LITMIR.BIZ

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been back and forth on the phone with the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department and rereading the notes he’d taken.

      He’d dropped off Levi and Ringo with Connie on his way to work this morning and Connie, in her gracious way, had said, “This is emotional blackmail, telling Levi that he can keep the dog here when you know I’ll be the one taking care of it.”

      “For a day. I should be back tonight.”

      “Should,” she repeated. “I know you, Sam. You’ll get caught up in this case, this same damned case involving that Brentwood girl, and you’ll lose track of time, or have to go…investigate something somewhere and you’ll leave me holding the bag again.”

      “One. One day. That’s all.” Over her shoulder he saw into her house, warm light glowing softly, the corner of a modern green couch, the smell of cinnamon and some other spices wafting from the kitchen. “You just have to keep the dog one day. He belongs to a victim. As soon as she’s out of the hospital she’ll want him back.”

      “Haven’t you ever heard of the damned pound? Isn’t that where strays are usually kept?”

      “He’s not a stray.” Mac’s patience was thinning.

      “And one way or the other, I end up the bad guy. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” Connie’s face was getting redder by the second.

      “I’ll be back tonight.”

      “Tom’s allergic,” she said, folding her arms under her breasts and looking imperiously down from the doorway, but Mac was already halfway to his Jeep.

      He’d known she would keep the dog. Not for him. But for Levi.

      Now Gretchen pointed to one of the copies of documents she’d dug up. “You tell Rebecca Sutcliff that Jessie Brentwood’s her sister?”

      “Haven’t had a chance yet.”

      She snorted. “Look at this. Rebecca Sutcliff…I’ve done a little digging on her. Remember that bone spur we found on Jezebel Brentwood’s skeleton?”

      “Yeah.” He was interested.

      “Rebecca Sutcliff has one, too.”

      “You have her medical records?”

      “Ummm. You heard her tell the paramedics she was in an accident sixteen years ago. Same kind of thing, run off the road. Guess which road.” She looked up at him.

      He was lifting his cup to his lips but hesitated. “You’re shittin’ me.” He knew what she was going to say before the words crossed her lips.

      “I’m definitely not. She was run off the road not far from Elsie on Highway 26, but taken to a hospital in Portland.”

      “Ocean Park wasn’t much then,” he said, wired by the new information and looking closer as she moved from one computer screen to the next.

      “Anyway, I got the medical report. She was relatively unhurt, but pregnant and lost the baby.”

      “Shit.”

      “And there was a report of a bone spur…same spot as Jezebel Brentwood’s. And so I did a little more checking, pulled military records on her father, medical records on her mother, and here’s the kicker. They both have O positive blood; Rebecca Ryan is B neg.”

      “They aren’t her parents,” he said flatly.

      “Not biologically.”

      “So she and Jessie have the same parents, but they’re not the Ryans.”

      “Both of ’em must have come through the same adoption agency, or attorney, or whatever.”

      “In Portland? How’d they both end up at St. Elizabeth’s?” Mac wondered.

      “Coincidence, maybe. Jessie was a runaway and had burned through a lot of schools by the time she was sent to St. Lizzie’s.”

      “The Brentwoods don’t like to talk about her. Don’t want to mention her adoption or anything about it.”

      Gretchen gazed at him through her narrowed Siamese cat eyes. “Think the asswipe that ran Sutcliff and Walker off the road last night knows something about this?”

      Mac actually grinned at her. “You’re starting to think like me, Sandler. Making connections out of nothing.”

      “Not such a leap. You think he’s the same guy who stabbed Jessie.”

      “He’s certainly a person of interest.”

      As he headed for the door, she yelled, “Bring me back some saltwater taffy this time, cheap ass.”

      Becca hung around the hospital and waited. She’d just grabbed a cup of decaf tea and a newspaper at a kiosk in the lobby when her phone rang. She caught the glare of an older woman with a fluff of white hair piled high on her head who silently dared her to answer. The woman’s gaze moved to a sign stating the hospital was a “cell phone free zone” and Becca took the hint as she checked Caller ID. Seeing the number was Sam McNally’s, she answered as she walked across a carpeted hall and through the automatic doors of the main entrance to the outside.

      She wasn’t alone. Another man was nearly yelling into his phone while he paced back and forth and smoked.

      “Hello?” she said. “Detective.”

      “How are you doing?”

      “Okay, everything considered.”

      “And Hudson?”

      “He’s going to be fine. How’s Ringo? And your son?”

      McNally brought her up to date quickly on where Ringo was and how Levi had surprised him by rising to the “animal responsibility” level so fast. They were both with his ex-wife for the day. At least Ringo was safe, she thought as the rain slowly let up and the guy who’d been nearly screaming into his phone had walked back inside.

      “Where are you?”

      “Still at the hospital.”

      “Wait for me. Coming your direction. It won’t be more than fifteen minutes.”

      “Sure.”

      She hung up and walked back in to check on Hudson, who was groggily coming to. He managed a faint grin at the sight of her. “You’re okay?”

      “Yeah.”

      “And—?” His gaze drifted to her abdomen.

      “Baby’s fine.”

      Some of the tension left his face and she wondered how she’d have broken the news to him if she’d lost their unborn child. Like before. How will you ever tell him about the first baby? About the accident, so like this most recent one, that caused the miscarriage?

      She looked into his eyes, heavy with pain and medication, the scruffy stubble on his chin barely hiding bruises already forming. Today wasn’t the day to bring up an old sadness.

      “Hey,” she said, leaning over and brushing her lips across his forehead.

      Hudson reached a hand up and kept her close to him. “Did they find him?”

      “I don’t think so. Not yet. McNally was there.”

      “Where?”

      “He was coming from the beach, and if he hadn’t shown up, I don’t know what would have happened.” She filled him in on the events of the night before that he’d missed, brushing over some of her own terror, though the way his blue eyes bored into hers, she didn’t think she was fooling him.

      “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. The next time he messes with us, I’m going to rip his damned head off.”

      “I think Jessie would agree with you,” Becca said lightly. “That’s what she’s been

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