Return of the Lawman. Lisa Childs

she’d get there. The last few years before I left, she didn’t know me half the time, but maybe she’d remember how to get home.”

      Dylan squeezed her fingers again. “I know where your house is. And if she’s not there, we’ll keep looking. We’ll find her.”

      She appreciated his calm assurance. Lindsey had never been good at serenity. While in the throes of her deep depression, her mother had always appeared too serene. She’d sit for days without moving, or even blinking, Lindsey had suspected.

      “It’s not the same.” Dylan pulled into her father’s drive way and turned off the ignition of the patrol car.

      Lindsey glanced at the vinyl-sided Dutch colonial. “Not since you left, no. She set it on fire. She was inside.” She hated the sting of tears behind her eyelids. That had been so long ago. She shouldn’t still be able to smell the smoke in the air. She shouldn’t remember the struggle for breath when she’d fought the heat and flames for her mother.

      “I’m sorry.” Dylan trailed a finger from his free hand down her cheek.

      Lindsey let out a shuddery breath. “Why? You weren’t here.”

      “That’s why.”

      Despite not wanting him to see the tears swimming in her eyes, she turned toward him. He was so strong, so solid. “You’re not responsible for me, Dylan. You had good reasons for leaving.”

      He didn’t respond, but he didn’t release her fingers, either. He hadn’t even while he’d driven over the rutted country roads.

      “She’s not here, you know.” Lindsey couldn’t imagine where her mother would be. To get here from the sanatorium, she’d have had to walk miles. Did she have a jacket to keep her warm? Where had she slept? Lying in some rotted leaves in a ditch on the side of the road? Had they passed her?

      Lindsey fought down the panic. “Her doctors think she might be schizophrenic, but her erratic symptoms have made her hard to diagnose. She wouldn’t have recognized the old house, let alone the rebuilt one.”

      “But it’s at the same address. We should check.”

      “I just left here a little while ago, on my way to see you at the police station.”

      He opened his door. “You can stay here. I’ll check. Give me your keys.”

      “I left them in the Jeep.”

      He chuckled. “Well, I suppose it’s safe. I doubt anyone will steal it.”

      She rewarded his obvious effort with a weak smile. “I’m sure Dad stashes the spare in the same place.” She hopped out and strode to the door. They’d take a quick gander inside and resume their search. Retha Warner wasn’t there. But they would find her. They had to.

      Before Lindsey could reach above the door frame for the key, the kitchen door opened. A fragile-looking woman with dull black hair and glassy eyes reached for Lindsey. “Sweet heart, there you are! I couldn’t catch you when you left the house for school earlier. Are you skipping class?” The woman made a tsking noise.

      As she stood stiffly in the fragile arms of her mother, Lindsey trembled, and her stomach pitched as a flurry of emotions surged through her.

      Her mother. She pushed some of the scraggly hair from her mother’s scarred cheek. How did she recognize Lindsey now after all these years when she hadn’t then, when a teenage girl had so desperately needed her mother?

      “Deputy Matthews,” Retha Warner said in a welcoming voice. “Thank you for bringing her home. She causing you trouble again?” She actually winked at him.

      How had her mother known of Lindsey’s infatuation with the young deputy? She’d always seemed oblivious to her surroundings.

      “Mom,” she finally said, struggling to clear her throat of the jerky sobs threatening as memories flooded her mind. “Mom, I’m not in school anymore. I’m almost twenty-seven now.”

      “Always trying to rush things, Lindsey,” her mother scoffed affectionately. “Come in, you two. I’ve baked cookies and started coffee.”

      Dylan’s hand on her back urged Lindsey inside the warm kitchen. Cookies cooled on waxed paper on the counter, and an announcer chattered from the radio on top of the refrigerator.

      “Mom, please.” She followed Retha to the counter and put a trembling hand on her shoulder. “You must know that you don’t live here anymore.”

      “I know the house looks different. Remodeled, finally. I love it.” Her mother smiled as she poured them mugs of steaming coffee.

      Lindsey took her mother’s hands in hers, running her fingers over the scarred flesh of the right one. She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled for a breath. Her mother hadn’t even cried over the burns. But Lindsey had.

      Dylan rubbed her back. “Let me tell her, Lindsey.”

      She shook her head and opened her eyes. Her mother’s once beautiful face held concern and con fusion. Lindsey dragged in a quick, choking breath. “Mom, you live in the sanatorium now.”

      “What? There is no sanatorium in Winter Falls.” A frown puckered Retha’s otherwise unlined forehead. She pulled her hands from Lindsey’s.

      Lindsey brushed the hair away from her mother’s face. The thin strands of black slid smoothly between Lindsey’s fingers. At least they kept her clean at the sanatorium even though they hadn’t kept her safe.

      Lindsey took in another breath and caught the scent of roses. Her mother’s perfumed soap clung to her.

      “Arborview, Mom.”

      Her mother shuddered now. “Arborview is the home for unwed mothers, Lindsey. You shouldn’t know anything about that place.” She slid her scarred hand over Lindsey’s cheek.

      “It hasn’t been that for years, Mom. You live there.” Lindsey spoke as slowly and gently as she would to a child. Because she didn’t possess any of her own, she figured she must have borrowed some of Dylan’s patience and strength. His long, lean body hovered so near, his heat warmed her.

      “You’re doing great,” he murmured by her ear.

      Her mother shook her head. “No, no, I don’t anymore. That was just for a little while and so long ago.”

      Lindsey brushed the hair back from her mother’s face again. The sting of tears and guilt blinded her for a moment. “You’ve lived there nine years now, Mom.”

      Her mother laughed. “Lindsey, always spinning your yarns, just like your father.”

      “No, Mom…”

      “Shh,” her mother said, pressing a finger over Lindsey’s lips. “Listen.”

      The radio news caster reported Chet Oliver’s death. Her mother laughed again. “The old bastard. He deserved to die.”

      “What, Mom?”

      “Selling babies the way he did—the bastard!” Then her laughter turned into hysterical sobbing.

      Lindsey pulled her mother into her arms, more to restrain than to comfort. “Calm down, Mom.”

      “He stole babies, Lindsey…” Her body went limp, sagging heavily against Lindsey, as she fainted dead away.

      Chapter Three

      DYLAN WAITED in the wide corridor outside Retha Warner’s room at the sanatorium. Beside him, Lindsey leaned against the wall. She dragged the toe of her hiking boot back and forth over the squares of spark ling clean linoleum.

      “You don’t have to stay,” she repeated. “Dad’s here. He can give me a ride home, you know. I’ll be fine if you leave. You have a lot going on with this murder and all.”

      He stepped in front of her and