by Aimee Laine
“I’ve always trusted you.”
“And that I’ll do more if it’s needed to stop your tears? To make your heart stop beating so hard in your chest I can hear it? To put a smile back on your face—”
A small one broke through at the sweetness of his tone. “So I was kidnapped … like Leigh?”
“Again, we don’t know that she was. Until someone finds the real Angela, we’re stuck waiting to know for sure.”
“But what if she was—”
“Lily.” His firm tone broke her train of thought. “We won’t know anything until we find Angela.”
“But I was? Really?”
Cael indicated a ‘yes’ with a nod.
“And she really has been looking all these years? Does she know what I am?”
“Yes to the first. Everything I unearthed suggests she has no idea what we are, but honestly, I can’t say. I have a feeling, based on her story, that someone in the family did know, and for some reason, they expected you to be a Mimic. Somehow.”
“An inside job?” Lily wrung her hands. So family still screwed me over?
“It happens to humans the same way. Most crimes are committed by family.”
“But—she really didn’t stop looking?”
The corners of Cael’s lips curved. “You want this, Lil. I know you.” The pad of his thumb rubbed against her cheek. “She’s your real mom, not the one you thought you had. That one, I’m still searching for, but Romania was a whole different country fifty years ago. I might find nothing. I have a lot of backtracking to do. But in this … I’m sure.”
“Will you keep looking for my sister and … niece?”
“Of course.”
Lily leaned into his hand, knowing he’d do anything for her—he already had. A flash of longing, of love and need stirred in her. The man before her had saved her. Time and again. She’d loved him for decades and owed him her life and so would her sister.
I could have a whole family. I could have both my families.
“I’ll do anything for you, Lil.”
I want more than just a mom—I want it all.
She stared into Cael’s eyes, the color shifting to a deep grey—a storm cloud of emotion tainting the usual brightness. “Thank you.” A rise up to her tiptoes and her hands took his face like he had hers. Butterflies took flight. Her throat constricted as her chest tightened.
His hands slid to her waist as his breath hitched.
A tug brought him closer.
She leaned in, added a soft touch of her lips to his. “Thank you, Cael.” Parted but within a breath’s distance, Cael angled up and laid a kiss to her forehead.
His hands held her still, their chests moving in and out as opposites, so close they could have been one body, but he didn’t press them forward. He’d pulled back, not taking her lips as she expected.
What were you thinking? He’s your friend. One past experience does not change what you already know.
A rush of footsteps bounded their way up the stairs.
Lily and Cael separated. While she wiped her eyes, he approached the window, sending a dangerous stare her way.
What do you feel, Cael? Is it the same as me? Is there more to us? Could there be?
Max raced into the room. “Mommy! Gramma and me made brefkast! Wanna come eat my smiley face? Or Gramma can make you a snowman or—”
Lily giggled as Max took her hand and tugged her to the door.
“Mr. Cael can come, too. Gramma says he’s a nice man and is going to help her find her long lost lily pearl.”
“Her what?” The nickname rang proverbial bells in Lily’s head.
Lily pearl. Someone called me Lily pearl. Who called me that?
Max nodded, an over exaggeration in kid form. “Gramma said. She lost her pretty a long time ago, and Mr. Cael said he likes to find stuff. Thas why she’s crying again. ‘Cause she’s happy.” He turned to Cael, a firm scowl in his tiny boy face. “Mommy cries when she’s happy.” He scrunched his nose. “Do I cry when I’m happy?”
Lily smiled at Max’s adorable misinterpretation and pronunciation. “Not usually. Crying when you’re happy usually happens when you’re old like me and your daddy.” Lily leaned down to him. “Do you think you could make a butterfly pancake for me?”
His eyes widened. “Yes!” He raced off and down the stairs.
She spun to Cael. “You told her you’d search … for me?”
“Well …” He moved toward Lily, cupped his hand behind her neck. “I explained who I was …”
Lily’s eyes opened like Max’s had.
Cael chortled. “… and that I’m a PI working with and for you and Tony. At that moment, she all but burst into tears retelling me the same story she told Angela last night. Seems it’s been cathartic for her to let it out after so long, and she wants … once again … to do something.”
“But it’s been almost fifty years.”
“Like I said, Lily … true love, no matter the kind, never dies.”
• • •
Cael followed Lily toward the kitchen. He forced her to go first so she could wiggle her anxiety out on each step down and wouldn’t chicken out and run back up.
At the first floor, she inclined her head toward him.
He motioned her forward.
She’d have to deal with her fears if she wanted to look further into her own past, and Cael believed she did.
Her cover as Angela gave her the best opportunity to pretend while dealing with the inner demons.
On a deep breath, Lily, in Angela’s form, acting as her own sister, squared her shoulders and walked into the kitchen.
Cael stayed right behind her, prepared to jump in if needed.
Max sat at the table, cutting into pancakes.
Evelyn stood at the stove, flipping another one. “Morning,” she said.
“Morning.” Lily’s voice came out a little strained, but Cael’s smile bloomed as she moved to her mom, placed a kiss on her cheek and stood to her side.
Evelyn chuckled. “One butterfly coming up. And what can I get for you, Cael?”
He pulled out a chair and sat. “I’ll have—”
Max leaned forward. “Say snowman.” His voice came out a whisper. “Gramma puts snow on it.” He smiled as he pointed to his own with a light dusting of powdered sugar on it.
“I’ll take a snowman.” His cell buzzed as Evelyn said, “Perfect.” Cael stood, held up his phone toward Lily and stepped into the living room. “Morning, James. Tell me you have something useful off all that stuff I sent you this morning.”
“The real Angela Jenkins showed up on our doorstep this morning.”
12
“No, shit!” Cael covered the mouthpiece, hoping no one in the other room heard his exclamation.
“Yup,” James said.
“What about her daughter?”
A long, drawn-out sigh traveled the airwaves. “Not with her … and so far, she’s only willing to talk with Charley.”
“Charley? Did Angela come looking for her?” Cael walked to the giant front window, stared out at his rental and the ocean beyond.
“No … she came looking for Lily, and Charley is the only girl here right now. Wyatt and I are twiddling our thumbs.”
“Nice visual.” He paced to the other side. “Glad you didn’t say some other body part.”
James chuckled. “Actually, I’m looking into the extended family. Wyatt’s digging into the California-to-Romania connection from half a century ago.”
Cael nodded as he said, “Good, good.”
“We’re both going to have a chat with Roy later.”
“Good. Good. Get more information from him.” His feet ceased moving at the idea that anything related to Lily could come full circle back to Roy.
“We’ll do what we can, but as you know, he’s awfully quiet.”
“Ask him about the ‘lily pearl’ ring he had made in Savannah. Why’d he call it that?”
“Why?”
“You think there’s a connection?”
“Has to be. I never mentioned the ring to Lily, and that’s not a common nickname.” Cael stared at the portrait of Angela. “So, let’s say someone called her that early on, how would Roy know about it?”
“Charley’ll have to work that out of him. He might open up to her. Not to you, though.”
Cael let out a snort. “I didn’t want him to open up. I wanted to kill him.”
“I know. We all know. How’s Lily holding up? Did you tell her everything you found?”
“Enough for today. One step at a time. She’ll self-combust if she knows everything all at once.”
At a shuffling on James’s end of the phone, they both quieted. James’s voice came through muffled as if he covered the mouthpiece with a finger.
Cael restarted a back and forth pacing.
“Cael?” Charley’s voice replaced James’s.
He stilled in the middle of the beige-carpeted floor. “Yeah?”
“She’s here.”
“I know. James told me. What about her husband? He make it yet?”
“Not yet, no. Wyatt’s tracking him down so we know where he is before he comes for our meeting.”
“What about the girl?” In need of fresh air, Cael headed outside through the front door. The roar and crash of waves against the cliffs filled the quiet neighborhood with sound and salt.
“That’s the problem. A big one, no less. Angela spent the last three weeks searching for Lily because the people who have Leigh said Lily could help her.”
Cael’s heart lurched in his chest. How would Lily have known anything about Leigh?
“You can’t tell Lily.”
“Of course not.”
“Angela’s freaked, Cael. She got a tip to go to Romania …”
“Yeah, that was in her instant message notes.”
“… and once there, they told her she’d been told incorrectly.”
“To keep the cover,” Cael said.
“Exactly. She kept trying to get in touch with the guy she only knew as RDM—which also happen to be Roy’s initials.”
“Fuck.” Cael kicked a rock. It flew across the street and over the cliff’s edge. Why hadn’t that clicked? “He set her up. Why?”
“I don’t know. After two weeks of nothing, she flew back to the US, intent on returning home since all her notes were in a laptop …”
Which is upstairs in her office.
“… but once in New York, she was stopped by customs, and that’s when all hell broke loose. Our government took Leigh right out of her hands. They took a scared, helpless child from her mother.”
A dog barked in the distance. “Well, shit, Charley. Who got tipped off?”
“I don’t know. But it gets worse.”
Is that possible? The similarities to Lily’s abduction came far too close for Cael’s liking.
“She worked for a week with the embassy and nothing. She has documented phone calls to the White House, to every Senator and member of the House of Representatives, to every police precinct.”
“Leigh’s not in the registry of missing children. I was in there last night.”
A sigh passed through. “I know. Do you know our own government said Angela couldn’t add Leigh to the registry because Angela had no proof they’d been together? Apparently, in their taking of the girl, they took all Angela’s stuff, and when they gave it back and shooed her on her way, they left her with no trace of her daughter.”
“Who the hell would do that?”
“Think a second, Cael.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Only one group could have pulled that off. Cael stared into the bright blue sky, a jet marring the solid color with a line of white. “Why didn’t she call her husband? The authorities?”
“When Chase went missing, I convinced myself to keep going,” Charley started again. “One more day. One more hour. And then, all of a sudden, a week passed. For her, a month went by.” Mumbles broke through the line. “Thanks, James. Will you take her some coffee and something to eat? She looks emaciated. Probably hasn’t eaten much in weeks. Sorry, Cael. She probably feels like the world’s biggest loser. Then again, I can’t even imagine not calling Wyatt or you … or James. I don’t know. People in desperate situations do desperate things. Now, though, she has no record the girl even exists.”
Just like us at a hundred. Poof as expected. At thirteen though … god, Lily’s the only one who knows what the Government does to thirteen year old Mimics.
“How’d she know to go looking for Lily?”
A red Ford Excursion drove by, slow and steady, its low hum merging with the surrounding sounds of nature.
“She logged on to a computer in New York, and this RDM messaged her. He or she, I’m assuming it’s Roy, said if she wanted to know more, she should find Lily Crane. That was three weeks ago, though, and since then, no communication. Nothing.”
“And then shortly after, Roy becomes a local annoyance.”
“Exactly.”
“Apparently this ‘RDM’ told Angela that Lily could give her all the answers.”
The whine of a car in reverse took Cael’s attention. He narrowed his eyes as the car backed up, passed a couple houses and turned around.
“They even told her what town to look in, but not where, and your blocks on us work really well. Unless someone knows us, we’re as anonymous as an unmarked letter in the postal system.”
Cael laughed even as the car waited as if surveying the neighborhood.
“Have you told her you aren’t Lily?”
“Not yet. She’s so scared as it is. I thought she needed a little confidence building before we throw her to the wolves, so to speak. She’s not ready to accept the reality of what a Mimic is, let alone that her daughter might be one. And she’s not going to want to hear Lily’s stories.”
The car inched forward, stopping at the end of a drive two houses down. With no For Sale signs or anyone coming out to greet the occupants, tension crept up Cael’s spine.
“What if her husband sees her? He thinks she’s here.”
“Then I think, for now, we’ll keep them apart. Have Maggie mimic Angela, and you and Lily get your asses back here.”
The Ford’s engine revved. Cael kept the phone at his ear, listening, but gave most of his attention to the vehicle’s actions, waiting as curiosity warred with concern.
Charley continued on, though her words didn’t register.
The car lurched forward.
It picked up speed, acting as if it would pass Tony’s house. An object, thrown from the passenger window, arced through the air.
“Shit.” Cael leapt toward his truck.
He spun.
His body hit the ground.
He scrambled underneath the wheel base.
Arms crossed, he covered his head.
The explosion rocked the earth.
• • •
“Earthquake!” Evelyn grabbed Lily’s hand, ran to Max and pushed them toward her bedroom.
The walls of the house rattled, the hung photos jumping along with the milk in Max’s cup.
Lily’s heart raced as an inner worry took hold of her conscience.
Cael.
She wanted to run to him, to bring him inside, to keep him safe. Her thoughts caused her to hesitate at the edge of the table.
“Angela, hurry!”
I have to get to Cael! He’s outside!
Evelyn took her hand again and pulled. Lily let herself be dragged into the room, though her heart pounded and the truth of her emotions set her in another direction.
The one person in the world I want to die with is outside.
Lily ran from the room.
Cael!
A bump into the edge of the table had her crying out as pain shot
through her thigh. She limped through the rest of the kitchen. The walls shook again when she reached the separation between kitchen and living room.
The front door waited, closed, a solid wall keeping her away from Cael, from outside, from whatever happened.
Lily grabbed the handle and yanked as Evelyn called out “Angela!”, and Lily yelled, “Cael!”
• • •
Debris rained into the ocean—rocks and dirt, exploding shrapnel.
A call out of ‘earthquake’ had rung through homes until the tremor quit a few seconds, maybe even half a minute later. Sulfur and burning rubber marred the otherwise beautiful air.
Cael pushed away from under the truck and rose. The canister had landed in the middle of the yard, tearing a line through grass, across the road and creating a fissure straight to the ocean.
Had the trajectory been any different, the entire front porch could have exploded or would at least have been damaged. If the canister had landed farther in, the structure could have collapsed in on itself.
“Cael!” Charley’s voice buzzed through the soil-covered speaker of his phone.
With the car no longer in sight, he reached for the still functioning piece of hardware.
“Cael!” Charley said again.
Frowning neighbors came out of their homes.
The rain of dirt left the Jenkins’ yard and both their neighbors’ covered in speckled black.
Placing the phone at his ear, he said, “I think I foiled someone’s plan.”
The front door opened. Lily ran out and down the stairs, Max and Evelyn following her onto the porch.
“What do you mean?” Charley asked as Lily yelled, “Cael!”
She jumped into his arms, wrapped her arms and legs around him.
“Cael?” Charley’s voice came from the phone still in his hand but held at Lily’s waist.
With Lily hanging on by her own strength, Cael pulled the phone back up to his ear. “Charley?”
Lily sniffled against him as she buried her head against his neck.
“I’m okay. Lil’s okay. I’ll explain later. You didn’t call the plane back, did you?”
A glance at the porch found Evelyn’s mouth hanging open, her hands over Max’s eyes, though he worked hard to get them off.