Hero's Return

He turned slowly to look at his brother. All the years, all the fear and pain, rushed at him like a locomotive barreling down on him. “It’s my fault,” he said, his words coming out as broken as his heart. “The remains you found in the creek? I killed her—and our baby.”

Minutes later, Tucker slumped into the chair his brother offered him. He pressed the cold can of cola Flint had gotten from the vending machine down the hall against his forehead. After a few moments, he opened the can and took a sip as he tried to gather his thoughts. He’d known this would be hard. But after seeing what was in that package...

Flint had looked into the box but hadn’t touched the doll. Instead, he’d moved the package and the paper that had been inside to the floor beside his desk and waited.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Tucker said, although he knew his story began the moment he saw her. Summer, twenty years ago. He and his friends had taken a road trip. They’d stopped for gas in a small town in another county to the northwest.

“I got out to take a leak. It was one of those old gas stations with the restrooms along the side. When I came out, I saw her. She was coming from behind the building, crying and looking behind her like someone was after her. When she saw me, she stopped, wiped her tears and gave me this smile that rocked my world.” He shook his head. “I was hooked right there. She asked for my help. I had some money, so I gave it to her. I could hear my friends loading up to leave. She asked if I had to go or if maybe I wanted to go somewhere with her. She offered me a ride home.”

He looked up to see Flint’s expression. “I know. I was young and foolish and she was...” He shook his head. “Mysterious. Mesmerizing. Amazing. She had long blond hair and these wide blue eyes that when I looked into them I felt as if I was diving into an ocean filled with things I’d never seen before. Things no one had ever seen before. She was captivating and yet so vulnerable. I’d never met anyone like her. I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I had wanted to. I fell hard.”

“You couldn’t have told me what was going on?” Flint asked.

“We had to keep it a secret from everyone, even you. Her father and brother... She said she wasn’t allowed to date until she was eighteen. Her father was very strict. The day we met, she’d had an argument with him. She said she wanted to run away. She couldn’t live in that house any longer and as soon as she turned eighteen... She said she’d graduated early, but he wouldn’t let her leave until her birthday.”

“So you were going to run away with her,” Flint said.

Tucker shook his head and looked away for a moment. “I was going to marry her as soon as I graduated. But then she told me that she was pregnant. We didn’t use any protection that first time.”

“The day you met her.”

He nodded. “I... She was my first. We spent that summer seeing each other every chance she got to sneak away and meet me. Three months in, she told me she was pregnant. I was determined to marry her right then and there, but she said her father would kill her if he found out she was pregnant—and he or her brother would kill me. She said there was only one thing to do. She would leave, get settled and send for me.”

Flint groaned. “She asked for money.”

“I scraped up what money I could.”

“You sold your pistol and your saddle. When I realized that you’d sold those, I thought you had been planning to leave home for months before you actually did.”

“I gave her the money with the understanding that she would contact me after she ran away and I would drop out of school and meet her. Months went by without hearing from her. I couldn’t eat or sleep. Going to school was killing me. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I drove up to the town where I’d met her.”

“Let me guess,” Flint said with the shake of his head.

“Yep, there had never been anyone by the name of Madeline Ross in Denton, Montana. No father, no brother that I could find.” He shook his head. “She’d lied to me about her name and, it seemed, everything else. I went by the library, looked through the school annual for the year she said she’d graduated—a year ahead of me. Nothing. I thought I’d never hear from her again.”

“You aren’t the first man to be conned by a good-looking woman,” Flint said.

He nodded. “Like you, I thought the whole thing had been a scam, especially when I got a message from her that she needed more money.” He raked a hand through his hair, avoiding Flint’s gaze. “She said she’d had to lie out of fear, but that she would tell me everything when we met and I gave her the money.” He sighed. “I told her I couldn’t raise any more, but that I would graduate soon and get a job and... She told me to forget it and hung up.”

“I suspect she didn’t let you off that easily.”

Tucker shook his head. “I knew I’d been played, but a part of me wanted desperately to believe at least some of it was real. I held out hope that there really was an explanation. Later that night, she called to tell me to meet her at the bridge over the creek near our ranch and she would tell me everything.”

Flint sat up a little in his chair. “I remember that night. When you came back to the house, your clothes were soaking wet. You were so upset. You said you were just angry with yourself because you’d fallen in the creek and to leave you alone. I wish now that I hadn’t listened to you.”

“I went in the creek, all right. When I reached the edge of the bridge she was waiting for me in the middle holding something in her arms. She told me not to come any closer or she would jump. Remember, I hadn’t seen or heard from her in months.” His voice broke. “She was holding our child. She said she’d had the baby prematurely, a little boy, and that he was sick and that’s why she’d asked for the money. I promised I would get it, but she said it was too late, that I’d ruined her life. She said that her father and brother were demanding to know who the father of the baby was, but that she hadn’t told, couldn’t, because she loved me too much. I kept moving toward her. I had to. I thought if I could hold her... I tried to get to her, but before I could, she jumped.”

Flint frowned. Tucker knew he had to be asking himself if all this had been just a scam, then why would she have jumped?

“There’d been a storm a few days before so the creek was running high,” Tuck said. “I dived into the water but...” He bent over in his chair to stare down at his boots for a moment as he tried to blot out that night. The pain had stayed with him for all these years. Being back here just made it worse.

“She was gone,” he said finally. “I found a torn piece of the blouse she’d been wearing and the baby blanket caught in some limbs.” He wagged his head, unable to go on.

“That’s why you came back now,” Flint said with a curse. “The skeletal remains that were found in the creek. You think they belong to this Madeline Ross. You’ve been waiting all these years for her body to turn up?”

Tucker nodded slowly.

Flint shook his head. “I left earlier to go next door to the coroner’s office. He estimates the woman was in her early twenties, but he doesn’t believe that she drowned. Sonny says she died of a head wound from crashing into a log.”

He stared at Flint. “So she must have hit a limb as she was being carried downstream by the current.” Was that supposed to relieve his mind?

“The reason it took nineteen years for her remains to turn up—if they are hers—is because she was found under dirt and driftwood yards from the creek. The coroner doubts she could have gotten that far with the head injury that killed her. This spring the creek got so high it overflowed into that old drainage and washed out the side of the bank along with the driftwood or the remains might never have been found that far from the creek.”

Tucker sat back. His head was spinning. “I don’t understand.”

“It appears it was an accident. She must have hit her head while being swept down the creek.”

“Still, it’s my fault.”

“Tuck, it was all a scam. She wasn’t alone that night. She didn’t hide her own body under the dirt and driftwood at the edge of the old creek bank. Someone was waiting for her downstream. They probably pulled her out, panicked since Sonny says the blow to her head would have killed her quickly. So that person buried her body and covered the grave with driftwood away from the creek.”

“What? No, she came alone that night.”

Flint sighed. “If she had come there alone, her vehicle would have been found when she didn’t return to it.”

Why hadn’t he thought of that? Tucker felt sick to his stomach all over again. “Someone could have dropped her off.”

“Right, with plans to pick her up. Tuck, she wouldn’t have taken such a chance jumping in that creek with it running so high unless someone was waiting downstream to help her out. Whoever pulled her body from the creek that night was working with her. The person would have driven whatever vehicle they’d arrived in that night—after they hid her body.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Of course she wasn’t working her scam alone. He was such a fool. All these years of believing he’d been responsible for her death and that of their son...

“I’m assuming the remains belong to the woman you knew given what you’ve told me,” Flint said. “But until we get a positive ID...”

“I thought I killed her and the baby. Were her remains all that were found?”

“No sign of a baby. Did she ever show you any proof that she was pregnant?”

“No, but—”

“So you don’t know that what she had in her arms that night was even an infant.” Flint nudged the box on the floor with his boot. “It could have been a doll. It could have even been that doll. Do you have any idea who sent this to you?”

He shook his head. “Someone who wants me to still believe that I killed her. I’m surprised they didn’t try to blackmail me.”

“Tuck, I think whoever sent the box was trying to tell you that it had all been a scam—including the baby. But there is one way to find out.” Flint picked up the phone and dialed.

“There was no note in the box?” the sheriff asked as he waited for an answer on the other end of the line.

Tucker shook his head.