Stone followed Macy to the car, disturbed by the things Troy Cregan had painted of her mother.
Judging from the tight expression on her face, it hadn’t gone well with Troy’s wife, either. “Macy?”
“She said my mother only worked for them a short time, that she became unreliable. Sometimes cleaned, then sometimes left the house in chaos. They caught her stealing pain meds and let her go.” She turned to Stone. “What did Troy say?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Macy crossed her arms. “Stone, I lived with the woman. Nothing you can say is going to surprise me.”
He cleared his throat. “He said the same thing, only he wasn’t quite so nice about it. Said when he confronted your mother, she became belligerent, picked up a fire poker and swung it at him.”
“Good God,” Macy said. “Did he report it to the sheriff?”
That would have been Stone’s father. “Said he threatened to if she ever came back to their house. Before she left, though, she overturned furniture and broke lamps.”
Macy turned to look back at the butcher shop as he pulled from the drive. “She was lucky they didn’t press charges.”
Stone’s heart squeezed for her. “Let me talk to the others. You don’t have to put yourself through this.”
“Yes, I do,” she said stubbornly. “I can’t possibly rest until I know the truth about what happened in that house.” She massaged her temple, and he turned onto the side street, then drove to Loretta Pruitt’s house. She lived across from the Love ’n Learn Day Care, which she’d run for thirty years but had retired two years ago, and her daughter had taken over the business.
Five minutes later, they knocked on Loretta’s door. The plump woman greeted them with the same smile she graced everyone with. She’d never met a stranger and volunteered at the pet rescue shelter, as evidenced by the three cats stretching lazily on the furniture as she invited them in. In the kitchen, she insisted they have a glass of homemade lemonade.
Stone introduced Macy, but Loretta waved off the introduction. “I remember you from when you were little,” she said. “Your mother used to clean the day care for me. Brought you along with her. You used to love playing with the blocks and puzzles. Wasn’t much into dolls, though.”
A tiny smile flitted in Macy’s eyes. “That’s true. I was more of a tomboy. Into sports.”
Loretta fluttered a hand to her chest. “I’m so sorry to hear your mother hasn’t been well these last few years.”
Macy’s expression softened. “Thank you. Most people aren’t so kind.”
Loretta took Macy’s hand. “We’re supposed to love our neighbors and help them when they need it.”
Macy pursed her lips, her eyes watering. “Thank you again. Can you tell me what you remember about her?”
Loretta sipped her lemonade. “What do you want to know?”
“How was she when she worked for you? And how old was I?”
The woman frowned. “You were about four, if I remember right. Your mama seemed real sweet, a little shy and nervous sometimes, but she took good care of you. At least back then.” Her voice cracked. “Later, I heard she left you alone too much. Once when you were about six, I saw her screaming at you in the park. Then she went off and left you.”
Stone didn’t like the picture he saw in his mind. So far two people described her as loving and kind when Macy was small. But her behavior had become more disturbing, bordering on abusive.
Or had it been abusive?
What exactly had gone on behind closed doors?
MACY’S PHONE BUZZED as she and Stone left Loretta’s. Pat Dansing’s name appeared on the screen, so she answered and put her on Speaker. She didn’t want Stone to accuse her of hiding anything.
Stone steered the car in the direction of the cabins on the creek while she explained the reason for her call.
“Yes, I remember your mother,” Pat said, her tone cautious.
“She worked for you for a while?” Macy asked.
“Yes, but not for long.”
“What happened?” Macy asked. “And please be candid, Mrs. Dansing. She’s missing right now, and anything I can learn about her may help find her.”
“The truth was that your mother scared my daughter.”
Macy’s stomach knotted. “What happened?”
“Lucy was five,” Pat said. “She was about the same age as you, Macy. We owned the hardware store, and when Ken was out on a buying trip, Lucy would come to the store with me. One day you came in with your mama, and Lucy wanted to play with you, but you touched some of the tools and your mama went crazy. She locked you in the bathroom and started screaming and wouldn’t let you out.”
Pat hesitated.
“Go on,” Macy said.
“Lucy was terrified and crying. Finally, Ken got there, and he unlocked the door and threatened to call DFACS. She dragged you out of there.” Her voice trembled. “I...had to calm Lucy down, and Ken told your mother she couldn’t come back. But... I...we should have called DFACS right then, but Ken was afraid of what she’d do to retaliate, that she might hurt Lucy.” She released a strangled sound. “I’ve never forgiven myself for not calling and reporting her, though.”
Macy swallowed back emotions. “It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “Social services did come out a few times, but my mother could put on a good act, and they just dismissed it.”
The damn system was flawed, Macy thought. Kids got lost in it all the time. Shuffled around from one foster home to another. Sent back to abusive homes where the abuser exercised their anger at being reported on the child.
Thank God for Kate and her mother.
“Mrs. Dansing, did you ever see my mother with a man or hear about her dating someone?”
“No,” the woman replied. “After that day, I never talked to her. Truth be told, I avoided her and you. I was too ashamed.”
STONE SCRUBBED A hand down his face. They had to keep checking with everyone on the list. Vicki Germaine was next.
But he didn’t know how much more he could stand to hear. The picture of Macy as a little girl being abused made him clench the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip.
Anger churned through him as he maneuvered the switchbacks and climbed the steep incline winding around the mountain. The cabins offered scenic views of the countryside and valley below and private nooks for romantic getaways or families wishing to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.
He turned onto the winding narrow road that led to the rental office, Macy’s silence worrying him. So many of their classmates and their families had fallen apart after the school shooting.
But how had she survived her mother’s mental instability and not caved beneath the weight of it and the school massacre?
His admiration for her rose notches.
He parked at the rental office, and Macy climbed out in silence, the weight of what she’d heard today obviously sitting heavily on her shoulders. An SUV was parked in front, but the family came out of the building with keys and left.
Together he and Macy walked up to the entrance and ducked inside. Pamphlets for tourist activities including scenic mountain sights, biking and hiking tours, whitewater rafting and seasonal festivities filled a wall on one side. Maps of the area occupied another and Vicki Germaine, a white-haired lady with bright green eyes stood behind the reception desk.
“Vicki,” Stone said in way of greeting. “This is Special Agent Macy Stark.”
“I figured you might show up at some point,” Vicki said,
Five minutes later, they were seated in a break room with Vicki sipping coffee while a young girl named Tory manned the desk. Stone explained about the investigation, and Macy relayed that she needed to know about her mother when she worked for the rental company.
“That was a long time ago,” Vicki said. “But I do remember her.”
Stone ground his teeth as Macy asked about Vicki’s experience with her mother.
“Lynn Stark was a troubled woman,” Vicki said. “She was like two different people. Sometimes she did a good job, and I needed the help, but I had to let her go.”
“Why?” Macy asked. “Was she stealing? Doing drugs? Violent?”
Vicki shook her head. “When we had a free room, she used it to bring her lovers there.”
Macy’s face paled. “Her lovers?”
Vicki nodded. “Don’t know any of their names. But one of the handymen walked in on her, and she went off on him. I let her go the next day.”
“Is this handyman still around?” Stone asked.
Vicki shook her head. “Passed away last year. Car accident.”
“And you had no idea who any of the men were?” Stone asked.
Vicki shook her head. “I never saw them. She always made sure to use a room that wasn’t booked and cleaned it so I wouldn’t find out.”
One of those men could be Macy’s father. Or the corpse in the wall in her house.
Stone thanked Vicki, and he and Macy walked back to his car.
“My mother was a piece of work, wasn’t she?” Macy muttered as she fastened her seat belt.
Stone made a low sound in his throat. “She was ill,” he said. “That doesn’t excuse her behavior, but she wasn’t in her right mind when she did some of the things she did.” Still, Macy had suffered. “It sounds like she loved you as a baby.”
Was that enough to make up for the pain and suffering she’d caused Macy the rest of her life?
MACY CLOSED HER EYES, her mind swirling with confusion. If her mother had multiple lovers, maybe she didn’t know who had fathered Macy. And any one of them could have come to the house, had an altercation with her mother and ended up dead.
She had a sinking feeling the changes in her mother’s behavior had to do with what happened at her house that rainy night.
She struggled to recall her mother mentioning a man, but she’d kept that part of her life private. When she’d asked about her father, her mother had become irate and told her never to ask again.
She hadn’t. She’d been too afraid to.
Stone’s phone buzzed. “It’s the ME,” he said, then connected through his hands-free Bluetooth and put it on Speaker. “Sheriff Lawson.”
“Sheriff, I know you wanted this ASAP, so I called in a forensic specialist, Dr. Diane Song. She analyzed the bones recovered at the Stark house and confirmed that the body is a male. He was midthirties at the time of death, which was approximately twenty-seven-years ago. I mentioned that he suffered other injuries and ran his DNA in the system.”
“Do you have an ID? And why was his name in the system?” Macy asked.
“Because he served time in prison,” Dr. Anderson said. “His name is Voight Hubert.”
Macy’s heart hammered. “What was he in prison for?”
“That’s as far as I got. The rest is up to you. I have another body on my table now that I have to get to.”
More questions nagged at Macy as they ended the call. Was Hubert the lover her mother had been romantically involved with?
As Stone drove back toward the sheriff’s office, she pulled out her tablet. Seconds later, she accessed prison records and found Voight Hubert’s name. He had been arrested thirty years ago on felony charges for assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder.
She pulled up the police report and skimmed it, then found an article about the trial and read it aloud to Stone. Stone pulled into the parking space at his office and cut the engine. Night had fallen, the clouds obliterating the stars tonight and casting a grayness over the town.
“Evidence proved that banker and financial adviser George Billman paid Voight Hubert twenty thousand dollars to kill Billman’s wife. Billman was indicted on fraud and conspiracy to commit murder charges. In exchange for his testimony against Billman, Hubert received a lighter sentence.”
“Hubert was a hit man?” Stone asked.
“Yes. He was released from prison twenty-eight years ago, so that fits the timeline.” Macy chewed the inside of her cheek. “But it makes no sense that he’d tried to hurt my mother. She had no money or enemies that I know of, not anyone who’d hire a hit man to come after her.”
“He could have been the man she met at those cabins,” Stone suggested.
“I thought of that. But how did he end up dead?”
“Lovers gone awry,” Stone said. “It happens a lot. They got in a fight. Things became violent. Physical. He had a record of assault. He could have attacked her.”
Macy pursed her lips. “That makes sense, especially with her history.” Another disturbing thought occurred to her, and she called Dr. Anderson’s number. “It’s Special Agent Stark. I need you to do something for me.”
“What is it?” Dr. Anderson asked.
Macy inhaled a deep breath. “Run a DNA comparison between Hubert’s DNA and mine.” If Hubert was her father, she had to know.