Eleventh Grave in Moonlight(27)

Mr. Isom stood in the kitchen, listening to every word we said.

She glanced that direction, then said, “I was a mess back then. On and off drugs. I’d stayed clean, though. Once I found out I was pregnant, I got clean and stayed that way. Then, after I had Liana, her father came back into the picture.”

I felt a deep fury emanate from Mr. Isom’s general direction. Clearly, his daughter’s ex didn’t invoke the warm and fuzzies.

“He said he wanted to help raise our daughter. Talked me into moving in with him. A month later”—she dipped her chin even farther—“I was back on the shit and we were fighting all the time. He kicked me out, but I couldn’t come back home. I wasn’t ready to go through that again.”

“To go through—?” I stopped myself. Of course. “The withdrawals.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“He got you hooked again?”

“He didn’t force me into anything.” The guilt radiating out of her stole my breath.

I leaned toward her. “But he took advantage of the situation, Veronica.”

“He led. Didn’t mean I had to follow. And yet, here we are.” Her breath hitched in her chest and I picked lint off my sweater, giving her a moment to recover.

I didn’t argue with her. She was right, of course, but I’d wager he still deserved a lot of the blame.

I decided to steer the conversation back to the case. “There’s a reason you’re having a hard time finding evidence that the adoption agency existed. It was never licensed.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s what the investigator said, but he can’t track down who actually ran the business. Or the fake business.”

I pulled up the side-by-side picture I had of the Fosters that Cookie had found from around the time they’d taken Veronica’s baby.

“I know this might be impossible to remember, but is this them?”

She looked at the picture. Squinted. Turned it a little to the left. “I don’t think so.”

My hopes plummeted. Maybe I was on the wrong track. Barking up the wrong tree. Grasping at straws. And any other cliché I could think of.

“I think…,” she continued, staring at the Fosters. “I think that’s the couple that actually adopted her.”

I straightened, hope blossoming. “You remember them?”

“No.” She stood and went for her purse. “I never met them, but the agents gave me a picture of the couple who was going to adopt Liana to make me feel better about the whole thing. I was really hesitant. I dug it out when … when they found her.”

She pulled out a picture.

I took it and almost cheered aloud. “It’s them,” I said, recognition rocketing through me. “So, a different couple approached you for this couple?”

“Yeah, they seemed a little too Jesus freak, but I figured anything was better than living in a drug-infested squalor.”

“Except for living with us,” her father said, his tone bitter.

“Dad, stop it. It wasn’t you. You know that.”

He turned and went back into the kitchen.

“Veronica, how old were you?”

“I was sixteen.” She glanced over her shoulder. “After they took Liana, I did it. I got clean again. I decided I was going to try to get her back. I know that’s a shitty thing to do, but it was so sudden. I only had a few days to think about it. I thought I was giving her a better home. All this time, I thought she was living a life I couldn’t give her. A better life. And they … they killed her.”

She covered her mouth with her hands and let a suffocating agony wash over her. Her shoulders shook and I moved beside her. Wrapped an arm around her as she tried to gather herself.

If they’d kidnapped other children, why go through the trouble of pretending to adopt Veronica’s baby? Why not just take her?

“Veronica, where were you living exactly?”

“At the time, I was living in a shelter.”

That could explain it. Shelters often locked their doors at a certain hour. Maybe the Fosters couldn’t get in. Maybe they could only get to her when she panhandled, but there were too many people around? And it was surely during daylight hours? That had to be it.

“Okay, I’m working with a detective on this, or I will be soon. I promise you, Veronica, I’ll help you in any way I can. In the meantime, send your PD to Detective Robert Davidson.”

The room cooled about thirty degrees instantly, and she backed away from me.

“What?” I asked, knowing the answer before she said it.

“He’s the detective that arrested me.”

“Oh, sweet,” I said, making a note in my phone. “Then he’s already on the case.” I leaned closer. “We got this. You just take care of yourself.” I started for the door, then said, “And don’t sign anything.”





12

I talk an awful lot of shit for someone who can’t put underwear on without tipping over.

—T-SHIRT

By the time I got home with dinner from El Bruno’s, Ubie had gone out again, Cookie was fretting about it, and Amber was hiding in her room. I tried calling my curmudgeonly uncle, but he had yet to return the favor. He was probably mad that I’d lied to him about being home. The weirdo.

Reyes and I went over the case, and I shared everything we’d found on the Fosters and Veronica Isom. He listened but didn’t really join in the conversation. He wasn’t really a joiner. Still, he wasn’t ordering me about like usual.

I could find the positive in any situation. It was a gift.

But I could still feel his resistance to the whole idea. His reservations.

We’d just cleaned up after dinner when a knock sounded at the door.

I pretended to be surprised. “Who’d be knocking at this hour?”

Reyes narrowed his gaze in suspicion.

I hurried to the door and opened it. Shawn Foster stood on the other side, looking a tad sheepish and very uncomfortable with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Shawn, come in.” I’d invited him over, thinking that if Reyes met him, if he understood the whole situation, he wouldn’t be so upset that I’d taken the case.

Shawn stepped inside, took a quick awestruck sweep of the room, and then nodded his head toward Reyes in a silent acknowledgment. I hadn’t realized until that moment that he’d wanted to meet Reyes. His heartbeats stumbled into one another. A mixture of anticipation and excitement radiated out of him in warm waves.

“It’s so good to see you,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

His brows slid together. “Yeah, you told me to—”

“Reyes!” I said, gesturing toward him. “This is my husband, Reyes. Reyes, this is Shawn Foster. You know, the Fosters’ son?”

For a brief moment, Reyes looked like he was going to bolt. He glanced toward our bedroom as though calculating how many steps it would take him to stalk out.

I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t be so rude. Hoping he wouldn’t dash Shawn’s hopes. The same hopes he could detect as easily as I.

But Shawn had already felt it. Reyes’s irritation. He started to turn toward the door when Reyes walked forward and took his hand. A wave of relief washed over me.

“Would you like some coffee?” I asked them both.

The flash of annoyance in Reyes’s eyes didn’t deter me.

“Coffee it is. You guys sit down. Get to know each other.”

I went to the kitchen and started a pot as they sat at the dining room table. Because we wouldn’t want to sit in the comfortable seats by the fire in the living room so that our guest actually felt welcome.

“Sorry to just show up like this,” Shawn said.

Reyes shook his head, seeming a bit sheepish himself. “No, it’s fine. I’ve been meaning…”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning, too.”

Reyes nodded and then noticed the ink Shawn had on his forearm. “Nice.”

“Oh, thanks.” He held out his arm to display a gorgeous, full-color sleeve. “Got this a few years ago. My mom—Eve—almost had a heart attack.”

Reyes laughed under his breath. “So, do you know who your real parents are?”

I stilled, wondering how Shawn would take Reyes’s bluntness.

“No. That’s why I hired your wife.”

“Then you hired the best.”

Once the ice had been broken, the conversation flowed like a smooth whiskey. They talked about everything, including the fact that they were almost but not really kind of sort of brothers.

“I heard about you my whole life growing up.”

Reyes cringed. “That couldn’t have been good.”

“Nope, which made me want to meet you even more.”

Reyes ducked his head, suddenly bashful.

“How long have you known about me?” Shawn asked him.

“Few years now.”

“Did you know I wasn’t their biological son?”

“I suspected. But they kept you. They must’ve really loved you.”

The look of surprise on Shawn’s face was priceless. “Wow, you really don’t know them at all, do you?”

Reyes grinned and shook his head. “Can’t really say that I want to, either.”

“I hear that,” Shawn said, laughing.

They were getting along famously. After I served them coffee, I was suddenly so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open and there was a pillow somewhere with my name on it. I went to bed early to give them time to get to know each other, then I lay awake, listening to them talk and laugh and commiserate.