years ago.
They had a daughter right away, Desiree. Then two years later another one, Angela. Several weeks after Angela’s birth the baby disappeared from her crib never to be seen again. There’d been rumors that the baby wasn’t Wade’s.
No ransom demand was ever made. No body ever found. Daisy Dennison, who’d been the talk of the town, became a recluse after her youngest daughter’s disappearance. That is until Halloween, when she’d showed up with a gun at the Dennison Ducks factory and helped save Charity’s life when the decoy foreman had tried to kill them both.
Bud Farnsworth had abducted Charity to retrieve a letter that implicated him in Angela Dennison’s disappearance. A Dennison Ducks employee named Nina Monroe had mailed the letter to the Timber Falls Courier, Charity’s newspaper, right before she was killed. Nina had more than a few secrets, it turned out, and a flair for blackmail.
Bud destroyed the letter before anyone could read it—including Charity much to her regret—but there was no doubt now that he was somehow involved in kidnapping the baby.
The only question that had remained was: Did he act alone?
Charity was sure he didn’t. In fact, she was damned sure that Wade Dennison had hired Bud to get rid of the baby because he believed Angela wasn’t his. Just before Bud died, he’d tried to talk and he’d been looking right at Wade at the time.
Charity was convinced that Wade had shot Bud to shut him up, and now that she knew Wade had fired the fatal shot that killed Bud—and not his wife, Daisy—Charity was even more convinced of Wade’s guilt.
“Wade was behind the kidnapping,” Charity said.
“This is exactly why I wanted to tell you about this myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “You told me because you knew I was going to find out.” And here she’d been hoping he’d come by just to see her.
“Maybe I thought I could keep you from doing a story that might get you killed.”
“You romantic, you.”
“I’m serious, Charity. I’m worried about you and what you’re going to do next.”
“Mitch, I saw Bud try to say something to Wade right before he died,” Charity said, feeling a chill at the memory. “He was going to incriminate Wade. That’s why Wade shot him, so the truth would never come out.”
“We don’t know that for a fact and speculating only leads to trouble. Especially in print. I would have thought you’d have learned that by now.”
She smiled. This was an old argument between them. “I’m a newspaper woman. It’s my job to get to the truth, and sometimes I have to rattle a few cages to do that and you wouldn’t be worried unless you thought I was right about Wade Dennison being a dangerous man.”
Mitch took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. “Is there any way I can talk you out of this?”
She cocked her head at him. “What did you have in mind?” And to think not long ago she’d thought, if she could just write a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, Mitch would finally realize he couldn’t live without her and ask her to marry him.
Instead, she’d realized that Mitch would have been happier if she wasn’t a journalist at all. For some reason, he worried about her safety. Maybe because a lot of her stories got her into trouble.
He put his hat back on—and his official face.
She could play that game, too. “Have you talked to Wade?” she asked, knowing there was no way Wade was going to speak to her on the record or off.
“He admits he could have fired the fatal shot but says all he could think about was saving his wife, Daisy. That’s the official statement.” Mitch reached in to his coat and brought out a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to her.
“I figured that would be his story,” she said, unfolding the paper to see that it was an official statement from the sheriff’s office. She tossed it aside. “I’ll be careful what I print, but Mitch, what if I’m right?”
His dark eyes settled on her. “If you’re right, then Wade Dennison is a killer. You might want to keep that in mind.”
“But how do we prove it?” she cried. “We can’t let him get away with murder.”
“We aren’t going to prove it,” he said getting to his feet. “I am. I have no intention of letting him get away with murder—if he’s guilty. But Charity, as hard as this is for you, you might be wrong this time.”
She smirked at that. “You know I’m right ninety-nine percent of the time.”
He shook his head but seemed unable not to smile down at her. “You are something.”
A person could take that a number of ways.
“Try to accept the fact that we may never know what happened to Angela Dennison,” he said after a moment.
She couldn’t stand the thought. “There has to be a way.”
Mitch was shaking his head. “Charity, getting involved last time almost cost you your life.”
True. But it had also made Mitch realize that he cared for her. She wisely didn’t point this out to him though.
He stood looking down at her as if there was more he wanted to say. She waited for him to ask her to the dance. Or maybe to a late dinner. It had been almost a week since he’d kissed her.
“Just be careful, okay?” he said quietly.
She smiled up at him. “You know me.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me.” He turned to leave. “See you later.” She hoped so as she watched him go, her lips feeling neglected.
She got up and locked the front door as he drove away. Then she turned back to her computer. She had a story to write.
The phone rang. She picked it up, already knowing who it would be.
“I got that ballistics report you wanted,” said her source on the other end of the line. “Are you sitting down?”
She sat, even though she already knew the results.
“Wade Dennison’s gun killed Bud Farnsworth.”
“You’re the best, Tommy.” A thought had been percolating ever since Mitch left. If she was right and Wade Dennison had hired Bud Farnsworth to do his dirty work, then there would be a money trail. “Tommy, I have another little favor.”
“Little?” he cried when he heard what she wanted. “Do you realize how many years in prison I could get for hacking in to bank records?”
“More years than hacking in to the state investigation’s office for a ballistics report?” she asked innocently.
He laughed. “What’s the name on the account?”
“Two accounts. Wade Dennison
