Читать книгу Broken - Debra Webb - Страница 12

1:00 p.m.

It was her.

Linc braced his hands on the bathroom wall and peered into the mirror. It was Lori.

Her face was different, the nose mainly, like Mort had said. But Linc had watched her move. Every move. The way her hands stroked the plaster. The way she arched her back. It was her.

The eyes…Lori’s eyes. Pale brown, almost gold. She wore her shiny brown hair the same. Long, silky. He’d know that mussed ponytail anywhere. While they’d talked he had studied her face. The cheekbones were so much like Lori’s, with only the subtlest changes. The brow area was different, but the lips were exactly the same.

He was certain it was her. But she hadn’t recognized him.

His gut clenched. He’d watched for the faintest flare of recognition in her eyes. Nothing. But when their hands had touched, her pupils had flared. That alone couldn’t be attributed to recognition. He was a stranger. For all he knew this Mia Grant might respond to all strangers, especially males, in that manner. According to one of the guides at the Dowe home where she’d been working, guys were wasting their time setting their sites on Mia. She was untouchable. Of course, the guide was young, twenty-one or twenty-two maybe. Lori—Mia—had turned thirty this year, though she looked closer to twenty and always had. The youthful image had worked to her advantage in undercover work.

Doubt nagged him and Linc pushed it away. It was her.

How was that possible? Everyone on that damned yacht had died except Linc and one of Juan Marcos’s thugs. No one else had survived. They had searched for survivors and bodies for days. Only a few who’d been on board had been found. They had been so deep at sea it was impossible to even hope to find them all.

When the recovery efforts were halted, Linc had lain in the hospital counting the hours and days until he was released. Then, with the help of a private team, he’d searched the water for days more. He’d gone to every hospital and clinic in a hundred-mile radius. Nothing. Not a single other survivor had been treated in the area.

Eventually he’d given up.

Linc stared at his weary reflection. Maybe he’d lost his mind. No. If that were the case, then Mort was crazy, too. Mort was sure this woman was Lori.

But Mia didn’t remember Linc.

Amnesia? Chances were she had sustained a head injury in the accident. If the amnesia had been merely traumatic or only partial, she’d be past that now. Was it possible that all she needed was the right mental nudges? He needed to talk to a specialist. He had no idea what the ramifications of a memory loss so profound and long-lasting could be.

The other screaming question was how she had gotten here.

This was nuts.

Linc wrenched the faucet handles, letting the water flow from the tap. He bent down and washed his face. Think! How can this be?

He grabbed a towel and scrubbed it over his face. If she would take the job he’d offered her, he could buy some time to figure this out. For the past seven years he hadn’t given one damn about material possessions. His paychecks had gone into the bank. He’d lived on bourbon and the occasional sandwich. Buying the Reid house wouldn’t be a hardship. Staying here for as long as necessary wouldn’t be, either.

His cell vibrated. He snagged it by two fingers and slid it from his front pocket. The number on the screen told him it was the boss. “Reece.”

“Have you made contact?” Keaton asked.

Slade Keaton ran a tight ship at the Equalizers. He cared that his investigators were good to go professionally as well as personally. But he never stepped over the line. In recent weeks, though, his personal involvement with his staff had changed considerably. When Linc had first come on board, Keaton had been all but anonymous.

“I spoke to her briefly.” Linc forked the fingers of his free hand through his hair as he moved to the bed and plopped down. “It’s her.” The words echoed over and over in his brain.

“The dental records were faxed to my office. I’m loading them into a PDF. I’ll send them to you shortly.”

“Thanks.” Not that he had a clue how he would accomplish the comparison just yet.

“You’re certain there are no living family members?”

“None. Both her parents passed away when she was in college, and she’s an only child.” Linc wished like hell he could go the DNA route, but there was no comparison sample. Fingerprints would have been the simplest method, but the gas leak explosion at the L.A. Hall of Records a year after the accident that had taken her life—or so he’d thought—had decimated all official files, including the DMV files. The obliterated files hadn’t meant anything at the time, but now he couldn’t help wondering if the two incidents had been related.

“No prints, no DNA.” Keaton made a sound that reflected his own skepticism. “Sounds almost like a well-thought-out plan.”

Anger stirred in Linc. “She wouldn’t have done that.” No way in hell Lori would have set up her own death to get away from her life…from Linc.

“That wasn’t an accusation,” Keaton assured him. “Only a statement of fact.”

Linc rubbed his weary eyes. His chest tightened to the point of restricting any possibility of a breath. “Point taken.”

How the hell was he going to do this?

There was no quick and easy method. He needed time and access.

“If you require any other of my available resources—”

“I’ll call.” Linc hesitated. “Look, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “This is…crazy.”

“Maybe,” Keaton agreed, “but there’s only one way to find out.”

That was the bottom line. “If I were working this as a case, I’d be looking into any Marcos connections in the area.” Even though Juan Marcos was dead. Like Lori. “If this is my wife, Marcos had something to do with it.” No damned question. Marcos had been the biggest drug lord on the West Coast. Many had tried, but no one had been able to get close to him, much less bring him down, until Linc and Lori infiltrated his organization.

“I’m on it,” Keaton guaranteed. “I have the details you provided as well as headlines I pulled up on the Net. I’ll reach out to my contacts.”

Linc cleared his throat of the emotion clogged there. “Appreciate it.”

He closed his cell and tossed it onto the bed. He’d been here thirty-some-odd hours and he had already hit a brick wall. Every part of him believed this woman was Lori. Yet he had no way to prove it.

He closed his eyes and allowed the memories to invade his mind. Lori had come to the LAPD straight from college. Linc had just made detective. They were married within three months. A year later she was on the narco team with him. They’d been assigned to the Marcos operation because they fit the necessary profile—young and attractive. Marcos surrounded himself with youth and beauty. It was the only way into his exclusive, lethal club.

Just nine weeks later Linc and Lori had moved into the inner sanctum. Many weeks later, a celebration on the Marcos yacht was the prelude to his takedown. All his major players were to be there. But a competitor had seized the opportunity to take out all the real competition in one fell swoop.

It had worked.

Agony swelled inside Linc. He’d lost her and nothing else had mattered since.

He reached for his phone. Might as well walk around town and see what he could dig up in the way of info on Mia Grant. Hanging around the town’s only hotel, an ancient house that had been converted into a bed-and-breakfast, would have him climbing the walls.

He stuffed his shirt back into his jeans and left. Downstairs the lady who’d registered him as a guest looked up from the paperback book she was reading and smiled. She hadn’t been at her desk when he’d returned half an hour ago.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Reece. Did you have lunch? I can warm you up a plate. Our guests are welcome to all meals prepared.”

“Thanks, but I’m on my way out.” He flashed her a halfhearted smile.

“I hear you’re going to buy the Reid house.”

The small-town grapevine was obviously alive and well. “I’m considering it.” He continued toward the door. Adding to the rumor mill wasn’t on his agenda. Slowing for additional conversation would lead to questions he didn’t want to answer.

“Mia will make that place look like the day it was built.” Her face gleamed with pride. “She’s just amazing.”

Linc changed course and headed for the desk where the chatty lady sat. Either she was guessing or Mia had already discussed taking the job with someone on the gossip loop. “Are her prices reasonable?” Seemed like a safe lead-in.

“Never heard nobody complain.” She pursed her lips and lifted her chin triumphantly.

“Mrs. Crist, you sound like a big fan of Miss Grant’s. I’m not sure you’re objective.” Mrs. Crist, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast, was seventy if she was a day, but her eyes were as keen as a seventeen-year-old’s.

“I’m a fan rightly enough,” she confessed. “But the girl’s got a magic touch with plaster. That’s the God’s truth.”

“Do she and her husband work together?”

Mrs. Crist puckered her face with a combination of humor and confusion. “Where in the world did you hear she had a husband?” Her gaze narrowed. “You been talking to that Teddy Stewart down at the Gas and Go? That young fella is just trying to ward off any suitors. Mia’s not married. She doesn’t even have a boyfriend. She’s too busy for such.” She raised her eyebrows at Linc. “Or so she says.”

Linc chuckled. “If we come to an agreeable price, I plan to keep her busy for a while.”

Crist grinned. “I see she’s already turned your head.”

His tone as he’d made the statement reverberated in his ears, then kicked him square between the eyes. He’d sounded exactly like a man interested in more than a woman’s professional skills. Not a good thing. He needed time with Mia Grant, not to scare her off. He needed to be sure.

“Only for her talent with plaster.” He gave the lady a nod and headed for the door before he stuck his foot any deeper down his throat.

Outside he rounded the corner of the Victorian bed-and-breakfast and reached for his keys. He’d considered using an alias while he was here, but he wanted Mia to know his name. To hear it. To say it.

Linc wanted whoever had brought her here to know he had arrived. He was here for his wife.

His cell vibrated.

He hit the remote and unlocked the SUV as he tugged the phone from his pocket.

Unknown number with a Tennessee area code. Tension rushed through his veins, escalating his already too-fast respiration. “Reece.”

“Mr. Reece, this is Mia Grant.”

“You found time in your schedule?” He held his breath in anticipation of her answer.

“Yes.”

The air seeped from his lungs.

“I’d like to meet at the house and see what you have in mind.”

The sound of her voice made his knees rubbery. “Name the time.” Damn. They needed to include the real estate agent. He’d have to call her immediately. The sooner he could see this Mia Grant again the sooner he would find the answers he needed.

“I’ll pick up the key from Chandra and meet you there in fifteen minutes,” she said.

Even better. “I’ll be there.”

She said goodbye and ended the call.

Linc leaned against his SUV and closed his eyes. Her voice…Lori’s voice.

His wife was alive.