The Woman Most Wanted. Pamela Tracy

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СКАЧАТЬ video, was her driver’s license. A head shot, which while nice, didn’t tell them all that much, except that Daniel was correct. The woman he’d hauled in was shorter than the height listed on Rachel’s license But, everything else was spot-on.

      Rachel Ramsey, girlfriend of Jeremy Salinas. Guilty of robbing the convenience store—at gunpoint—and taking off. Max hadn’t been looking for them on that hot, muggy August day. He’d been responding to a call on the other side of town. Somehow, they’d crossed paths. The final radio check-in from Max gave a license plate number and reported that he’d hit the siren to warn the vehicle ahead of him—someone driving erratically, dangerously—to pull over.

      Jeremy Salinas and Rachel Ramsey.

      Guilty of murdering a cop.

      Max hadn’t even been aware that the car they were driving was stolen.

      Tom should have been with him that day, and would have, if his court appearance hadn’t taken twice as long as necessary.

      The only witness to the shooting, a frightened high school senior who’d skipped school that day and had been trying to keep a low profile heading home, said that the car Salinas was driving spun out of control and hit a telephone pole. Max had parked next to it and jumped out. Then the passenger side door had flung open from the impact, and Rachel had fallen from the car, on her stomach, acting hurt.

      Max, doing what he did best, bent down to help her up. The moment he’d made sure Rachel was all right and was straightening, the boyfriend fired his weapon into Max’s heart.

      Max’s blood was on Rachel’s hands in more ways than one.

      “Hard to believe she’s been living under an assumed identity and has been so successful.” Lucas was back and staring over Tom’s shoulder at the mug shots—left side, front, right side—of Heather’s face on screen. How she managed to keep her expression both shocked and innocent-looking was pretty amazing. Maybe she’d worn the same expression the day she pretended to be hurt.

      She was that good of an actress.

      But making herself shorter? a little voice questioned inside Tom’s head.

      “I wonder why she didn’t try to change her looks more,” Lucas remarked.

      Tom wondered the same thing.

      “Man, I’ll bet this is making your day,” Lucas added.

      “It would make my day if she’d just admit she was Rachel,” Tom muttered, knowing it wouldn’t happen.

      Deputy Oscar Guzman walked over and looked at Heather’s photo. “Maybe Rachel Ramsey was the fake name all along—maybe Heather Graves is the real name.”

      If only it was that easy, but Tom knew Rachel’s history like the back of his hand.

      “Not a chance. I knew Rachel personally. She is Diane Ramsey’s daughter.”

      Oscar raised an eyebrow. He’d brought Ms. Ramsey in twice for being drunk and disorderly. She’d died of an overdose a year ago.

      “Rachel was born to an alcoholic mother and raised by a succession of stepfathers and squatters. She even spent some time in foster care,” Tom said, momentarily feeling sorry for the girl, then remembering what she’d done. “She’s been in and out of trouble with the law most of her early life. Despite it all, I’d thought she was a decent person, until...” Reminding himself that he was talking to colleagues, he kept his voice even and his words matter-of-fact. “Both Jeremy and Rachel, we figured, disappeared across the border. Maybe we were wrong about Rachel. She—” he looked at the computer screen, hit a button and continued hoping that saying the words would make him believe them “—went to college and became a dental hygienist in Arizona.”

      No one said, “Yeah, right,” but he wondered if anyone besides himself thought it.

      Five years. He’d been looking for her for five years. Still, disappearing was nothing compared to the way she’d reinvented herself.

      He almost believed her name was Heather.

      Almost didn’t count.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      HEATHER GOT THE feeling that while everyone—everyone, that is, except Chief Riley—knew they’d made a mistake, no one wanted to admit it.

      No, that wasn’t quite right.

      No one wanted to be the one to admit it and then try to convince Chief Tom Riley he was wrong.

      She didn’t get the idea they were afraid of him. More, they were afraid for him.

      “I can see why he mistook her for Rachel,” one of the cops muttered. The officer standing next to him nodded.

      “I’d avoid Tom for the rest of the day,” another officer advised.

      Heather wished she could avoid him, but he stood in the middle of the fingerprinting room, leaning against a counter and grilling the tall officer who’d taken her prints. “Find something,” he ordered.

      Luckily, the police officer who’d already introduced himself to her as Daniel didn’t even blink. He just shook his head slowly.

      Then came a few moments of waiting: the cops waiting for some action, Daniel waiting to be believed, Heather waiting for someone to yell “April Fool’s” and Tom waiting for what he would never hear because Heather was not Rachel.

      “Find something,” Chief Riley repeated, leaning against a counter and staring at her image on the computer. He seemed mesmerized by her likeness.

      He was tall; she hadn’t noticed that at first. His hair was a slightly curly and as blue-black as the crows that came to her backyard looking for food and making unnecessary noise.

      The same color as her father’s, actually, but the knowledge didn’t encourage a connection of trust.

      He looked at her now, but his eyes weren’t as piercing as back when they were on the interstate and he’d pulled her over.

      Funny how she’d noticed his dark eyes throughout this whole outrageous venture. They’d gone from shock to hate to murderous. Now they were cloudy, as if some door had closed on an emotion so near to the surface he couldn’t control it unless he locked it away.

      “It’s her,” he said. “It’s Rachel, and we can’t let her walk away. We might never find her again.”

      “Tom, I agree, physically, in looks, you picked up Rachel.” This cop, the kid who’d retrieved her purse back on the interstate, was the one speaking.

      The cop who’d introduced himself as Officer Guzman said, “You didn’t have a warrant, Chief. No other markers, besides the physical resemblance, support your arrest. Electronically, I’m finding no criminal history. Live scan doesn’t have her in their system. We can’t charge her.”

      Frantically, Heather tried to think of what to say. Part of her was amazed they were talking so openly in front of her. If the chief of police СКАЧАТЬ