Nikki nodded and let Tess leave the room ahead of her. All her instincts told her to get out now. She’d read that psychopaths were surprisingly strong and with only Tess to pull the woman off her...
She studied the white-haired woman in the rocker, trying to decide if Marianne McGraw was the monster everyone believed her to be.
“Did you let Nate Corwin die for a crime he didn’t commit?” Nikki whispered. “Is your real accomplice still out there, spending the $250,000 without you? Or are you innocent in all this? As innocent as I believe my father was?”
For just an instant she thought she saw something flicker in Marianne McGraw’s green eyes. The chill that climbed up her backbone froze her to her core. “You know what happened that night, don’t you,” Nikki whispered at the woman. In frustration, she realized that if her father and this woman were behind the kidnaping, Marianne might be the only person alive who knew the truth.
“Come on!” Tess whispered from the hallway.
Nikki was still staring at the woman in the rocker. “I’m going to find out.” She turned to leave. Behind her, she heard the chilling low growling sound emanating from Marianne McGraw. It wasn’t until the door was closed and locked behind her that she let out the breath she’d been holding.
* * *
TESS MOTIONED FOR Nikki to follow her. The hallway was long and full of shadows this late at night. Their footfalls sounded too loud on the linoleum floor. The air was choked with the smell of disinfectants that didn’t quite cover the...other smells.
Someone cried out in a nearby room, making Nikki start. Behind them there were moans broken occasionally by bloodcurdling screams. She almost ran the last few feet to the back door.
Tess turned off the alarm, pushed open the door and, checking to make sure she had her keys, stepped out into the night air with her. They both breathed in the Montana night. Stars glittered in the midnight blue of the big sky overhead. In the distance, she could make out the dark outline of the Little Rockies.
“I told you she wouldn’t be any help to your story,” Tess said after a moment.
Nikki could tell that the nurse’s aide couldn’t wait until her last day at this job. She could see how a place like that would wear on you. Though she’d spent little time inside, she still was having trouble shaking it off.
“I still appreciate you letting me see her.” She knew the only reason she’d gotten in was because the nurse’s aide was getting married, had already given her two weeks’ notice and was planning to move to Missoula with her future husband. Nikki had read it in the local newspaper under Engagements. It was why she’d made a point of finding out when Tess worked her last late-night shifts.
Nearby an owl hooted. Tess hugged herself even though the night wasn’t that cold. Nikki longed for any sound other than the creak of a rocking chair. She feared she would hear it in her sleep.
“I heard you tell her that you were going to find out what happened that night,” Tess said. “Everyone around here already knows what happened.”
Did they? Nikki thought of Marianne McGraw. Her hair had turned white overnight and now she was almost a corpse. The only man who might know whether the rumors were true, Nikki’s own father, was dead.
“What does everyone believe happened?” she asked.
“She was having an affair with her horse trainer, so of course that’s who she got to help her get rid of the babies,” Tess said as she dug in her pocket for a cigarette. “I’m trying to quit. Before the wedding. But some nights...”
Nikki watched her light up and take a long drag. “Wait, why get rid of the babies? She still had three other sons.”
“I guess she figured they’d be fine with their father. But babies... Also they needed the money. Easier to kidnap a couple of babies than one of the younger boys who’d make a fuss.”
“Still, they didn’t have to kill them.”
“The horse trainer probably didn’t want to be saddled with two babies. Not very romantic running away together with the money—and two squalling babies.”
That was the story the prosecution had told that had gotten her father sent to prison. But was it true? “I thought he swore he didn’t do it.”
She scoffed. “That’s what they all say.”
Nate Corwin, according to what Nikki had been able to find, had said right up to the end when they were driving him to prison that he didn’t do it. Maybe, if the van hadn’t overturned and he wasn’t killed, then maybe he could have fought his conviction, found proof... Or maybe he’d lied right up until his last breath.
“But I thought it was never proven that he was even Marianne’s lover, let alone that he helped her kidnap her own children?” Nikki asked.
The nurse’s aide made a disbelieving sound. “Who else was there?”
“I’d heard the nanny might have been involved.”
“Patty? Well, I wouldn’t put it past her.”
This caught Nikki’s attention. “You know her?”
The nurse’s aide pursed her lips as if she shouldn’t be talking about this, but fortunately that didn’t stop her. Anyway, she’d already broken worse rules today by sneaking Nikki into the hospital.
“She accompanies her husband most of the time. You can tell Patty doesn’t like him visiting his ex-wife,” Tess said. Nikki got the impression that Patricia McGraw also didn’t like being called Patty.
“She won’t even step into Marianne’s room,” the nurse’s aide was saying between puffs. “Not that I blame her, but instead she stands in the hallway and watches them like a hawk. Imagine being jealous of that poor woman in that room.”
“I also heard that Travers McGraw himself might have been involved,” Nikki threw out.
Tess shook her head emphatically. “No way. Mr. McGraw is the nicest, kindest man. He would never hurt a fly, let alone his own children.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially even though they were alone at the back of the hospital and there was only open country behind them. “He hardly ever leaves the ranch except to come here to see his now ex-wife—that is until recently. I heard he’s not feeling well.”
Nikki had heard the same thing. Maybe that was why he’d agreed to let her interview him and his family for the book.
When Nikki had first approached him, she had expected him to turn her down in a letter. The fact that she’d made a name for herself after solving the murders in so many of her books had helped, she was sure.
“You seem to have a talent for finding out the truth,” Travers McGraw had said when he’d called her out of the blue. He’d been one of just three people she’d contacted about interviews and a book, but he’d been the one she wanted badly.
That was one reason she’d tried not to sound too eager when she’d talked to him. McGraw hadn’t done any interviews other than the local press—not since a reporter had broken into his house and
