Carolyn McSparren - The Only Child

Blushing, she thrust away from him, praying he had not sensed her reaction. She took a moment to fiddle with the keys until she had her breathing under control again.

As she turned on the engine, he laughed. She’d never heard him laugh—not a real laugh, at any rate. “Suddenly, I’m ravenous.”

Molly looked down at the serviceable steel watch on her wrist. “No wonder. It’s past noon.”

“Let’s have lunch at the museum restaurant. It’s close, the food is good and it’s quiet.”

“I don’t know. I’m not really dressed for the Brush and Quill.”

“Nonsense.”

As the hostess showed them to a table five minutes later, one of a group of elegantly dressed women at a nearby table waved and called to Logan. He smiled and waved back.

“Go on over and talk to her,” Molly whispered.

He shook his head and sat opposite her. “One of Sydney’s friends. I barely know her.”

“Good customer of MacMillan’s?”

“I have no idea. I told you, the shop is Zoe’s territory.”

“Well, at the moment she’s looking at me as though I were an armadillo. Hadn’t you better go speak to her?”

“No. We have to plan our campaign. I cannot—will not—trust another private detective to do the job. I’ve got to find Dulcy myself.”

“You can have whatever help I can give.”

“We’d best start with what we know.”

“Or what we don’t,” Molly said. “You said Tiffany’s scheme wouldn’t have worked unless you’d been willing to believe she’d abandon a sick child. It took more than that. There is a real little girl in Jane Doe’s grave in Kansas, a child the same age and with the same coloring as Dulcy. How did Tiffany find out about her?”

“She must have seen the child, maybe known the parents, or been around the hospital where she died.”

Molly nodded. “She didn’t call Youngman until months after the child died. Why did she wait so long?”

“Maybe she didn’t find out about the other child’s death right away. Or maybe it took that long to make her plans. She may have started trying to find a way to get Youngman off her trail the minute she found I’d hired him. The other little girl’s death must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that.”

“If you bought the story, she was free and clear, and if you didn’t, what had she lost?” Molly said. “She’d just have to disappear again.”

“We know she was living in Moundhill, maybe she hung around the Moundhill hospital,” Logan said. “Perhaps she was a patient there.”

“Maybe Dulcy was a patient there,” Molly said quietly.

Logan stared at her in alarm.

She reached across the table toward him. “It’s possible. But we know she was alive and well long after that. I saw her, remember?”

Logan said with growing excitement, “She might still be living there.”

Molly took a deep breath. Logan wasn’t going to like her next words. “Did you ever think that maybe she’s made a new life for herself in Moundhill? Settled down. Married, even.”

“I hadn’t considered that.”

“Consider it, then,” Molly said. “What if you find Tiffany is sober, Dulcy is living happily with a new stepfather in a middle-class ranch house in Moundhill and going to Brownies every Thursday? Do you call the police, break up the family? Send Tiffany to jail? Drag Dulcy kicking and screaming back to Memphis to live with a man she likely doesn’t remember?”

“Dulcy belongs with me. I will be a good father to her.”

“Logan, you’re her grandfather. It’s not the same thing. You’ve been a father. The job descriptions are different.”

“No, I haven’t been a father.”

“But Zoe and Jeremy…

“They’re my biological children, all right, but I was never a father to them. I was gone for months at a time. Sydney had all the problems of being a single mother and none of the benefits. Well, almost all the problems. We had plenty of money—overseas jobs pay very well and there are no expenses to speak of. We decided the money was worth the long absences.” He threw down his napkin. “By the time I realized how wrong we were, Zoe hated my guts and Jeremy was a practicing alcoholic at sixteen.”

“Zoe loves you.”

He snorted. “She blames me for Jeremy’s drinking, his delinquency, his marriage, his death and for Dulcy’s death, as well. I used to think she married Rick just to spite me because he was a plumber without a college education.”

“If she did, she lucked out. Rick is a saint.”

He grimaced. “I must admit he’s been there for her.”

Molly could fill in the unspoken corollary. Rick was there when Logan hadn’t been. Maybe that was the key to Logan’s coolness toward his son-in-law. Rick made it all look so easy, while Logan struggled to rebuild his damaged relationship with Zoe.

Still, understanding Logan’s pain didn’t mean she had to agree with him. “So all this is not about Dulcy, it’s about you,” she snapped. “You want to prove to Zoe and to yourself that you can be a father. Of all the selfish, idiotic…” She pushed her chair back. “I’m not hungry. I’ll catch a cab.”

He caught up with her at the foot of the museum steps and grabbed her arm. “Wait, dammit! Listen to me. You’re wrong. It’s not about me. Tiffany’s life will be hell until she comes home to face what she did. No way can it be good for Dulcy. When we find Tiffany, I’ll help her any way I can, but I will take custody of Dulcy and raise her with love. Molly, you’ve got to help me. I don’t have anyone else. Please.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Fly to Moundhill with me.”

“I don’t think…”

“Listen to me, please.” He kept his hand on her arm and walked her to the BMW He held the door and she got in against her better judgment. He climbed in the other side and faced her without turning on the engine. “You’ve worked with abused children, you know the system.”

“So?”

“What’s going to happen if I find Tiffany and Dulcy in Moundhill? Let’s assume that instead of a decent life, they’re living in squalor. Whatever money Tiffany took from her trust fund must have run out long ago and there was no way she could get more. Maybe she paid it all to Youngman. She may be slinging hash or clerking at the grocery store—or worse. She wasn’t only into alcohol, Molly, she was into cocaine. Even Zoe doesn’t know that.”

“Oh, dear.” That changed things. Molly knew from the seminars she’d sat in on for her volunteer work what addiction to cocaine could do to women. They didn’t hesitate to sell their bodies and their children’s bodies when their need for the drug became too much to handle.

“Even Jeremy’s death didn’t stop her drinking or doing drugs,” Logan continued.

“Why did she take Dulcy along? It would have been easier for her to disappear alone.”

“Maybe she loves Dulcy the way a child loves a favorite toy. Maybe she took Dulcy to punish us, Zoe and Sydney and me.” He ran his hand down his face. “I don’t know anymore. Not after today.”

“I still don’t see how I can help. If you find Dulcy, surely they’ll give her to you.”

“Say I waltz in to the local police station with my order of custody executed before Sydney died. They’ll pick up Tiffany for extradition. Youngman was right. Tiffany may well tell them I’m a pedophile and after the child’s money. In today’s climate, they may believe her. Dulcy could wind up in foster care.”

“But I’m not a lawyer or a psychologist. I make dolls, period. And I’ve known you less than twenty-four hours during which you have acted about as stable as plutonium.”

“Touché. You, however, have ‘mother’ written across your forehead in letters the size of a marquee.”