The Woman Most Wanted Page 2

  The photos, not the names.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE COUNTRYSIDE HEATHER was driving past was stunning—it was mostly grazing land, and a few small homes with long driveways nestled between trees with their leaves still green but turning yellow, orange and brown as the October weather took control. She tried to focus on the giant pines because what wasn’t stunning was the cop who was beside her, staring. His siren was screeching and he was frantically motioning to the side of the road.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she murmured as she pulled over. She hadn’t been speeding that much. Her tags were current and her cell phone was in her purse, not plastered against her ear or in her hands while she texted.

  Rolling down her window, Heather waited while the cop did his thing. Boy, he looked stoic sitting back there in his chief-of-police SUV. The siren hadn’t been enough for this officer, as his rapid do-or-die gestures actually had Heather considering her gas pedal and showing him what speeding really looked like.

  That would have been a mistake.

  What was taking him so long? She wanted to drive by the rental property, see if she could meet the tenant and visit a local farm that advertised a country store, a petting zoo and more. Then she would return to Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, enjoy a hot bath and relax. Maybe even visit with Bianca a bit and discreetly ask about her parents.

  This cop—or chief of police, as his vehicle indicated—was slow. Although Heather knew she should stay in the car, this wasn’t Phoenix, it was Sarasota Falls, so she pushed open the door. In a flash, the cop was out of his vehicle and striding toward her. He made it to her car in seconds, kicked her door shut before she could step out and looked through her open window.

  Okay, time to get worried.

  She swallowed, trying to push back the fear threatening to surface. “What’s the problem, Officer?” She twisted, trying to get a good look at the man who stood next to her car.

  “Put both hands on the steering wheel.”

  “What?”

  “Both hands on the steering wheel. Now.”

  “But—but, why? What’s going on?”

  “Don’t. Make. Me. Repeat. Myself.”

  She put her hands on the steering wheel while the fear came, roiled in her stomach. This cop had an agenda and for some reason she was it.

  Not where she wanted to be. Somehow, she had to make him realize he’d made a mistake, a serious mistake. “Look,” she sputtered, “I have to tell you, you’re really scaring me. I have my driver’s license and proof of insurance. Write me the ticket if you have to, but stop acting like this.”

  In the distance came a siren, its sound gradually getting louder. Then came another and still another. In the blink of an eye, three squad cars—their wheels screeching—surrounded her vehicle.

  Clearly, they thought she was public enemy number one instead of a random speeder. Two other cars slowly drove by, one a family and the other a lone female. From the expressions on their faces, they offered no pity, only curiosity and accusation.

  “Open your door slowly and keep your hands where I can see them at all times.” The cop’s voice didn’t sound any friendlier now that he had backup.

  “I will open the door. I don’t have a weapon.” Her teeth started to chatter, even though it wasn’t cold. Her mind, ever logical, grasped at any possible reason for the cop’s behavior.

  She heard more doors opening, the sound of voices, all coming her way, and her fear escalated.

  Apparently, she wasn’t moving fast enough. He jerked open the door for her, and she threw her purse out, not caring where it landed. “I can do it!”

  But he had control of the door and was partially in the way. Instead of a graceful exit, she spilled awkwardly from the car—maybe what he intended. Her knees hit the road first. Her jeans offered little protection. Her palms hit hot, rough pavement, and bits of rocks pressed against tender skin. Her purse was right in front of her. She started to reach for it.

  Simultaneously, she heard the chief of police drawing his gun and his steely warning. “Keep your hands where I can see them at all times.”

  Her purse stayed where it was, and the cop pushed her closer to the hot pavement while yanking her hands behind her back and handcuffing her. Another cop—this one younger, a kid really, but looking just as stoic—went for her purse, while another read her rights to her. Oddly, all she wanted to do was talk, tell them the truth—that she’d done nothing. Instead, her throat closed and she swallowed.

  “Do you understand?” the cop snapped.

  She swallowed again and managed to answer. “I understand my rights, yes, but I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”

  “Tom, she wasn’t going for a gun,” the cop who’d picked up her purse said. He looked no-nonsense and had a military haircut. “At least there’s not one among her things, and her license says Heather Marie Graves.”

  “Considering who she hangs around with, getting a fake ID is as easy as ordering a pizza,” the chief replied.

  She lost her breath... Her parents had fake ID. Is that who he’d meant? She’d thought maybe they had been in witness protection, but surely her parents’ identification would have been destroyed. They wouldn’t have been so careless as to keep it. No way could her parents have been involved in something criminal, not a chance.

  “Tom, her vehicle’s clean,” said an officer.

  Clean? Of course it was clean. She’d washed it just yesterday. Tom? His name was Tom? Okay, maybe it fit him. Tom was the kind of name that belonged to a guy grilling steaks in the backyard, keeping an eye on the neighborhood, right? A good cop? Make that chief of police. Well, this one might look like a serve-and-protect type, but he acted a little too much like a fight-to-the-death title contender.

  Tom straightened, a line of sweat dotting his forehead.

  “Sir, I haven’t done anything wrong,” Heather protested, no longer looking at him but now focusing on the ground at her feet because she was afraid to look up, especially at the gun being aimed at her. “I’m a dental assistant. I just moved to Sarasota Falls, and I’m trying to find work. And, of course, I don’t have a gun.”

  In one of the police cars, the radio crackled. An officer she couldn’t see yelled, “The plates are registered to Heather Graves, age twenty-seven, of Phoenix, Arizona.”

  “I didn’t want to get a New Mexico license until I was sure I could find a job here,” Heather offered.

  “Why did you come back here?” Tom snapped.

  “I’ve never been here before, not that I remember.” Maybe she’d been born here, maybe some woman she’d passed in town today had carried Heather in her womb, but other than that, until her parents’ death, Sarasota Falls hadn’t existed.

  “Right.” None too gently he hauled her to her feet and turned her to face her car. With her hands cuffed behind her, she couldn’t rub at her sore knees or even brush away the dust and dirt of the roadway clinging to her clothes. A female officer stepped forward and quickly patted her down.

  “Nothing,” the female told the others.

  “I told you. I’m a dental assistant. I don’t need a gun. What’s go—”

  They weren’t listening to her. Instead, the woman cop frowned at Tom. “You’re going to have to fill out a report for drawing your weapon, Chief Riley.”

  “You saw everything, right?”

  Heather noted the slight trembling of the chief’s hand.

  The one still holding the gun.

  “Her purse. When she went for it, I thought...” He looked at Heather and his expression shut down, unreadable. Silently, he stepped back.

  “You’ll be all right taking her in?” the cop who’d read her rights asked.

  The chief nodded.

  “Let’s roll,” the female officer sa
id.

  Her mind screamed protests that her mouth didn’t utter. She was so numb that she blindly allowed the chief to escort her into the back seat of the SUV, no questions asked.

  She witnessed the female officer attach an orange sticker to the back window of her car.

  She could consider it impounded.

  All this was for real.

  Chief Riley climbed behind the steering wheel and quickly radioed in a code she didn’t know and then reported both the current time and the mileage on his vehicle.

  She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “Ex-excuse me,” she said softly. Chief Riley glanced in his rearview mirror.

  Anger came off of him in waves. Wait. Innocent until proven guilty, right? The cops were the good guys, right?

  What if they weren’t cops?

  Yeah, right, only Heather Graves could have such a ridiculous thought after one SUV and three squad cars surrounded her little hatchback.

  “I—I...” Words fought to form but didn’t leave her throat in even the semblance of a sentence.

  Come to think of it, every time she had a nightmare, she lost the power of speech.

  Since this was the biggest nightmare of all, she’d most likely lose a lot more before the ordeal was finished.

  * * *

  FINALLY.

  Tom was almost afraid to take his eyes away from the rearview mirror. She might disappear. She’d done it before, leaving the Sarasota Falls Police Department frustrated and amazed.

  He’d taken it the hardest. The chief of police back then had finally taken him aside and said, “If you intend to keep your job, focus on what you can change and leave what you can’t for another day. Otherwise, you won’t get anything done.”

  Good advice. If he’d taken it, he might still be married. Instead, he’d spent hours driving the back roads, stopping by Rachel Ramsey’s friends’ houses.

  They were all convinced of her innocence. Not him. He continued to drive, even though he knew it was a long shot.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong,” she protested again, eyes wide open, with a little shimmer. Too bad. Tears really didn’t work on him anymore. Still, she continued to amaze him. He’d expected her to be mad, resist arrest, pretend surprise. The only thing she’d done was cooperate and try to get his attention.

  She had that, all right.

  He thought back to when he’d been a rookie and picked up Rachel multiple times. Early on for shoplifting and once for truancy. Tom still remembered trying later to explain to her mother that Rachel just needed guidance. The advice had fallen on deaf ears.

  Still, he’d often helped Rachel return what she’d stolen.

  As a young cop, only a year on the force, he’d been appalled that Rachel Ramsey was raising herself and that he knew little about how to help her. Her mother was negligent, not abusive. Social services had visited twice, both times because Tom had personally phoned. Their report was the house was livable and there was food in the fridge. Rachel had no bruises or complaints. Apparently, those were the core expectations for parenthood.

  He’d actually escorted the social worker once and had realized that Rachel was stealing only what she needed: clothes that fit and school supplies.

  It was still stealing.

  She was dressed pretty fancy now. Her shirt was pale pink with glittery buttons. Her jeans were fitted, without tears, and he recalled her white tennis shoes looked brand-new. She wore a pearl necklace and tiny earrings, too. The phone he’d confiscated was top-of-the-line.

  She’d obviously done all right for herself and had upgraded from a house that was in the middle of nowhere and a delinquent mother.

  He should have arrested Rachel when he’d had the chance back then. Played hardball with the shoplifting and truancy offenses. Maybe a stint in juvie would have done her good. But he’d known a few kids who’d gone to juvie and only learned how to be better criminals. So, even during his third year on the force, he’d continued to take Rachel home, talk to her mother about providing support and drive away.

  Looking in the rearview mirror, at Rachel Ramsey, he tried to see the girl she’d been. It was there. Buried. Her blond hair was still long and wavy. She should have dyed it, curled it, or something. Her cheekbones were still high and her mouth was still lined with a shade of red lipstick that most women didn’t dare wear—not in his experience. His ex-wife sure couldn’t.

  Her blue eyes were the giveaway.

  After almost a decade, Rachel Ramsey had changed very little, apart from her circumstances. Tom Riley, however, had changed a lot.

  “Truly,” she said, clearing her throat, “you’ve made a mistake. I did speed up and was probably over the limit. I admit it. Give me a ticket, but I’ve done nothing else wrong.”

  He could think of only one word in reply. “Nothing?”

  His tone must have had some effect because she sat back, twisting a bit as the handcuffs restricted movement, and stared at him. Boy, she had fake confusion nailed.

  What had she been thinking by coming back to Sarasota Falls? He had a million other questions to ask, but not before every word could be recorded. No chance would he mess up this case, because of his close connection to it. He longed to knock on Max’s widow’s door and say, “Sylvia, we got her. And, I’ll make sure she leads me to Jeremy Salinas. Justice will be served.”

  In the back, Rachel settled and stared out the window. She was pale, and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. She had aged a bit. There were a few lines by her eyes. He’d have called them laugh lines on anyone else.

  Not her.

  Nothing to laugh about.

  And today he was going to do something he should have done more than ten years ago—see that she was put away for a long, long time.

  If he’d done that when she was fifteen, she might not have met Jeremy Salinas, wouldn’t have participated in a convenience store robbery and wouldn’t have helped lure a police officer to his death.

  Chief Tom Riley could only blame himself that she’d been free to roam the streets ever since.

  He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FOR THE FIRST time since he’d joined the force, paperwork was a blessing. Tom stared at the computer screen and coughed wryly as Heather Graves’s picture revealed a background check so squeaky clean it had to be fake.

  Until recently, Heather had been working in Phoenix, Arizona, as a dental hygienist in a small practice, just as she’d said. Before that, she’d been at the state university.

  Now the same woman sat in a Sarasota Falls jail cell, a prime suspect involved in a homicide.

  His fist clenched and he suppressed the urge to hit the table hard. He didn’t need for his team to see how angry he was.

  It made sense that Rachel would change her name, but he’d never have guessed she’d have the ability to create a false history that gave her a college degree and also enabled her to immediately find work. Had she really done all this?

  With a quick phone call he learned that the dentist in Phoenix would hire her back in a heartbeat and that as far as the dentist knew, family matters had inspired the move. She’d been a model employee, left her personal business at home and gave two weeks’ notice before quitting. And, no, the dentist hadn’t met a boyfriend.

  Maybe she’d been smart enough to shed Jeremy Salinas a while ago.

  Tom hadn’t been able to shed the memory of what the man had done. He opened a file on his computer, staring at the likeness of Rachel Ramsey.

  There had to be a flaw in the cover she’d created for herself, and he’d find it.

  He took the time to study her academic history at Arizona State University. A few taps on the computer keys had her photo. Student IDs we
ren’t supposed to be all that good. Rachel’s, make that Heather’s, was. This photo was from her senior year. He found the first three years’ of student ID photos online, too.

  Every one of them showed a smiling coed. Blond hair, so shiny and glossy it seemed to glow. Heart-shaped face. Lips red even without lipstick.

  It was Rachel’s face all right, but it didn’t make sense. The timing of it didn’t work. No way could Rachel be here, in high school, dating Jeremy Salinas and living under an alternate name and actually graduating with honors.

  It defied logic. Still, Tom’s years in law enforcement showed him time and time again that improbability was a condition best investigated.

  Still, a tiny thread of doubt pulled at his consciousness. Could he have made a mistake? Could Rachel have a doppelgänger? Or, could this Heather, who looked so very much like Rachel, be a relative? He’d called her Rachel, and she hadn’t even flinched. He’d marveled at her control.

  More than a decade on the force. He was seldom wrong, and he especially didn’t want to be this time.

  He enlarged Heather’s student ID photo, looking at the area on her face, just above the left lip, where there was a red birthmark. Then, he brought up his photo of Rachel, taken a half dozen years ago, and enlarged it.

  Same red birthmark, same size and shape.

  What were the odds? He searched for statistics of family members having the same marks and found it was rare but possible.

  So, right now, he could have Rachel Ramsey in a cell or he could have a complete innocent.

  He pushed back his chair, stood and looked across the busy room. His officers were on the phone, writing reports, scanning the computers.

  There was something else, though. A tension in the air as well as a few furtive glances in the direction of his office.

  They knew the story, knew how close he’d been to his partner, and worried about him.

  Maybe this nightmare was about to come to an end, maybe Tom would finally go to bed at night knowing he’d done his job.