Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Her SUV had been waiting in her parking spot when she’d arrived at the station, just like always.
She drove it to a secluded spot where teenagers liked to go parking.
Or they had when she’d been in high school.
She had a breakfast burrito, a cup of piping hot coffee, and her laptop, and she set to work on all three, perching the laptop on the console, safe from crumbs.
The background check she’d ordered on Juanita Lopez back when she was still dumb enough to think helping Jeremiah was a great idea, was awaiting her, and so was the image of the page from de Lorean’s diary. Of the two, the diary interested her more, so that was what she looked at first.
She adjusted the image big enough to see but still small enough to prevent blur, and read while chewing a big bite of her burrito.
Everything bad happened to me in that godawful dustbowl of a town, at the hands of that phony-ass Brand clan. But one good thing, too. One good thing remains in Quinn, and nobody but me will ever know. A treasure, for sure. Eight pounds and three ounces of solid gold.
Willow choked on a bite, pounded her chest with a fist, and took a swig of coffee to wash it down. That last sentence was underlined in different ink and far less faded. Had Jeremiah underlined it?
This was it, then. This was why Jeremiah Thorne was walking through Quinn in his old man’s footsteps with a metal detector. He thought he was fixing to find gold buried under the west Texas dirt.
The idiot.
She finished her burrito and shifted her attention to the background check. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it ought to be pretty easy to figure it out.
Jeremiah was sitting on the narrow wooden platform in front of the bunkhouse.
It was more an apron than a deck. He’d pulled one of the kitchen chairs out and had it tipped back on two legs.
“To hell with her, then,” he said to himself for the tenth time, and he still didn’t mean it.
Why couldn’t he brush Willow off the way he would anyone else who’d turned on him?
“She’s the law.” He’d reminded himself of that a hundred times, too. “The law is always the enemy.”
Beans barked, and Jeremiah threw the tennis ball again. The dog loped after it, then came back, the entire ball concealed in his mouth, between those long, floppy jowls. He dropped it on the towel in Jeremiah’s lap, along with a liberal slathering of drool, which was the reason for the towel.
A bicycle came down the dirt driveway, under the Texas Brand arch, then veered off toward the bunkhouse. He’d been expecting this visit.
Frankie jumped off the bike and let it roll on without him as he ran forward. “Beans!”
“Woof!” said Beans, as he ran to greet the kid, slamming his paws into Frankie’s chest. Somehow staying upright, Frankie wrapped his arms around Beans and let him lick his face.
What the hell was happening? Jeremiah's throat was all tight and his eyes burned. That was… Man, what was happening to him?
He swallowed past a lump, wished he had something to drink, and said, “I’ll get you a pop.”
Frankie either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He was on the ground, alternately hugging and playing with Beans. The pup was over the moon. It wasn’t right those two had to live apart from each other.
He went inside, got a couple of Cokes from the fridge and took them back out.
Frankie came to the stoop and took one, then he sat right on the floorboards with his feet on the ground.
Beans turned in a circle, then laid right beside him, and settled his great big, oversized head onto the kid’s lap. He sighed and closed his eyes.
“He missed you.”
“I missed him, too,” Frankie said, petting him. “I can’t believe how big he’s got! And it’s only been a couple days.”
“Almost big enough to handle two little sisters,” he said.
Frankie lowered his eyes. “They went to the live with their dad. See we have the same mom, but different dads. And then our mom died.”
“And your grandparents took you in. Your mom’s parents?”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s just you and your grandparents now?”
“For now.”
“So then…do you want to take Beans back?” His heart hurt when he said the words.
Frankie shook his head, and looked as if his heart was hurting, too. “Gram and Gramp are too old. Gram falls down a lot as it is, and he’s so big and clumsy.” He looked around at Jeremiah and his big brown eyes hit hard. “Do you mind keepin’ him a little longer?”
“I don’t mind a bit. I’ll be sad when you do take him home. Listen, you rode your bike here, right? From where? Where do you guys live?”
“Not far, Oakley Road. Shitty house, though.”
He didn’t correct the kid for language. Screw that, he’d been through hell. If he wanted to swear, he could swear.
“There’s a better one just around the corner from us right by the creek. I’m gonna live there someday. It’s for sale, too!”
“Yeah?”
“Heck yeah. Gramp says we can’t afford it and I shouldn’t dream beyond my means.”
He didn’t want to contradict the kid’s grandpa, but what a crappy outlook.
“So you really helped me out,” Jeremiah said, “Taking care of Beans while Willow was in the hospital, so I could be there.”
“It was great! I still have the money you paid me.”
“Saving up to buy that house, I bet.”
He smiled and nodded.
“Well, listen, kid, my brother wants me to help him out over at his honky tonk—”
“Two Lilies,” Frankie said. “You going to make tacos? Or sling booze?”
The kid was a wise-ass beyond his years. “Bouncer,” he said. “That doesn’t get going ‘til evening, and I need someone to stay with Beans.”
His eyes lit up. “Every night?”
“Most nights. It’s not like I can take him with me. Can you imagine Beans in a crowded honky tonk?”
“He’d go crazy!” Frankie said. “All those people, all that food!”
“He’d topple the tables,” Jeremiah said.
“He’d tackle the dancers!” Frankie replied.
“He’d eat the tacos!”
“He’d drool in the beers!”
They both laughed so hard Frankie got tears.
“You’re what, eleven, Frankie?” Jeremiah asked when they finally caught their breath. Frankie nodded. “So you want to start tonight?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll be home by ten. Earlier once school starts. That’s too late to bike home, so I’ll drive you.”
“Okay!”
“I’ll call your grandma and make sure this is okay.”
“She won’t care.”
“Well, still.”
Frankie leaned forward over the dog, hugging him close. “I get to stay longer,” he said. “We’ll have so much fun!”
Willow found exactly what she was looking for in the background check, and then she drove to Juanita Lopez’s place.
She found her in the vegetable garden beside her modest home. She wore a big straw sun hat and round sunglasses. Juanita got up, brushing off her garden gloves before removing them.
“Hello again,” Willow said.
“Deputy,” she replied with a nod that might’ve been resigned.
Willow said, “I want to ask you something, Juanita. Something you didn’t mention the other day, when we talked about your time with Vincent de Lorean.”
Juanita bit her lip, averted her eyes. Cleary she already knew what Willow would ask.
“I want to be clear, Juanita, I’m off duty right now, and this is unofficial. You do not have to answer me. But…I know you had a baby twenty-eight years ago.”
She met Willow’s eyes, and to her surprise, nodded. “I did.”
“Was Vincent de Lorean the father?”
All her breath went out of her. She paced out of her garden, across her small back lawn, and sat down on the concrete steps at her back door. Then she peeled off her soil-stained gloves.
“Yes. I lied to you about that, I’m afraid. I fell hard for him when he stayed at the Inn. But then to find out he was a criminal, and I was a teenager. I was so ashamed.”
“Juanita, you were a kid. You have nothing to be ashamed of. I’d arrest him for child rape if he was still alive.”
She took a shuddering breath at the words. Then, “My mother told me he must never know about the baby, that she would never be safe from him if he did, nor would I, she said. So…I couldn’t keep her.”
Willow’s hopes had been climbing with every word of the story right up until the end. “You…couldn’t keep her?”
“My mother helped me arrange a private adoption.”
“Oh.” Crash. “And you haven’t seen her since?”
The sad look left Juanita’s eyes, and her smile then chased away the shadows that had briefly clouded them.
“Oh, no, I see her all the time. I didn’t for a while, but when she was thirteen, she asked and her parents helped her find me.
I’ve been to very birthday party since, and a lot of the holidays, too. ”
Willow’s roller coaster ride slowed to a halt. “It sounds like a happy endin’.”
“It all worked out okay,” Juanita said. “She’s had a beautiful life.”
She looked as if she meant it. Willow said, “Do you think she’d mind you givin’ me her contact info? Even just an email—”
“I have one of her business cards inside. You want to come in while I get it?”
“I’ll wait, out here.” She’d intruded enough. Too much. But she was glad she knew more of the story now.
As Juanita headed inside, Willow thought about her decision to give her daughter up for adoption. It seemed all three women who’d given birth to children fathered by Vincent de Lorean had given them up. And two of them had died right after.
But something was niggling at her.
She emerged from her house with a business card, and handed it to Willow. Elena Montrose, M.D.
Elena Montrose? She was Juanita’s daughter? Ethan and Jeremiah’s sister?
“I’ve met her, your daughter,” she said. “There was some vandalism at her house.”
“She told me. Some local kid brought up badly, she thinks.”
“So she’s a doctor.”
“Sí, and married to a lawyer, gracias a Dios.”
“That’s wonderful. You must be so proud.”
“Oh, I am.” She lowered her head. “Elena…she doesn’t know who her father was. It’s unfair of me not to tell her. Especially now that she’s married.”
Willow nodded. This was getting sensitive. She needed to let Jeremiah and Ethan know they had a sister.