Caroline Burnes - Familiar Escape

He felt the anger and hatred as he sat across from her. He dropped his gaze to the scarred surface of the table and wondered if his lawyer, Bradley Alain, had been on target when he recommended that Thomas talk with her. Bradley felt that if he cooperated with Molly, she might help Thomas as a character witness at his trial. With all the evidence against him, he didn’t know if he’d be able to convince her that he was innocent of killing her sister. The only role he’d ever played in Anna’s life was that of friend and co-worker. It had been his home that Anna came to whenever she was afraid of her husband’s rages, his fists.

The deputy locked Thomas’s handcuffs to a chain that came up from the floor. “This is Molly Harper,” the deputy said. “Don’t do anything foolish.” He stepped back to a corner of the room to allow them as much privacy as he could.

“Where is Kate?” Molly asked.

The question was spoken with such controlled fury that he looked up. “I don’t know.” It was the truth and the only thing he could say. If he had any inkling where the baby had been taken, he’d tell. The sheriff was convinced that Kate was dead. So convinced, in fact, that no law enforcement agency was even hunting for the baby.

“I have some savings.” She spoke in a way that told him she’d rehearsed this. “I’m willing to give you everything I have. You can hire a celebrity lawyer or do whatever you want with the money. Just give me back my niece.”

Though her anger was daunting, her pain was even more difficult to bear. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know where Kate is. I had nothing to do with any of this.”

“My sister’s body was found at your house. How can you claim to be innocent?”

Across the table from him she was trembling so that her bracelet tapped against the table. “I was camping that night. I wasn’t home. I had no idea your sister was at my house.”

“How did she get inside?”

He’d told this story to the deputies, but no one believed him. Still, he had to try again. “Anna had a key to my house. There were times she needed a place to go.” He hesitated. How much should he tell this angry woman about the abuse her sister suffered?

“She told me she had a friend, a safe place to go.” Molly had gained control of her shaking. “She never said a name, only that the person was a friend.”

“Then you knew she had difficulty in her marriage.”

Molly started to rise, but when the deputy came over, she sat back down. “Darwin hit her. I know that. I begged her to leave him. I sent her money to get out, but Anna wouldn’t leave. She used the money for a down payment on a house.”

Thomas nodded. “I know. She told me about the money you sent and how generous you were. She named you as beneficiary. She knew you’d take care of Kate. Anna was convinced she could change Darwin, but just in case, she took legal precautions to protect herself and your investment.”

“She believed that somehow it was her fault, that she brought the beatings on,” Molly said, turning her face away. “I never cared about the money. I should have come over here and taken her and the baby no matter what she said.”

“Anna was a grown woman. She had a right to make her own choices, even if they were wrong.” He wanted to comfort this woman. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Miss Harper. Understand there was nothing you could have done. Believe me, I tried.”

She turned to look at him, this time her pain un-shielded by her anger. “You tried to convince her to leave, didn’t you?”

“More than once. She wouldn’t hear of it. While she was pregnant with Kate, he didn’t hit her. She thought the baby would change him, would make him love her. I gave her a key to my place so that she’d have somewhere safe to go if it got bad again. That’s how she got into my house. What happened after that, I don’t know.”

“If you were camping, surely the police could prove it?”

He thought about what she was asking. For the first time there was a glimmer of hope that she might be willing to at least listen to his side of the story. “They did prove I had set up camp. They found my gear and things where I said they were, but the witnesses who knew I was at my camp all night have disappeared. The police say I established the campsite as an alibi and then drove back to town to kill Anna.”

“She was shot with your gun.”

It was an accusation. “I know. The gun was in a bedside table. I kept it there for protection.”

“I would have thought you’d take it with you camping.”

“The things I’m afraid of aren’t in the wilderness.” The look she gave him was more curious than angry, encouraging him to continue. “I told Anna about the gun. I wanted her to know where it was in case she ever needed to defend herself, or Kate. I always left it there. For her.”

“And the motive? The police are saying you loved Anna and when she wouldn’t leave Darwin, you killed her.”

He shook his head. “I did love Anna, but not in the romantic sense. I loved her as a friend. We were close. She was…fragile. We worked together, and somehow I became something akin to an older brother, yet not family.” He knew this would hurt, but he had to say it. “She was so ashamed of what her life had become. She didn’t want her real family to know how bad it was, how much she endured. But she could talk to me. I didn’t judge her. I listened, and when I could, I helped her.”

He wasn’t certain how Molly Harper was reacting to his words. She was listening, though, and that was further than he’d gotten with anyone else. “She talked about you a lot.” He wanted to reach out and touch her hand, to offer comfort, but he didn’t. “She admired you so much, even though you were the younger sister. She told me all about you. How brave you were, and strong. She felt she lacked those qualities.”

Molly’s tears slipped down her cheeks. She made no effort to wipe them away. “Anna never saw herself the way I did. To me she was my big sister. She taught me to dance and to fix my hair. She helped me pick out the dress for my high school prom. She always had time for me.”

“She had time for everyone. That was her gift,” Thomas said. “That’s what made her special.”

“Who would kill her?”

“I don’t have an answer for you. Not yet.” This was a question he’d thought about since his arrest five days ago. The first suspect was Anna’s husband, Darwin Goodman. But the police had interrogated and released him. Darwin had an alibi for the time of the murder. That didn’t clear him in Thomas’s book—and at his arraignment Thomas had made a big scene accusing Darwin of killing Anna—but why would even a wife-beater like Darwin abduct and hide his own child if Kate was alive? He would have had legal custody of Kate. He didn’t have to steal her.

“Did she ever mention anyone else who might want to hurt her?”

He’d given this a lot of thought also. “No. Anna made friends easily, though she didn’t let many people close. She did her job and went home to her family. Kate was in day care during the day, and Anna sometimes stopped by my place with the baby after she’d picked her up. She was always headed home to make dinner. Everything seemed routine, up until the evening before she was killed.”

“What happened?”

“She and Darwin had another fight. She showed up on my doorstep with Kate. Darwin hadn’t hit her, but he’d threatened her. It was the first time she even talked about leaving him.”

“But she went back home.”

He nodded.

“The police have cleared Darwin.”

“I know, but that doesn’t make it a fact. They’ve accused me and I didn’t do it.”

“Do you have any other suspects?”