Hero's Return. B.J. Daniels

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.

      “But they had to know that when the remains were found it would bring you home,” Flint said. “You left town so soon after that night, they might not have known where you’d gone. Or they were so upset about what happened, the game was over—at least for a while.”

      “Well, they know where I am now, if that package is any indication.”

      Flint seemed to consider that. “The coroner, please,” he said when someone answered on the other end of the line. “Did anyone else know about the two of you?”

      “Madeline swore me to secrecy. I never told anyone.” His head was spinning. Madeline hadn’t survived the raging waters of the creek that night just as he’d feared. She’d apparently brought about her own death by misjudging the creek’s current. “When will we know for certain that it’s her?”

      “The coroner is having DNA run on the hair follicles. If we knew where she was really from, we could check dental records. You met her in Denton? Then there is a good chance she’s from somewhere around this area. Also, if she has family, they might come forward now.”

      “She said she had a father and brother. But she could have lied about that, too.”

      “Sonny?” Flint said into the phone. “I have a question for you.”

      Tucker hardly listened. He was staring at the box with the doll in it, trying to make sense of everything. It had been a scam. Even the baby, though? But if Flint was right and Madeline hadn’t come alone that night...

      His brother hung up. “Sonny says the remains of the woman he has at the morgue never had a child. He can tell from the pelvic bones.”

      “I shouldn’t be surprised,” Tucker said and rubbed a hand over his face, his brain fighting to reevaluate what he thought had happened that night. It had always been about money for Madeline. The plan must have been for her to disappear and whoever was working with her to blackmail him all these years. Only Madeline had hit something in the water and died. None of the rest had been real.

      “You must think I’m a complete fool,” he said.

      “You were young and vulnerable. She targeted you. If the remains are hers, then she was a lot older than she told you, and I’m betting that you weren’t her first—just her last. But her jumping into that creek...” Flint shook his head. “That was gutsy and dangerous. She must have known you were getting suspicious so she pulled out all the stops. But like I said, she couldn’t have done it alone. Someone had to be waiting downstream to fish her out of the water. Except she hit her head and died. Between that and you leaving town, it threw a monkey wrench into their plan.”

      “They had me right where they wanted me.”

      Flint nodded. “They would have bled you dry with blackmail. There are a lot of limbs hanging over that creek. It’s ironic, but it would appear she got cocky and wasn’t able to pull off her last deception. All this assuming the remains are hers.”

      “Still, if the creek hadn’t overflowed, she would have never turned up and I would have gone on