man’s name.
“Any word on the guy who bumbled the interment?” He focused on the case rather than the woman who’d ripped open his chest and torn out his heart two years ago. Standing here looking at her now felt too surreal.
Bill flipped through a couple more pages in his trusty notebook. “According to the funeral director,” he said as he reviewed his notes. “Garland Hanes has a reputation for heavy drinking and not showing up for work. And he’s apparently dropped off the face of the earth since burying that empty coffin.” Bill sighed. “Hell, no one would have been the wiser if Mel hadn’t tried to dig up the thing.”
The image Ryan’s mind conjured of Melany digging into that shallow grave would torment him for the rest of his life. Though he hadn’t witnessed first-hand her desperate act, he had seen the kind of pain and desperation it took to push a person that far over the edge too many times. Just another anguish-filled picture to add to his hard-earned collection. Only this one was different. He knew this woman. Knew her better than he knew himself. Had made love to her. Had told her his deepest secrets…had loved her.
This was a mistake. He shouldn’t even be here. He, of all people, knew better than to get involved in a case where he had a personal connection. And this was definitely personal. Bill should never have called him in on one that hit this close to home.
He was not the man for this case. “I’m not sure I should—”
“Look,” Bill cut him off. “I know I shouldn’t have asked you to come down here, but she’s one of ours—”
“Was one of yours. Need I remind you that neither of us are in the Bureau anymore?” Ryan corrected as he turned his attention back to the woman in question. He set his jaw firmly, restraining the old anger that tinged his tone even now. Melany Jackson had walked out on her career with the Bureau the same day she walked out on him. And she hadn’t looked back on either even once. Apparently, she’d been too busy.
“Braxton, you’re a cold-hearted son of a bitch, do you know that?”
Ryan again shifted his intense scrutiny from the scene in the interrogation room to his old friend. “That’s what they tell me. But, when I was called in on a case in my Bureau days it was generally to help find a missing child, not one that’s already been pronounced dead and then buried.”
Ire lit in Bill’s eyes. “We can’t be sure the child is dead,” he ground out.
Ryan bit back the first response that shot to the tip of his tongue. His history with Bill was almost as complicated as the one he had with Melany. He suppressed the emotions that instantly tightened his chest at the mere thought of her. Dammit. Where was his control? A muscle jumped in his tense jaw. He would not allow personal feelings to interfere with his professional analysis of the situation. And, he was here. He might as well say what he was thinking.
“There’s a death certificate signed by the attending physician,” he offered quietly, knowing Bill didn’t want to think rationally at the moment. Ryan wasn’t the only one battling with personal feelings. “I’d say that’s pretty cut-and-dried evidence.”
Bill squared his shoulders into that stubborn set that Ryan recognized from years of working on the same team. “Damn, man,” Bill all but snarled, “give Mel a little credit. We’ve worked enough of these cases to know that once in a great while the connection between mother and child is so strong that they can sense each other’s needs. Mel could be right on this.”
That much was true to a degree, but more often than not it was mere wishful thinking. Ryan looked away. He didn’t want to see the worried determination in his old friend’s eyes, and he sure didn’t want to look at the anguish in Melany’s. He had seen that look far too many times in too many faces. When people lost a child, it left them empty. And they were never the same again. Ryan forced away the endless stream of memories that attempted to haunt his every waking moment. He shouldn’t be here. But what could he do? This was Mel. She needed him. Could he take the easy way out? Just walk away?
“All right,” he conceded, knowing he’d have to speak to Victoria Colby about the time off. Since he wasn’t currently assigned to a case he doubted it would be a problem.
This was a mistake. He knew it. Bill knew it, too. Ryan’s gaze moved back to Melany. But he couldn’t just walk away. He owed her that much. If he let himself admit the truth, he owed her a lot more than that. He’d taken all she had to give for three years, all the time knowing he would never give her the one thing she wanted with all her heart. He forced those thoughts from his mind. This wasn’t about him. She’d obviously forgotten him and moved on.
The idea of Melany with another man sat like a stone in his gut. But he couldn’t ignore the facts. She’d had a child with someone since he’d last seen her.
“So all we have at the moment,” Ryan deduced aloud with as much objectivity as he could marshal, “is Mel’s word against everyone else’s that her daughter is, in fact, alive.”
Bill closed his notebook and tucked it back into his pocket. He didn’t look at Ryan this time, his full attention remained on the woman they both cared for far too much. “That’s about the size of it,” he said, resigned.
“Well, then.” Ryan loosened his tie. “Let’s start with what we’ve got.”
He watched Melany for a few more seconds before leaving the viewing room. The one thing that made the whole damned situation different was Melany. She was a mother suffering through the kind of agony all mothers prayed they would never know, that much was true. But Melany Jackson was not like other mothers. She had received the same training as Ryan. She had seen many of the same cases and haunting faces as he had. And Ryan knew in his gut that no matter how far over the edge circumstances pushed her, at some point that deeply entrenched instinct kicked in.
If Melany believed her child was alive, he would damn well do everything in his power to help her find the truth.
Whatever that truth might prove to be.
MELANY SAT like a statue, her full attention focused on keeping thoughts and images of the past two days away. Despite her best efforts, snippets of her tense conversations with Bill kept echoing in her head. Sounds from the psych ward at Memphis General. The endless pacing and murmuring in the corridor…doors slamming. The distinctive click of locks turning…patients moaning. And the smell. God, the smell. She swallowed hard. Medicinal, yet somehow menacing. She never wanted to go back there.
She knew what they thought. All of them. They believed she had lost it. Her baby was dead, they thought, and she’d gone over the edge.
But it wasn’t true. Well maybe she had slipped over that precipice temporarily. She squeezed her eyes shut and blocked the instant replay of those frantic minutes in the cemetery. She had lost it for a little while…that much was accurate. When she’d tried to explain what she knew in her heart, no one would listen. She was nuts, they’d murmured.
But she knew the truth.
Bill believed her.
She opened her eyes and stared intently at the scarred table before her, tracing the lines of age and abuse wrought by belligerent suspects and frustrated detectives. Anything to prevent those horrifying images from filling her mind. But it was no use. The dizzying emotions bombarded her, leaving her defenseless.
The tiny grave surrounded by wreaths of withering flowers. The cold rain plastering
