Allison Brennan - Playing Dead

“Down, boys! Down. Stop it!” A moment later she opened the door. “Yeah?”

“Ms. Betty Lowe?”

“Yeah? You selling something I don’t want?” Ms. Lowe was a short, skinny woman. Dyed red hair with gray roots. Leathery skin from long-term sun exposure.

Mitch and Steve flashed their badges. “FBI Special Agents Bianchi and Donovan, ma’am. We have a couple questions about your son if you don’t mind.”

“Who? Frank? He’s dead. Can’t get into any trouble from the grave.”

“Yes, ma’am, but we’re looking into his death.”

“The fire?”

“Yes.”

She opened her screen and they stepped across the threshold. Three fluffy dogs barked and turned in circles at Mitch’s feet. They ignored Steve.

“You must have a dog at home,” Ms. Lowe said. “That’s why they’re acting up.” She herded the dogs down the hall and shut the door behind them. They barked a minute, then calmed down.

Mitch didn’t have a dog, but he had been around them a lot lately. He put Claire out of his mind-and the question of where she might be right now-and focused on finding out if Betty Lowe knew anything about her son’s activities prior to his death.

Steve asked, “Just for the record, are you Frank’s only living relative?”

“I have two sisters, both live out of state. Never see them. My parents are dead. They didn’t much care for me after I got pregnant with Frank and didn’t want to get married.”

“Frank’s father isn’t in the picture?”

“He was, on and off. More off, really, until Frank was grown. I think if Tip was around more, Frank wouldn’t have been so wild growing up. Though the military was good for him, very good.”

“Frank’s father is Tip Barney?”

Mitch couldn’t restrain his surprise, and Ms. Lowe turned to him. “Is there a problem? Tip and I never married, and he never paid child support, but we settled that after Frank died. Tip felt awful about that, sent me half the insurance money from the fire and moved to Los Angeles.”

“Did Frank know that Tip was his father?”

“Know? Of course he knew. Tip came ’round every so often, gave Frank that job in the bar when he got out of prison. Why is this important?”

“We’re just trying to put the pieces together of what happened during the two weeks prior to the fire,” Steve said.

“Frank always had sticky fingers. It’s why I kicked him out of the house when he was a teenager. He started stealing from friends, and I was having none of that. He went to live with his great-aunt after living on the streets didn’t sit well with him. Aunt Rose and Frank seemed to get along all right, though I think Frank was the only person she didn’t hate. Frank was a nice kid. Just couldn’t keep his hands off other people’s stuff.”

“Is that why Frank got emancipated?” Steve asked.

Regret crossed Ms. Lowe’s face. “Aunt Rose died and Frank thought she was leaving her house to him-he liked it out at her ranch. He’d been living there on and off about a year, in the apartment above the garage. Had a part-time job. Helped her when she needed it. Then she ended up having her house sold to some developer and giving the money to a conservancy group. Not that I’m knocking the need to help the environment, mind you, but it wasn’t like her. She was stingy. I expected her to want to be buried with her money. Giving it to a liberal charity? Naw.”

Her voice softened. “I was a bit of a free spirit back then. I let Frank do what he wanted. In hindsight, that wasn’t such a good idea. I didn’t discipline him enough, but see, my daddy always used a paddle on my butt, and I didn’t want Frank growing up being hit to stay in line. And he was a good kid, but for those sticky fingers. We’d just started getting things back on track when he died.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Steve said.

She sighed. “I miss them.”

“Them?”

“Frank and Tip. Tip moved to L.A. after the fire-I think he blamed himself in some ways-and he died of cancer two years ago.”

Mitch straightened, exchanged glances with Steve. “Do you know what Frank was offered as a plea agreement before he died?”

She was confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know he was arrested for home invasion robbery two weeks before the fire.”

“Of course, but he told me they gave him probation. Community service.”

So she didn’t know anything. “Do you have any of Frank’s personal effects?”

She shook her head. “No. Frank hadn’t lived with me since he was fifteen, I didn’t see any reason to keep anything, and he took what he wanted.”

“Do you have a picture of Tip Barney?”

“Why?”

“For our report,” Steve said.

She rose, crossed to a bookshelf, and took out a photo album. She sat back down, flipped through it. Near the back she pulled out a picture. “This was Frank and Tip at the bar about a year before the fire.”

She handed the picture to Mitch.

He stared. Showed it to Steve. Everything clicked into place. “May we borrow this?”

“Sure. I probably have the negatives somewhere.”

“We’ll return it,” Mitch promised.

They thanked Ms. Lowe for her time, then walked out.

“It all makes sense now,” Steve said.

“Frank survived the fire-or faked his own death-because he feared for his life,” Mitch said, holding up the picture. “Think he and his father went to L.A. together?”

“And when his dad died, he took his identity and moved back, close to home.”

“Now we just have to figure out why.”

“Back to Isleton.”

Claire parked down the street from the Rabbit Hole in Isleton.

She’d just gotten off the phone with Nelia Kincaid. Less than three hours from now Tom O’Brien would surrender at FBI headquarters and be taken to Sutter Memorial Hospital for evaluation and possible surgery.

She wanted to see her dad before he went into surgery. What if he didn’t survive? She shook her head. Right now figuring out who killed her mother and Chase Taverton was the single most important thing. She’d call Nelia when she was back in Sacramento and see if the attorney could get her in to visit her dad.

She took a deep breath and put her forehead on the steering wheel. She hadn’t slept much last night after her father and Nelia left. She worked on the case, putting together all the information she had and what she needed to check out, telling herself it was for her dad. And all that was important, but it was all rehashing the same stuff.

The truth was, as soon as she went to bed, she couldn’t get Mitch out of her mind.

She wanted to be angry with him. She wanted to hate him. He’d used her, manipulated her. She’d always prided herself on reading people, and yet Mitch hid himself, created a false identity. And she’d fallen in love. He’d been exactly who she wanted him to be, as if the FBI agent had been able to read her subconscious and identify the perfect man for her. He became that man, and she fell for it. She’d exposed so much to him, not just her body, but her heart. She’d wanted to share more with him than with anyone.

Claire had dated more than a dozen guys, more or less seriously, over the years, but it never hurt-physically hurt-when they split. Nothing like this.

She almost wished she could cry over it again, but the tears had dried up last night.

Taking another deep breath, she got out of Bill’s truck. Time to focus on what was most important right now: proving her father’s innocence. She double-checked the Kahr P40 she had strapped in her ankle holster. She opted to leave her blazer in the truck, knowing full well that men were more forthcoming with information if you gave them something to look at. Anyway, her blazer made her look too much like a cop or a PI. She unbuttoned one of the buttons of her black shirt, just enough so her lacy pink bra could be seen if she turned the right way.