“No, he didn’t,” Mike said. “Scalpini’s men nearly shot his legs off, but he lived. The day after the massacre, he called my grandfather in Colorado, and Gramps sent a plane for him, then saw to it that the world thought Michael Ransome was dead.”
After a long, thoughtful moment in which Abby seemed to be digesting what Mike had said, she narrowed her eyes at him. “If your grandfather could do that, he must have some money—and power.”
“Yes, ma’am, he does.”
“And what about you? Can you support this lovely child?”
“Yes, ma’am, I can. Would you please tell me about my uncle Mike?”
Abby, still holding Samantha’s hand, leaned back against the clean, crisp, sterile pillows. “He was a handsome man. Handsome Ransome all the girls called him.”
“As handsome as Mike?” Samantha asked, then lowered her eyes, embarrassed at blurting out her first thought. “I mean…”
Abby smiled. “No, dear, not quite as handsome as your young man, but Michael Ransome was wonderful in his own way.”
“Where did he come from?” Mike asked, utterly serious. “Uncle Mike would never tell anyone about his past.”
“He was an orphan. No family. All he had were his looks and the ability to dance as though he were floating on air.” She paused, then almost whispered. “And he had the ability to make women love him.”
“Did you love him?” Samantha asked.
“Of course. We all did.” It didn’t take anyone with ESP to know that Abby was being evasive, as though she didn’t want to tell anything about herself.
“Did Maxie love him?” Mike asked.
Abby fixed him with a sharp, piercing look, as though she were trying to read his mind. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Maxie loved him very much.”
Taking her purse from the chair beside the bed, Samantha withdrew a photo from inside, a photo that was yellow with age and had one corner burned away. She handed the photo to Abby. “Is this Michael Ransome?”
When he saw the photo, Mike nearly jumped out of his skin in surprise as he snatched it from Sam’s hands before Abby could get a good look at it. The photo was one of those studio portraits of a handsome man, a very suave-looking man wearing a tuxedo, a cigarette in his hand. Mike had only known his uncle when he was older, but he knew that the man in the picture was the man he’d loved so much. “Where did you get this?” he
demanded of Samantha.
She didn’t like his tone that said she should have shown him the photo before presenting it to someone else. “For your information, my father left me a box full of my grandmother’s things and this was in it. Dad stuck a note on it saying that when he was a little boy his mother had burned a bunch of things and he’d managed to save this from the pile.”
“Why didn’t you show it to me before?”
“For the same reason that you keep secrets from me,” she snapped, glaring at him. “Every day you reveal something else that you’ve kept from me so why shouldn’t I keep a few things from you?”
“Because—” Mike stopped, his face turning red with embarrassment when he heard Abby begin to laugh.
“He’s not your young man?” Abby asked, teasing, as she looked from one to the other.
Samantha wasn’t embarrassed in the least. “He thinks I’m four years old and that he’s my guardian and my protector. He throws fits if I so much as go out shopping by myself.”
Before Abby could say a word, Mike said softly, “One of Doc’s men tried to kill her.”
That statement, that one statement that told so much, wiped the smile from Abby’s face. For a moment she lay back on the pillow and did nothing but concentrate on trying to breathe. The needle on the machine fluctuated wildly, moving from one side of the dial to the other then back again. After a while, a time during which Samantha stroked her hand and held onto her firmly, Abby lifted her head again. “Yes, that’s Michael Ransome,” she said softly, her voice weak. She took a few breaths and tried to sound cheerful. “And now I’m glad I’ve been able to solve the mystery for you. Maxie died over a year ago. I have your mailing address, young man, and I’ll send you the letter I received from the nursing home saying Maxie died.” Her tone was a dismissal, but neither Sam nor Mike acted as though they understood.
“What was her real name?” Samantha asked.
“Maxine Bennett,” Abby shot out, frowning.
“I wish I could have met her,” Samantha said, stroking Abby’s hand, her eyes with a faraway look in them. “I heard so much from Granddad Cal about her and from my father.”
“Cal,” Abby said softly, her frown disappearing and a slight relaxed, peaceful smile taking its place. “Maxie spoke of him. Was he all right after Maxie left or did he die in a place like this?”
“No,” Samantha said brightly, happily. “He stayed with us, with Dad and me, the last two years of his life. I was going to school so we had to hire a nurse/housekeeper for him.”