Cut and Run(73)

“There are several factors that I can’t discuss right now.”

Mrs. Stapleton’s eyes watered. “To think you might have found Josie after all this time. I prayed for years that she’d show up healthy and whole, but as time passed, I lost hope.”

“Do you have anything that belonged to her?”

“I have a few pictures.” Mrs. Stapleton reached for the door, glanced at Faith as if she were trying to process all the information and emotion flooding her brain. “Does the medical examiner always make personal calls like this?”

“No. This is an unusual case.”

Mrs. Stapleton stared at her and then pushed open the door and motioned Faith inside. The one-level house had a great room with a vaulted ceiling, bedrooms on one side, and the kitchen on the other. Bright light streamed into the room onto a large collection of houseplants. An artist’s easel was propped against the wall along with some paintings.

“You’re an artist?” Faith asked.

“I do portraits. Not getting rich, but it’s a good business.” She crossed to an intricately carved box on the coffee table and opened it. Inside was a stack of older photos that curled at the edges and were slightly yellow. “I wish I had more of Josie. Mom never took many, and neither did her foster mother, who had five other kids to care for.”

Mrs. Stapleton gently handed the stack of six photos to Faith. Nervous energy burned through her body as she glanced at the first picture of two young towheaded girls standing by a Ferris wheel. She flipped to the next picture and found the two girls a couple of years older. Josie in these pictures was a far cry from the somber girl in the mug shot. Each image featured the girls a little older, until she reached the last picture. It was just Mrs. Stapleton.

“Can I snap pictures of these?” Faith asked. “We’ll need it for the files.”

“Sure.”

Faith carefully laid each one on the coffee table and took pictures with her phone. “Thank you, Mrs. Stapleton.” She handed back the photos, along with her business card. “I promise to keep in touch.”

Mrs. Stapleton followed Faith to the door. “Josie did tell me the job she’d been hired for was a nanny position.”

“Nanny?”

“Yes. She said something that was odd then. She said the man who hired her liked her looks a lot.”

“He hired Josie based on her looks.”

“Yeah. That sounded off to me, but Josie told me I worried too much. When she went missing, I relayed that comment to the police, but they never found any evidence that she’d interviewed for a job like that. I’ve always wondered if I had said something more to her, would she have been more careful and would she be here now.”

“Josie wouldn’t want you to believe that. No good will come of it.”

“The guilt is all I have left of her, I guess.”

“Did Josie say anything else about this guy?”

“She said he was handsome. Classy.”

“Did she say anything about the baby or the wife?”

“No.”

“Did she ever mention Russell McIntyre?”

“McIntyre. That’s your name.”

“He was my father. There is evidence that he might have represented your sister in court.”

“Your father knew my sister?”

“Her name appeared in his datebook multiple times,” Faith confessed.

“I don’t recall the name.” Mrs. Stapleton slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Was she hired to babysit you?”

“She vanished a year before I was born.” Faith cleared her throat. “When was the last time you saw Josie?”

“The day she was supposed to be meeting the child she’d be babysitting.”

Anything could have happened to the girl that day, but she had one way of narrowing the search. “I brought a quick DNA test. Would you mind taking a cheek swab?”

“Sure. I’ll take whatever test you have.”

Faith removed the packaged test and latex gloves. Carefully, she slid on the gloves before breaking open the test. “Just open your mouth so I can take a quick swab.”

Mrs. Stapleton opened her mouth and watched as Faith swabbed the inside of her cheek. When Faith was done, the woman ran her tongue over the area. “When will you know if the remains you found are linked to me?”

“Very soon.” She replaced the swab in the glass vial and sealed it in a plastic bag. If she could prove that Mrs. Stapleton was her aunt, then she had proven her connection to Josie. But it would take a mitochondrial DNA test to prove the bones in the ground were Josie. “Thank you, Mrs. Stapleton.”

“Call me Maggie.”

“Maggie. I’m Faith.”

Warm eyes studied her closely. “You look like Josie.”

Faith stood perfectly still as her heart thumped in her chest. She wanted to explain everything, but she was in the middle of a police investigation and couldn’t. “Do I?”

“The instant I saw you, I saw her.”

She promised herself as soon as she could she would tell Maggie the entire story. “I guess I have that kind of face.”

A half smile teased Maggie’s lips as she shook her head. “No, you don’t.”

Faith felt an odd kinship with this woman. “One way or the other, you’ll see me again.”