Dead Ringer

Not that the twins had been unwanted. But the kidnapper had been led to believe that was the case. The hope had been that the babies had been well taken care of and that they were still alive, the theory being that they had no idea they’d been kidnapped. His father had made the decision to release more information about what had been taken along with the babies in the hopes that the twins would see it and come forward.

And now it had happened.

“What’s his name?” Ledger asked as he gave himself a few minutes to take this all in and decide what to do. He didn’t want to bother his father with this unless he was sure it wasn’t a hoax.

“He goes by Vance Elliot. He’s in Whitehorse. He wants to see your father.”

* * *

“ABBY DOESN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING,” Wade said as he walked past his father straight into the kitchen to pull a can of beer out of the refrigerator.

He popped the top, took a long swig and turned to find his father standing in the kitchen doorway frowning at him.

“I’ll pay you back,” he said, thinking the look was because he was drinking his old man’s beer.

“What do you mean she doesn’t remember anything?”

“I was skeptical at first, too,” he said, drawing out a chair and spinning it around so he could straddle it backward at the table. “But when I told her she fell off a ladder in the garage, she bought it. She couldn’t remember why she would have been on a ladder in the garage. I told her she was going to get jars to put up some peach jam.”

Huck Pierce wagged his head. “Where in the hell would she get peaches this time of year?”

“How should I know? It doesn’t matter. She’s not putting up any jam. Nor is she saying a word about anything.”

“You are one lucky son of a gun, then,” Huck said.

“Don’t I know it? So everything is cool, right?”

“Seems so. But I want you to stay by your wife’s side. Keep everything as normal as possible. Stick to your story. If she starts to remember...” He shrugged. “We’ll deal with it if we have to.”

Wade downed the rest of his beer, needing it even though he was technically on duty at the sheriff’s department. He didn’t want his father to see how relieved he was. Or how worried about what would happen if Abby remembered what had really happened to her.

“Great, so I get to hang out at the hospital until my shift starts. That place gives me the creeps.”

“You’re the one who screwed everything up. You knew what was at stake,” his father said angrily.

“Exactly.” Wade knew he couldn’t win in an argument with his father, but that didn’t stop him. “So what was I supposed to do when she confronted me? I tried to reason with her, but you know how she is. She was threatening to call the sheriff. Or go running to her old boyfriend Ledger McGraw. I didn’t have a choice but to try to stop her.”

“What you’re saying is that you can’t handle your wife. At least you don’t have some snot-nosed mouthy kid like I did.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, crushing the beer can in his hand. “I’ve heard all about how hard it was raising me.” He reached in the refrigerator for another beer, knowing he shouldn’t, but needing the buzz badly.

Before he could pull one out, his father slammed the refrigerator door, almost crushing his hand. “Get some gum. You can’t have beer on your breath when you go back to the hospital, let alone come to work later. Remember, you’re the worried husband, you damned fool.”

* * *

LEDGER HAD JUST hung up with the attorney when he got the call from his friend who worked at the hospital.

“I shouldn’t be calling you, but thought you’d want to know,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Abby was brought in.”

“That son of a—”

“He swears she fell off a ladder.”

“Sure she did. I’ll be right there. Is Wade—”

“He just left to go work his shift at the sheriff’s department. The doctor is keeping Abby overnight.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s pretty beat up, but she’s going to be fine.”

He breathed a sigh of relief as he hung up. When it rained it poured, he thought as he saw his father coming down the stairs toward him. Travers McGraw was still weak from his heart attack, but it was the systematic poisoning that had really almost killed him. Fortunately, his would-be killer was now behind bars awaiting trial.

But realizing that his second wife was trying to kill him had taken a toll on his father. It was bad enough that his first wife, Ledger’s mother, was in a mental hospital. After the twins were kidnapped, Marianne McGraw had a complete breakdown. For twenty-five years, it was believed that she and the ranch’s horse trainer, Nate Corwin, had been behind the kidnapping. Only recently had Nate’s name been cleared.

“I heard the phone,” Travers said now. He’d recovered, but was still weak. He’d lost too much weight. It would be a while until he was his old self. If ever.

That was why Ledger wasn’t sure how his father would take the news Waters had called with earlier—especially if it led to yet another disappointment. And yet Ledger couldn’t keep the attorney’s call from him. If there was even the slightest chance that this Vance Elliot was Oakley...

“You should sit down.”

His father didn’t argue as he moved to a chair and sat. He seemed to brace himself. “What’s happened?”

“Jim Waters called.”

Travers began to shake his head. “Now what?”

“He’s still apparently the contact person for the family on some of the old publicity,” Ledger said.

His father knew at once. “Oakley or Jesse Rose?”

“Oakley. Jim says the young man has the stuffed horse that was taken along with Oakley from his crib the night of the kidnapping. He says he’s seen the toy and that it is definitely Oakley’s.”

His father’s eyes filled to overflowing. “Thank God. I knew they were alive. I’ve...felt it all these years.”

“Dad, this Vance Elliot might not be Oakley. We have to keep that in mind.”

“He has Oakley’s stuffed horse.”

“But we don’t know how he got it or if it was with Oakley when he was given to the woman at the Whitehorse Sewing Circle,” Ledger reminded him.

“When can I see him?” his father asked, getting to his feet.

“He’s in town. Waters wants to bring him over this evening. I said it would be fine. I hope that was all right. If it goes well, I thought you might want him to stay for dinner. I can tell the cook.” Their cook for as far back as Ledger could remember had recently been killed. They’d been through several cooks since then. He couldn’t remember the name of the latest one right now and felt bad about it. “Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it really is Oakley.”

His father smiled and stepped closer to him to place a hand on his shoulder. “I am so blessed to have such good sons. Speaking of sons, where are Cull and Boone?”

“Cull and Nikki are checking into some of the adoptions through the Whitehorse Sewing Circle.” Nikki St. James was the crime writer who’d helped unlock some of the kidnapping mystery—and stolen Cull’s heart.