Chapter 9 Fall Girl
Two days later
S he loves me.
Though trouble was crashing like ocean waves all around the two women Hawk was protecting, he’d never before experienced this kind of contentment. Talk about finding peace in the middle of the storm! It was tangible, and it was real.
As part of his efforts to increase security, he’d set up a potting station for Annalee in the corner of his workshop. She was using it for the first time this morning, which made it easier for him to catch up on yet another saddle order. He lightly tapped down the leather seat with his mallet, glancing frequently up at the television mounted on the wall. He had the morning news channel on with the volume turned down, so he was mostly reading the scrolling headlines.
Miley hummed to herself as she carved a new set of leather coasters to replace the ones she’d sold on Saturday.
Annalee sent her a laughing look. “Is that your I’m rich song, Miss Money Bags?”
“Maybe,” Miley giggled and kept humming.
“Or…” her mother taunted, clearly in the mood to tease her favorite teenager. “It’s your Josh Chavez bought a wallet from me song.”
Miley turned pink, but that didn’t keep her from teasing back. “Josh who?”
Annalee went back to plopping geraniums in urns for the front porch of the cabin. They were red geraniums, Hawk’s favorite color.
Yeah, he had every reason in the world to be content. Every. Last. Reason. The love of his life had brought color and joy to every part of his existence. She cooked. She planted. She decorated. She made friends out of everyone who crossed her path. She canned jars of vegetables and sent them up and down the road to their neighbors. She baked cookies and cupcakes for the kids who flocked to the new playground, not for anything in return. Just because.
She always gave more than she took. Her heart overflowed with charity. What she didn’t have in the bank she made up for in elbow grease. Quite simply, she gave of herself, which was the finest level of giving. Those who lived around her had long stopped seeing her as blonde and fair-skinned. When they looked at her, they saw one thing only — a friend.
Some of the old-timers had taken it a step further and claimed she possessed the heart of a Comanche, and Miley was just like her. Younger kids swarmed to her like bees to honey, begging her to play tag with them or go bike riding on the track, which she often did. Boys her age flirted mercilessly with her. Girls her age imitated everything she did, from the way she wore her high-topped sneakers unlaced to the number of bracelets she always had circling her wrists. Most of them were leather, her own creations.
Annalee dusted her hands over the first completed urn and stood back to eye it critically. “How does it look?”
“Hold on a sec. I’ll ask the expert.” Miley bent down to consult with Rex, who’d hopped off her lap to rub against her legs. She pretended to whisper in his ear and got an affectionate head butt in return. Then she straightened. “He says it looks like you have a master’s degree in horticulture.”
“Ooo! Thank you for bringing up another topic I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.” She twirled energetically toward her daughter. “College.”
“Still not interested.” Miley returned to her carving. “Next topic.”
“Sweetie, I only want what’s best for you,” Annalee protested.
“Good.” Miley’s lips twisted in mutiny. “Then you won’t insist on me snoozing my way through a dusty degree that won’t get me any further in my chosen field.”
“Which is,” her mother prompted gently.
“Leather carving, of course,” Miley supplied. “I’m good at it, too. That’s how I bagged over two hundred dollars in profit on Saturday. I have plans, Mom. Big plans. Like opening an online shop and expanding our sales across the country, maybe even across the world.”
“Our sales?” Hawk raised his eyebrows at her. This was the first he was hearing about an online shop.
“Yes, boss man.” She gave him an exasperated look. “As my mentor and trainer, you’ll be stuck with me for every step of this amazing journey.”
“What do you know about running a business?” Annalee sauntered closer to observe the design Miley was etching into the coaster. It was a cluster of roses. No big surprise there. Miley’s signature design was roses. Always roses.
“What I don’t know, I’ll learn.” Miley didn’t look up from her carving.
“How?” Her mother reached out to tweak one of her daughter’s braids.
“Lots of ways.” Miley waved a hand impatiently. “By talking to other business owners on the rez. By watching video tutorials. Maybe taking an online class.”
“Exactly!” Annalee pounced on her last statement like a cat pinning down a plump mouse. “I’m sure there are degrees in everything from web design to bookkeeping.”
Miley scrunched her nose incredulously. “I said take a class, not pursue a whole degree. It would be different if I wanted to be a doctor or lawyer, but I don’t. I want to stay on the rez and do exactly what I’m doing right now.”
Annalee sighed, looking Hawk’s way for support. “Hawk, would you care to weigh in?”
No, not particularly. He didn’t possess a college degree and probably never would, so he doubted he would say what she wanted to hear. To stall for time, he brought his hand down on the television remote and pretended to hit the volume button by accident.
The voice of the news anchor filled the room. “Messages in rawhide are appearing all over Clarendon. It’s the strangest thing. One showed up at a gas station counter this morning, and another one at a grocery store.”
Messages in rawhide? Hawk met Annalee’s gaze, frowning. Then they both turned toward the television screen. He hit the volume arrow a few times to turn it up even louder.
“Zoom in on one of these beautiful works of art, will you?” The news anchor gestured impatiently at someone on her tech crew.
A hand-carved leather coaster popped up on the screen. Hawk immediately recognized it as one of Miley’s masterpieces.
Her gasp told him she’d seen it as well. “Oh, wow, Hawk!” She pointed excitedly. “My stuff is on TV!”
“I see it, kid.” As the TV anchor instructed her tech crew to zoom in even more, he also saw the word that had been carved into one of the petals on the rose. The letters were in all caps: GUILTY.
“There’s something else written there. Do you see it?” The news anchor leaned closer to the other anchor, who was sitting next to her, and they squinted at it together.
“I’m not sure it’s a word.” Her fellow anchor spelled it out for her. “A-M-U-N-D. Amund?” He repeated the word a few times. “I don’t know what that means. Do you?”
“I do.” Miley laid down her carving tools, practically vibrating with excitement. “Rose. Amund. Guilty,” she intoned. Then she said the words again more quickly. “Rosamund is guilty. Don’t you get it?” Her gaze darted animatedly between her mother and Hawk. “Those are the coasters I sold to Aunt Mirabelle, and she’s using them to tell the world that Rosamund Dakota is guilty.”
“Could be.” Annalee frowned thoughtfully.
“I think she’s on to something.” Hawk nodded in approval at Miley, making her grin in triumph.
“Oh, she’s definitely on to something.” Tucker Pratt breezed through the open door of Hawk’s workshop.
Hawk scowled at him for showing up unannounced. “You don’t write. You don’t call.”
“Nope. I never do,” Tucker returned cheerfully, pausing as he crossed the threshold to send Annalee a welcoming salute.
She gave him a flutter wave in return, looking as curious about the reason for his visit as the rest of them were.
“How long have you been eavesdropping?” Hawk asked suspiciously.
“Long enough to hear Miley unravel the puzzling message about Rosamund Dakota’s guilt.” Tucker sent her a thumbs up, making her grin widen. “I never interrupt genius at work.”
“Genius,” Miley breathed to no one in particular. “Did you hear that?”
“I heard.” Hawk continued to glower at his friend. “She’s my rawhide assistant. Go recruit your own talent!”
Looking ready to burst from whatever news he had to tell, Tucker moved to the end of the room where Hawk was working. “Remember how I said I felt like we were missing something?”
“I remember.” Hawk laid down his mallet.
Both Annalee and Miley grew motionless, waiting, but Tucker didn’t immediately plunge into his news. He angled his head at Miley, looking pained.
“Miley?” Hawk hated doing this to her, but the look Tucker was giving him told him it was necessary. “I think it’s time for Rex’s next bubble bath. How about you do the honors?” He was hoping to get a smile out of her.
Her shoulders stiffened. “If you wanted me to leave the room, you could’ve just asked.”
“Pretty sure I did, kid.” He met her gaze, allowing his eyes to do the apologizing.
“Quit calling me that,” she sputtered as she stood. “I’m legally an adult now.” She stomped his way, purposely bumping his shoulder with her shoulder. “Your future business partner, in case you’ve forgotten.”
He hooked an arm around her and drew her into a side hug. “I haven’t forgotten.” He ducked his head closer to mutter quietly in her ear, “Don’t go far.” He suspected Tucker wanted her out of the room to protect his job, since he’d been coloring outside the lines again. He was also aware that Miley had long since perfected the art of eavesdropping. It was his way of telling her that it was okay this time. If Tucker overhead them, he would assume Hawk was telling his future stepdaughter to stay close enough for him to continue watchdogging over her.
Miley pulled back to glare at him, but the usual glint of humor was back in her eyes, telling him she’d gotten the message. In true Miley style, she played up the moment by grumbling as she left the room, “Gonna find myself a different job!” Man, but he loved that kid!
Annalee’s worried gaze followed her daughter. For a moment, Hawk thought she was going to follow after her, but she didn’t.
Tucker didn’t even wait until Miley was out of sight before hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder and shoving his electronic tablet in front of Hawk. “Check this out.”
Hawk scanned the document he had on display. It was an enrollment application for Edward Hardy, who’d since become Ace Dakota’s stepson. “Little Ed was enrolled at the Stepping Stones Preschool at the same time as Annalee and Mirabelle.”
“Little Ed,” Annalee said quickly, moving across the room to join them. “As in Edward Dakota?”
“One and the same. Now swipe left to look at the next document,” Tucker instructed Hawk.
Hawk swiped left and found himself staring at an incident report.
Annalee pressed closer and started reading parts of it rapidly beneath her breath. “Edward Hardy was injured at the hands of a violent student. Ambulance called. Police notified.”
The report went on to describe in horrific detail how Edward had become injured on the playground after being tossed over the side of a sliding board by a fellow preschooler. Most unfortunately, his lower back had slammed into the handlebars of a tricycle parked half beneath the slide, causing a severe spinal injury that had left his legs partially paralyzed.
Hawk had read a few incident reports over the course of his career, but he’d never read one like this. It was as if the writer had opened a thesaurus and purposely stuffed as many emotion-evoking adjectives into her report as possible. He scanned the write-up again, mentally earmarking the most visceral verbiage:
Brutally thrown
Mocking laughter
Previous demonstrations of violence
Shocking use of force
Herculean-like strength
Vicious disregard for authority
Annalee’s breath came out in a huff of indignation. “That’s a lot of adult-sized vitriol to take out on a three-year-old.”
Hawk agreed. It certainly painted Mirabelle’s subsequent confinement in a mental ward in a very different light. It was starting to sound like she was more of a victim than a predator.
He caught Tucker’s eye. “I’m not gonna ask how you got your hands on this information.”
“Oh, please do,” Tucker begged. “For once, I didn’t have to hack my way into anything.”
“Okay, I’ll bite.” Hawk’s only interest was unraveling the mysteries that continued to shroud Annalee and Mirabelle’s tragic childhood. “How’d you do it?”
“Publicly available court records.” Tucker smirked. “Now ask me who wrote the report.”
“I’d be glad to. Who wrote the report, Tuck?” Hawk had already scrolled up and down the document several times, but he hadn’t located any signatures.
“Another great question! You’re full of them today.” Tucker sprang into motion.
Hawk snorted. “You’re full of it every day.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Tucker typed one handed on the electronic tablet Hawk was still holding. “Fair warning. This is where my investigation gets really interesting.”
He pulled up a photograph. “Meet Priscilla Hardy, Rosamund Dakota’s ex-sister-in-law.”
Hawk studied the side profile of the pouting Barbie doll of a woman in the photo. “Is this a mug shot?”
“Yep! From over thirty years ago, when she got pulled over for her first DUI. An anonymous donor posted her bail, and she got out of serving jail time by agreeing to perform some community service hours. Before we move on to the next photo, please note that the date of the mug shot is exactly two days prior to the vicious child assault incident that was reported to the police by Stepping Stones Preschool.”
Hawk nodded. “Duly noted.”
Tucker pulled up another photograph. “This is what Priscilla looks like now. Two more DUIs later, I might add, for which she’s yet to serve any jail time.”
It was clear to Hawk that the haggard-looking woman staring back at him was an addict. There were bags under her eyes, and she was missing several teeth. “Meaning Priscilla Hardy is an alcoholic in addition to being tight with Rosamund Dakota?”
“Yep.”
“And this is significant because?”
“Man, you’re full of good questions today!” Tucker swung his backpack off his shoulder, unzipped it, and pulled out a handful of papers. They looked old and were encased in plastic sheet protectors. “This, my friends, is the original incident report about Edward’s injury. The one that never made it to court.”
Unlike the typed documents they’d been looking at up to this point, the report encased in plastic sheets was handwritten. It was also much shorter, less eloquent, and it was written in the spidery handwriting of someone who was either elderly or possessed some sort of reduced physical capacity.
Or was drunk!
Hawk’s gaze landed on the signature of the preschool worker who’d written the report. It was none other than Priscilla Hardy.
“Unbelievable,” Annalee breathed shakily. “So, it was the testimony of an alcoholic that got my sister locked up.”
“Not quite.” Tucker ran a finger underneath the spidery words as he read them aloud. “I only turned my back on them for a minute or two. It was nearly an hour past my break time, and I had to use the restroom. When I returned to the playground, everyone was screaming, and Edward Hardy was on the ground. He wasn’t moving. A tricycle was on its side next to him…”
A sound of horror escaped Annalee. She clapped a hand over her mouth and spoke through her fingers. “If this is true, then there was no adult present when Edward got injured.”
“No witnesses. No case,” Hawk growled. At least, that was how it should’ve been. “How did you get your paws on the original incident report?”
“It started off with a stakeout.” Tucker glanced toward the door, lowering his voice. “I know my methods are never gonna win me any awards, but I’m a firm believer in going after the weakest link. You separate ‘em from the herd and act like you’re about to devour ‘em, and they squeal every time.”
“You met with Priscilla?” Annalee squeaked.
“I did. And lucky for us, she’s since had a falling out with Rosamund.”
At this point, Hawk almost didn’t care how he’d gotten the information. “Just tell us this. Will the handwritten report be admissible in court?”
“I don’t see why not.” Tucker shrugged. “Whether the testimony of an alcoholic will be seen as credible is another matter. One thing is for sure, though. Priscilla didn’t write the official report that was ultimately filed on her behalf by the preschool. She told me they initially made her sign a copy of the false report, but it looks like someone removed it from the version that was presented in court, probably after learning of her DUI. If I was an attorney retrying the case, that’s where I would start my argument.”
“Which still begs the question.” Hawk wasn’t near ready to let it go. “Who wrote the false report?”
“Eh, take your pick.” Tucker spread his hands. “Rosamund was employed as a paralegal at the time. She was also married to Judge Hardy back then. Either of them could’ve done it.”
Annalee drew a deep breath. “Please assure me that Judge Hardy wasn’t the one who presided over my sister’s hearing.”
“Nope, but he may as well have.” Tucker’s voice was dry. “It was one of his golf buddies.”
He produced yet another photo from more than thirty years ago. In the picture, Judge Hardy had his arms looped around the shoulders of his winning teammates in a golf tournament. “The judge who ended up presiding over Mirabelle’s hearing is the one brandishing the trophy.” Tucker sounded mad enough to spit. “The case against the Gilbert family gives new meaning to the term conflict of interest . Everyone involved in Mirabelle’s confinement and her parents’ subsequent arrest was conflicted out the wazoo!”
Annalee looked close to collapsing. “That explains a lot.”
Hawk shoved the electronic tablet back in Tucker’s hands and pulled out a chair for her. “Sit,” he commanded quietly.
He jogged across the room to yank a chilled bottle of water from his mini fridge and returned with it in hand. Uncapping it, he held it out to her.
“I, um—” She accepted the bottle of water and took a sip, choked on it, and promptly set the bottle on the table in front of her. “The first time I met Rosamund was at a restaurant. She and Chayton’s dad had agreed to join us there for dinner to celebrate our engagement. The whole six months we’d been dating, Rosamund had been undergoing cosmetic procedures and recovering from them.” She shook her head. “Needless to say, our meeting didn’t go well.”
Hawk squatted down in front of her and reached for her hands, massaging her fingers. “She’s not exactly a warm and fuzzy person.”
“Oh, it was far worse than that!” Annalee declared. “She looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her first words were really strange at the time.” She struck a pose and mimicked Rosamund as best she could. “You! You…” She pulled one of her hands away from him and gestured frenziedly.
Then she dropped her hand. “After her initial outburst, it was like a mask settled over her face. She stopped pointing, stopped gasping, and became the cold, waspish creature I’ve known her to be ever since.”
Hawk reached for her hand again, caressing her fingers. “She thought you were Mirabelle when you first met, didn’t she?”
Annalee nodded slowly. “In hindsight, that’s exactly what I think. At the time, I just thought she was weird and unfriendly.”
“She’s all the above,” he growled, “and then some.”
She gripped his hands, leaning his way. “Can you imagine what it must have felt like for her to come face to face with the woman she’d gone to such an effort to have wrongfully committed to a mental ward?”
“A normal person would’ve experienced profound guilt.” However, Rosamund didn’t strike him as normal.
“Even after she established the fact that I wasn’t Mirabelle,” Annalee’s voice grew thready, “it must have really scorched her turnips to realize her new husband’s heir would be marrying Mirabelle’s twin. My face would be a constant reminder of her evil past.”
“And a constant reminder of the little girl she’d falsely blamed for her son’s paralysis,” Hawk added. “I think we’ve already established the fact that she’s an unstable person. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine her redirecting her twisted hatred toward you.”
“Keep swiping.” Tucker’s voice grew grimmer as he handed the electronic tablet back to Hawk.
Hawk continued reading and discovered it wasn’t the one isolated incident involving Edward that had ultimately landed Mirabelle in a state mental hospital. It was a series of incidents documented by what appeared to be carefully crafted reports designed to establish a pattern of violence on Mirabelle’s part. Of note, each person who’d taken part in documenting this so-called “pattern of violence” was connected in some form or another to Rosamund Dakota.
The Family Services counselor who’d been sent to investigate the sisters’ home and parents was a high school classmate of Rosamund’s. They’d been members of the same cheerleading squad for four straight years. The policeman who’d later arrested the Gilberts was pictured alongside Rosamund in her high school yearbook with a caption beneath it denoting them as the “cutest couple.”
Hawk scanned the last few documents on Tucker’s tablet. “The case should’ve never gone to court.” From start to finish, it had been a tragic miscarriage of justice.
“Oh, it gets worse.” Tucker reached across the tablet to pull up a new file folder. It contained a series of image files. “Here’s what was sent to the Clarendon County Sheriff’s Office by the eyewitness to your most recent hit-and-run accident. I’ve included two versions of the photo — the original one and the one where I used some editing software to de-pixilate the image of the driver.”
The first image was blurry, but Hawk could still make out the driver who’d purposely crashed into him and Annalee. It was Mirabelle Gilbert alright.
The second photo, however, made him rethink his first assumption. It was the cleaned-up version of the photo, adjusted for both crispness and brightness. The woman still resembled Annalee, but she looked older — a good fifteen to twenty years older.
The next several photos were even more disturbing. One depicted Rosamund from years ago, before her many cosmetic surgeries. The next several photos showed the changes to her appearance as she started having more and more surgeries. The most recent photo had only been taken a few weeks ago. It was a passport photo, and it was an identical match to the snapshot of the driver of the hit-and-run vehicle.
Hawk handed the electronic tablet back to Tucker. He’d seen enough. “You need to take this to the police.”
Tucker clenched his jaw. “Do you really think it would do any good? Think about it, Hawk. We’re talking about folks who’ve been getting away with murder for years. They’ve got a judge in their pocket. A judge, for crying out loud!”
“We’re not sitting on this and doing nothing.” There was no way Hawk was allowing that to happen.
“Then you take it to the police,” Tucker groused.
“I’m not the detective assigned to the case,” Hawk reminded. “I couldn’t explain any of this half as well as you could.”
Tucker stubbornly shook his head. “If I thought we stood a chance against them, I would, but this is bigger than us.”
“Then send it to a couple of news stations.” Hawk wasn’t sure where that idea came from, but it wasn’t half bad. “Anonymously, of course, and let Rosamund at least be tried in the court of public opinion. Preferably before she leaves the country.” In some ways, public disgrace would be worse than jail time for a vengeful woman like her. It would shoot holes in her reputation and send her fellow conspirators scrambling. It would close doors to her socially and topple her from the throne of lies she’d spent so many years building for herself. Even if she never darkened the door of a courtroom, she’d still be in the hot seat. Permanently.
A wicked smile stole across Tucker’s face. “Diabolical. I like it.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “It’ll be like tying her to a tree on top of a mound of fire ants.”
Hawk’s eyebrows rose. “You sure you don’t have any Comanche blood in you?”
“About ninety-five percent sure.” He didn’t say what the other five percent was, and Hawk didn’t ask.
Tucker gathered his things and sauntered out the door of the workshop just as Miley sauntered back in.
“I didn’t hear nothin’,” she assured him with her tongue in her cheek.
“You’re a brat.” Tucker kept walking. Now that he wasn’t going straight to the police with the information he’d uncovered, he seemed a lot less concerned about what Miley may or may not have overheard.
“Wow! He read you like a book,” Annalee chuckled.
Miley took a seat and started humming again, even louder than she had been earlier. “I was right about Aunt Mirabelle, wasn’t I?” She sounded smug. When no one answered, she added, “As they say on TV, I sort of busted this case wide open!” She gave a leisurely, self-glorifying stretch.
Annalee returned to her potting project. “You got your ten seconds of fame on the news. Now get back to work.” She sounded like she was trying not to laugh.
“Oh, I can work and talk at the same time. It’s no trouble,” Miley assured in a sugary sweet voice. “Which is a good thing, since I have another theory to pile on top of all the other ones floating around.”
“Do tell.” Annalee set the second urn on her potting table and went to work planting more geraniums.
Miley was silent for a moment. “Have you ever heard the term fall girl ?”
“Isn’t that the name of a movie?” her mom mused.
Hawk jumped back into the conversation, very much liking how Miley’s mind worked. “You think that’s what happened to your Aunt Mirabelle, eh?”
“Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!” Miley pretended to ring a bell. “Here’s what I think. My dad’s evil stepmother did something really bad a long time ago. She thought she’d gotten away with it. Then along came my mom, reminding her of the little girl she’d done wrong, stirring up all the old guilt. Maybe she was afraid my mom would figure out what she’d done. Whatever the case, the evil stepmother decided to destroy everyone that had anything to do with the person she’d wrongfully framed for her son’s injuries. Unfortunately for her, my mom failed to die in the first hit-and-run accident, and I failed to burn inside our home. By then, the evil stepmother’s crimes were piling up, and she saw the writing on the wall. Somebody would eventually have to be held accountable for the mess she’d created. So, she chose a fall girl and had her own face surgically altered to resemble the fall girl so she could lead the police by their noses to the fall girl. What she didn’t count on was the would-be fall girl escaping her padded prison before she finished falling.”
Hawk watched Annalee’s face pale. “If you change your mind about leather carving, you might have a future in detective work, hon. The only thing I still don’t understand, and may never understand, is where your dad fit in all of this.”
“Me, either.” Miley morosely traced the outline of the leather coaster she was making. “Maybe his death was unrelated.”
“Maybe.” Annalee returned to planting flowers and grew silent.
Hawk wasn’t ready to give up that easily. Though they had no proof, he didn’t believe for one second that Chayton Dakota’s death had been the result of natural causes. Unfortunately, any evidence of foul play had been buried with him. Nothing short of a new autopsy would bring the truth to light, something a few old-timers on the tribal council were still stonewalling. That, or a confession from whoever had put him in the grave.
“We also still don’t know who’s helping my sister.” Annalee viciously dug a hole into the potting soil with her hand trowel and plopped the next seedling into it.
* * *