Hope for Christmas Page 7

  Chapter 9

  My God, she was ridiculously beautiful. Emily couldn’t take her eyes off her. If her feet would’ve moved, she’d have grabbed a hold of the girl and hugged her forever. Instead, she managed a thin whisper that came out like a squeak.

  “Hope?”

  The girl shook her head. “I’m Harper. Who are you?”

  Emily felt hot tears stain her cheeks. Her throat clogged and her chest squeezed with a million emotions. A commotion broke out in the hallway and the Morton police chief muscled his way past Jenna.

  “Harper, honey, let’s let these folks finish their visit with your mother.” Dorsey took her by the arm.

  “No!” Emily lunged for her.

  Clay wedged himself between them. “Em, Harper doesn’t know what’s going on. I think we’re scaring her a little.” He held her gaze. “Merry Christmas, baby.”

  Luckett and Rossi had joined Dorsey at the doorway. Rossi was on the phone and Luckett had tears in his eyes.

  “Harper? Is that you?” Maureen called from the bed.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “You have a nice day?”

  “My cookies won first place.” Harper crossed the room and pulled a blue ribbon from her coat pocket, then turned to Emily and Clay. “Who are they, Mama? What do they want?”

  “They’re people I need to talk to. Let me finish with them and then you can tell me all about the bake off.”

  “Okay.” But she seemed reluctant to leave Maureen.

  “Say hello to Paige.” Clay crooked his finger for her to come see the baby in an effort to quell the situation. Emily could tell the girl was puzzled . . . nervous.

  Initially hesitant, she slowly made her way over and crouched down to have a look. “Is she yours?”

  “Mm-hmm. Mine and Emily’s.”

  Emily watched her stare up at Clay with big blue eyes so much like her own and her heart jackhammered in her chest. Hope was alive. And tonight she was taking her home.

  “Just a few minutes, baby girl.” Maureen found the remote and pressed a button to make the bed go flat.

  “Come on, Harper,” Dorsey said. “Entertain this old man with a game of checkers.”

  They left the room and Jenna shut the door behind them.

  “Let me tell her.” Maureen shut her eyes. “She should hear it from me. And then you’ll take her. Duke and I set up a college fund for her. It’s isn’t a lot, but it’s something.”

  It was getting harder and harder for Maureen to talk but there was so much more Emily needed to know, starting with why? Why had they taken her daughter . . . what gave them the right? Although Hope looked like a happy, healthy thirteen-year-old, had she been physically or psychologically abused? What had they told her about her real parents? Hope clearly had no idea who Emily was. How had she been raised? Did she go to school? Emily had seven years’ worth of questions and there was no guarantee that Maureen would live long enough to answer them.

  “You’ll let me tell her?” she asked, her voice so soft now Emily could barely hear her.

  “When?”

  “As soon as you leave.”

  “I want the whole story, Maureen. You robbed me of my child and my child of her parents, you owe us that.”

  “Come back tomorrow.”

  Emily shook her head. “I won’t leave without answers or my daughter.” She looked at Clay and he nodded. She didn’t need his strength—she’d move heaven and earth for any one of her children—but it was damned good to have it.

  “If you promise to let me be the one to tell her,” Maureen said. “Twenty minutes. I need to rest and then I’ll tell her. Just twenty minutes.”

  Emily wasn’t a monster, she would give her the time to summon what little energy Maureen had left. “We’ll be in the living room.”

  Clay grabbed Paige’s carrier and they walked out. A new woman had replaced Jenna, this one younger with long, curly hair. She passed them in the hallway, bobbed her head in acknowledgment and went in Maureen’s room. Luckett cornered them at the end of the foyer.

  “We’d like to do a DNA comparison . . . your ex-husband too. He’s on his way from Spokane as well as two detectives from Palo Alto PD.”

  “If you can’t see that the girl is Hope—”

  “We’re just following protocol, Mr. McCreedy. No court in the land will let you take the girl without conclusive proof.”

  “I’m not leaving here without her,” Emily started to cry and Clay pulled her into his arms while holding Paige.

  “I’m on your side, Mrs. McCreedy. We’ll rush this, it won’t take long. Chief Dorsey has suggested we bring in a counselor.”

  “I need to talk to Drew, feed my baby, and I want to talk to my daughter.”

  Luckett started to say something and stopped. “Whatever you need to do, Mrs. McCreedy. Whatever we can do to help.”

  “Thank you,” Clay said, and nudged his head at the carrier. “Is there somewhere private we can go?”

  “It’s a small house but the little girl has a room.”

  “I’d like to ask her if it’s okay if we use it.” She pushed forward, finding Hope . . . Harper—God, she didn’t even know what to call her own daughter—in the living room. “Harper, would it be all right if Clay and I used your bedroom to feed Paige?”

  “Sure.” She was playing checkers with the police chief.

  “Will you show it to me, please?”

  “Okay.” She hopped up and led the way through another small hallway on the other side of the living room to a good-sized bedroom painted in a pale pink. There were boy-band posters on the wall and a white canopy bed. A framed picture of Hope with a bearded man standing next to a hot rod sat on the bed stand.

  “I like your room,” Emily said. “Could I give you a hug?”

  The request caught Hope off guard. “I guess.” But she stood where she was, near the bed.

  Emily went to her and wrapped her in her arms as Hope stood stiff as a tin soldier. She rested her chin on the top of Hope’s head and cried. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “No. Did you used to know my parents?”

  Emily’s heart folded in half. Finding her daughter, seemingly well, after seven years was nothing short of a miracle. But she didn’t delude herself into thinking this would be easy. The fact that her own child didn’t know her and felt bonded to the criminal who stole her cut her to the marrow.

  “I used to know you when you were a little girl,” she said, deciding that now was not the time to express everything. She would let a child psychologist guide her through the minefield. And she wanted Drew present. He was in this as much as she was. “I’m going to feed and change Paige now.”

  She looked up to see Clay watching her and Hope and wondered what he was thinking. He was the best man she knew but was he ready and willing to take this on? And what about the boys? Emily couldn’t think about that right now and told herself one step at a time. She had her daughter back and right now that’s all that mattered.

  “If my mother doesn’t get better are you going to take me away?” Hope asked.

  Emily’s throat seized up and her eyes filled again.

  “We’re going to work through it, Harper,” Clay said. “I don’t want you to worry.”

  Emily wasn’t sure but his words seemed to soothe Hope. That was her husband. He had a way with the entire female population.

  * * *

  Clay took over with Paige while Emily called Drew. The Palo Alto detectives had already filled him in during the drive from the airport but Emily had spent a good deal of time on the phone with her ex. Clay still couldn’t believe Hope was here. Alive. All he wanted to do was pack her, Emily and Paige up and take them home to Nugget. Fill the hole in Emily’s heart that had been there since the day Hope went missing. But he knew it wasn’t that simple. Hope would have to assimilate to a new family, a new place, and a whole new life. And there was the question of how Drew would fit into all of this. He lived in the Bay Area with h
is new wife, not exactly a hop, skip, and jump from Nugget. It was more than four hours away. But Emily wasn’t going to let the girl out of her sight, Clay knew that. And there would be the police red tape to deal with—and more than likely the press.

  He’d managed to send a text to Rhys, who would prepare the boys.

  “Has it been twenty minutes yet?” Emily asked.

  “Yeah. She’s telling Hope . . . Harper . . . right now. As soon as she’s done, we’ll go back in.”

  “Do you think we should wait for Drew? He’ll have a lot of questions.”

  “It’s up to you, Em. But I don’t know how much time she has. How far away was he when you talked to him?”

  “They were almost here. I suppose the detectives should hear it too.”

  “I agree. It would put to rest any concerns they might have about releasing Harper to you.”

  “Luckett got a cheek swab from me when I went to the bathroom. I can’t believe this, Clay.” Her throat caught. “Drew and I have our daughter back.”

  She walked into his arms and he held her as her body trembled. “From what I can tell they treated her well,” he said.

  “I pray you’re right but time will tell. The first thing I want to do is have a doctor check her over.”

  “Okay, but let’s get her home first.”

  “I’d like her old pediatrician in Palo Alto to see her.”

  Clay stiffened, thinking it would be better to get her settled in her new home, which would include using a local doctor. He supposed he didn’t have a lot of say where Hope was concerned. Unlike with his sons, her biological parents were both living.

  There was a knock on the door and Dorsey peeked in. “She’s ready to see you again.”

  “Will you show Drew in when he gets here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  As they began to shuffle out Clay said, “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Not until this morning and then I only suspected. When she called, wanting to get in touch with you, I started putting two and two together. Without proof, I didn’t want to say anything and get your wife’s hopes up.” Dorsey paused, looking pensive. “My wife was Harper’s fourth-grade teacher. Smart as a whip, that girl, and sweet as they come. Her parents . . . I mean Maureen and Duke . . . well, they seemed like salt of the earth. She used to drive the county shuttle between here and Coeur d’Alene and like I said, he was an auto mechanic. They didn’t have a lot but whatever they made, they showered on that girl.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “It’s the damnedest thing . . . with all my experience in law enforcement and all the news about the case . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  Clay didn’t know what to say either. The only people to blame in this were Duke and Maureen Lane.

  They filtered into Maureen’s room. This time FBI Special Agents Luckett and Rossi were present for what would likely be Maureen’s dying declaration. They stood in a half circle around her bed, ready to listen.

  She motioned for Emily to come closer and slipped something in her hand, which Emily absently shoved in her jacket pocket. “I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. What Duke and I did was despicable but you should know we never hurt a hair on that girl’s head. We loved her like she was ours . . . our own little princess. We lived for her. Got clean, worked hard, bought this house. I know it’s nothing like that big home you had near San Francisco or his fancy ranch.” She nudged her head at Clay. “But we made it a home. A good home. I won’t ask you to forgive me—I’ll leave that to the Lord—but I beg you to take good care of her. Love her with all your heart.”

  Tears rolled down Emily’s face. There was a small disruption at the back of the room. Drew and the two Palo Alto detectives had arrived. Drew jostled his way to the bed and slipped in next to Emily, moving Clay to the side.

  “Mrs. Lane, is it your confession that Duke Lane abducted Hope Mathews and that together you and he willfully moved her across state lines?” Luckett asked.

  “Yes,” she said, making her voice as strong as she could possibly make it.

  “Was there anyone else helping you, Mrs. Lane? Anyone who kept your secret?”

  “No. Just Duke and me. That’s why we moved here . . . cut and colored Hope’s hair and changed her name. So no one would know us.”

  “Why?” Emily asked and Clay noted that Drew reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Why did you take her from us? She was our child.”

  “I’m ashamed of what we did.” Maureen shut her eyes. “We were different people back then . . . addicts with no concern for anyone but ourselves. I wanted a child and was too old and dried up to make one myself. Duke saw Harper and an opportunity to give me what I wanted. I think he hoped that precious little girl would get us clean. And she did. There’s not a thing we wouldn’t do for that baby girl.”

  “What did you tell her . . . about her real parents?” Drew asked.

  “I told her that you were both very sick and that Duke and I were taking care of her until you got better. Later, I told her that you had both died. After a while she stopped asking and we never mentioned it again.”

  “Just now . . . did you tell her the truth?” Emily’s whole body shook and Clay wanted to comfort her but Drew was in the way, and frankly, he didn’t know what his place was given the situation. Hope was their child. Her disappearance had been their nightmare. And this, this miracle . . . this was theirs too.

  “I told her.” Maureen began to sob.

  “I think this is all Mrs. Lane can take right now.” Her new caretaker stood up from a chair by the corner of the bed. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “I would just like her to sign a statement,” Luckett said.

  The caretaker started to protest but Maureen shooed her away. “I’ll sign it.”

  Luckett wedged his way to the front and helped Maureen hold the pen while she scrawled her name on a notepad. Hopefully her signed confession would expedite the process, instead of them having to wait for DNA results. After the agent got his signature, Maureen gestured for Emily to come back and took her hand.

  “Harper . . . promise me you’ll love her with all your might.”

  “I will,” Emily said.

  Maureen leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and took her last breath.

  Chapter 10

  They didn’t leave until two days later so Hope could attend Maureen’s funeral. Emily was surprised by how many people filled the small church and gave glowing eulogies. The truth about Hope hadn’t leaked and even if it had, Emily wasn’t sure it would’ve made a difference. People here had adored the Lanes.

  Luckily, Maureen had made the arrangements for her own funeral, including instructions that she be buried in a plot next to Duke at a cemetery outside of Morton. Emily went with Hope to a florist for flowers to leave at both their gravesites. It was a strange experience, mourning people who had caused her insurmountable pain.

  “How are we going to do this?” Drew asked. “We haven’t had time to talk about it but we live more than four hours apart. It’s important for Harper—”

  “Stop calling her that.”

  “It’s the name she goes by now, Emily.”

  Clay had actually agreed with Drew on that point and had told her so. “I know, I know. Can we table this until after Christmas?”

  “No. I’d like to be part of my daughter’s first Christmas back. How do you propose we do that?”

  He was right of course. One parent shouldn’t get priority over the other.

  “There’s plenty of room at the ranch for everyone,” Clay said. “I don’t mean to overstep, I just want to offer it as an option.”

  Knowing how Clay felt about Drew, Emily thought he was being incredibly magnanimous. But how would the boys deal with having her ex-husband and his wife move in for the holidays? Not to mention Hope, who understandably had become morose and petulant.

  “Thank you, Clay,” Drew said. “It’s generous of you. Let me talk to Kristy.”

  By the time they
boarded Clay’s plane, it had been decided that Drew would hitch a ride with them to Nugget and Kristy would meet them at the ranch. At some point, they’d have to figure out the custody situation but for the next week they’d share Hope together. The flight home was quiet. Hope slept and Drew made small talk with Clay about his airplane. They’d hired movers to transport her things to Nugget from Idaho. The counselor had told them that it would confuse and hurt her to vilify the people who’d raised her and that she needed pictures, objects, and clothes that felt familiar.

  It had been difficult for Emily to pack up a life predicated on a lie. But for Hope’s sake she’d do anything. Thank goodness they’d brought Paige. Hope adored her, although she ignored the rest of them. Emily hoped the boys would help coax her out of her shell. Blending a family was difficult under any circumstance but given Hope’s reticence it would be particularly trying. From everything they’d learned, Maureen and Duke had been loving and attentive parents. Losing both of them within a two-year period had hit Hope hard. Discovering that they’d stolen her from parents who’d never stopped loving and searching for her . . . well to call it overwhelming for a thirteen-year-old girl would be an understatement. And the fact that she and Drew were now divorced and remarried only complicated the situation further. For everyone, including Clay, who unintentionally had become the odd guy out.

  Hope or Harper—Emily had to remember to call her that—awoke just before they landed and pressed her face against the glass window.

  “This is where we live . . . your new home,” Emily said, and saw Drew scowl. Another obstacle. Shunting her from home to home would just make the transition more difficult. But Emily wouldn’t—couldn’t—deny Drew time with his daughter, nor could she give him the bulk of the custody. Now that she had her daughter back, she wanted to share every second with her and then some.

  Hope didn’t respond, just continued to stare out the window.

  Clay made an expert landing—smooth and soft—despite the runway being slick from a fresh snow. The mountains and fields were covered in white and it looked glorious, like a Christmas card. Even Hope’s face brightened.