Leann Sweeney - Pushing Up Bluebonnets

"I'm feeling pretty clueless myself right now," I said.

"Then let me clear things up for you. I am JoLynn's father," Joe Johnson said.

I blinked, too stunned to speak. Her father?

"And," he went on, "if this investigation of yours goes any further, you will be putting her in serious danger. I might not be able to protect her again."

"Protect her?" I said, trying to figure this out.

Johnson said, "This is her uncle—you heard me call him Nick, but that is not his real name. Estelle is Nick's daughter."

"Let me guess? Not her real name, either." Three mosquitoes were feasting on my calf and I slapped at them awkwardly with my tethered hands. "So you're all JoLynn's biological family?" I took a look at the three of them and saw a hint of resemblance to JoLynn— especially in Estelle, who I was betting wore all that makeup and changed her hair color for that very reason. What the hell was this about?

"Yes, we are her family," Johnson said.

"The family that abandoned her in a bus station eleven years ago?" The anger that rose in my throat surprised me. "What kind of people are you?"

I could tell my words stung Johnson, and Nick bent his head.

Estelle was the one who spoke. "JoLynn knows she wasn't abandoned. She knew her parents were protecting her."

"How's that protecting her? She's been through hell." Yup, I was eating fire and spitting smoke now.

"If you promise never to speak of this conversation again, speak of it to anyone, then I will tell you her story. But I must have your word." Perspiration dampened the front and underarms of Johnson's T-shirt, and thin rivers of sweat wound down from his head to his neck.

"What will you do if I don't promise? Kill me?" Maybe defiance wasn't the right approach, but I couldn't understand why they'd done this to a child. No explanation could possibly be acceptable.

"If you won't promise us this, then we will disappear. We must go soon anyway, get away from JoLynn. Sadly, if you speak of us to others, JoLynn's blood may be on your hands." Johnson's eyes held mine, waiting for my answer.

"On my hands?" I said. "Let me get this straight. You want me to give up on this case, let a killer go free?"

"You mean Kent Dugan's killer?" Johnson said.

"Yes," I said. "Which one of you got rid of him after he harmed JoLynn?"

"We don't kill people, Ms. Rose. We do not know who was responsible for his death. And if you promise to remain silent, you will understand why we have no interest in harming you."

He could be lying, but I didn't think so. No matter what, I'd do what was right, promise or not. "I promise. Now tell me the truth."

"I see the skepticism in your eyes, but once you hear what we have to say, I believe you will keep this secret," Johnson said. "You are a good person."

"You get a kick out of drugging and kidnapping good people?" I raised my eyebrows in inquiry.

"That was unfortunate, but we thought a warning might make you give up," Nick said. "We were wrong."

"Tell me this big secret," I said. "Because people are probably already looking for me. I'm supposed to be at the ranch."

"Estelle left a note for Mr. Richter before she went to see what was happening between you and Simone. She wrote that you wanted to see the town and since Estelle's work was done, she agreed to show you, and then perhaps the two of you would get something to eat."

"You think they'll buy that? Pretty lame, but go ahead. Talk." I no longer felt afraid. Maybe this was another form of denial, a way to feel safe while I was wearing plastic handcuffs and sitting in a shack in the woods. At least Nick left the chloroform in the car.

"First let me tell you that my brother and I came from Europe when we were young men, brought to the country by a man in Chicago who wanted us to work for him. We were jewelers by trade, like our father and his father before."

I glanced at the picture of the little jeweled owl.

Estelle noticed this and said, "JoLynn's father made that for her. He didn't want her to forget she was a wise and special girl." She looked at Johnson. "Can I show her?"

He nodded and Estelle pulled the necklace from her skirt pocket and put it in my palm. "The picture doesn't do it justice."

I stared down, bent my fingers and touched the canary eyes and the rows of tiny diamonds. "It's really . . . very beautiful," I said.

"I will continue," Johnson said. "My wife and I had only one child, our daughter, who now calls herself JoLynn. We made very little money working for this jeweler—both my brother and I in the same place. Our boss was not a nice man. Not an honest man. I was designing at night—sketching rings, pendants, bracelets—and waiting for the day when we could save enough to leave his employ, to get citizenship and go out on our own." He swallowed, seemed to be welling with emotion now.

Nick took over. "But the poor child was sick. Very sick. Her heart." He patted his chest with his palm. "She needed an operation. But when my brother told this man who brought us to America, he said we could not take her to the charity hospital for the operation. He said our visas weren't real. We were illegal. We would be deported and that meant JoLynn would never get the help she needed. Not in our country."

"Where is your country?" I asked. They sounded Russian, maybe.

"Some things are unimportant to this story," Johnson said. "You do not need to know—that way you cannot tell anyone."

"She got her operation, though," I said. "That much is certain."

"She did," Johnson said, "in another city. Not Chicago. We had to leave there."

"Because . . . ?" I said.

"Because we stole, stole for JoLynn. To save her." Johnson hung his head. "This was a bad thing done for a good reason. An American Tragedy ." He looked up and met my eyes, smiled a little.

"You stole from this jeweler?" I said.

"No. We thought we could not steal from him. He would know who did this crime and why. He would send us back to our country. We would be disgraced. But we knew he bought and sold diamonds on the black market. Diamonds are very easy to smuggle. So easily hidden." Johnson paused, took a deep breath and wiped his sweaty forehead with his forearm. "We would have been better off taking the diamonds right from him. But we learned this lesson too late."

"You took them from one of his customers, someone who knew they'd been smuggled into the country?" I said.

"Yes, Abby. This is the mistake we made." I was looking at a nearly broken man and yet there was still strength in his eyes when I got past the sadness.

"What happened?" I said quietly. "Did this person you stole from come after you?"

"You have no idea. He is still after us. And he killed my wife . . . left a note on her body that JoLynn was next. He would find us and he would slit her throat for what we had done."

I felt the hairs rise on my arms. "This man was a criminal, then?"

"Yes. A career criminal," he said.

"In other words, the mob," Estelle whispered. "He didn't care about the diamonds. It was about revenge. You do not steal from the Chicago mob."

I sighed heavily. "You gave up your daughter to hide her, make sure she was away from you?"

"Yes. We learned Texas has the closed files. She would be adopted—she would have a good home, a new name. A safe place to grow up."

Oh my God, I thought. We failed her miserably.

Johnson said, "But the pull of your only child is like an ocean current, Abby. Before we left her, we told her we had someone to help us. The diamonds weren't all spent, you see. This person we paid agreed to send us messages about her."

"Someone in the CPS system knew about her? Knew about her situation?" I couldn't believe it.