Chapter 23

23

Merrydale, Louisiana

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 11:45 A.M.

SAGE'S CHOP-SHOP COROLLA ROLLED TO a stop on the street near the house with the green door and the neatly kept lawn. He had no idea what he was going to do.

This had been the address on the piece of paper Alan had shoved at him. He'd recognized it immediately, of course, dropping his gaze so that his grandfather wouldn't see his surprise.

This was where the girl lived. Ashley Caulfield.

The girl whose photos Alan kept in his secret safe.

Alan's own granddaughter.

His grandfather had lied. Had told his own daughter that her baby had died. And then…what? Had her placed here?

Who were the Caulfields? How had Alan found them?

And what part had Cora Winslow's father played in the entire fiasco? That Jack Elliot had been involved was only common sense.

The police had listed his probable date of death as the day the foundation had been poured in the Damper Building. The day after Ashley's birth.

And the moment his body had been identified, Alan had been fixated on Cora Winslow. Sage might have been a fool, but he wasn't stupid. He could add two and two and get four. Jack Elliot was definitely a part of this.

Had Jack brought her here? Had he been a go-between, getting rid of the baby that Alan had sworn was stillborn?

Why had Alan killed him?

Because Sage couldn't think of another explanation that made sense.

This is insane.

And now Alan had ordered his own grandson to kill his own granddaughter.

Sage felt sick.

I killed that old lady and Sanjay. I'm just as bad as he is.

And if he killed the Caulfields? What then? Alan would have an even greater hold over him.

Or he'll turn me in. Sage hadn't noticed a tail as he'd driven out of New Orleans, but that didn't mean that Alan's PI wasn't lurking. Sage hadn't realized the PI had been watching him for years.

Sage hadn't realized the PI had followed him to the librarian's house two nights before, or to where he'd met—and ended—Sanjay.

It would be just like Alan to have Sage set fire to the Caulfields' home, only to have law enforcement waiting to arrest him.

Sonofabitch.

Sage stared at the house with the green door, his mind swirling with too many thoughts. If he didn't kill this family, Alan would turn him in for killing the old librarian and Sanjay.

His grandfather had a sterling reputation in New Orleans. And any truths Sage could tell on his grandfather would only boomerang back at him. He'd be charged for the deeds Alan had directed him to do.

I'm screwed.

And angry. So very angry.

He couldn't just sit here, though. Either he left and let Alan do his worst or…

Or I get out of this car and do the devil's bidding.

He tugged on his wig and pushed the fake glasses up on his nose, then got out of the car and closed the door quietly. He'd scout out the area and then decide. No reason to announce his presence. There were trees on either side of the house and he walked through them, keeping out of sight.

"Hello!"

Sage wheeled around at the chipper voice and found himself face-to-face with Ashley Caulfield. His mouth opened and closed, words refusing to materialize.

She was his cousin.

She looked like she could be his sister.

He was supposed to kill her.

Grandfather, I truly hate you.

"Hi," he managed. "Who are you?"

"I'm Ashley." She smiled winningly and patted the collie at her side. The dog was old, his face white with age. Sage remembered the dog jumping after a ball, so the old boy still had some kick left in him. He'd have to remember that. Old dogs could bite, too. "This is Toto," she added.

Sage found himself smiling. "I thought Toto was supposed to be a little dog."

"Well, my Toto was little once." She made a face. "He grew."

Sage's smile faded. There was something…different about Ashley Caulfield. She was almost childlike. "Dogs do that sometimes. I've never had a dog."

Alan hadn't allowed it.

I should have gotten myself a dog when I moved out. But he hadn't. He'd still been under his grandfather's thumb, even though he no longer lived in the same house.

He still wasn't free.

"Where are your parents, Ashley?" he asked gently.

"Oh, they're in the house." She waved at the house with the green door. "Probably taking a nap. But they have to wake up soon and take me to work."

"Where do you work?"

"At the drugstore in town." She smiled again. "I stock shelves and see if people need carts."

"Do you like your job?"

"I do. My boss is nice, and I like the people who come in to shop."

"I'm glad."

She tilted her head. "Who are you?"

"That's a very good question," another woman's voice said. "Who are you?"

Sage wheeled around again to find an older woman watching him warily. She looked to be in her early sixties. Late fifties at the youngest.

Once again, Sage's mouth opened and closed with no words forthcoming.

These people were like stealth ninjas. He hadn't heard either woman sneak up behind him. The older woman would be Timothy Caulfield's wife, Beatrice. Sage had found her name associated with Timothy's.

Beatrice studied him for a long moment and Sage could see the moment she recognized him. Which was not possible. He did not look like himself. He wore a wig and glasses.

"Who are you?" she repeated, this time in a whisper. Fear was now in her eyes.

"What's wrong, Mama?" Ashley asked.

Mama? He'd thought Beatrice was Ashley's grandmother.

"Go in the house, Ash," Beatrice said. She was firm but not snappish.

"But—" Ashley said.

"Ashley," Beatrice said again, still patient. "Please. Go wake up your father. Tell him we have company."

Sage made himself smile. "Please, Ashley. Go inside."

I'm supposed to kill her. To kill them all.

"O-kaay," Ashley said on a long-suffering huff of air. "Come on, Toto."

Sage and Beatrice stood staring at each other until the front door slammed.

"You have her eyes," Beatrice said stiffly. "And her dimple. So explain, please. Start with your name."

Sage exhaled, his hand going to his pocket where he kept the gun he'd taken from Joy Thomas. "Alan," he said. "My name is Alan."

Merrydale, Louisiana

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1:10 P.M.

Sage's mother answered on the first ring. "Sage? Are you all right?"

No, he was not. "Is the offer to send me to your friends in Spain still open?"

"What have you done, Sage?"

Sage looked down at Alan's unconscious PI in disgust. Dave Reavey was a middle-aged man with a beer gut who couldn't take a punch. Sage had spied the man following him from the Caulfields' house and his anger had taken control.

His grandfather hadn't trusted him to do the job. Or maybe the PI had been there to send proof of Sage's deeds back to Alan so that Alan would have even more to hold over Sage's head.

Not today. Sage had pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant and walked inside, watching where the PI had parked. The restaurant had two entrances, so he left through the other one. It hadn't been hard to sneak up on the guy.

Now Sage felt stupid for missing the man following him all these years. Alan's PI was really bad at his job. Probably gone soft watching me and Lexy all this time.

Sage had knocked the man out and tied him up with the PI's own ropes—what kind of PI carried ropes in his trunk, for God's sake? He'd checked the man's phone to ensure he hadn't sent anything incriminating to his grandfather.

The PI hadn't. Not yet. But he'd been planning to. There was video on his phone. Sage deleted it from the phone and from where the PI had backed it up to the cloud.

He shut the PI's car door with a slam, trapping the unconscious, tied-up man in the back seat. He got in his old junker, ready to head back to New Orleans. He had a ton of things to do before he made his escape to Spain or Australia or wherever he ended up.

He shook his head, even though his mother couldn't see him. "Best you don't know what I've done, Mother."

He wasn't telling her anything, for her own good. And for mine. "Can you send me your friends' contact information? I need to lie low for a while." A long while. Maybe forever.

"I'll do you one better. I'll get us both tickets on the first flight to Madrid."

He blinked. "You're going with me?"

"I am. Pack a bag, darlin'. We're going to Spain."

His throat closed and he had to blink again, this time because his eyes were burning. "Thanks, Mother."

"Just get here safely, Sage. I'll take care of the rest."

She ended the call, leaving Sage reeling. She was going with him. He hadn't even considered asking her to do so. He needed to tell her what he'd done. She might choose not to help him.

He couldn't make himself do that, though.

He gave himself a shake, focusing on traffic as he merged onto the interstate. "Fall apart later."

He had another call to make.

"Siri, call Lexy Beauchamp, mobile." He waited several rings this time before his stepgrandmother answered.

"Yes?" she said warily. "Sage? Is that you?"

"Yes, ma'am. I have some information that you might find interesting."

Merrydale, Louisiana

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1:45 P.M.

Merrydale Welcomes You.

Phin watched the sign go by, hoping they'd find what they were looking for at the Caulfields' house. They needed answers.

Burke and Molly had tried to convince Cora to stay behind, but Cora Jane Winslow was having none of that. Phin and Val had supported her. She had a right to know.

Val was driving their SUV with Stone and Delores tailing them closely, giving Phin some semblance of safety. Burke was on his way, coming up from Houma, probably twenty minutes behind them. Molly had gone home to sleep and Antoine had stayed behind in New Orleans to work the other cases on Burke's docket.

They'd seen no trouble on the road, but Phin was anxious. SodaPop wasn't whining, though, so it couldn't be too bad.

It was progress and he'd take it.

"There isn't anything on the Caulfields online," Cora complained. She'd been on her phone the entire drive from New Orleans. "No social media, no articles, no nothing. Just a single mention of them in the white pages and in the property records. But nothing else. How can someone have no social media presence in this day and age?"

"You don't," Val said smugly from the driver's seat of the SUV.

"I do," Cora said. "Through the library's website."

"One photo." Val held up her forefinger. "One measly photo in the ‘About Us' section. You don't have Facebook or Insta or Twitter. So you're not one to talk."

"Tandy does all the—" Cora halted abruptly, pain tightening her expression. "She's the social media butterfly. I just floated in her wake. Besides, there are plenty of mentions of me now. ‘Jack Elliot's daughter.' ‘Jack Elliot survived by daughter Cora Winslow.' You can find me online."

"But nothing about you ," Phin said. "Nobody would know that you wear pearls to bed or that you smell like strawberries."

Cora turned to him, a smile on her lips and a blush on her cheeks. "You sweet-talker, you."

"I'm going to gag," Val said. "And I did not need to know about the wearing pearls to bed. Call Antoine and see what he's dug up. I tried and he didn't take my call."

Phin did, putting his cell phone on speaker. "It's Phin," he said when Antoine answered.

"I know," Antoine said dryly. "Caller ID. I wouldn't have answered for Val, so this is your lucky day."

"Mean!" Val called.

"You know you love me," Antoine said. "So you want to know what I've found, right?"

"Yes, please," Cora said.

"Tell Val she should say please, too, and I'll take her calls."

"No, he wouldn't," Val said.

"Actually, I would, but I was working on something else when she called. I didn't get a text telling me to answer the damn phone, so I didn't. I still don't have a lot on the Caulfields. Husband is Timothy, he's seventy-five years old. Wife is Beatrice, she's sixty-eight. Daughter is Ashley, she's twenty-three. No parking tickets, no felonies. No record of any kind. They've been married for thirty years, the same length of time they've owned their home. He's a retired electrician, and she's a seamstress. Ashley graduated from Merrydale High five years ago. Timothy graduated from the same high school fifty-seven years ago. That's all that I know."

"That's not much," Val said. "What were you working on when I called before?"

Antoine sighed. "I asked my brother André about any thirteen-year-old boys who were reported as victims of molestation, trying to get at who Reverend Beauchamp was talking about. André went through all the reports of sexual assault on children in the New Orleans area. He even went back five years, in case the parents reported it a while back. None mentioned pictures. Not one. And none were members of Beauchamp's church in Metairie."

Phin frowned. "I don't understand. Are you saying the reverend made a mistake?"

"Or lied," Antoine said. "Either way, there isn't a case that matches what the reverend told you all last night. I was trying to locate the family so that we could find out if Medford Hughes really was the perpetrator."

"Why did you check that out?" Cora asked.

"Well," Antoine said kindly, "partly for you, Cora. I wanted to let you know for sure either way if Medford was guilty, because I knew you were wondering if Patrick was, too. I can't definitively say that either man is innocent, but I can tell you that Medford wasn't using his home Wi-Fi system to either browse or download child porn on the dark web. That was a good idea, by the way, Phin. I was able to get into Medford's Wi-Fi records. He might have been searching elsewhere or using a VPN to hide his movements, but it wasn't happening from his home router. When I found that out, I called André. I figured he could tell me that there really was evidence of abuse, but he said there wasn't."

Phin thought about the reverend and his dramatic delivery. "Let's assume for a minute that Beauchamp lied. Why would he?"

"Good question," Antoine said. "I'll be pissed if he did lie, because I've just spent hours of my time chasing facts that don't exist."

Which could have been the reason for the lie. To distract them and make them waste their time on a wild-goose chase.

"Let's pay him another visit when we're done here," Val said. "Maybe he'll be willing to say more in front of people who aren't part of his church. He'd worry about his reputation as a secret-keeper if he told one of his church members. We're almost to the Caulfields' house, Antoine. We'll call you back once we've talked to them."

They turned onto the Caulfields' road and reached their driveway just in time.

"Phin," Cora hissed. "What are they doing?"

"Leaving," Phin said, because the Caulfields had loaded up both of their cars, boxes filling the back seats and luggage piled on the roofs.

It appeared that they were leaving for a very long time.

Val pulled into their driveway, slanting the SUV so that it blocked the Caulfields' exit. Stone pulled his minivan in behind them, further blocking the driveway.

Two older people ran from the house, a man and a woman. Timothy and Beatrice Caulfield. A young woman sat on a front-porch swing, a collie at her feet. She was frowning in confusion, clutching a large stuffed bear that had seen far better days.

Timothy had a shotgun in his hands, and both husband and wife looked like they were about to pass out from fright.

"Okay," Val said quietly. "This is not what I expected."

"They knew we were coming," Phin said. "Why else would they run?"

"I think I'll ask them," Cora said and then, to Phin's horror, she got out of the SUV before he could stop her.

"Fuck," Val whispered. "Phin, go stand behind her. Don't look threatening. I'm calling Burke. He can't be far behind us."

The trip from Houma to Merrydale was only twenty minutes longer than the trip from New Orleans, and Burke was a speed demon. He'd be there in ten minutes, easily.

Telling SodaPop to stay, Phin got out of the SUV slowly, his hands extended to show he held no weapons. He wished he did have a gun, but weapons were Val's bailiwick. He turned once to meet Stone's gaze. His friend had rolled down the window of his minivan and had his head stuck out.

"Hold," Phin mouthed and Stone nodded, so Phin turned back to where Cora stood in front of the couple, her hands in the air like she was being held up.

"We're not here to hurt you," Cora was saying. "I promise."

"You have to leave," Timothy said. "We have to go."

Something had terrified this couple, yet the daughter—Ashley—looked more confused than afraid.

"Sir," Cora said quietly. "Have you been threatened?"

Beatrice's face crumpled. "We have to go. Please, let us go."

"We will," Cora promised. "But can you spare me a few minutes? My father knew you. Helped you, I think. His name was Jack Elliot. You might have known him as John Robertson."

Timothy slowly lowered his shotgun, his face slack with shock. "You're his little girl. CJ."

Danger from the gun diminished for the moment, Phin stepped to Cora's side, taking her hand. "My name is Cora Jane," she said. "That's what he called me."

Beatrice blinked hard. "You said his name ‘was' Jack Elliot. Has he passed?"

Cora looked surprised. "He was killed twenty-three years ago. It's been on the news. His body was found in a demolished building down in Houma. They ID'd him a little more than two weeks ago. He was shot in the head and hidden in the building's foundation."

Beatrice staggered. "What was the date of his death?"

"October sixteenth," Cora said. She glanced over to the young woman on the porch swing. "The day after your daughter was born."

"Oh my God," Timothy breathed. "Oh my God."

Beatrice's hand was covering her mouth. "We didn't know."

"I know," Cora said with a kindness that made Phin marvel. She was hurting, but still so kind. "Can we ask you a few questions?"

The SUV's door opened and closed. "I can make sure you're safe," Val promised. "My boss is on his way. He'll be here in five minutes. Together we will keep you safe. And we can help you find a place to hide if you need to."

"Why should we trust you?" Timothy asked, but it was a question born of fright, not belligerence.

Cora shrugged helplessly. "You don't have to, but I've been trying to solve this mystery for two and a half weeks. Someone killed my father and sent me letters, signed by him, for the last twenty-three years. Someone has repeatedly broken into my house and they also shot my friend. My boss was murdered in her own bed. Two other people were killed. We know that you're afraid and that you have a right to be. These people are private investigators I hired to protect me. If you'll help us, they'll protect you, too. I can only give you my word."

Timothy and Beatrice looked at each other, communicating as long-married couples did. Finally, Timothy nodded. "We'll talk to you, but not here. There's a motel in town. We can stop there. I don't want to be here when he comes for us."

"Who?" Cora pressed. "Who threatened you?"

"Not here," Beatrice said stubbornly. "I won't risk my family."

"All right," Cora said reluctantly. "We'll drive with you to the motel."

"Ash!" the woman called. "Time to go."

Ashley came down the porch steps, the collie trotting at her side. "Who are they, Mama?"

"She's the daughter of an old friend," Beatrice said, cupping her daughter's cheek in her hand. "Get in the car with Dad. We've got one stop to make and then we'll go on our vacation!"

The perky way the woman spoke made no sense initially. Ashley was twenty-three years old. But then she turned her smile on them and began to speak and Phin understood. She was cognitively challenged.

Her parents' need to protect her made even more sense now.

"Hello! I've met a lot of new people today. I'm Ash. Who are you?"

Cora's smile was gentle. "I'm Cora, and this is my friend, Phin. The lady behind us is Val, and Phin's friends are in the minivan. They're Stone and Delores. I like your dog."

"His name is Toto."

"That," Cora said, "is an excellent name for a dog. My friend Phin has a service dog named SodaPop."

Ashley giggled, a childish sound. "I like that name."

"You know about service dogs?" Cora said.

Ashley nodded soberly. "You don't pet them or talk to them while they're working."

"Yes," Cora said. "That's exactly right. My dog is Blue. That's his name because he's blue. I'll show you pictures when we stop. We need to get moving, though. Your folks are anxious to leave."

Ashley turned to her house, her expression sad. "We have to go."

"Maybe you can come back soon." Cora extended her hand, and Ashley took it. Cora led her to the family's car, accompanied by Timothy Caulfield. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

Ashley smiled. "Okay!"

Merrydale, Louisiana

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2:45 P.M.

Phin had thought the couple might have tried to lose them, but they were true to their word. Their little convoy of vehicles had left the Caulfields' house and headed for a motel in the middle of town.

Burke had been waiting at the motel, Val having called him once they'd gotten started. Between them, they had three vehicles and six people—including Cora—to guard the Caulfields.

Cora had taken Ashley under her wing once they were in one of the motel rooms, chatting about hair and makeup and how sweet Toto the dog was. The motel had an adjoining room, and Beatrice had put Ashley in there with Toto. Ashley had a tablet loaded with movies, so she'd be okay.

Delores offered to stay with Ashley, but Beatrice politely declined, locking Ashley's outer motel room door and putting a chair against the door.

Stone stood guard outside the doors to the two rooms, which Phin knew was far safer than a chair against the door.

"Okay," Cora said once everyone had found a place to either sit or stand. The Caulfields were sitting against the bed's headboard and Cora sat at the foot. Phin stood directly behind her, his hands on her shoulders, SodaPop sitting at his side.

Cora reached up and held his hand, linking their fingers. "I found records that my father left. Client records. It's taken us a long time to break into them, so he did guard your privacy zealously. We've told no one else what we've found, so don't worry about that. I assume my father was involved somehow in Ashley's…birth?"

Beatrice's smile was grim. "He was. We adopted her in a private transaction. Your father was the go-between. He found the baby, found us, made it happen. We paid him fifty thousand dollars for the mother's expenses and medical care."

"That was every penny we'd saved," Timothy added. "Plus, we refinanced our house and dipped into our retirement, but he gave us Ashley and the necessary documents to make the adoption legal."

"And his partner? Did you talk to him as well?" Cora asked.

The couple shared a puzzled glance before turning to Cora. "He didn't have a partner," Timothy said. "We only dealt with John Robertson. That's the name he gave us."

"Okay," Cora said. "That's odd, because he said he had a partner in the documents we found."

Beatrice shrugged. "We only dealt with your father. He emailed us, made the ID documents, and brought us the baby just before dawn. She was just a few hours old."

Patrick had been the one to email the clients and forge the documents, Phin thought, wondering if Patrick had used Jack's alias to divert risk from himself. After the death of TR, Jack Elliot had become the face of their business—and the sole focus of anyone who wanted to stop them, like Alice's husband.

Patrick was becoming more contemptible with every new thing they learned.

"How did you pay him?" Phin asked.

"Wire transfer for the deposit," Timothy said. "We paid him half up front and the other half in cash when he brought us Ashley."

"Antoine gave me a copy of the ledger," Phin said to Cora. "Only the first payment was listed. Maybe your father was killed before he could enter the second payment."

Or maybe he was double-crossed by his partner.

Cora nodded, a small frown creasing her forehead. "Maybe." She returned her attention to the Caulfields. "Is there a reason you didn't adopt through an agency? I'm not judging and I'm trying not to pry, but this is important. My father was an eraser. He made people disappear out of abusive homes, relocating them with new IDs. That he brought you a baby isn't what we expected to hear."

Timothy's jaw tightened. "I was in my late forties when we started the adoption process. I'd had cancer when I was younger, but I'd been cancer-free for ten years by the time we got on the lists. I was disqualified because of my medical history and my age."

"Timothy, no." Beatrice lifted her chin. "That's not true. We started trying to adopt when we were still young, but I'm bipolar and that was a major issue back then. I was disqualified, not Tim. We were desperate for a child and one day we met this man in a chat room. It was for infertile couples and I just…let it all out in the chat. A few weeks later, I got an email from John Robertson asking how badly we wanted a child. From there we filled out paperwork and he gave us the price. Like Tim said, we paid the money and they handed us an infant with all the paperwork we needed to prove she was legally ours."

"She's a sweet young woman," Cora said. "Clearly loved."

Beatrice relaxed a fraction. "Thank you. We've done our best."

"She's cognitively challenged," Cora observed carefully. "When did you find out?"

Timothy looked at the closed door between the two rooms. "When she was about two. She hadn't learned to talk and there were some mobility issues. We got her the help she needed."

"Because she's yours," Cora said, and Timothy also relaxed a little bit.

"One hundred percent," Timothy said fiercely. "I'd do anything to keep her safe."

Phin wondered what "anything" included. Timothy Caulfield could have been the one to kill Jack that night, to cover up that they'd basically bought a child, but Phin doubted it. The Caulfields had come with them. Had trusted them, and the couple had far more to lose than Phin and the rest of them did.

"Tell us about this threat," Val said. "Have you been threatened before? Or just today?"

"Just today," Beatrice said. "We've lived in peace for twenty-three years, just raising Ashley. And then today a man came to our house and told us to run. That someone was coming to kill us."

"Who was the man?" Phin asked, expecting a description of Patrick.

"He said his name was Alan Beauchamp," Beatrice said.

Cora sucked in a shocked breath. "What?"

She wasn't alone in her surprise. Burke muttered a curse, so Phin figured Antoine hadn't had a chance to tell him what he'd learned about the alleged sexual assault, but Val exchanged a look with Phin and he saw they were on the same page.

Beauchamp had deliberately misled them when they'd interviewed Medford Hughes's sister-in-law. Had deliberately set them on a fruitless search. He'd lied. Although the reason for his lie still wasn't clear.

"Beauchamp, the minister?" Phin asked, just to be certain.

Beatrice shrugged. "We don't know about a minister. He seemed young for that."

Burke stepped forward from the wall where he'd been leaning. "How old was he? Because we recently met a man named Beauchamp and he was in his sixties."

The couple exchanged another confused glance. "He was in his twenties," Timothy said slowly, then sighed. "Tell them, Bea. Just tell them."

Beatrice's eyes filled with weary resignation. "I recognized him. Not by his name. By his features. His eyes. His dimple. He looked like my Ashley."

Phin exhaled slowly, the puzzle a little clearer. "Oh. A relative."

"A close one," Beatrice confirmed. "I asked who he was and he said his name was Alan Beauchamp. Then he told me that he'd been sent to kill us, but that he couldn't do it. That someone else would eventually be sent and we needed to run before that happened. Then he left."

There was a long moment of stunned silence.

"You believed him," Cora finally murmured.

"Yes," Beatrice said. "We did."

"Why?" Burke asked.

"Tell them the rest," Timothy said wearily.

Beatrice cleared her throat. "You asked about Ashley's cognitive issues. We wanted to see if there was anything genetic in her makeup, anything that would explain her condition or help us get her the right treatment." She lifted her chin again. "We weren't trying to fix her. She's not broken. She's perfect just as she is."

"That you love her is crystal clear," Delores said from where she sat at the motel room's desk. "We don't think you wanted to fix her."

"Thank you," Beatrice said. "Our doctor suggested we give her up when we found out the truth."

Phin had a very bad feeling about what Beatrice was about to say. "What did the test results say, ma'am?"

"That her DNA was…muddled. She had overlaps. Far too many overlaps. Her biological parents were…related. Closely related."

Cora flinched as Beatrice's meaning became clear. "Incest."

Beatrice inclined her head. "Yes. Our doctor said the results appeared to be a brother-sister pairing, but it might have been father-daughter. We tried to get in touch with John Robertson again, but the email he gave us came back as non-deliverable. We weren't trying to give Ash back. We wanted him to know that the baby's family had issues. There might even be legal issues if there was no consent to the conception."

"Rape," Cora said quietly.

Timothy's skin had grown a rather alarming shade of gray. "That's what we thought. We love our daughter, but if Ash was a product of rape, someone needed to be punished."

Cora blew out a breath. "That's a secret someone would kill to keep."

"Then and now," Beatrice said quietly. "I'm sorry your father was killed, Cora. I liked him. I don't know if he knew."

Cora shook her head. "I don't, either. I don't want to think that he did."

But Patrick might have known, Phin thought. PN was the one who created the documents, who interfaced with the clients online. Had he tried to hide behind his more visible partner? The one who showed up at the clients' houses to extract them? Or deliver babies to them.

Had the person who'd hired Jack to place infant Ashley known that Jack had a partner? Who was that person? What was their relationship to Ashley?

And why had the young man today given his name as Alan Beauchamp?

Phin brought up Beauchamp's church's website and found a photo of the minister. "Is this the man you saw today?"

Both Caulfields shook their heads.

"Absolutely not," Beatrice said. "He's far too old."

Phin scrolled through the "About Us" page of the website and stopped cold. There was a photo of a man who looked enough like Ashley to have been her brother. Same golden hair, same smile. Same dimple.

He turned the phone to the Caulfields. "Is this him?"

Beatrice reached for the phone, enlarging the picture. "He had dark hair and glasses, but his eyes and dimple are the same."

"Wig and glasses," Timothy muttered. "Classic."

"Well, he had been sent to kill us," Beatrice said logically. "It makes sense that he'd disguise himself." She returned Phin's phone to him. "I think that's him."

"That's Sage Beauchamp, Alan's grandson," Phin said, passing the phone to Val and Burke with a sigh. "That explains why Beauchamp tried to pin blame on Medford Hughes. He was trying to distract us so that we wouldn't keep looking for your father's clients."

So that he could kill them. Or send his grandson to do the dirty work.

"He is a very bad man," Cora whispered.

Phin rested his cheek on the top of her head. "He is." He straightened. "Can we help hide these folks, Burke?"

"Of course. If you'll trust us, we will hide you in a very safe place until Beauchamp is in police custody. I have a big house in New Orleans. You'll be safe there. I also have a camp on the bayou, but it's a little chilly to go there."

"We can give you references," Val offered. "We're the good guys."

The Caulfields whispered to each other before nodding. "We're going to agree," Beatrice said, "for Ashley. Thank you."

Burke's smile was grim. "You're welcome. If we leave now, we can get to my house by suppertime. I'll follow you in my truck and keep watch for anyone who might get too close."

"I'll get Ash," Beatrice said. She got off the bed and offered a hand to Cora. "Thank you for finding us. I hate that you lost your father. He talked about his family, how much he loved his kids. Said we seemed like nice people with a lot of love to give. He gave us the gift of Ashley. I'll say a prayer for him every night for the rest of my life."

When the older woman had gone to get her daughter, Cora turned to look up at Phin. "Who killed my father? Patrick? The guy who sold them a baby?"

"I don't know," Phin said. "But we need to find out if Alan Beauchamp is Ashley's father."

"And if he has a sister," Val said.

"Or children of his own," Phin said, not wanting to think about Alan raping his own daughter, but he had accused Medford Hughes of pedophilia, so it was possible that he'd been projecting. "We're going to have to figure out how to tell the police what's going on without compromising the Caulfields, but we can do that. We've done it before."

Burke clapped Phin on the shoulder. "We have. Get Cora back to New Orleans safely, okay?"

"As soon as I can."

And then he'd work with the others to figure out exactly what the hell had happened that night twenty-three years ago.

Who had killed Jack and hidden his body in the foundation? Phin's money was still on Patrick because of the paint.

Who had written the letters to Cora? Again, his money was on Patrick.

Who had killed Medford Hughes and Minnie Edwards? That was probably Patrick, but Phin wasn't sure. There wasn't a connection between Patrick and Medford and Minnie. Not yet, anyway.

And who were Ashley's parents? Alan Beauchamp? One of his children?

The more they learned, the more questions they had. But they were getting closer.