Page 182 of Buried Too Deep

“Antoine gave me a copy of the ledger,” Phin said to Cora. “Only the first payment was listed. Maybe your father was killed before he could enter the second payment.”

Or maybe he was double-crossed by his partner.

Cora nodded, a small frown creasing her forehead. “Maybe.” She returned her attention to the Caulfields. “Is there a reason you didn’t adopt through an agency? I’m not judging and I’m trying not to pry, but this is important. My father was an eraser. He made people disappear out of abusive homes, relocating them with new IDs. That he brought you a baby isn’t what we expected to hear.”

Timothy’s jaw tightened. “I was in my late forties when we started the adoption process. I’d had cancer when I was younger, but I’d been cancer-free for ten years by the time we got on the lists. I was disqualified because of my medical history and my age.”

“Timothy, no.” Beatrice lifted her chin. “That’s not true. We started trying to adopt when we were still young, but I’m bipolar and that was a major issue back then. I was disqualified, not Tim. We were desperate for a child and one day we met this man in a chat room. It was for infertile couples and I just…let it all out in the chat. A few weeks later, I got an email from John Robertson asking how badly we wanted a child. From there we filled out paperwork and he gave us the price. Like Tim said, we paid the money and they handed us an infant with all the paperwork we needed to prove she was legally ours.”

“She’s a sweet young woman,” Cora said. “Clearly loved.”

Beatrice relaxed a fraction. “Thank you. We’ve done our best.”

“She’s cognitively challenged,” Cora observed carefully. “When did you find out?”

Timothy looked at the closed door between the two rooms. “When she was about two. She hadn’t learned to talk and there were some mobility issues. We got her the help she needed.”

“Because she’s yours,” Cora said, and Timothy also relaxed a little bit.

“One hundred percent,” Timothy said fiercely. “I’d do anything to keep her safe.”

Phin wondered what “anything” included. Timothy Caulfield could have been the one to kill Jack that night, to cover up that they’d basically bought a child, but Phin doubted it. The Caulfields had come with them. Had trusted them, and the couple had far more to lose than Phin and the rest of them did.

“Tell us about this threat,” Val said. “Have you been threatened before? Or just today?”

“Just today,” Beatrice said. “We’ve lived in peace for twenty-three years, just raising Ashley. And then today a man came to our house and told us to run. That someone was coming to kill us.”

“Who was the man?” Phin asked, expecting a description of Patrick.

“He said his name was Alan Beauchamp,” Beatrice said.

Cora sucked in a shocked breath. “What?”

She wasn’t alone in her surprise. Burke muttered a curse, so Phin figured Antoine hadn’t had a chance to tell him what he’d learned about the alleged sexual assault, but Val exchanged a look with Phin and he saw they were on the same page.

Beauchamp had deliberately misled them when they’d interviewed Medford Hughes’s sister-in-law. Had deliberately set them on a fruitless search. He’d lied. Although the reason for his lie still wasn’t clear.

“Beauchamp, the minister?” Phin asked, just to be certain.

Beatrice shrugged. “We don’t know about a minister. He seemed young for that.”

Burke stepped forward from the wall where he’d been leaning. “How old was he? Because we recently met a man named Beauchamp and he was in his sixties.”

The couple exchanged another confused glance. “He was in his twenties,” Timothy said slowly, then sighed. “Tell them, Bea. Just tell them.”

Beatrice’s eyes filled with weary resignation. “I recognized him. Not by his name. By his features. His eyes. His dimple. He looked like my Ashley.”

Phin exhaled slowly, the puzzle a little clearer. “Oh. A relative.”

“A close one,” Beatrice confirmed. “I asked who he was and he said his name was Alan Beauchamp. Then he told me that he’d been sent to kill us, but that he couldn’t do it. That someone else would eventually be sent and we needed to run before that happened. Then he left.”

There was a long moment of stunned silence.

“You believed him,” Cora finally murmured.

“Yes,” Beatrice said. “We did.”

“Why?” Burke asked.

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