by Cate Beauman
“Wait.” He took her hand before she could twist the doorknob and escape.
She didn’t want to do this either—say goodbye. “I need to go.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “So how do we end this?”
“I say best of luck to you in your future. I hope you have an incredible life, and I mean every word.” She swallowed, sighed, and closed her eyes, knowing he deserved more than that. She looked at him again, staring into his gorgeous eyes. “I truly wish you nothing but happiness. Goodbye, Chase.” She turned and let herself inside, closing the door before he could say something that would make this harder than it already was, and locked up.
She glanced over her shoulder through the windowpane, trying to ignore the deep ache in her chest, seeing that he was gone. He couldn’t stay, so she needed him to go on her terms. They had no future. Any glimmers of hope she’d secretly tucked away in her heart would finally have a chance to heal. Chase wasn’t her one true love as she’d let herself believe for too long. Even at twenty-eight, she’d held herself back from others, always holding on to possibilities and what-ifs, but there were no possibilities or what-ifs. As much as she couldn’t fathom the idea, it was time to move on from a chapter in her life that ended a decade ago.
She pulled her feet from her boots and headed for the cupboard, craving a soothing cup of tea. Her insides were raw and her heart broken, but the turmoil was over. This horrible, confusing chapter was now closed. She met with Neve Porter, and she walked away from Chase. Now her life could get back to normal, but somehow her “normal” would never be quite the same.
Determined to start anew, she filled her mug and popped the pale green crockery in the microwave. She lifted a teabag from the canister and caught a glimpse of her reflection in her chrome appliance—an image that could just as easily belong to Neve.
Groaning, she leaned her elbows against the countertop and rested her face in her hands as lead weights settled heavily in her belly. How was it possible to look so much like another person and not be related? Mom always told her she looked just like her father…
She stood straight again with a new wave of hope. “My father.” She needed to find him. With her tea forgotten, she ran upstairs and sat on the couch in front of her laptop. Dale Abbot was out there. She just had to track him down. He had lived in Tampa twenty-nine years ago when he swept Mom off her feet—a bad-boy biker a couple years older who worked as a mechanic at a biker shop. That’s all she knew, but a name and a last known location were a good place to start.
She typed Dale Abbot, Tampa Florida into FindPeople.com and blinked at the twenty-five hits that popped up. “Yikes,” she muttered, suddenly remembering how daunting the task of searching for her father had been when she tried as a teenager. But she was older now and had more resources. Finding Dale Abbot was a must. Once she located her long-lost father, all of her doubts would vanish and her problems would finally go away.
Chapter Sixteen
Chase swallowed the last drops of another cup of coffee as he clicked through the files Special Agent Dominic Tillis had sent over earlier that morning. He studied The Little Mermaid bed sheets in one of the crime scene photos and a ransom note with multi-colored letters cut from a magazine, demanding a million dollars for the safe return of Jay and Neve Porter’s three-year-old daughter. He scanned mention of a blanket that vanished with the child among the police reports, but there was little evidence collected and no leads to follow. His e-mail dinged and he switched screens, accessing the images he’d been waiting for from the forensic artist. “Jesus Christ.” He blinked, startled by the photograph filling his screen. After several hours on the phone and a few pulled strings, he’d gotten what he wanted—a current age progression of Alyson Porter and all of the documents from her kidnapping twenty-five years ago.
He stared at Ally Porter, aged to twenty-eight years and eight months, a woman who could easily be Julie. Jules and Neve shared an uncanny resemblance with a few decades between them, but this picture here was nearly identical to his temporary neighbor. Despite the mounting evidence and Neve Porter’s explanations, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that Julie may very well have been abducted as a child.
If this was true, as it appeared it might be, that would mean Miranda Keller had played a part in the abduction of a preschool-aged girl or at least she had known she was caring for a child that didn’t belong to her. Had Gram and Gramps known too? Sighing, he rubbed at the back of his neck. How was he going to tell Julie? How could he give her this kind of news, rip her life apart, and fly back to California?
He glanced at the clock, noticed that Julie’s kitchen light had flipped on sometime in the last half hour, and stood. He needed to catch her before she got ready for her day, before her classes began, just in case Neve came back. He took the stairs in twos and hurried into his yet-to-be-painted room, pulled on a long-sleeve thermal and a pair of jeans, and rushed back down to the living room, slipping his feet into his sneakers. He snagged his laptop off the counter and walked to Julie’s back door, peeking in the empty kitchen. “Jules.” He knocked, getting no response and took the liberty to use the key hiding under the bunny planter. He stepped into the homey warmth, glancing toward the ceiling, when he heard a noise above his head. “Jules?” he called, going upstairs.
She yanked open the bathroom door, frowning, wrapped in a towel with her hair twisted on top of her head, turban style. “What are you doing in here?”
“We need to talk.”
“You said you were going to leave me alone.”
“Yeah, I did, but I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You just walk back next door and go inside.” Scoffing, she turned and bee-lined it to her room.
He followed, doing his best to ignore the water droplets she’d missed on her shoulders and how sinful she smelled. “Jules, put on some clothes so we can talk.”
She stared at him with her hands on her hips, clearly not amused, and huffed out a breath. “Turn around.”
He did, waiting while she opened drawers and closed them.
“Okay.”
He turned around, clenching his jaw as his gaze traveled over smooth olive skin, tiny gray shorts, a black exercise bra, and her wet hair free from the towel. Was she trying to kill him? “I thought you were getting dressed.”
She smirked. “Funny. I have a hot yoga class in an hour.”
He didn’t have much time. “I need to show you something.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her across the hall to her living room.
“What’s going on?”
“Jules.” He sat, tugging her down on the cushion next to him, keeping her hand tucked in his. “Jules, I spent most of the night on the phone doing some digging.”
Her frown returned as she yanked away. “I told you not to.”
“I did anyway. I contacted Special Agent Tillis, the lead investigator on the Alyson Porter disappearance.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Jules…” He didn’t know how to tell her what she needed to hear. “Jules, yes, I did.” He opened his laptop and his screen illuminated with Alyson Porter’s image.
She swallowed. “What is that? Where did you get that?”
“It’s an age progression photo. I worked with a forensic artist, Mo, a couple years ago overseas. I called him after we got home and asked him to do me a favor. Mo took a look at the pictures of Alyson at three and the photos of Neve and Jay Porter. He was able to create an age progression of what Alyson Porter would look like at age twenty-eight.”
She stared at it, blinking as if in a trance as her breathing grew more unsteady. “No,” she said quietly and got to her feet. “This is a mistake.”
He moved to where she stood rigid, staring out the window. “I don’t think it is.”
She whirled. “How can you say that?”
“Because the evidence is clear.”
“Don’t give me that cop crap, Chase. If I had been kidnapped, I would know. I wou
ld remember.” She pressed her lips together, shaking her head. “I have no memories of Neve Porter,” she said with less conviction.
He narrowed his eyes. “But you have memories of something.”
“Of Florida. When my mother and I used to live in Florida.”
“I have the rest of the information. I had Agent Tillis forward everything over to me. We can look through it together.”
“I don’t need to.” She shook her head and walked the few short steps to the albums on her bookshelf, sat on the couch, and opened to the pictures of them as little kids. “This is me.” Her breath shuddered in and out as she traced the picture of herself with boy-cut hair. “I’m right here.”
“Jules.” He knelt down in front of her.
“This is me,” she whispered, her voice tinged with desperation.
He pulled the book from her hands and set it on the floor as tears overflowed.
“I’m Julie Keller.”
“Okay, Jules.” He wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head on his shoulder.
She held on tight, struggling to shore herself back up. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything.” He eased back far enough to look her in the eye. “You don’t have to do anything at all, especially until you’ve given yourself a little time to let it all sink in.”
“I just want everything to be normal. I want to go downstairs, eat my breakfast, and get ready for my class.”
“So do it.”
“I keep seeing flashes.” Another tear fell. “I keep seeing images—memories, I think, but I don’t remember them at all.” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not really, but sort of.”
She let loose a watery chuckle. “This isn’t funny.” She swallowed, and her hint of a smile disappeared. “What if—what if—” she pointed to the screen.
“You’ll get through it.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ll help however I can. I still have a lot of connections—new connections even.” He pulled a card from his back pocket. “Neve gave this to me. It’s yours to do with as you want.”
She reached out with a trembling hand and took it.
“Take it slow, Jules—a moment at a time.” He slid his thumbs over her damp cheeks.
She nodded. “I’m—I’m looking for my father.” She sniffled. “Remember how Mom always said I looked just like him?”
“I do.”
“If I can find him, I know all of this will make sense. I have her face—Alyson’s, Neve’s—but there has to be another explanation. My mother’s not a kidnapper. She wouldn’t have taken me away from another family.”
Miranda being a child abductor didn’t add up for him either, but Alyson Porter was more than likely staring back at him. “Let me find him for you.”
She shook her head. “We said goodbye.”
“You said goodbye. I didn’t get a chance to say anything at all before you closed the door in my face.” But that mattered little at the moment. He took her hand. “Let me help you, Jules.”
“I was going to hire a private investigator.”
“Why would you pay a stranger when I’m right here?”
“They’re pretty pricy.”
“They can be. Let me do it. Let me help,” he repeated, wanting to give her the answers. He couldn’t be her lover or her friend, but he could give her this.
“I don’t think I have much of a choice.”
He raised his eyebrow with the sting of her words. “A last resort. Flattery will get you everywhere.”
She gave him a watery smile. “That’s not what I mean.”
It was exactly what she meant, but they would have to move past it. “Let’s concentrate on finding your father.”
She nodded.
He sat on the cushion next to her. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you know.”
“Not a whole lot. Not as much as I should.”
“We’ll take what you have and go from there.”
“Okay.” She settled her foot on the edge of the furniture and hooked her arm around it. “Maybe you remember the stuff Mom used to say about him being a handsome bad-boy biker who swept her off her feet.”
“Vaguely. But he didn’t come up all that often.”
“No, he didn’t, but I asked Gram to tell me what she knew when I tried to find him a few years ago.”
“What did she say?”
“That they met in Tampa, had a pretty hot affair, and Mom got pregnant. When he found out, he freaked and ditched her.”
Jules’ father sounded like a real gem. “Did she have an age for him?”
“He was a couple years older than Mom, but I don’t have a birthdate.” She closed her eyes. “This is going to be impossible.”
“Difficult, but not impossible. What about a profession?”
“I thought Mom mentioned a Harley Shop; Nana did too. I think he was a mechanic.”
“Good. That’s a great place to start. A name will help also.”
She huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes with a small smile. “Of course. Dale Abbot.” She shook her head. “I feel like my mind is all over the place, like I can’t focus on anything.”
“You’ve got a lot going on.”
Her eyes watered again. “I guess I do.”
There were few things that brought him to his knees the way Julie’s tears could. “Give me a few hours to see what I can track down.”
“What about your carpet?”
He frowned. “My carpet?”
“Yeah. The bedrooms?”
He’d gotten so caught up in Julie, he’d forgotten. “They’re coming at ten.”
“And your walls?”
“That’ll be a project for later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He handed her a tissue, and she blew her nose. He took her hands in his, the only comfort he seemed able to give. “Are you going to be okay?”
Her lips wobbled as she nodded.
“Hey, Jules,” Bryce called up the stairs.
“I’m in the living room.”
“You’ve gotta stop leaving your door unlocked. Mindy wanted me to ask you—” Bryce stopped in the doorway and frowned before he rushed forward. “What the hell’s going on? What did you do this time?”
Gritting his teeth, Chase got to his feet. “The other night, you had a point. Now you’re just being an asshole.” He returned his attention to Julie. “I’m going to go. Call if you need anything, or just walk next door.” He started out.
“Chase.”
He turned.
She hurried toward him. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He looked over Julie’s head at Bryce and walked out.
~~~~
Chase carried the strap of his laptop case on his shoulder and a pizza box in his hand as he walked to Julie’s back door. After an entire day of searching for Dale Abbot, he’d come up with a couple of options, but he was mostly certain he had yet to hit the jackpot—if there was any jackpot at all.
At five, his eyes started to blur after a mostly sleepless night and hours of staring at his computer screen. He’d texted Julie at six thirty when he watched the majority of her last class file out to their cars, letting her know that he was free if she wanted to have a listen to what he’d come up with so far. He suggested they meet at her place since their only options for seating at his were the kitchen counter or his bed, and that wasn’t going to work for either one of them. He knocked on her door, watching her through the glass as she slid chopped carrots, peppers, and cucumbers into a big bowl of lettuce.
She turned, and smiled, wiping her hands on a towel as she gestured for him to come in with a tilt of her head.
He stepped inside, giving his boots a stomp on the welcome mat, trying to figure out how Jules had managed to pull off “sexy as hell” in her light gray sweatpants and OM Studio t-shirt. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, yet she still looked amazing. “
Hey.”
“Hi.”
“I brought dinner.”
“So I see.” She took the box and breathed deep. “Smells great. Thanks.”
He pulled his feet from his boots, trying to gauge her mood and how they were supposed to be around one another. Last night she’d wished him a happy life and shut him out of hers. This morning she leaned on him as she hadn’t in so long. Now they were here…wherever this was.
“Do you want to talk down here or up in the living room?”
“That’s up to you.”
She grabbed plates, silverware, napkins, the salad she’d prepared, and bottles of water, setting them on top of the box. “Let’s go up where it’s more comfortable.”
“Sure.”
She led the way. “I really appreciate this. I hope looking into this didn’t take up too much of your day.”
He was eleven hours in and had nothing much to show for it. “Nah.”
“Did you get any painting done?”
“That’s on the agenda for tonight.”
She sighed as they walked into the pretty living room where the tree glowed bright. “I’m sorry. I can help.”
He wanted her company, was coming to realize how much he needed her back in his life, but there was enough turmoil going on in hers right now. And he wasn’t making things any easier on her by popping in and out. She needed to be finished with him, so he was going to get out of her way. “I appreciate it, but it won’t take me long. The rooms are small.”
“Let me know if you change your mind.” She set their dinner on her desk. “How many slices?”
“I’ll start with three.”
She smiled. “You’ll start with three.”
“What can I say? I like to eat.” He set up his laptop on the coffee table and took a seat on the floor as she brought over a plate with three slices of Sal’s supreme for him and one for herself.
“Thanks.”
She took the cushion directly to his side, resting her foot on the cushion the way she always had. “Pizza first?”
The eagerness in her eyes was unmistakable. “How about we eat and talk?”