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and began to work at the golden dough on the floured board. The room felt warm
and smelled of apples. "And it's only spring."
The apartment was surprisingly nice inside with a feeling that the people
who lived here had no intention of ever moving again.
Amanda had never lived in a home like this. It tugged at something deep
inside her. She spotted a photograph on the top of a buffet and glanced over
at Jesse.
Jesse had seen the photo the moment he walked into the room. It was a young
girl. He wondered if it was Roxie Pickett or some other little girl, maybe a
sister.
"We're sorry to bother you " Jesse began.
"Oh, it's no bother at all." The elderly woman looked up then, meeting his
gaze. "You say you're a friend of the family?"
He'd hoped, he realized, that she would recognize him. She didn't seem to.
"Possibly even a distant relative. That's why we're here. To find out."
Molly seemed fine with that. "Everyone just calls me Molly," she said.
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"Nice to have a little company. Hardly ever see anyone. I'm sorry I don't have
the pie done or I would offer you a piece."
"That isn't necessary," Jesse managed to say. "But it is a nice offer."
For a moment, he watched her work the crust, rolling it with practiced
expertise until it was thin and smooth, the edges round. He had so many
questions, he didn't know where to begin.
"I need to ask you about your side of the family," he said.
She smiled. "I'll tell you what I can."
He took a breath. "You're married to Frank Pickett, right?" ,
She nodded. "Have been for more than forty years," she said proudly.
"And your children?" he asked and immediately regretted it.
Her face clouded over for a moment, then cleared. "Had one daughter, but
she died. Just had the one."
"And her name was Roxie?"
Molly looked up and appeared surprised. "That's right. Roxanna Lynn but
everyone called her Roxie."
Jesse felt his heart pounding. "I suppose you have some pictures of her?"
Molly studied him as she wiped her hands again on her apron. "You want to
see her?"
"Very much so," he said.
She seemed to hesitate, but only for a moment. "I have a photo of her on
the buffet, but some more recent ones are in here." Jesse and Amanda followed
the woman into a bedroom. "This was taken not long before " she looked up
" when she was sixteen."
Jesse took the photograph in the tarnished frame and felt his heart hammer
against his ribs. His mother. She took his breath way. Beautiful dark eyes,
long dark hair. The face of an angel. Tears filled his eyes.
Noticing his reaction, Molly took the framed photo from him. "Will you tell
me what this is about?" she asked, her voice sounding weak, scared.
His throat seemed to close. All he could do was stare at the other
photographs on the wall. Many of Roxie. One when she was about eleven,
standing holding up a fish for the camera, her eyes bright, a smile on her
face.
Amanda saved him. "Mrs. Pickett "
"Molly."
"Molly, your daughter had a baby just before she died," Amanda said.
Molly's gaze swung to Amanda's, but she said nothing.
"We need to know about the baby," Amanda said.
"There is nothing to tell," Molly said. "The baby died."
Fishing. Jesse realized most all of the photographs on the wall were of
fish. Roxie at varying ages. Alone and with a man, a man who looked like her.
Roxie's father. Frank Pickett. Jesse stepped closer to study the man in the
snapshot, asking himself what he'd come here for. He knew now who his birth
parents had been. Even his grandfather, he thought studying the picture.
Jesse only half listened to Amanda trying to talk to Molly about the baby
as he dragged his gaze from the man's face to the cabin behind him and the
weathered sign over the cabin door. He was trying to read the words, when
something else drew his attention. Off to his right was a photograph of Roxie
in her teens. Around her neck she wore a gold chain. The unusual heart dangled
from the end.
"We know the baby didn't die," he heard Amanda say and turned his attention
back to the room and the elderly woman wringing her hands in her apron.
Molly dropped into a chair. "You're wrong. The baby was born dead." She
began to cry. "Frank was there. He said it was God's will, a baby conceived in
sin, by a man like that."
"A man like that? You knew the father then? The man she was dating?"
Molly shook her head looking confused. "Roxie was only sixteen. She wasn't
allowed to date. She met him secretly. Frank saw the heart around her neck "
She began to cry again. "He found out who'd had the heart made, then he knew
who the father was, the father of this child born before its time."
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"The baby came early?" Amanda asked in surprise. "Then the baby was born
here in the house?"
Molly shook her head. "At Roxie's friend's next door." She got to her feet.
"I have to finish dinner. My husband will be home from fishing soon. None of
this matters anymore."
"I'm that baby," Jesse said, finally finding the words.
Molly swung around to face him, her eyes wide. Slowly she lowered herself
into a chair again. "That isn't possible."
"I'm afraid it is," he said. Couldn't she see her daughter in him?
Something around the eyes? He reached into his pocket and withdrew the heart.
He held it out to her.
Molly gasped and put her hands over her mouth, her eyes huge above her
fingers.
"The night he was born, someone wrapped him in a blanket and put him in a
cardboard box."
Amanda said, kneeling before the woman. "Roxie had just enough time to
write a note and put it and the heart into the baby blanket. Then someone took
the child away and left him in the box beside a dirt road north of here near
Red River. Only, he was found before he could die."
Molly seemed to be gasping for breath. "Please go," she whimpered. "I don't
want you upsetting my husband with all this."
"Let's go," Jesse said and took Amanda's arm to help her to her feet. "She
doesn't want to hear this. And it doesn't matter who left me there. I found
out what I needed to know."
"But Jesse "
"Please," he said meeting Amanda's gaze. "Let's just get out of here."
She nodded, tears in her eyes. For a woman who didn't care about justice,
she'd certainly tried hard to at least get at the truth for him.
He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her and thank her and make love
to her again. And again. She was in his system now and he wondered how he
could ever get her out. If he could bear to even try.
As he and Amanda came out of the apartment, Jesse felt numb. He'd gotten
what he'd come for. Almost. He still didn't know who had left him beside the
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