B.J. Daniels - Dead Ringer

Huck Pierce wagged his head. “Where in the hell would she get peaches this time of year?”

“How should I know? It doesn’t matter. She’s not putting up any jam. Nor is she saying a word about anything.”

“You are one lucky son of a gun, then,” Huck said.

“Don’t I know it? So everything is cool, right?”

“Seems so. But I want you to stay by your wife’s side. Keep everything as normal as possible. Stick to your story. If she starts to remember...” He shrugged. “We’ll deal with it if we have to.”

Wade downed the rest of his beer, needing it even though he was technically on duty at the sheriff’s department. He didn’t want his father to see how relieved he was. Or how worried about what would happen if Abby remembered what had really happened to her.

“Great, so I get to hang out at the hospital until my shift starts. That place gives me the creeps.”

“You’re the one who screwed everything up. You knew what was at stake,” his father said angrily.

“Exactly.” Wade knew he couldn’t win in an argument with his father, but that didn’t stop him. “So what was I supposed to do when she confronted me? I tried to reason with her, but you know how she is. She was threatening to call the sheriff. Or go running to her old boyfriend Ledger McGraw. I didn’t have a choice but to try to stop her.”

“What you’re saying is that you can’t handle your wife. At least you don’t have some snot-nosed mouthy kid like I did.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, crushing the beer can in his hand. “I’ve heard all about how hard it was raising me.” He reached in the refrigerator for another beer, knowing he shouldn’t, but needing the buzz badly.

Before he could pull one out, his father slammed the refrigerator door, almost crushing his hand. “Get some gum. You can’t have beer on your breath when you go back to the hospital, let alone come to work later. Remember, you’re the worried husband, you damned fool.”

* * *

LEDGER HAD JUST hung up with the attorney when he got the call from his friend who worked at the hospital.

“I shouldn’t be calling you, but thought you’d want to know,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Abby was brought in.”

“That son of a—”

“He swears she fell off a ladder.”

“Sure she did. I’ll be right there. Is Wade—”

“He just left to go work his shift at the sheriff’s department. The doctor is keeping Abby overnight.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s pretty beat up, but she’s going to be fine.”

He breathed a sigh of relief as he hung up. When it rained it poured, he thought as he saw his father coming down the stairs toward him. Travers McGraw was still weak from his heart attack, but it was the systematic poisoning that had really almost killed him. Fortunately, his would-be killer was now behind bars awaiting trial.

But realizing that his second wife was trying to kill him had taken a toll on his father. It was bad enough that his first wife, Ledger’s mother, was in a mental hospital. After the twins were kidnapped, Marianne McGraw had a complete breakdown. For twenty-five years, it was believed that she and the ranch’s horse trainer, Nate Corwin, had been behind the kidnapping. Only recently had Nate’s name been cleared.

“I heard the phone,” Travers said now. He’d recovered, but was still weak. He’d lost too much weight. It would be a while until he was his old self. If ever.

That was why Ledger wasn’t sure how his father would take the news Waters had called with earlier—especially if it led to yet another disappointment. And yet Ledger couldn’t keep the attorney’s call from him. If there was even the slightest chance that this Vance Elliot was Oakley...

“You should sit down.”

His father didn’t argue as he moved to a chair and sat. He seemed to brace himself. “What’s happened?”

“Jim Waters called.”

Travers began to shake his head. “Now what?”

“He’s still apparently the contact person for the family on some of the old publicity,” Ledger said.

His father knew at once. “Oakley or Jesse Rose?”

“Oakley. Jim says the young man has the stuffed horse that was taken along with Oakley from his crib the night of the kidnapping. He says he’s seen the toy and that it is definitely Oakley’s.”

His father’s eyes filled to overflowing. “Thank God. I knew they were alive. I’ve...felt it all these years.”

“Dad, this Vance Elliot might not be Oakley. We have to keep that in mind.”

“He has Oakley’s stuffed horse.”

“But we don’t know how he got it or if it was with Oakley when he was given to the woman at the Whitehorse Sewing Circle,” Ledger reminded him.

“When can I see him?” his father asked, getting to his feet.

“He’s in town. Waters wants to bring him over this evening. I said it would be fine. I hope that was all right. If it goes well, I thought you might want him to stay for dinner. I can tell the cook.” Their cook for as far back as Ledger could remember had recently been killed. They’d been through several cooks since then. He couldn’t remember the name of the latest one right now and felt bad about it. “Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it really is Oakley.”

His father smiled and stepped closer to him to place a hand on his shoulder. “I am so blessed to have such good sons. Speaking of sons, where are Cull and Boone?”

“Cull and Nikki are checking into some of the adoptions through the Whitehorse Sewing Circle.” Nikki St. James was the crime writer who’d helped unlock some of the kidnapping mystery—and stolen Cull’s heart.

“I doubt the twins’ adoptions were recorded anywhere, and with the Cavanaugh woman dying not long after the twins were kidnapped... You haven’t heard anything yet?”

Ledger shook his head. “They said that clues to what happened to some of the babies were found stitched on their baby blankets. But the twins wouldn’t have quilted blankets made for them because of the circumstances.” Pearl Cavanaugh had been led to believe that the twins were in danger, so she would have made very private adoptions for Oakley and Jesse Rose.

“And Boone?”

“He went to check on that horse you were interested in, remember?”

Travers nodded, frowning. Loss of memory was part of the effects of arsenic poisoning. “Maybe I’ll just rest until dinner.”

Ledger watched his father go back up the stairs before he headed for his pickup and the hospital.

* * *

“YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE,” Abby said the moment she opened her eyes and saw Ledger standing at the end of her bed. Her heart had taken off like a wild stallion at just the sight of him. It always did. “Wade could come back at any time.”

Ledger had been her first love. He’d left an ache in her that she’d hoped would fade, if not eventually go away. But if anything, the ache had grown stronger. He’d broken her heart. It was why she’d married Wade. But ever since then, he’d been coming around, confusing her and making being married to Wade even harder. He seemed to think he had to save her from her husband.

It didn’t help that Ledger McGraw had breakfast on the mornings that she waitressed at the Whitehorse Café. She’d done nothing to encourage him, although Wade didn’t believe that.

Fortunately, Wade had only come down to the restaurant one time threatening to kill Ledger. Ledger had called him on it, saying they should step outside and finish it like men.

“Or do you only hit defenseless women?” Ledger had demanded of him.

Wade lost his temper and charged him. Ledger had stepped aside, nailing Wade on the back of his neck as he lumbered past. Abby had screamed as Wade slammed headfirst into a table. He’d missed two weeks’ work because of his neck and threatened to sue the McGraws for his pain and suffering.