She’s lying.
“Your mom’s name was Peggy Richards,” I hear myself say in a shaky voice. “Your father was Brian. You had an older sister named Dina, and she married Abraham Wilkes. They had a daughter together, named Grace. That’s me. I’m Grace.”
“How did you . . .” Her whispered words drift as her wide and teary eyes flitter between us.
Kristian opens the file folder tucked under his arm and holds up a mug shot of a woman with long, scraggly blonde hair in an orange jumpsuit. “You assumed the name of Mandy Hawkins. You served ninety days in Beaumont for prostitution charges in 2007 after—”
“Okay.” She stops him with a raised hand, her face pinched.
I hold my breath, afraid she’s going to tell us to go away, to never come back. That she doesn’t care about me or my mom, or what happened to my dad. “I was wondering if this day would ever come.” She doesn’t look at all happy about the fact that it has.
I have so many questions. About what happened to her; about what she knows of my father, and what happened to him. But right now, one seems to outweigh all the rest.
“Why didn’t you come home?”
* * *
“It’s been forever since I’ve heard that name, ‘Betsy.’?” She sets glasses of water on the island countertop in front of us.
All I can do is stare at her.
I can’t believe we’ve found my mom’s sister. My aunt. The girl who ran away from home, who my dad tried so hard to find.
Who my dad died trying to find.
She definitely has the Richards eyes. She has the same face shape, same jaw as my mother, too—wide and angular. The rest of her features are daintier than my mom’s, though.
I see my nan in her, too. In her looks as well as in her mannerisms. The way she’ll stare intensely at you for a few seconds and then glance away, as if she can’t bear the connection for one more second.
She doesn’t smile much, just like Nan didn’t smile much. Or, at least, her smiles are tight and reserved, and she lets out a small huff right before she lets you see them. Also like Nan.
And she’s been wiping that same spot on the counter with a cloth for several minutes now, just like Nan used to do.
She clears her voice. “I saw the news. How’s Dina?”
“In rehab. We’re hoping it’ll stick this time.”
She nods. “Was there something you needed from me? Or . . .”
I open my mouth to explain, but I don’t know where to start. And both Kristian and Agent Tareen have been uncharacteristically quiet so far.
“It’s a bit of a story, ma’am,” Noah says, reaching over to place his hand on my knee. An offer of reassurance. He’s not used to seeing me so flustered.
“I have a bit of time.” She pauses to take a long sip of her drink, her hand trembling slightly. “Who are you, exactly?”
“Noah Marshall, ma’am. My mother was Chief Jackie Marshall.”
That earns a flash of surprise in Betsy’s eyes, followed by softness. “I’m sorry about what happened to her.”
Noah simply nods.
Betsy’s gaze turns to Kristian, hardening a touch. He is the one who produced her mug-shot photo, after all, and it’s clear she’d rather keep that part of her past buried. “And you two are the FBI agents investigating Abraham’s death, I take it?”
“Yes, ma’am. And we have some questions for you.” Kristian flashes an easy smile.
After a moment, Betsy—Mandy—nods. “Go ahead.”
“In April of 2003, Wilkes and his partner went to an Austin area hotel on a prostitution call. Abraham recognized the girl in the room. Were you that girl?”
“Yes.” A frown flickers over Betsy’s face. “It’d been years since Abe saw me last. Still, I saw it in his eyes, the moment it clicked.”
“Do you know the man you were with?”
She shakes her head. “My . . . handler drove me out to this quiet hotel. It was nicer than the ones I’d usually end up in. He gave me the room number, and I went in.”
“Do you remember any names?”
“No, but it was probably John, or Don. Or Bill.” She chuckles. “None of them give their real names.”
Agent Tareen is jotting down notes on a pad of paper while Klein questions. “What do you remember about that night?”
“Enough,” she says quietly. “We heard a knock on the door about twenty minutes after I got there. The man checked the peephole and then he panicked, and started the shower right away. He told me to get in the bathroom. So I did.”
“And then he answered the door?”
She shakes her head. “No. The bathroom door was open a crack, and I heard him talking on the phone, telling someone that there were cops at the door, and to get them off his back right away. Then he answered the door.”
Noah and I share a look. He must have called Jackie. “And you didn’t hear him say any names on the phone?”
She shakes her head. “We’d done a line of coke ten minutes before. I was trying to keep it together, and I was scared I was going to get busted. I heard the cops saying that someone from the hotel reported suspected prostitution with an underage girl in the room. He denied it. One of the cops kept saying, ‘Sorry to bother you, sir,’ and ‘It was definitely a mistake, sir,’ but the other insisted to see my ID and for me to come to the door. That’s when he told them I was in the bathroom and they’d have to wait a few minutes and allow me the privacy of closing the door so I could get dressed.
“He came and got me. Made me drink a lot of water, hoping that would clear my head. He reminded me what to say—that we were on a date and to deny anything else.”
“Did it seem like he was stalling?”
“Yeah, definitely. He kept checking his watch. Finally the cops started pounding on the door, demanding he open it. He made me get my ID. He asked how old it said I was.”
“How old were you?”
She swallows hard. “I’d just turned fifteen.”
“And do you think he knew you were that young?”
She twists her lips. “The guys that like young girls . . . you can tell. Besides, whoever he was on the phone with, he told them I was underage.”
The sleazy bastard knew alright.
“And his ID?”
“He hid it in the inside pocket of his messenger bag.” She frowns. “But they weren’t asking for his. It seemed like they already knew who he was.”
I share a glance with Noah, to see he’s realized the same thing—Dunn lied to us.
“He told me to hang back while he dealt with the cops. But the one cop insisted that if I didn’t come to the door, they’d arrest us both. So I came. I didn’t recognize Abe at first, but I was scared all the same. I didn’t want to get in trouble with Damien. That was my . . . well, I guess you could say he owned me,” she adds quietly.
“And then what happened?”
“Another cop showed up then—a woman—and told them she’d take over. The one cop took off fast, like he didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of that doorstep. But Abe started to argue with her. My client made me go back inside while he talked to her and then she left, too. The guy threw cash on the table and told me to go. So, I met my driver by one of the side doors. Ricky. That was his name. He was waiting in the parking lot. He saw the cop cars coming in, and grilled me a bit about it after.”
“And that was it?”
She shakes her head. “A cop tailed us out of the parking lot. It was the female cop. She followed us all the way to the motel I was staying at. Somehow Ricky didn’t notice.”
“Do you remember what she looked like?” Noah asks, too calmly.
“Pretty. Short blonde hair and these piercing blue eyes.” Betsy stares at Noah for a long moment before averting her gaze. I can’t tell if she’s made the connection. “She came to the room we were staying in, and told Damien to get me out of town right away or we’d both end up in jail. And then she left.”
Noah’s hand tenses on my knee.
“Damien was furious. He thought I was working with the police, which didn’t make much sense, but he was a paranoid guy. He beat me real bad that night, and then threw me into the back of his car and took me to Houston.”