The Only Child. Carolyn McSparren

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СКАЧАТЬ how angry I was at Tiffany when Jeremy was killed.”

      Molly laid her hand on his arm. She could feel his muscles bunched tightly under the wool of his jacket. “Of course you were angry. You can’t help your feelings, Logan. But, cut yourself a little slack. You stood by her, tried to help her.”

      “She must have seen how I felt, how Zoe felt. Being around us must have been like heaping salt on a wound.”

      “Are you excusing what she did?”

      He shook his head. “Not for a minute. But I’m beginning to understand her reasons for running away.” He placed his hand over Molly’s and turned to her with a faint smile on his face. “All that matters at the moment is that I believe you. The child you saw, the child you modeled, was Dulcy.” He stared at her in awe. “If it hadn’t been for you and that doll, I might never have known that my granddaughter is still alive. Tiffany would have gotten away with it because I allowed a fake death certificate, a sketchy description of a dead child and a detective I knew nothing about to convince me of a lie.”

      “Come on, Logan. Youngman’s story was plausible. He had the child’s death certificate and the identification of a nurse at the hospital where she supposedly died. As you said, he had no reason to lie to you about Dulcy’s death. You were paying him a bunch of money to keep looking for her—money that he’d lose the minute you called him off. Besides, your son had just been killed, your daughter-in-law had disappeared with your grandbaby and your wife was dying. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”

      “Zoe wouldn’t agree with you.”

      “Zoe would be wrong.”

      “She’s been furious with me because I didn’t go to Moundhill and bring that child’s body home to be buried beside Jeremy and Sydney in the family plot. We’ve had more than one argument over it.”

      “Why didn’t you?”

      “If one really does believe in an afterlife, a soul, then the child wasn’t there anyway. Dulcy left the moment she died. I didn’t see any sense in disturbing her poor remains just to bury her in another grave in another cemetery.”

      “I agree completely. So when are you going to tell Zoe?”

      “Good God! I can’t tell her. What if I can’t find them? What if something’s happened since you saw them?” He looked hard at Molly. “I can’t get Zoe’s hopes up. She’s suffered enough already.”

      “She has a right to know, Logan! She’s part of this.”

      “No!”

      Molly threw up her hands in frustration. “You’re going to do it all on your own and present her with a resurrected niece?”

      “Better than letting her hope and then dashing her hopes all over again.” He shook his head. “I have to protect her.”

      “I think you should tell her. If you don’t, I promise it will come back to haunt you, whether we find Dulcy or not.”

      “No. The decision is mine alone and it’s final.”

      She stared into his eyes for a long moment. She wished she could convince him that Zoe was a grown woman. To treat her like daddy’s little girl was the worst kind of condescension. Molly hesitated, then relented. “Oh, all right.”

      “Bless you.” Impulsively he put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She was as startled as if he’d sprouted wings.

      And even more startled by her own reaction. She hadn’t been this close to a man in more than three years. Logan’s arm felt taut around her shoulders. He smelled wonderful, like autumn leaves and ginger. Every endorphin in her body snapped to attention. Was she so starved for affection that a hug from an attractive man stirred her so completely?

      Blushing, she thrust away from him, praying he had not sensed her reaction. She took a moment to fiddle with the keys until she had her breathing under control again.

      As she turned on the engine, he laughed. She’d never heard him laugh—not a real laugh, at any rate. “Suddenly, I’m ravenous.”

      Molly looked down at the serviceable steel watch on her wrist. “No wonder. It’s past noon.”

      “Let’s have lunch at the museum restaurant. It’s close, the food is good and it’s quiet.”

      “I don’t know. I’m not really dressed for the Brush and Quill.”

      “Nonsense.”

      As the hostess showed them to a table five minutes later, one of a group of elegantly dressed women at a nearby table waved and called to Logan. He smiled and waved back.

      “Go on over and talk to her,” Molly whispered.

      He shook his head and sat opposite her. “One of Sydney’s friends. I barely know her.”

      “Good customer of MacMillan’s?”

      “I have no idea. I told you, the shop is Zoe’s territory.”

      “Well, at the moment she’s looking at me as though I were an armadillo. Hadn’t you better go speak to her?”

      “No. We have to plan our campaign. I cannot—will not—trust another private detective to do the job. I’ve got to find Dulcy myself.”

      “You can have whatever help I can give.”

      “We’d best start with what we know.”

      “Or what we don’t,” Molly said. “You said Tiffany’s scheme wouldn’t have worked unless you’d been willing to believe she’d abandon a sick child. It took more than that. There is a real little girl in Jane Doe’s grave in Kansas, a child the same age and with the same coloring as Dulcy. How did Tiffany find out about her?”

      “She must have seen the child, maybe known the parents, or been around the hospital where she died.”

      Molly nodded. “She didn’t call Youngman until months after the child died. Why did she wait so long?”

      “Maybe she didn’t find out about the other child’s death right away. Or maybe it took that long to make her plans. She may have started trying to find a way to get Youngman off her trail the minute she found I’d hired him. The other little girl’s death must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that.”

      “If you bought the story, she was free and clear, and if you didn’t, what had she lost?” Molly said. “She’d just have to disappear again.”

      “We know she was living in Moundhill, maybe she hung around the Moundhill hospital,” Logan said. “Perhaps she was a patient there.”

      “Maybe Dulcy was a patient there,” Molly said quietly.

      Logan stared at her in alarm.

      She reached across the table toward him. “It’s possible. But we know she was alive and well long after that. I saw her, remember?”

      Logan said with growing excitement, “She СКАЧАТЬ