Текст книги "So Close the Hand of Death"

Автор книги: J. T. Ellison

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

November 7

Twenty-One

“Tell me again.”

The Federal Express truck had arrived at 7:30 a.m. with the package from Wendy Heinz, and they’d gotten on the road fifteen minutes later. They were due in to Forest City at 2:00 p.m. local time, and Baldwin was pretty sure they could shave a good twenty minutes off that if they could keep up the pace. As he drove, Taylor had read him the entire contents of the file Wendy had sent. They were just outside of Knoxville, the sky a stormy gray. Rain was chasing them westward, rain that would turn to overnight snow in the North Carolina mountains. The Blue Ridge, so aptly named, was putting on a show for them, the cobalt horizons murky and amorphous.

Taylor went back to the beginning of the file and started over.

“Ewan was born in 1980, the second of three boys. Mother was Elizabeth, known as Betty, father was Roger. Betty was a native of Forest City. Her dad, Edward Biggs, owned a barbecue joint that passed into her ownership when he died. She was nineteen at the time. She met Roger Copeland in 1977, when he was a successful third basemen for the Richmond Braves, that’s the farm team for Atlanta. They got married, had their first child, a boy named Edward, named after her father, in 1978. They had Ewan in 1980 and Errol in 1982. You know, that’s strange. There’s nothing in here about the youngest child after the trial. I wonder where he is?”

“We’ll have to ask around. I’m sure someone will know what happened to him.”

“This just gives me the willies. He belongs to someone, Baldwin. He has a past, a life.”

“Of course he does. They all do, honey. We only find out about them once that background has turned into a seething mass of hatred, and they lash out in desperation, or desire. But they all come from somewhere. Whether they’re a product of their upbringing or they’re born with it, they were, at some point, innocent.”

She shook her head, ponytail swinging around her neck, and looked out the window. “Ewan Copeland was never an innocent.”

Baldwin didn’t disagree, but he didn’t feel the need to verbalize that. Nature versus nurture: the greatest debate. If Ewan had been born to a mother who hadn’t been sick, would he have turned into a normal, healthy man? Maybe played ball like his dad?

Taylor had grown quiet. He reached over and touched her hand. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“They don’t come that cheap,” she replied, but tossed him a smile.

“Seriously, what are you thinking?”

“I don’t need your FBI guys, okay? I hired a couple of Price’s men. They’re going to stick to me like glue. Are sticking to me like glue.”

Damn woman. He figured as much. The blue sedan four cars back had been on them since Nashville. Not bothering to hide themselves, either. She knew he wouldn’t fight her, he trusted Price as much as any of his own people. Devious, manipulative…

“Really. Well, thank you for sharing that.”

“No fight?”

“No fight.”

“Wow. Okay then. Now I’m wondering when you’re planning on telling me what happened up in Quantico.”

“I told you—”

“I know, Baldwin.”

He steered the car around a particularly steep curve, gripping the steering wheel tightly. The gray leather was sure to have handprints denting it after this conversation.

Sarah McLachlan came on the radio, singing “Angel.” Fitting for their excursion, he thought. This was their second chance, their big break. The lead that could blow the case of the Pretender wide-open.

“You know what, exactly?” he finally said carefully.

Taylor snapped the radio off. “Oh, please. Quit playing games with me. I saw the note from the graphologist. Would you care to tell me why I have to find out you’ve been suspended from a total stranger? And why total strangers know something about you that I don’t?”

He breathed a huge internal sigh of relief. The suspension was something he could manage to explain. Charlotte, the boy—he just wasn’t ready.

“I’m not keeping it from you. I just didn’t want to burden you. You’ve got too much on your plate already. It will blow over. Garrett is already working to get me reinstated.”

“Pray tell what exactly did you do to get yourself suspended? You’re their golden boy.”

“Ha. If only. You’re not mad?”

“I’m just a little surprised you didn’t feel like you could trust me with this.”

That wasn’t a no. He glanced over at her. She was staring at him with that forthright look in her mismatched gray eyes, genuinely confused, and genuinely hurt. She’d sat on that annoyance for three hours; he felt terrible. He should have told her in the first place. He told her that.

“Taylor, I trust you with my life. You know that. This suspension, it’s a temporary thing. A power play. There’s a special agent named Tucker who has it in for me. It’s kind of a long story.”

She gestured to the open road in front of them. “I have nothing but time.”

It had been horrible having to relive the deaths of his team in front of an adversary at his hearing. To explain it to the woman he loved… He really wasn’t prepared, but he couldn’t put this off any longer. His life with Taylor was too important, and he’d been stupid to wait at all. She was a tough woman, she could easily handle the truth. Most of it.

So he told her. He explained the Harold Arlen case in detail. How Arlen had duped them all with a tunnel in his basement, how the man had joined forces with a fellow pedophile and created a game of hide-and seek with the bodies of little girls. How Charlotte Douglas had decided to plant evidence, told Baldwin her plan, and how he foolishly hadn’t told anyone the truth. How that omission got him dragged in front of the disciplinary hearing, six years after the fact.

Taylor listened attentively, not asking questions, just letting him unload. She didn’t comment when his voice thickened as he described the shooting. In the end, three good agents were dead, and so was Harold Arlen. His seventh young victim had survived. Small consolation to Baldwin, but some consolation nonetheless.

He’d never told her the whole story before. She knew bits and pieces, but he’d always held back the deepest part of the truth, that if he’d been paying more attention, no one would have had to die that awful day. And the role Charlotte played.

She was silent for a moment, then reached over and grasped his hand. She didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. He felt the forgiveness flowing through their touch, and felt wretched. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. Not until all the truth was out. All the cards on the table.

After a few minutes, she spoke. “It wasn’t your fault. You know that. So what else is there, honey? I know you well enough to feel that you’re holding back from me. Just tell me. You can tell me anything, and I’ll always love you. Always.”

She knew him too well. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was time to come clean. He formed the words in his head, trying them on for size. I have a son. And Charlotte was his mother. He took a breath. Started to tell her. He truly did. But his phone began to ring, and the moment was lost.

“Hold that thought,” he said, then answered the phone with a curt, “Yes.”

“Dr. Baldwin? This is Buddy Morgan. I’m the chief of police down here in Forest City. I understand you’re on your way to see me.”

“Hi, Chief Morgan. It’s good to hear from you. We have cell service again, I think we’re actually getting close. We should be in by two o’clock.”

“Have you eaten?”

Baldwin laughed. “Honestly, no. We took off like bats out of hell pretty early this morning.”

“Meet me at Smith’s Drugs, then. My treat. We can eat and talk. I’ll fill you in on the Copelands. It’s a long story. I hope you’ve got some time.”

“We do. I made a reservation at the Holiday Inn there—we’ll be spending the night.”

“Good. I’ll see you shortly then.”

He hung up.

“Chief of police is treating us to lunch. At a drugstore, no less.”

“Small towns,” Taylor said.

“Taylor, I—”

“It’s okay. We have a six-hour drive back. You can tell me the rest on the way home.”

Neither one of their phones had been able to get a signal for the second half of the drive. The cellular service was terrible in the North Carolina mountains at the state border. Service restored, both of their phones were beeping with missed calls. They each busied themselves with their respective duties, and Baldwin couldn’t help but feel relieved. He’d earned a momentary reprieve, but the truth was coming out, whether he wanted it to or not.

Forgiveness was a tenuous thing. He hoped, for both their sakes, that Taylor had the ability to grant it.

Twenty-Two

The outer reaches of Forest City had succumbed to the homogenization of America. The highway bypass into town was littered with chain restaurants and hardware supercenters, the concrete strip malls colonized by the everystore mentality that permeated all other mid-to large-size towns off just about every highway. The ultimate in impersonal convenience.

Once they got into the heart of the city, things changed dramatically. For the better, in Taylor’s opinion. She was surprised to see a traditional Main Street replete with mom-and-pop shops, an old movie theater, the drugstore Buddy Morgan had mentioned, with what looked to be a full restaurant lunch counter, and a variety of specialty stores, including a promising-looking bookstore nestled next to the drugstore, Fireside Books and Gifts.

Baldwin drove slowly, and Taylor stared up the treelined median, a small smile playing on her lips.

“What are you looking at?” Baldwin asked.

“I’m waiting for George Bailey to come running down the street.”

Baldwin did a double take, then laughed. “God, Taylor, you’ve nailed it. This looks exactly like Bedford Falls.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Too bad that whole movie set was just a creation. The idyllic town square… I always thought it would be fun to live in a small town. Have a routine, eat at the diner every morning, walk everywhere, wave hello to the people who’ve known you your whole life.”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no, not me. I’d go mad with that level of accountability. Nashville is plenty small. Besides, everyone already knows my business.”

They got out of the car, and she looked up and down the street. “This is ridiculously charming. I can’t imagine Ewan Copeland here. It’s just too normal. Too sweet.”

Baldwin saw a man in uniform standing in the window of the drugstore, gesturing for them to come in.

“Look, the chief’s waiting for us. He’s waving from the window over there. Let’s go.”

They walked past the diagonally parked cars in the median and entered the drugstore. They were met with red vinyl, shiny chrome and the overwhelmingly delicious scent of frying burgers.

“You must be the folks from Nashville,” the chief said, shaking their hands in turn, then pointing them toward a booth in the window. He was trim, about five foot nine, with gray hair. His face was lined and weathered, someone who spent a lot of time out of doors. Taylor guessed he was in his mid-fifties.

“What gave it away?” she asked with a smile.

“I know all the folks round here who have guns, that’s what. Plus, your faces were all over the news, that brouhaha down in Nags Head. North Carolina law enforcement’s had a rough couple of days. Sakes alive. Hopefully the worst is past us now. Unless you brought the mayhem with you?”

“I hope to God not,” she said.

“Good. I’m not in the mood to chase bad guys.” He smiled wide. He was missing a molar on the right side of his mouth. His eyes crinkled with good humor. Taylor liked him immediately.

They settled into the booth, and a young woman came to take their order. She had a small silver ring in her over-plucked left eyebrow. Her hair was tinted red. Henna, maybe, or cheap drugstore dye. It suited her creamy pale skin and brown eyes.

“The biscuits are good here, if you’re wanting breakfast. Burgers are, too,” Chief Morgan said.

Taylor’s stomach grumbled in anticipatory protest, they hadn’t taken the time to refuel on the way down. “I think I’ll have the burger, then. Well done, American cheese, please. With fries. And a Diet Coke.”

“Pepsi okay?” the girl asked.

“Ugh. Yes, if I have to.”

“All we got down here. What about you, sir?”

“I’ll have the same,” Baldwin said, refolding the small paper menu and sticking it upright beside the napkin holder.

“Make that three then, Amy. Throw some of that thick-slab pepper bacon on mine.”

The girl nodded and whisked away. Morgan watched her go. “Amy’s family has owned this drugstore since the early 1900s. If you walk along that back wall toward the bathroom, you can see a mural of what Main Street used to look like. All the old storefronts. It’s changed now, but a few places are originals. At the very least, the preservation society has stepped in and declared a few landmarks, so there’s funding from the county and state to help with the upkeep. The bookstore next door is a perfect example. They did a great job renovating that place. Tallest building in town, don’tcha know.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “But that’s not why you’re here. You need to talk about the Copelands.”

Taylor could hear the note in his voice, the mixture of revulsion and sadness. She steeled herself. The story to come wouldn’t be antiseptic, printed on the page, open for interpretation. They were about to get the meat of the tale, find the answers to the terror that had haunted her for months. She swallowed involuntarily, mouth suddenly dry. Amy appeared with their sodas. Taylor slipped her straw into the Styrofoam cup and took a long sip, ignoring the chemical taste she abhorred in favor of a caffeine rush.

Morgan ran his finger along his nose, composing his thoughts, then began.

“Elizabeth Biggs Copeland always had problems, from the time she was a little girl. She was the kind of girl folks called delicate, meaning she was totally crazy and full of piss and vinegar to boot. There wasn’t a soul in this town who wasn’t afraid of her, especially those of us in her class at school. Betty Biggs, you can only imagine the names she was called. She got teased quite a bit.

“She wasn’t overtly bad, just…things happened around her. Cats went missing, only to show up days later dead in their owners’ yards, bad things done to them. She was suspected of starting a couple of fires. They started off small, dustbins and the like, but as she got older…” He shook his head. “Two of her friends’ houses burned to the ground in the middle of the night. The first time, she was about eight, and no one was home. The second, Betty was twelve. A little girl named Tabitha was killed, along with the family dog. Betty’d been fighting with Tabitha at school that day. I can’t say that I remember exactly what about. Some boy, probably. Betty had a hard time with the opposite sex in her younger years.”

Baldwin leaned forward in his seat. “You say suspected. No one ever prosecuted her for the fires?”

“Nothing to prosecute. There was no proof she had anything to do with any of it. My dad was chief before me, and his dad before him. They were good cops. They didn’t have the tools we have now. They had to rely on actual grunt work, investigations that hinged on eyewitnesses, unreliable eyewitnesses at that because, first off, we were children who were scared to death of getting in trouble, and second, we were even more scared of Betty skinning us alive if we ratted her out. We don’t have the kind of violence y’all do up in the city. All ours now is drug related—the kids around here have nothing better to do than get high, and they do that well. But back then crime was infrequent, and minor. To have a child accused of murdering her friend, well, that just wasn’t going to happen.”

“It got swept under the rug, then?” Taylor asked.

“Not exactly. Most folks steered clear of Betty after that. Tabitha’s family moved away, the story was only whispered about. It put the fear of God in Betty though, she calmed down, and the strange happenings slowed. She managed to get through high school without any major mishaps. Started dating Roger Copeland her senior year. He was a couple of years older than us, and a god around these parts. A talented minor leaguer with an eye to moving up. He was being groomed, was a damn good ballplayer. No one knew what he saw in Betty outside of the fact that she was putting out. I mean, she was pretty enough, but vacant. Distant. Something in her eyes always gave me the chills.

“Anyway, Betty got pregnant right after graduation. They married, had Edward, then Ewan and Errol. Things seemed okay on the surface. Both her parents were dead by then, the restaurant gave a decent income. Betty settled into motherhood all right, though all three of the boys were always sickly. Strange stuff, not the usual kid sicknesses like chicken pox. No, the boys were always in the hospital, getting some sort of exploratory surgery, or undergoing expensive tests for diseases no one had ever heard of. We’d never seen the likes of it, to tell you the truth. But she wasn’t doing anything wrong that anyone knew of. Not obviously, anyway.”

Chief Morgan grew quiet. With perfect timing, the food arrived, steaming hot. They all settled into the business of eating. Morgan was right, the burgers were good. Hot and juicy, seasoned perfectly, the thin shoestring fries crispy, just the way she liked them.

Baldwin wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Good choice, Chief.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He settled his burger back in its greasy wrapping paper. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. So Betty’s kids were always sickly. Roger’s career wasn’t going the way he wanted, he’d been told again and again that his time was coming, but you know how it is. Promises made, promises broken. He was drinking some, quiet-like, on the sly, and took up with a barmaid. Stephanie Sugarman. Got her pregnant, of course. Betty found out. She went absolutely around-the-bend nuts. Threatened the girl, threatened Roger. Made a big stink out of it. Publicly. Roger slunk away for the season, left the girl and Betty and his boys behind. He got called up to be a third baseman for the Braves just a month into the season. It was his big chance, going to the show. The whole town was proud.”

He took a bite of his burger, then wiped his mouth carefully before he continued.

“Well, Betty wasn’t about to let a little thing like Roger’s career keep her from getting her way. She harassed the living hell out of that man. Letters, phone calls. Driving up to his games in Atlanta, pitching a fit when she couldn’t get near him. He finally had to file a restraining order against her, and had his lawyer draw up divorce papers. Word was he planned to marry the Sugarman girl. Of course, he never got the chance.

“Betty wasn’t going to give up that easily. The restraining orders, the time she spent in jail when she was caught breaking them, none of that stopped her. She fell back on one of her old tricks. Burned the Sugarman girl’s house down. Steph was working at the time, over at the Point and Shoot. It was sheer luck that she wasn’t killed, too, she was supposed to be at home. The other bartender had gotten sick and Steph came in at the last second to cover her shift.”

“What was happening with the boys during all this time?” Baldwin asked.

“They were sicker than ever. I remember my mama went over and took care of Edward and Ewan one time, right before Edward passed. They’d gotten pneumonia, and Betty was locked up. The school called my pops. We didn’t have much in the way of social services back then, it was all church oriented, the kindness of neighbors and the like. They didn’t have any more money for the hospital, so Betty sold the barbecue place and ran through that money like water on all the medical expenses. My mama took care of them, was able to nurse Ewan back to health. Edward died about a week into it, the docs said his body was just too damaged to handle the bug. He’d gone too long without proper treatment. Tore my mama up. I remember her crying her head off the night he died.”

“Is there any chance Ewan could be responsible for his brother’s death?”

“Edward? No, not unless he infected him with the bug in the first place. He had fluid in his lungs at autopsy like he’d drowned.”

Baldwin raised an eyebrow, and the chief shook his head.

“I really don’t think that was the case. My mama was there for the whole thing, she’d have noticed something wrong. They were both too weak to move.”

“Okay then. Please, carry on.”

“Mama told me that all three of the boys were just covered in healing scars from all the surgeries. Crisscrossed all over their stomachs like fishing net. When Edward died, the youngest boy, Errol, he was real thin, like anorexic thin. Weighed no more than eighty pounds, the doc said. They stashed him in a psychiatric hospital for a spell while he recovered. Probably the only thing that saved him, at least for the time being.

“Anyway, Betty went crazy when she heard about Edward. They let her go to the funeral, but she still had a couple of months left on her sentence. She was in shackles, and poor Roger, he just looked all embarrassed. He blamed her, of course, they got into a huge shouting match, had to be separated. It was a big mess.

“When Betty finally got out of jail, she didn’t hesitate. She headed up to Atlanta in a fine rage and found Roger leaving the stadium after batting practice. This was right before the end of the season. Shot him pointblank. Man didn’t have a chance. Betty ran, and no one could identify her at first. Took some fine police work from the Atlanta cops. They found a videotape that had her on it two minutes after the shooting, running away from the stadium. Found her in some fleabag motel on the outskirts of town. She still had the gun, so they hauled her ass to jail. It was for good this time. The trial lasted only a couple of days, it was a cut-and-dried case. They thought about seeking the death penalty, but the district attorney up there in Atlanta, he settled for life in prison. I think he knew that it could be overturned if there was a second trial, she was obviously such a disturbed woman. The judge agreed, and she got sentenced to something like one hundred years. They sent her to the Metro State Prison in Atlanta—that’s where they handle the long-term psychiatric cases—and that’s the last we all heard of Miss Betty.”

Morgan dipped a handful of fries in ketchup and devoured them. Taylor patiently waited for him to finish chewing. After a few moments, she asked, “What happened to Ewan and Errol?”

Morgan didn’t answer right away. He bent his head hard to the right, then the left. He grunted softly, seeming to enjoy the loud pops that accompanied the violent motion. His chiropractic feat accomplished, he took a toothpick out of his front pocket and wedged it between his lips.

“Well, the boys were stuck back here in Forest City. Ewan was fourteen when his mama went away. Errol had been released by the hospital, his weight was back in a safe range, but he was still so little. Without Edward to watch out for them, they were deemed too young to be left alone. He and Errol became wards of the state. Errol was always a delicate kid, he didn’t last more than a year. Killed himself. The group home they were living in was a sad place, full of unwanted or unwilling children. The home’s administrator found Errol hanging from a rod in his closet, he’d been dead for over a day and no one had missed him.”

“Poor kid. The shame of his family’s demise was too much for him. You see that a lot in Munchausen cases, the survivors are unable to cope,” Baldwin said. “Unless Ewan had a hand in it.”

“Now that one I couldn’t tell you. Kid was horribly depressed, it wasn’t a huge shock. Though why kill Errol? Or Edward, if that was the case?”

“We’re pretty sure he got his start very young, tried his hand at hurting people when he was still a teenager. The death of a sibling at his hand would fit the profile.”

“Ah. I get it,” Morgan replied. “Well, there’s more, might answer your questions. So now we’re left with Ewan. On the surface, he seemed like a good kid. He was smart, especially with computers. He went to school every day. Stayed out of trouble. But something was wrong with him, broken. Like he was just waiting, kind of like a snake does when it’s about to have dinner. I use to have a boa constrictor. Thing was a tease. It would watch the mouse dance around, let it crawl all over him, and just when the mouse thought it was safe, that’s when the snake would attack. Same with Ewan Copeland. He was just biding his time. Fooling all of us.

“When he was sixteen, he raped one of the girls in the group home. Not your garden-variety date rape, either, he cut her up. Slashed her stomach with a knife. That got him sent to juvie. They kicked him out when he was eighteen. He disappeared from here, and no one has heard hide nor hair of him since.”

“Until now.” Taylor pushed her plate away. It was a sad story, but she felt no true sorrow for the man who’d morphed into the thing that haunted her.

“A rape that violent definitely fits. And that’s the only one on record?” Baldwin asked.

The chief handed over a file folder. “Yep. This is what I could get of his record under such short notice.”

Taylor took the file, flipped it open and set it between her and Baldwin on the table. The file was thin, but there was a picture. She detached it from the two-hole punch, angled it to get the best light from the window. A young man, with brown hair, blue eyes, a thin chin. He didn’t look like anyone she’d ever seen. She tried to age-progress him in her mind, fill out the cheeks, add some facial hair. She couldn’t envision him properly; they’d have to do it for real on the computers. He certainly didn’t look like the man she’d seen in the Nashville bar Control a year before. He looked nothing like the composite sketch they’d put together, either.

She tamped down the disappointment. Just because they had a name and a backstory, that didn’t mean it was all going to fall into place. That would make this too easy. Nothing with the Pretender was ever easy.

“What about Betty? I’d like to talk to her, if that’s possible,” Baldwin asked.

“Nope. She’s dead.”

“Man, our timing is impeccable. That’s too bad. What happened to her?”

“The cancer got her. Breast, like her mama. She died six months ago. They sent us a notice for the paper.”

The story had taken almost an hour to tell, the sky was just starting to dim. Early sunsets in the mountains during winter. Taylor was anxious to get moving, to see some of the town, to get a sense of what, and where, the Pretender, no, scratch that, Ewan Copeland had come from.

Baldwin sensed her desire.

“Chief, I can’t thank you enough for going through all of this with us. I think we’re going to ride around a bit before we crash for the night.”

“Of course. If there’s anything else I can do, just shout. I’ll be around all night. You can hang on to that file, it’s a copy. I got this. You get hungry again, you might try the barbecue place ’bout a mile down this road. It’s new.” He pointed to his right.

“Thank you.”

They all stood, grabbed their coats and scarves. Taylor allowed Baldwin to help her into her shearling. She saw the waitress, Amy, laughing in the corner with one of the busboys. A thought occurred to her.

“Chief, whatever happened to Stephanie Sugarman?”

“Steph? Name’s Anderson now. She had Copeland’s kid, a girl. About a year after the kid was born, Steph ended up getting married to the owner of the Point and Shoot. They had a few more, too. There are lots of Anderson kids running around these days. Got them some sweet grandbabies now.”

“So she still lives in town?”

“Yeah. Right down the street from here, actually. It’s just north, right up from the police station. You can’t miss it, it’s a pretty house. Biggest one on the street. Three stories, red brick, brown shutters, with a wide white veranda. You might even catch her at home, she babysits the grandkids in the afternoons until their parents get off work.”

“What about the daughter?”

“Ruth? She’s a sweet girl. Doesn’t live here anymore, but visits sometimes. You know how it is when they grow up.”

Baldwin shook the chief’s hand in farewell. “I take it the Point and Shoot does a steady business?”

“Son, you know it. Keeps us all in high cotton—them with the bar earnings, me with the drunks getting into fights in the parking lot. Y’all be safe out there, you hear?”

Taylor watched the chief amble toward his patrol car, tipping his hat at a couple who came out of the bookstore. What a story. It didn’t surprise her though—the Pretender would have a mythology. He couldn’t have just been a crazy kid, no, the courts would claim he was twisted into being by his psycho mother. It fit his profile so well.

She knew he’d never been an innocent, despite what Baldwin said.

“This file’s pretty thin,” Baldwin said.

“Yeah. We need to get some more background.”

“Let’s go talk to Stephanie Anderson. She might be able to give us some more insight. I’ll let my team know what we’ve found, too.”

“Okay.”

They headed toward the car, Taylor’s head swiveling around the shops on the main street. Had they known what evil resided in their midst? And what would the Pretender do when he found out they’d cracked into his background?

And Jesus God, he had a half-sister out there. A sibling. Another potential target.

The thought made her knees go weak. They needed to find Ruth.