Buried Truth (7 page)

He did not want to be on that property anymore. There was something empty and forlorn about it now. The irony of Margot’s return on the heels of Heather’s departure was too much. He checked his watch. She’d be in the air soon. After a quick glance up to the cliffs that seemed to scrape the sky,
he returned to the truck just as his phone rang. He smiled at the sight of the familiar number.

“Hello, Aunt Jean.”

“Hey there, Billy. It’s a wonder an old aunt could get such a busy young fellow on the phone.”

He laughed. “I’ve always got time for you.”

“You’ve always got time for my pie, more like it.” Her voice grew serious. “I was remembering all those warnings you gave me about this Birch fellow and how I should be on the lookout and such.”

A flash of foreboding crept up his spine. “Yes?”

“Well, I found an envelope on my porch this morning with your name on it.”

Panic flashed through him. “Don’t open it. Don’t touch it.” He was already gunning the motor to life.

“Too late. The dogs got it and I had to wrestle it away.” She chuckled. “At least we know it wasn’t rigged to explode.”

Bill could hardly hear over his pounding heart. “Just leave it alone and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He disconnected and drove as fast as he dared toward Aunt Jean’s.

H
eather had to stop several times before she made it onto the airplane. A lacerating pain stabbed through her heart. Her mother was back, but not for her daughter. The woman had come merely for a rent-free place to live, after all the years of silence, all the years of pain. Heather had been praying since she was ten for her mother’s return and now she couldn’t understand why.

God, why does this have to hurt so much? And why now?

“Can I help you find your seat?” a dark-haired flight attendant offered.

Heather realized she was standing in the middle of the aisle. She shook her head and tried to take some deep breaths as she trudged to her seat.

Her mother’s face was fixed in her memory and she could not tear it away.

The strong features, the perfect posture.

The hands that she had longed her whole life to hold.

Think about Miami. You can start over, away from Mother and Oscar.

And Bill.

She felt his concern in the way he’d put an arm around her shoulders.

His job was to get you on the plane, Heather. Don’t mistake his actions for anything else.

So many years, she thought. So many years it had taken for her to recognize that the root of her bad decisions, her helplessness against alcohol, was the blinding need to ease the hurt from her mother’s abandonment. She did not understand for one minute why her father would allow his runaway wife back in his own life. He’d never officially divorced her, and Heather didn’t understand that, either. Surely Margot had hurt him as badly as she had hurt Heather by walking away without a backward glance.

Skin stinging with cold and emotion, she listened again to her father’s voice mail message.

I’m asking you to take care of …

Heather filled in the rest.

Your mother.

Take care of the woman who had left her? Walked out and never looked back? His request was another slap of betrayal. She fought a surge of helplessness that she had not felt since she’d gotten sober, the nasty spiraling storm that thundered through her. Was there no one left to be her safety in this storm? Squeezing her eyes shut, she prayed a clumsy, stumbling prayer.

Help me. Please.

She willed the passengers to board the plane, to get the machine off the ground and as far away as possible. Sunlight pouring through the round window caught her attention and she peered down on the tarmac below. Some orange-vested workers bustled around, driving small carts and talking into radios.

She peered closely at their faces. Was Oscar down there somewhere? Blended in with the employees? Would he decide to go after Bill in earnest after she was gone?

Nothing will stop this guy… .

Her hands began to shake and she had trouble breathing. Mother, Oscar, Bill. Her world was spiraling out of control and the only thing that would help was to leave this place immediately.

The flight attendant appeared at her side again. “Are you okay, ma’am? I notice you look upset. Are you afraid of flying?”

Yes. Afraid of flying back into the dark world she’d left. Afraid of being alone again, trapped by her own addiction.

“I’m fine, thank you. How much longer until takeoff?”

“About twenty minutes. Please let me know if I can get anything for you.” She drifted away.

Heather tried her father’s number again, but there was still no answer.

Twenty more minutes. She ground her teeth as time seemed to stand still.

Miami, Miami,
she silently chanted. Things would be okay there. She’d find somewhere to stay, somewhere quiet, near the beach maybe. She and Choo Choo would make another life.

The realization hit her like a slap. In Miami, or South Dakota or some tropical island that was as far away as east from west, she would never escape the pain that assailed her at that moment.

Her mother’s betrayal.

Her father’s devotion to his wife.

Her ruined relationship with Bill.

The tatters of what had been a promising career.

There was only one escape.

Just as there had been only one way out of her alcoholism.

She had to trust Him.

And herself.

The only choice was suddenly clear in her mind as if it had
been written in fluorescent paint on the cabin wall. It was a choice that would hurt deeply, she was certain, and she was not sure she could survive it.

Lord, help me to do it. Help me to be strong.

Standing on shaky legs, she squeezed by the stream of boarding passengers. The flight attendant looked up in surprise.

“Is there something you needed?” she asked.

“I need my dog. I’m getting off this plane.”

Bill pushed the truck so fast the movement rattled his teeth. On the way he phoned Crow and asked him to relay the situation to Rudley.

“Is it wired?” Crow asked breathlessly. “Should we get the bomb squad again?”

“She’s already moved it. I’ll be there in five more minutes and give you an update.”

He disconnected as he thundered onto reservation property, ignoring the curious glance from a mechanic at the small garage. Of course Oscar would switch targets when Heather was gone. The only other person close to him, the only soul who mattered, was Aunt Jean.

She’s strong, Bill. She can take care of herself.

It was true. A white woman who came to South Dakota as a twenty-year-old, doing research for a book, Aunt Jean had moved to the reservation when Bill was just a boy, shortly after his mother died. She fell in love with the place and the people and became an adopted aunt to himself, his sister and a score of other kids just as surely as if they were blood. She was strong from her endless efforts in the garden and easily commanded her pack of three dogs, leaving no room to wonder who was in charge. She was also as good a shot with a rifle as Bill. Except for the limp left by her recent fall, she was hale and hearty for her sixty-seven years.

It made him feel better to think of that as he tore off the main road down to the hollow where Aunt Jean’s trailer stood in the shade of a cluster of cottonwood trees. She was in the small fenced yard, tending the pumpkins in her garden, which glistened in the intense sunlight. As he got out of the truck, her three mixed-breed dogs barked at him until Aunt Jean corrected them. They settled on whipping their tails back and forth to express their excitement.

He let himself in through the gate and wrapped his aunt in a hug, relief flooding through him. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

She laughed, tanned skin wrinkling into a million creases. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? I’ve never been hurt by an envelope yet. Come in.”

“Where’s the envelope, Aunt Jean?”

She led him into the trailer, which was cool and filled with the smell of pickled watermelon rind. Jars of the stuff lined the counter.

“I’ll find it. Sit.” She handed him a glass of tea. “I saw the wanted posters the Tribal Rangers hung up. Oscar Birch the one who trashed your place?”

Bill looked at her. “How did you know about that?”

“Saw it on the
Desert Blaze
website.”

He groaned. “Heather wrote it.”

She smiled again. “I understand the
Blaze
wants to send someone to look at those fossils in my backyard. Seen Heather much?”

He tried to keep his tone calm. “She just flew out of town. Aunt Jean, I need to see the letter now. We can talk about Heather later.”

She pursed her lips. “You can send her to the moon, Billy, but until you’re honest with yourself about her she’ll always be tangled around your heart.”

He stood. “The envelope, Aunt Jean.”

“Never were a patient one, were you? How tired you look. I pray every day that God will send you peace.”

He resisted the urge to fire off a retort. God had sent him only grief by taking Leanne. And Johnny.

His heart added the other name.

And Heather.

He shook off the thought. “Are you going to give me that envelope or do I need to root around here and find it myself?”

She laughed. “You’re a terrible liar. You would never poke through my trailer.”

He flushed. She was right. He would not rummage through her things any more than he’d paw through a woman’s purse, unless it was absolutely necessary. Even when he had to arrest female lawbreakers, he felt a flicker of unease at violating the sanctity of a woman’s belongings. He held out his hand. “The envelope.”

She pulled it from a cubbyhole next to the fridge. “Here you go.”

He tried to take it, but she held tight, her face suddenly grave. “You are not responsible for Johnny’s death. Catching Oscar won’t lift that burden of guilt. Leave it for the police, Billy.”

Knowing that there was probably no chance of getting any fingerprints off the envelope, before he opened it he nonetheless took it by the corner and slid on a pair of latex gloves he’d taken from the truck.

There was no message.

Only a phone number.

He looked up to find Aunt Jean watching him closely. “What does it mean?”

He sat back and tried to still the pounding in his heart.

“It means Oscar wants to talk.”

Heather waved to the owner of the Rockvale Laundromat, whom she was fortunate enough to run into at the airport where he was dropping off his daughter. He’d offered her and Choo Choo a ride back to town, which she’d gratefully accepted.

As they approached the cabin, the tension knotted her stomach. Her mother was in that house. Or at least the woman who had given birth to her.

She thanked her gracious driver again and helped Choo Choo out of the car. The walk to the front door seemed endless. She wasn’t certain if she should knock or unlock the door and let herself in. Who belonged there anyway? She didn’t know.

The sun beat down on her with typical afternoon ferocity.

Choo Choo pushed his wet nose into her thigh to urge a decision from her, but she felt rooted to the spot. Would her mother be inside, reading quietly in the old rocking chair with the tattered cushion? Or preparing a pot of tea?

Her mother was home. A dream come true.

So why did it feel like a nightmare?

Try as she might, she could not make herself walk through the door, to see the indifferent look on her mother’s face when she arrived.

She would take care of her mother to please her father.

But she didn’t have to like it.

She turned back, hopped into the Jeep, Choo Choo beside her. “I’ve got to go see Aunt Jean about those fossils anyway, Choo. Might as well be now.”

When she’d gotten off the plane, she’d resolved to face her problems instead of hiding … but there was no reason she had to face this one right away. Knowing she was taking the coward’s
way out and feeling a surge of guilty relief anyway, she dialed Dr. Egan’s number and got his voice mail.

“Hello, Dr. Egan. I’m on my way to check out the fossil find I told you about.” She gave him the address and asked him to meet her there. “I’d really appreciate your expertise.” It was a long shot, but she hoped he might be interested enough to stop by or provide some quotes.

Deep down she knew from the moment she’d come face-to-face with her mother in the airport there had been no hope of a happy reunion. She felt the same about losing Bill. The only thing left was her career. Sitting up straighter, she picked up the pace.

What would she tell Bill about her return? For a fleeting moment she imagined him welcoming her, wrapping her in the kind of warm embrace he’d shared with her in better times. But those times were gone. She would stay out of his way, live carefully and not take any unnecessary risks until Oscar was caught. Remembering the intense anger in Bill’s eyes as he’d handed her the photos, she knew things would come to a head quickly. There was too much rage on both sides to keep under wraps for long. Suppressing a shudder, she drove onto the reservation and headed for Aunt Jean’s trailer.

As soon as she saw Bill’s truck, she braked and tried to turn around, but it was too late. Bill was just exiting the trailer and he stopped midstride when he saw her. His eyes widened.

Heart beating fast, she got out and faced him.

“I’m back.”

He glowered. “I see that. Why?”

“It didn’t feel right running away.”

He took a breath so deep it strained the front of his T-shirt. “You were supposed to get yourself to safety. You remember who is targeting you, right?”

“Of course. How could I forget it? I just … needed to come back.”

There was a long pause and she felt his eyes on hers, searching for the real answer.

“It’s because of your mother,” he said quietly.

She squared her shoulders. “Not her, my father. He asked me to take care of her and I will respect what he wants, just until he comes back.”

“Your father would want you to be safe.” The anger had drained from Bill’s tone, leaving an undercurrent of something softer, and the understanding there made her feel weak in the knees. She could not have sympathy now, or she’d break down. No sympathy, not from him. She did not deserve it.

“I’m here to talk to Aunt Jean about the fossils on her property.”

“I don’t want you near Aunt Jean. She got a note from Oscar.”

Heather’s mouth fell open. “Is he stalking her now, too?”

“It was a message for me.” He held up a note. “A phone number. The FBI is tracing it right now.”

Heather felt a chill. “He’s getting daring.”

“We’re way beyond daring. You need to go home now. I’ll talk to Rudley and see if we can make arrangements for your protection.”

Aunt Jean and the dogs emerged from the trailer. The dogs barked and sniffed joyfully at the new canine arrival from behind the low fence.

“Hello, Heather. It’s been a long time,” Jean called over the yapping.

Heather felt herself flush. The last time she’d seen Aunt Jean, the woman had cooked a lovely meal for her and Bill, obviously thrilled at their dating. She’d given her homemade jam and invited her to return anytime.

Aunt Jean, though she’d never had children, was what
Heather imagined a mother should be. Warm and welcoming, supportive of Bill and interested in his world. After the visit Heather had felt the same swirl of despair and sought to ease the pain with a drink. One had led to two and then more as it always did, only this time she’d decided in her impaired condition to drive to the nearest store. A couple of wrong turns had brought her onto Eagle Rock reservation territory.