking her?

“Her brother, Stephen—did you ever talk to him again after she left you?”

Mr. Mitchell shook his head. “Never.”

“Would you know how to find him?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

Cormac stood, wiping his hands on his slacks. “We’ll get out of your hair now.”

Mr. Mitchell stood, his expression a little disappointed. “Of course. I’ll show you out.”

Wren climbed to her feet, glancing between the two men. Cormac headed for the door, slipping his cell phone from his pocket again. She saw him glance at it, saw his thumb slide over the red disconnect button. Who was calling him so often?

“Ms. Ryland.” A hand on her elbow pulled her back as they crossed the living room, drawing her to a low table covered in family pictures. Mr. Mitchell picked one up and held it out to her. “I thought you’d find this interesting.”

Wren didn’t understand at first. It was a picture of a young woman of about eighteen. Her hair was long, a rich brown color, her smile slightly crooked. Her eyes were a sweet green, her skin pale but clear. She seemed happy, her features warm and filled with contentment.

It was when Wren took a second look, when she let herself see the curve of her jaw and the shape of her eyes, that she saw what he’d wanted her to see.

Her head came up sharply. He was watching her, something like relief burning in his eyes.

“That’s my daughter. Angie.”

“She’s beautiful,” Wren mumbled, shoving the picture into his hand and turning away, needing to get out of that house. She suddenly felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She rushed toward the door, toward Cormac’s waiting arms.

“What?” he asked, pulling her close for a long second before forcing her back so that he could see her face. “Are you okay?”

“Let’s just go. I need to go.”

He glanced back at Mr. Mitchell and then took her away, helping her into his rental SUV before climbing behind the wheel himself. Wren stared out the window, holding herself with her arms wrapped tightly around her chest.

She could only handle so much at once. This…she wasn’t sure she could do this.