The Truth About Rachel by Deanna Sletten (free books to read .TXT) 📗

murders that happened in 1985, plus the murder of the little girl.”

Rachel stared at the thick folder. “You’ve been researching everything?”

He nodded. “That’s the only reason I came back here and bought this little newspaper. I thought I could move away and start fresh, but I just couldn’t let go of my mother’s murder. I have to learn the truth.”

“Are the police still actively investigating the cases?”

“No. As far as I can tell, Jeremy Mitchell wants these cases closed for good. So does Archie. Everyone thinks Keith was responsible for all the murders because when he went to jail, they stopped. I wanted to believe that too. But I can’t. Someone out there got away with the murders, and I intend to find out who.” Avery slid the folder toward Rachel.

Tentatively, she picked it up, careful not to spill the contents. She set it on her lap and opened it, then glanced through the papers. “Wow. You have so much.” She looked up at him. “Did you learn anything new in all these documents?”

Avery moved around his desk and sat on the front corner, near Rachel. “I read all the police reports on the murders and the one on the little girl. I have the transcripts from your brother’s trial. They don’t all add up. They have a bloody fingerprint from my mother’s murder scene, but no effort has ever been made to find a match. If they compared them to Keith’s, there’s no record of it. It seems to me that if his fingerprints had been found at any of those murder scenes, he would have been tried for them. Honestly, I’m not even sure he killed that little girl. All they had against him were scratches on his face and Jeremy’s testimony that he saw Keith follow her into the woods. That’s it.”

Rachel bit her lip as she looked through the papers. She knew where the scratches had come from, but she didn’t want to say anything to Avery. “Could you make copies of Keith’s trial transcripts for me? I’d like to read them.”

“Sure. I’ll copy everything in there for you. Maybe you’ll see something I haven’t.”

She handed him the folder and stood. “Thanks for sharing this. It’ll save me a lot of time. Should I come by tomorrow and pick it up?”

Avery stood also. “Why don’t we meet for dinner tonight, and I’ll bring it then?” He grinned.

Rachel couldn’t help but smile. His grin was boyish and made him look more handsome than he already was. “Where would you like to meet?”

“I’ll pick you up. Are you staying at your mother’s house?”

She shook her head. “That’s a whole other story. I’m at the motel on the edge of town. Room 117.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Avery walked her out through the offices again and to the front door. “Say?”

She turned. “Yes?”

“I know we just met, but please trust me on this. Watch out for Jeremy. He’s not to be trusted.”

“You’re the second person to tell me that today. Maybe you can elaborate at dinner. See you then.” She left and headed for her car, wondering who in this town she could trust.

Chapter Seven

Rachel went back to her motel room and opened her computer. She’d only been in Casita for two days and had learned so much already. Maybe she was learning more than someone wanted her to, and that was why she was being followed. She couldn’t wait to get the packet of information from Avery and dig through it. Maybe she could figure out how her father misidentified her body. She felt like that might be the key to finding out who the little girl was.

Rachel checked the work schedule she kept on her computer. She had two concepts to finish for book covers by next Monday. Maybe, if she worked a few hours a day, she could complete those on time and not miss out on those jobs. It worried her that she’d be here for a week or more trying to straighten out this mess. But she had to find answers before she left. If she gave up now, she’d wonder for the rest of her life who the dead child was. And whether or not her brother had been falsely imprisoned.

It was late afternoon, and she knew her daughter would be finished with classes for the day. Rachel dialed her number, and Jules answered immediately.

“Hey, Mom. What have you found out?” Jules asked.

The sound of her young voice made Rachel homesick. “You won’t believe the mess I walked into,” she told her. Rachel explained everything she’d learned so far and what she needed to learn before she could leave town.

“Wow! That’s crazy,” Jules said. “You have a chief of police you don’t trust who also testified against your brother. The son of a murdered woman. And a lady who’d served on the jury. Two days and you’ve already gotten in that deep.”

Rachel had omitted the fact that she thought she was being followed. She didn’t want Jules to worry. “Yeah, it’s a mess. But once I look over Avery’s papers, maybe I can unravel some of the facts. And until my DNA test comes back, I can’t look at the evidence, so I’m kind of stuck here for a while.”

“Do you really want to find the answers, Mom?” Jules asked. “What if you don’t like what you learn?”

Rachel had thought of that, too. “I need to know what happened. There’s a mother out there whose daughter never came home. We have to find out who that girl was.”

“I know that’s important,” Jules said. “But what about Aunt Julie? What if you find out she or Uncle Gordon did something terrible in order to take you? We already know that you weren’t legally adopted by them.”

Rachel sat still a moment, thinking. If Julie and Gordon had paid for a false birth certificate, what else would they have done to take her? “I guess if it comes out that they