could find a street here with an extra lane to change to."
Farley Gates lumbered up to their car door.
"What's the problem, Gates?"
"Need to see your driver's license."
Jake reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, removed the license and handed it to the police chief.
Gates copied information onto a ticket.
"What are you doing?" Jake demanded. "I wasn't speeding and you don't have any red lights for me to run."
"Got five, but that's not the problem. You got a busted out head light."
"The hell you say! Look!" He flung his arm toward the windshield. "You can see both beams from here."
Gates walked to the front of the car, took out his club and swung it downward. Rebecca gasped in shock as the sound of breaking glass filled the quiet summer night. He walked back to the window and handed Jake a ticket. "Like I said, you got a busted head light."
Gates returned to his car and drove away.
"What's going on?" Rebecca asked. "Why did he do that?"
Jake shook his head and continued to stare out the windshield until the tail lights disappeared.
Finally he turned to Rebecca. "I've got a real strong hunch Janelle Griffin is not your mother. Otherwise, he wouldn't still be trying to get rid of us."
Comprehension finally penetrated Rebecca's shock, followed by righteous anger and a new determination. "I'm not going back to Dallas."
"I had a hunch you'd say that, too."
He didn't sound upset, but he didn't sound glad either.
It didn't matter. No more than it mattered that her mother didn't want to be found. At the cemetery she'd given up her mother, had accepted that she would never be special to anyone, that she had no identity. Dealing with the pain only to find it was a false alarm had hardened something inside her. She would find her mother, even though the woman might slam the door in her face, she'd find her and meet her and see the color of her eyes, the shape of her chin, the slant of her nose, then turn and walk away from her.
And then she'd be in control of her life. Then she'd be able to take her hard-won identity and go forward to that future Doris Jordan had urged on her.
Chapter 9
October 20, 1979, Edgewater, Texas
Mary sat curled on the sofa with a book open in her lap. She'd just read the same page three times and still had no idea what it said.
The time was five minutes after eleven p.m. Ben should be home soon. This month he was on the evening shift, 3:00 to 11:00, and she hated the long hours of darkness until he returned.
She hadn't always felt like this. She'd lived in Edgewater all her life. Nobody locked their doors. Nobody worried.
Except now she did. She compulsively locked her doors and windows and jumped at every noise, especially every time the phone rang.
Of course, some of that concern wasn't new. Every policeman's wife lived with the fear of the phone call telling her that her husband had been injured...or worse.
Not that such things happened in Edgewater where calls to the police department were usually teenagers having a loud party or Jimmy Drake drunk in public again.
Still her fears ran rampant, especially after the sun went down.
Pregnancy. That's all it was. Hormones. The changes her body was going through making her more emotional, bringing back all the old fears she'd thought were behind her, fears of losing those she loved the way she'd lost her parents. And now, added to that old fear was apprehension for the fragile new life growing inside her that she already loved more powerfully than she could ever have imagined.
Resolutely she turned away from the other explanation for her fears, from the black place in her memory. Like the black holes in outer space, it would suck her in, steal the sunshine from her life, whirl her someplace far away where only pain existed.
She wouldn't look at it. It was in the past and she and Ben and their baby had a whole world of future before them.
The past was dead. It couldn't hurt her.
As long as she kept the doors
Farley Gates lumbered up to their car door.
"What's the problem, Gates?"
"Need to see your driver's license."
Jake reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, removed the license and handed it to the police chief.
Gates copied information onto a ticket.
"What are you doing?" Jake demanded. "I wasn't speeding and you don't have any red lights for me to run."
"Got five, but that's not the problem. You got a busted out head light."
"The hell you say! Look!" He flung his arm toward the windshield. "You can see both beams from here."
Gates walked to the front of the car, took out his club and swung it downward. Rebecca gasped in shock as the sound of breaking glass filled the quiet summer night. He walked back to the window and handed Jake a ticket. "Like I said, you got a busted head light."
Gates returned to his car and drove away.
"What's going on?" Rebecca asked. "Why did he do that?"
Jake shook his head and continued to stare out the windshield until the tail lights disappeared.
Finally he turned to Rebecca. "I've got a real strong hunch Janelle Griffin is not your mother. Otherwise, he wouldn't still be trying to get rid of us."
Comprehension finally penetrated Rebecca's shock, followed by righteous anger and a new determination. "I'm not going back to Dallas."
"I had a hunch you'd say that, too."
He didn't sound upset, but he didn't sound glad either.
It didn't matter. No more than it mattered that her mother didn't want to be found. At the cemetery she'd given up her mother, had accepted that she would never be special to anyone, that she had no identity. Dealing with the pain only to find it was a false alarm had hardened something inside her. She would find her mother, even though the woman might slam the door in her face, she'd find her and meet her and see the color of her eyes, the shape of her chin, the slant of her nose, then turn and walk away from her.
And then she'd be in control of her life. Then she'd be able to take her hard-won identity and go forward to that future Doris Jordan had urged on her.
Chapter 9
October 20, 1979, Edgewater, Texas
Mary sat curled on the sofa with a book open in her lap. She'd just read the same page three times and still had no idea what it said.
The time was five minutes after eleven p.m. Ben should be home soon. This month he was on the evening shift, 3:00 to 11:00, and she hated the long hours of darkness until he returned.
She hadn't always felt like this. She'd lived in Edgewater all her life. Nobody locked their doors. Nobody worried.
Except now she did. She compulsively locked her doors and windows and jumped at every noise, especially every time the phone rang.
Of course, some of that concern wasn't new. Every policeman's wife lived with the fear of the phone call telling her that her husband had been injured...or worse.
Not that such things happened in Edgewater where calls to the police department were usually teenagers having a loud party or Jimmy Drake drunk in public again.
Still her fears ran rampant, especially after the sun went down.
Pregnancy. That's all it was. Hormones. The changes her body was going through making her more emotional, bringing back all the old fears she'd thought were behind her, fears of losing those she loved the way she'd lost her parents. And now, added to that old fear was apprehension for the fragile new life growing inside her that she already loved more powerfully than she could ever have imagined.
Resolutely she turned away from the other explanation for her fears, from the black place in her memory. Like the black holes in outer space, it would suck her in, steal the sunshine from her life, whirl her someplace far away where only pain existed.
She wouldn't look at it. It was in the past and she and Ben and their baby had a whole world of future before them.
The past was dead. It couldn't hurt her.
As long as she kept the doors
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