The Woman Most Wanted

In one of the police cars, the radio crackled. An officer she couldn’t see yelled, “The plates are registered to Heather Graves, age twenty-seven, of Phoenix, Arizona.”

“I didn’t want to get a New Mexico license until I was sure I could find a job here,” Heather offered.

“Why did you come back here?” Tom snapped.

“I’ve never been here before, not that I remember.” Maybe she’d been born here, maybe some woman she’d passed in town today had carried Heather in her womb, but other than that, until her parents’ death, Sarasota Falls hadn’t existed.

“Right.” None too gently he hauled her to her feet and turned her to face her car. With her hands cuffed behind her, she couldn’t rub at her sore knees or even brush away the dust and dirt of the roadway clinging to her clothes. A female officer stepped forward and quickly patted her down.

“Nothing,” the female told the others.

“I told you. I’m a dental assistant. I don’t need a gun. What’s go—”

They weren’t listening to her. Instead, the woman cop frowned at Tom. “You’re going to have to fill out a report for drawing your weapon, Chief Riley.”

“You saw everything, right?”

Heather noted the slight trembling of the chief’s hand.

The one still holding the gun.

“Her purse. When she went for it, I thought...” He looked at Heather and his expression shut down, unreadable. Silently, he stepped back.

“You’ll be all right taking her in?” the cop who’d read her rights asked.

The chief nodded.

“Let’s roll,” the female officer said.

Her mind screamed protests that her mouth didn’t utter. She was so numb that she blindly allowed the chief to escort her into the back seat of the SUV, no questions asked.

She witnessed the female officer attach an orange sticker to the back window of her car.

She could consider it impounded.

All this was for real.

Chief Riley climbed behind the steering wheel and quickly radioed in a code she didn’t know and then reported both the current time and the mileage on his vehicle.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Ex-excuse me,” she said softly. Chief Riley glanced in his rearview mirror.

Anger came off of him in waves. Wait. Innocent until proven guilty, right? The cops were the good guys, right?

What if they weren’t cops?

Yeah, right, only Heather Graves could have such a ridiculous thought after one SUV and three squad cars surrounded her little hatchback.

“I—I...” Words fought to form but didn’t leave her throat in even the semblance of a sentence.

Come to think of it, every time she had a nightmare, she lost the power of speech.

Since this was the biggest nightmare of all, she’d most likely lose a lot more before the ordeal was finished.

* * *

FINALLY.

Tom was almost afraid to take his eyes away from the rearview mirror. She might disappear. She’d done it before, leaving the Sarasota Falls Police Department frustrated and amazed.

He’d taken it the hardest. The chief of police back then had finally taken him aside and said, “If you intend to keep your job, focus on what you can change and leave what you can’t for another day. Otherwise, you won’t get anything done.”

Good advice. If he’d taken it, he might still be married. Instead, he’d spent hours driving the back roads, stopping by Rachel Ramsey’s friends’ houses.

They were all convinced of her innocence. Not him. He continued to drive, even though he knew it was a long shot.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she protested again, eyes wide open, with a little shimmer. Too bad. Tears really didn’t work on him anymore. Still, she continued to amaze him. He’d expected her to be mad, resist arrest, pretend surprise. The only thing she’d done was cooperate and try to get his attention.

She had that, all right.

He thought back to when he’d been a rookie and picked up Rachel multiple times. Early on for shoplifting and once for truancy. Tom still remembered trying later to explain to her mother that Rachel just needed guidance. The advice had fallen on deaf ears.

Still, he’d often helped Rachel return what she’d stolen.

As a young cop, only a year on the force, he’d been appalled that Rachel Ramsey was raising herself and that he knew little about how to help her. Her mother was negligent, not abusive. Social services had visited twice, both times because Tom had personally phoned. Their report was the house was livable and there was food in the fridge. Rachel had no bruises or complaints. Apparently, those were the core expectations for parenthood.

He’d actually escorted the social worker once and had realized that Rachel was stealing only what she needed: clothes that fit and school supplies.

It was still stealing.

She was dressed pretty fancy now. Her shirt was pale pink with glittery buttons. Her jeans were fitted, without tears, and he recalled her white tennis shoes looked brand-new. She wore a pearl necklace and tiny earrings, too. The phone he’d confiscated was top-of-the-line.

She’d obviously done all right for herself and had upgraded from a house that was in the middle of nowhere and a delinquent mother.

He should have arrested Rachel when he’d had the chance back then. Played hardball with the shoplifting and truancy offenses. Maybe a stint in juvie would have done her good. But he’d known a few kids who’d gone to juvie and only learned how to be better criminals. So, even during his third year on the force, he’d continued to take Rachel home, talk to her mother about providing support and drive away.

Looking in the rearview mirror, at Rachel Ramsey, he tried to see the girl she’d been. It was there. Buried. Her blond hair was still long and wavy. She should have dyed it, curled it, or something. Her cheekbones were still high and her mouth was still lined with a shade of red lipstick that most women didn’t dare wear—not in his experience. His ex-wife sure couldn’t.

Her blue eyes were the giveaway.

After almost a decade, Rachel Ramsey had changed very little, apart from her circumstances. Tom Riley, however, had changed a lot.

“Truly,” she said, clearing her throat, “you’ve made a mistake. I did speed up and was probably over the limit. I admit it. Give me a ticket, but I’ve done nothing else wrong.”

He could think of only one word in reply. “Nothing?”

His tone must have had some effect because she sat back, twisting a bit as the handcuffs restricted movement, and stared at him. Boy, she had fake confusion nailed.

What had she been thinking by coming back to Sarasota Falls? He had a million other questions to ask, but not before every word could be recorded. No chance would he mess up this case, because of his close connection to it. He longed to knock on Max’s widow’s door and say, “Sylvia, we got her. And, I’ll make sure she leads me to Jeremy Salinas. Justice will be served.”

In the back, Rachel settled and stared out the window. She was pale, and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. She had aged a bit. There were a few lines by her eyes. He’d have called them laugh lines on anyone else.

Not her.

Nothing to laugh about.

And today he was going to do something he should have done more than ten years ago—see that she was put away for a long, long time.

If he’d done that when she was fifteen, she might not have met Jeremy Salinas, wouldn’t have participated in a convenience store robbery and wouldn’t have helped lure a police officer to his death.

Chief Tom Riley could only blame himself that she’d been free to roam the streets ever since.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR THE FIRST time since he’d joined the force, paperwork was a blessing. Tom stared at the computer screen and coughed wryly as Heather Graves’s picture revealed a background check so squeaky clean it had to be fake.

Until recently, Heather had been working in Phoenix, Arizona, as a dental hygienist in a small practice, just as she’d said. Before that, she’d been at the state university.

Now the same woman sat in a Sarasota Falls jail cell, a prime suspect involved in a homicide.

His fist clenched and he suppressed the urge to hit the table hard. He didn’t need for his team to see how angry he was.

It made sense that Rachel would change her name, but he’d never have guessed she’d have the ability to create a false history that gave her a college degree and also enabled her to immediately find work. Had she really done all this?

With a quick phone call he learned that the dentist in Phoenix would hire her back in a heartbeat and that as far as the dentist knew, family matters had inspired the move. She’d been a model employee, left her personal business at home and gave two weeks’ notice before quitting. And, no, the dentist hadn’t met a boyfriend.

Maybe she’d been smart enough to shed Jeremy Salinas a while ago.

Tom hadn’t been able to shed the memory of what the man had done. He opened a file on his computer, staring at the likeness of Rachel Ramsey.

There had to be a flaw in the cover she’d created for herself, and he’d find it.

He took the time to study her academic history at Arizona State University. A few taps on the computer keys had her photo. Student IDs weren’t supposed to be all that good. Rachel’s, make that Heather’s, was. This photo was from her senior year. He found the first three years’ of student ID photos online, too.

Every one of them showed a smiling coed. Blond hair, so shiny and glossy it seemed to glow. Heart-shaped face. Lips red even without lipstick.

It was Rachel’s face all right, but it didn’t make sense. The timing of it didn’t work. No way could Rachel be here, in high school, dating Jeremy Salinas and living under an alternate name and actually graduating with honors.

It defied logic. Still, Tom’s years in law enforcement showed him time and time again that improbability was a condition best investigated.

Still, a tiny thread of doubt pulled at his consciousness. Could he have made a mistake? Could Rachel have a doppelgänger? Or, could this Heather, who looked so very much like Rachel, be a relative? He’d called her Rachel, and she hadn’t even flinched. He’d marveled at her control.

More than a decade on the force. He was seldom wrong, and he especially didn’t want to be this time.

He enlarged Heather’s student ID photo, looking at the area on her face, just above the left lip, where there was a red birthmark. Then, he brought up his photo of Rachel, taken a half dozen years ago, and enlarged it.

Same red birthmark, same size and shape.

What were the odds? He searched for statistics of family members having the same marks and found it was rare but possible.

So, right now, he could have Rachel Ramsey in a cell or he could have a complete innocent.

He pushed back his chair, stood and looked across the busy room. His officers were on the phone, writing reports, scanning the computers.

There was something else, though. A tension in the air as well as a few furtive glances in the direction of his office.

They knew the story, knew how close he’d been to his partner, and worried about him.

Maybe this nightmare was about to come to an end, maybe Tom would finally go to bed at night knowing he’d done his job.

Caught the accomplice of Max’s killer.

“Looks like her,” Lieutenant Lucas Stilwater said. “Only older.” Lucas—near retirement age—was one of a few officers left who’d worked with Tom’s previous partner. The rest were new, hired within the last three to five years. Good cops, every one of them. Sometimes, listening to their banter, he wanted...

Wanted to go back in time.

For the first few months after Max’s death, when Tom had looked across the busy room, by habit he’d still been looking for Max. The room hadn’t pulsed with activity then. Instead, it was like someone had turned down the volume, changed the scene to slow motion. For a long time, Tom felt as if he didn’t belong, that he was role-playing. Then, when the chief retired, Tom had been approached by the mayor, Rick Goodman.

The pluses: Tom was a captain, Tom had a master’s in criminal justice and the people of Sarasota Falls knew and trusted him.

The minuses: Tom’s whole life was his job, so much so that his wife had left him.

In the end, Tom hadn’t turned his back on his job, nor had it turned its back on him. He’d found that being chief gave him a renewed sense of purpose—just not in his late partner’s case.

Until today.

There were still things to do, he reminded himself. Unless Tom missed his guess, Heather Graves was either a crime stamped “solved” or a new door opening on an old case that had troubled him through to his soul.

He headed for the cell, thinking he’d personally escort Rachel to booking, but she wasn’t there. For a moment, he felt fear. Immediately, his phone beeped as if someone knew he needed an answer. He glanced at the caller ID. Captain Daniel Anderson, in records, was always quick to deliver information. He was someone Tom could rely on and, in fact, he called the man a friend.

“Give me good news,” Tom barked.

Daniel didn’t react at all, just stated, “She has no criminal record.”

CHAPTER FOUR

HEATHER HAD ANSWERED every question she’d been asked, but the police hadn’t known to ask about her parents’ real names, Raymond Tillsbury and Sarah Tillsbury, née Lewis. They’d accepted her history because everything checked out. Of course it did. Her life story hadn’t changed until recently.

She thought about telling them the truth, but the chief was already so certain she was guilty of a crime. What if her mother and father had done something awful? What if that was why they’d changed their names and moved to Phoenix? If that was correct, Heather wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth.

But really, Melanie Graves a crook? Her dad a killer? They were the kindest people she’d ever known. They’d loved her, she loved them, but... No, no, no.

“Ma’am, if you’ll just give me a minute.” The booking officer had led her from her cell to sitting across from him at his desk. Then, he stood and walked over to the chief, who was looking at her and clearly wasn’t happy.

She continued wiping at the black residue on her fingers. They’d taken her fingerprints digitally, but then used ink and paper, saying something about an international component.

This Rachel Ramsey person must be in a lot of trouble if they thought she’d fled the country. Heather almost looked forward to her release—and she truly thought she’d be out soon—so she could go research exactly what Rachel had done.

And what she looked like.

Possibly, Heather would find a link between Rachel and her parents. Focusing on the two police officers, she wished she’d felt some sort of connection to them that would allow her to trust them. If she shared every detail about what she’d discovered, would they fill in some of the missing pieces? She wasn’t sure.

Closing her eyes, she willed herself away from the police station and imagined her apartment in Phoenix. She’d left the lawyer’s office in such a daze; she didn’t even remember driving home. But she’d spent the whole of that evening perched at her kitchen table, laptop in front of her, and she’d researched Raymond Tillsbury, not Bill Graves.

He’d said he was raised by a mostly absent father; she assumed that was still true. But her grandfather’s real name had been Terrance Tillsbury. She found three obituaries, and two mentioned children. There was no other history for him. Her father, Raymond Tillsbury, had a bit more presence. She found his military record, complete with a few photos. He’d honestly shared his accurate United States Army history. He’d been a hero. That wasn’t a surprise. He’d been her hero.

She’d kept at it for hours before finally finding his name tagged on a Christmas photo posted by someone on Facebook. The photo was thirty years old and from a company party. She cut and pasted, enlarged and then decided it indeed was a picture of a much younger version of her dad. Going back to the original post, she wrote down the information shared. It was from a work party for the employees of Little’s Grocery Store in Sarasota Falls, New Mexico.

So, she now owned a home there, and her father had once had a job there. Since her father’s real name was Raymond Tillsbury, did that mean she was Heather Tillsbury?

Heather Tillsbury. She said the name out loud, feeling a little queasy, as if she’d lost her parents for a second time.

Of her mother—real name, Sarah Lewis—she’d found too many hits to investigate, so she narrowed her search to Arizona and then to New Mexico. Still too many. So she narrowed her search to Sarasota Falls. There was a family named Lewis there, but no mention of a Sarah. Google provided a few photos but they meant nothing and might’ve not even really been Lewises. She wanted to find them, ask them questions.

According to the photo she’d found online, the house her parents had been renting out in Sarasota Falls was a white clapboard farmhouse in need of a little tender, loving care and with a lot of land.

Since she’d seen it, she knew it needed a lot of tender, loving care.

Another police officer had joined the two standing at the door. They were having a meeting. No one looked happy.

“Lawyer?” she said. They all turned toward her. “I want a lawyer. Or, at the very least, my phone call.”

“We’ll see to it,” the officer who’d taken her fingerprints promised, but he didn’t move from the impromptu gathering. Her back was getting stiff, and she was cold. She also wanted a drink of water.

Maybe something stronger.

Sitting back, she was almost glad when the chair creaked loud enough to disturb the officers. Still, they didn’t move.

She sighed and sat back. Looking out the big window, she watched as a few cars drove by, followed by a firetruck, complete with streamers. No doubt it had been featured at the Founder’s Day celebration.

Why had her parents left and why didn’t they talk about their hometown, family, or friends. The way she figured it, this was the town where she could have been raised. Instead, from the time she was one until she turned sixteen, she and her parents had moved from one town to another, about every three years. Her dad claimed his military background had put the wanderlust in him. Her mother said it was the need to explore that drove him.

At sixteen, her mother’s diabetes meant it was wise to stay in one place and with one doctor. Or maybe, Heather now mused, they’d decided they were safe.

Maybe their feeling safe had something to do with Sarasota Falls. Maybe not. Maybe she was silly to come here. There were way too many maybes. But in her heart, she knew there was a piece missing from her life: her roots.

Roots were so important to her, she’d started putting in job applications from the moment she’d arrived in town. No luck yet, but people had seemed encouraging.

Earlier today, she wandered around the Founder’s Day celebration trying to get a better lay of the land. Once the crowds got to her, she decided to take a drive. The countryside was so different from the metropolis of Phoenix.

Sarasota Falls: thirty-two thousand. Phoenix: four million and climbing.

She wondered who her parents had been friends with, and if they’d missed this place.

How they’d thought it would somehow remain a secret.

Why she was crazy enough to think that moving here, even temporarily, was a good idea.

She shook off the doldrums. Moving had been a brave and wondrous thing.

Right.

She’d just have to keep telling herself that.

* * *

“SHE’S HIDING SOMETHING,” Captain Daniel Anderson said.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Tom glared at Heather, willing her to glare back, annoyed when she didn’t.

Daniel cleared his throat and said the words Tom didn’t want to hear. “She’s hiding something but it isn’t that she’s Rachel Ramsey. I can tell you what you already suspect, which is that everything points to a case of mistaken identity. This lady is shorter than Rachel and—”

“Shorter? You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve had her in custody not even an hour and you can already tell—”

“I’ve studied Rachel’s photos, almost as often as you, especially the ones from the convenience store,” Daniel said calmly. “Plus, I watched the surveillance video a hundred times.

“She was wearing heels during the robbery! Keep talking to her,” Tom ordered before heading to his office to study the photos, even the ones that would tick him off. He switched out Heather’s photos to compare to what they had of Rachel.

Heather Graves might indeed be legitimate and just happened to look like Rachel Ramsey.

Right down to a red birthmark!

The most recent photo they had of Rachel, save the surveillance video, was her driver’s license. A head shot, which while nice, didn’t tell them all that much, except that Daniel was correct. The woman he’d hauled in was shorter than the height listed on Rachel’s license But, everything else was spot-on.

Rachel Ramsey, girlfriend of Jeremy Salinas. Guilty of robbing the convenience store—at gunpoint—and taking off. Max hadn’t been looking for them on that hot, muggy August day. He’d been responding to a call on the other side of town. Somehow, they’d crossed paths. The final radio check-in from Max gave a license plate number and reported that he’d hit the siren to warn the vehicle ahead of him—someone driving erratically, dangerously—to pull over.

Jeremy Salinas and Rachel Ramsey.

Guilty of murdering a cop.

Max hadn’t even been aware that the car they were driving was stolen.

Tom should have been with him that day, and would have, if his court appearance hadn’t taken twice as long as necessary.

The only witness to the shooting, a frightened high school senior who’d skipped school that day and had been trying to keep a low profile heading home, said that the car Salinas was driving spun out of control and hit a telephone pole. Max had parked next to it and jumped out. Then the passenger side door had flung open from the impact, and Rachel had fallen from the car, on her stomach, acting hurt.

Max, doing what he did best, bent down to help her up. The moment he’d made sure Rachel was all right and was straightening, the boyfriend fired his weapon into Max’s heart.

Max’s blood was on Rachel’s hands in more ways than one.

“Hard to believe she’s been living under an assumed identity and has been so successful.” Lucas was back and staring over Tom’s shoulder at the mug shots—left side, front, right side—of Heather’s face on screen. How she managed to keep her expression both shocked and innocent-looking was pretty amazing. Maybe she’d worn the same expression the day she pretended to be hurt.

She was that good of an actress.

But making herself shorter? a little voice questioned inside Tom’s head.

“I wonder why she didn’t try to change her looks more,” Lucas remarked.

Tom wondered the same thing.

“Man, I’ll bet this is making your day,” Lucas added.

“It would make my day if she’d just admit she was Rachel,” Tom muttered, knowing it wouldn’t happen.

Deputy Oscar Guzman walked over and looked at Heather’s photo. “Maybe Rachel Ramsey was the fake name all along—maybe Heather Graves is the real name.”

If only it was that easy, but Tom knew Rachel’s history like the back of his hand.

“Not a chance. I knew Rachel personally. She is Diane Ramsey’s daughter.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. He’d brought Ms. Ramsey in twice for being drunk and disorderly. She’d died of an overdose a year ago.

“Rachel was born to an alcoholic mother and raised by a succession of stepfathers and squatters. She even spent some time in foster care,” Tom said, momentarily feeling sorry for the girl, then remembering what she’d done. “She’s been in and out of trouble with the law most of her early life. Despite it all, I’d thought she was a decent person, until...” Reminding himself that he was talking to colleagues, he kept his voice even and his words matter-of-fact. “Both Jeremy and Rachel, we figured, disappeared across the border. Maybe we were wrong about Rachel. She—” he looked at the computer screen, hit a button and continued hoping that saying the words would make him believe them “—went to college and became a dental hygienist in Arizona.”