“If it’s there, it can stay there. I’m never going down there again.”
“You’re looking better, Max.” Gabriel and I dropped the garbage bags inside the front door and locked it behind us. “I hope you have some coffee made.”
Karen came in from the kitchen. “If you ever catch me without a fresh pot made, take my pulse, because I’m probably dead.” She glanced at the garbage bags. “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us. I’ll grab the pot and some cups.”
“Somebody bring me my laptop.” Max wheeled to the dining room table. “I’m ready to go to work.”
I grabbed a bag and carried it to the table. “How do you want to start?”
“Sort it into notes, bills, bank statements, letters, and legal documents. What exactly are we looking for?” Max asked.
Gabriel brought in the second bag. “Other than where Sierra Dale has been for twenty-five years, anything or anybody that might be a problem for Emma in the future.” He pulled out a chair and slumped into it. “We’re not leaving anything to chance.”
Karen kept our coffee cups filled as we worked for the next three hours, sorting into different stacks. “Here’s a check made out to a psychiatric hospital in Manhattan for Sierra Dale. Looks like she was committed in 1994.” Max held out the check.
“I think I’ve found what we’re looking for.” Gabriel held up a hospital bill. “In 1996, Sierra Dale gave birth to twin boys.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Twins?”
Gabriel nodded. “She named one of them Christian and the other Joshua.”
“Were they identical twins?” Max asked.
“No, not identical.”
“I need some fresh air.” I forced myself not to run, my right temple pounding. Even if we kill Christian, another maniac may be out there, after my baby. I flipped the lock and opened the front door. Rain had started again, and the wind was picking up.
Karen came to stand beside me. “Are you okay?”
“No. Gabriel’s dying, and even if we kill Salyer, we don’t know who or where his brother is. We don’t even know what he looks like. Emma still won’t be safe.”
“What happened when you talked to Morgan?”
“I gave him the note and told him to give it to Christian. That I was trading myself for my daughter. He pretty much admitted he was involved.”
“Maybe he knows who and where the second child is.” Karen wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s getting colder. Let’s go back in and see what else we can find. If we don’t find anything, then tomorrow we’ll go back and see him.”
A patrol car pulled into the parking space in front of the bed-and-breakfast. I recognized the officer from the desk earlier. He ran through the rain and ducked under the porch. “Sergeant Wagner asked me to deliver this to you.” He held out a manila envelope. “You have a good night, ladies.”
I waited until his car pulled away before breaking the seal. Paper-clipped documents were inside with a hand-scrawled cover letter.
“Figured these might come in handy some day. A little self-protection in case something happened to me. I left my confession for Chief Sampson, and now I’m gonna deliver your message. I swear to God, Dakota, I did not know about your daughter. I would never have let him do that. I hope some day you can forgive me.
I passed the note to Karen. “I think he knows Salyer is going to kill him.”
“I think you’re right.” She eyed the envelope. “Are you going to look at them?”
“Let’s go in. Max and Gabriel will want to see this too.”
38
The rain stopped after midnight, and the day promised to be one of sunshine and warmth, a pleasant fall interlude before the coldness of winter descended. None of us slept much. We were all disturbed by the information Wagner had left and the lives he’d allowed to be destroyed. Karen was still in a state of shock, and Max was furious. Only Gabriel and I understood his actions. But that didn’t mean we condoned them.
The back door opened. I didn’t need to look to know it was Gabriel. Hopefully, Max and Karen were getting some much-needed rest.
“I brought you a cup of coffee.” Gabriel took the seat next to me and placed the cup on the small table.
“Thank you.” I continued to stare at the flower garden. In a few months, most of it would die, leaving behind patches of rotting leaves and stems. “I wonder if that’s what happened to my mother. She was beautiful, yet she just slowly died inside until nothing was left but rotten foliage.”
“Environment has a lot to do with how we turn out. Your grandmother raised her to believe that outer appearances were all that mattered. Everything had to be clean and pristine white. Her mind was damaged.”
And so is mine. “She hated me so much that she raised them to destroy anyone who looked like me. They’ll never stop as long as a woman with long black hair and light-blue eyes exists.”
“Christian didn’t kill you. If we’re right, he didn’t kill any of those women. He rebelled in the only way he could by having someone else do the killing. And when she finally pointed a finger at you, he killed her.”
“He did kill women. Just not the ones who looked like me. We may never know how many bodies are buried out there or how many of those missing women online he butchered.” I sipped the lukewarm coffee. “He said she would have turned me evil, except my father saved me. Father must have seen the madness in her at some point but loved her too much to put her away.”
Gabriel took my hand in his. “Secrets create darkness, and darkness creates monsters. That’s what happened to Morgan Wagner. On the other hand, fate’s a funny thing. If Salyer hadn’t killed my sister, I never would have met you.”
“And if we hadn’t met, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life for crimes I didn’t commit. Without your help and Don Sampson’s help, no one would have looked beyond the fake lab report and Wagner’s statements.”
“I think the turning point for him was Emma, and he was telling the truth. He really didn’t know about her and that Salyer had taken her. I think that was the turning point for Salyer, too—watching you pregnant, seeing a new life come into the world.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said he treated you different when you were pregnant and after Emma was born. I don’t think he wants you dead. I don’t think he ever wanted you dead. And now he wants to save Emma, but Joshua is pulling the strings.”
“And we don’t know who Joshua is.”
The rage inside me was growing, and the darkness was expanding. With everything Wagner had given us, he didn’t tell us who Joshua was. It was still hard to believe he was the father of my stepbrothers thanks to a weekend fling that came back to haunt him twenty-five years later. At first, Christian had played him, convincing him he was innocent. When Wagner began to suspect he might be guilty, Christian had killed Wagner’s wife, threatening to finish the job with the remainder of Wagner’s family. Wagner had wanted to kill Christian, but Christian had promised him if he gave him me, he would disappear and never be heard from again.
“Even with Max’s skills in research, we don’t have time to find Joshua before Friday.”
Gabriel turned to stare at me, the golden highlights of his eyes dimmer than they had been the day before. “We don’t know who he is, but Christian does. He has to contact you to make the deal, and I seriously doubt he’ll accept all your conditions. Convince him to bring Joshua with him, or at least convince him that as long as Joshua is alive, Emma will never be safe. He probably knows that already but is hoping with you gone, Joshua will get over his rage. We both know that isn’t going to happen.” He let go of my hand. “Good people do bad things when the pain cuts too deep. I brought you into this mess again. Even now, knowing everything I know, there are times I want to blame you. Rage and hate are like cancer. They find a spot that’s vulnerable, dig in, and start to grow until they kill all that’s decent inside you.”