His smile turned into a slight laugh. “So no car, your lovely child . . . and Miss Gina’s beautiful inn.”
“And my friends. Friends I knew were there, but I had forgotten meant so much. True friends, the kind that will drop everything to help when you need them. You know what I mean?”
Mr. Crane had a quick moment of sorrow . . . or maybe it was memory that flashed over his face. “You returned home.”
Melanie glanced around the dining room. “Yeah.”
“A better life for your daughter.”
She nodded. “I couldn’t let Hope walk to school where I was living before. The crime rate in River Bend is nothing compared to the big city. Every town has issues, but this small town’s big news is when a house is littered with toilet paper.”
That had Mr. Crane laughing.
“You think I’m kidding.”
“No, I think you’re telling the truth.” He controlled his mirth and continued. “When did you first meet Patrick Lewis?”
Her laughter died instantly. “A couple of weeks ago. He was traveling through on business. At least, that’s what he told us.”
“By now you’re working at the inn, is that right?”
“Yeah. Hope and I share a room when the inn is full, or I take one across the hall when we’re slow.”
“So Patrick Lewis was a guest. Did you ever feel anything was off about him?”
She bit her lip, tried to think of something . . . anything. “No. It kills me that I didn’t catch something about him.”
“Just a businessman traveling through town.”
“Yeah. Left his room clean. Almost like he didn’t use it. Drank his coffee black.” A detail she was just now remembering. Another scratched at the surface of her memory that she attempted to remember. “Yolks. He didn’t like egg yolks. Asked that we scramble whites for him. I’d forgotten that.”
“So a tidy man who drank his coffee black and ate egg whites.”
“Yeah, then he’d pack his stuff and say he’d probably stop back down when he was on his way through again.”
“There aren’t a lot of places to stay in River Bend.”
Melanie shook her head. “A place north of town. But more of a motel kind of establishment.”
“Let’s talk about the visit preceding your daughter’s incident.”
“He was on his way through. His face felt familiar. He even reminded Hope not to run in the house. Not in a weird way, just an adult being an adult.”
“Nothing abnormal?”
“Nope. Nothing.”
“That all changed when you returned home one morning, after leaving your child in the trusted hands of Miss Gina, and found your daughter missing.”
She paused. The room was silent.
“Everything died in the moment I realized Hope wasn’t out playing.”
“So when Patrick Lewis left the inn, you didn’t think it was strange?”
Melanie shook her head. “I didn’t think about it at all. He was just a guest at the inn. He ran outside when he heard me screaming Hope’s name. At least that’s what Jo told me.”
“Jo would be Sheriff Ward?”
“Right.”
“But Patrick Lewis wasn’t simply a guest at the inn, was he?”
Melanie shook her head. “No. He lured my daughter out into the woods, telling her he was rescuing a puppy.” She stopped and stared at Mr. Crane. “A puppy.”
Mr. Crane leaned forward and placed a hand over hers. “Then what happened, Melanie?”
“We searched for hours. Jo . . . I mean Sheriff Ward called in K-9 units and they sniffed Hope out. We found her on the side of the cliff. Another foot and she could have . . .”
“Yet Patrick Lewis denied any involvement.”
“He said he saw her that morning for breakfast, and that was it.”
“He lied.”
Melanie moved her stare into Mr. Crane’s. “He left my daughter on the side of a cliff to die. Her body temperature was so low she wouldn’t have made it the night.”
“There wasn’t a puppy, was there?”
“There isn’t even a Patrick Lewis. The man lied about his name, gave us a fake ID, fake credit card. I don’t know exactly what kind of sicko he is, but this didn’t happen at random. He set us up for this.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“One more thing, Melanie. What would you say to Patrick Lewis if you had a chance?”
Her nose flared and her temples beat with the pace of her rapid heart. The image of him calling Hope across the street as she recalled it surfaced in Melanie’s head. “I used to think that only murderers were capable of murder. That only heroes were capable of walking through fire . . . then I became a mother. I would walk into a burning house to save my child. Walk over broken glass in bare feet to keep my child from one single cut.” Melanie narrowed her gaze. “I don’t think I would have much to say to Mr. Lewis.”
Mr. Crane paused and someone yelled cut.
“My fee just tripled.”
“Relax. I have everything under control.”
The voice on the other end of the line attempted to respond with ease. But he’d been around much longer than the man paying the bills and saw through it.
He released a slow, mechanical laugh, one that would intimidate a saint. “Control? You don’t know what control is.”
“You weren’t supposed to throw her down a cliff.”
“You didn’t tell me who she was.”