Darlene Gardner - The Stranger's Sin

The corners of the cop’s mouth dipped slightly. “I didn’t say you did.”

“Then why…” She stopped in midquestion, belatedly realizing his uniform of a short-sleeved khaki shirt and dark pants was decidedly different than those worn by the New York policemen who’d arrested her. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

“No,” he said.

She squinted, making out the words on his silver badge. Wildlife Conservation Officer it read. Another term for forest ranger.

Relief saturated her limbs, making them weak. Her brain started to function with more clarity. Even in the unlikely event the cops in New York knew she’d left the state, this was Pennsylvania. If this man had been a cop, he wouldn’t be on the lookout for her.

“Would it matter if I was a cop?” He had an aggressively masculine face with a square jaw, lean cheeks and an outdoorsman’s tan. Short, thick brown hair, lightened by the sun, sprang back from a widow’s peak above assessing brown eyes. She guessed he wasn’t yet thirty.

“No. No. Of course not.” She bit her lip to stop from issuing another denial. She tried to smile but felt her lips quiver. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

He gestured to the sketch on the tabletop. “That,” he said. “Can I sit down?”

“Yes, of course.” She felt like she was on a roller coaster, having survived one plunge only to be ascending another incline, praying this one wasn’t too tall to climb. She turned the sketch around so that it faced him. “Do you know her?”

He picked up the paper, his expression giving away nothing. She wondered who had told him about the sketch. Her guess was the construction worker, who’d probably known more than he was telling.

“I might,” he said. “What’s her name?”

“Amanda Smith.”

He gave no indication he recognized the name. “Why are you looking for her?”

“I have something she’d want back.” She unzipped an outer pocket of her backpack and pulled out a necklace. Fake gemstones of jade, lapis and ruby hung from a thick gold herringbone chain that looked just like fourteen-karat gold. “It’s costume jewelry, but it’s vintage. This one’s exceptionally pretty.”

“Did she give it to you?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I don’t know her nearly well enough for that. In fact, I don’t know her at all.” She was letting his direct gaze disconcert her, and as a result she was almost babbling. She made herself stop.

“Then how did you know to come to Indigo Springs?” he asked.

She regrouped, calling to mind the story she’d concocted on the bus. “She mentioned the town after we shared a table at a really crowded coffee shop. After she left, I found the necklace. The clasp is broken.”

Only the last part was true. She’d found the necklace in the kidnapped baby’s carrier and theorized the baby had tugged it loose. She wasn’t sure whether the necklace belonged to Amanda or the kidnapped baby’s mother, but it provided a convenient cover story.

“Where was this coffee shop?” the forest ranger asked.

The other people who’d heard the story had taken it at face value, asking few follow-up questions. She groped for an answer that would be general enough.

“Upstate New York.”

“Really?” He put down the sketch, rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward, his eyes still fastened on hers. “So you drove all the way to Pennsylvania from upstate New York to return a piece of costume jewelry?”

Stated that way, her story sounded ridiculous and unbelievable. She clasped her hands, feeling sweat on her palms. She made sure to meet his eyes so he wouldn’t know for certain that she was lying. “Oh, no. I happened to be passing through.”

“With a sketch?”

She bit her lower lip so the truth wouldn’t come tumbling out. Her intuition told her the forest ranger could be trusted, but her instincts had failed her in a catastrophic way when she’d run across Amanda and the baby. It wasn’t difficult to understood why the cops had a hard time believing she’d agreed to babysit for a stranger.

This man was as much an unknown as Amanda had been. She didn’t need to justify herself. Kelly tapped the sketch with her index finger. “Do you know her or don’t you?”

“Not as a brunette, as a redhead.” He straightened but kept watching her just as closely. “I have some photos of her I can show you.”

Adrenaline coursed through Kelly. It made sense that a woman who kidnapped a child might also disguise her appearance. She couldn’t keep the eagerness from her voice. “Where is she now?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said.

A static-filled voice suddenly came over his two-way radio. He pulled the device from his belt, uttering a quick, “Excuse me. I have to take this.”

The man at the other end of the line said something about a black bear rooting through garbage at a campsite. The forest ranger listened, nodding, frustration chasing across his features. He signed off.

“We’ll have to continue this later,” he said. “Are you staying in town?”

Now that she’d stumbled across a lead, she would be. “Yes. When can you meet me?”

He glanced at the clock on the wall, which showed it was already past three. “How about seven o’clock? My place. I’ll show you those photos.”

He reached into his wallet, pulled out a card and handed it to her. Chase Bradford. Pennsylvania Game Commission. “That’s my home address and telephone number. Do you have a card? A number where I can reach you?”

She didn’t dare give him her cell-phone number and she hadn’t yet checked into a hotel. It seemed likely that a forest ranger would have contacts in the law-enforcement community with access to information databases. He had no reason to investigate her now, but she needed to think ahead and be smart.

“I don’t have a cell phone,” she lied, “but I’ll be at your house at seven.”

He appeared reluctant to leave her, but she sensed he was a man who didn’t shirk his duties. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Kelly,” she answered automatically before her newfound sense of self-preservation kicked in. “Kelly Delaney.”

“Where are you from, Kelly?”

Kelly Carmichael was from Wenona, New York. Kelly Delaney, who happened to be a college friend who shared her first name and had also majored in education, wasn’t. She dredged up the name of her friend’s hometown from the Christmas cards they still exchanged. “Schenectady.”

If the forest ranger got suspicious and had a friend run Kelly Delaney’s name, he wouldn’t find anything to sound alarm bells.

“I’ll see you tonight, Kelly Delaney.”

After he left the shop, her shoulders drooped and she cradled her head in her hands. She prayed that Chase Bradford would have information that would lead her to Amanda.

Because now, in the eyes of the law, Kelly wasn’t only an accused criminal.

She was a fugitive with an alias.

K ELLY HEARD THE CRIES before she spotted the woman. She sat on a park bench adjacent to a deserted playground, a baby in her arms.

The gray clouds, heavy with the threat of rain, had kept the regulars away. No children scampered up the stairs to the clubhouse or swung from the swings. There was just the lone woman and the baby.

“Shut up!” The woman’s voice, rich with frustration, carried on the breeze. “I can’t take it anymore! Why won’t you stop crying?”

Kelly didn’t hesitate. She veered from the path, toward the playground, walking at a fast clip. “Excuse me, but can I help?”

The woman turned around. She was an attractive brunette about Kelly’s age with tears streaking down her cheeks. Lines of strain bracketed her mouth and creased her forehead.