by Debra Webb
“Mrs. Counts.”
He looked up at what had to be the dental assistant holding open the door that led back to the exam rooms. Linc stood, waited for Lori to go ahead of him. He hung on to the clipboard as the assistant guided them to a room and settled Lori into the chair.
“Mr. Counts, you’ll need to wait in the corridor while I do the X-rays.” She reached for the clipboard. “I’ll take that for you.”
“Sure.” He gave up the forms and stepped outside the door.
The X-rays took about five minutes. The assistant left the room briefly, then returned and hung the old-fashioned prints on the view box. She assured Lori that Dr. Wall would be with them soon.
Getting the dentist’s cooperation wouldn’t be quite so easy, but Linc now had a plan for that.
Twenty minutes later a guy, sixty or better, rushed into the room. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” He offered a weary smile then settled on the stool next to Lori. “So you lost a crown, did you?” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Linc closed the door, and Dr. Wall looked up, startled. “We have a problem, doc.” He pulled out his wallet, opened it slightly and flashed it far too quickly for the guy to see that there was no actual badge. “I’m U.S. Marshal Joe Duncan. This is a federal witness under my protection.”
Wall blinked, still speechless. Whether it was fear or the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes looked huge.
“We’re staying at a safe house near here. I received notification from my superior that there is some question as to my witness’s identity. To clear up the confusion I have digital copies of dental records I’d like you to compare to hers. Your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Time is very short and several lives are at stake.”
The dentist looked stunned. “I… Of course I will help.” He stared at Lori a moment, then turned back to Linc. “I’ll need the records.”
“If you have internet access I can send them to your account.”
Wall recited the office email address and notified his assistant to print them as soon as they arrived.
Linc attempted to put the dentist at ease. “I hope you realize how important your help is to this case. I can’t thank you enough.”
He nodded, a bit of a twinkle in his eyes now. “I watch Law and Order.”
The assistant was back in two minutes with the printout of Lori’s dental records from before the explosion.
“All right.” Wall spread the records on the small desk in the corner. He studied both sets at length.
Linc kept still though he wanted to pace, to climb the walls.
Finally Dr. Wall looked up. “This is difficult to call.”
Linc moved closer to the desk. “How so?”
“The size of the jaw, the number and size of the teeth are exactly the same.”
Anticipation had Linc’s heart racing.
“There has been extensive cosmetic work since this older set was taken. Crowns, bridges and veneers. But neither shows any missing teeth or malformations to point to as unique to the patient.” He shrugged. “There is no one particular item that would truly confirm the conclusion that both sets of X-rays belong to the same person.” He pursed his lips. “I can say without reservation that both sets of records appear to be from the same individual, but I don’t feel comfortable confirming that without a single unique trait.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s the best this old country dentist can do.”
“You were a great deal of help, sir. Thank you.” Linc walked to the door. Disappointment crushed against his chest. “I’ll settle up with the lady at the front desk.”
“Don’t worry about the fee. I was no help, I fear.” Wall pulled off his glasses. “But don’t give up. There are those in the field who could make the identification for you. An expert with the kind of training and equipment I don’t have.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. Thank you.” Linc needed out of here. He couldn’t breathe.
Lori quietly thanked Dr. Wall then walked out of the exam room behind Linc.
The receptionist smiled as they passed through the lobby. At the exit, Lori stalled.
Linc braced for trouble.
Lori looked back at the receptionist, who was busy with paperwork.
The seconds ticked off like gunshots in Linc’s head. He kept expecting her to demand that someone call the police.
Then she walked out the door.
Linc dragged in a breath and followed her out.
Lori didn’t slow or look at him or even speak.
What was there to say? They knew nothing more than they had known before.
The dental records were a dead end for now.
Linc had no way of proving the truth to her beyond the shadow of a doubt.
At this point he would need a miracle to keep her cooperative. He’d stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.
His cell vibrated. He dragged it out and checked the screen. Keaton. With news about Marcos’s arrival, Linc presumed. “Reece.”
“We have a problem.”
Linc didn’t like the sound of that. “Go on.”
“Lopez was not on the plane.”
“Are you certain?”
“The Bureau just verified that Lopez and Marcos are one and the same. When the airfield was asked to verify the passengers who arrived, he was not among the three.”
Linc didn’t really hear what Keaton said next. All he could think was that Marcos could be anywhere.
He lowered the phone from his ear and surveyed the sidewalks and streets.
The bastard could be here.
Chapter Fourteen
Mia felt numb.
Dr. Wall hadn’t been able to say for an absolute certainty that the dental records confirmed she was this Lori person, but he hadn’t been able to conclude that she was not, either.
Same jawline, same number and size of teeth.
She glanced at the man looking around as if he didn’t know what to do next. How could she be his wife and not know it? He was a total stranger to her…except for the feelings he evoked in her when they touched.
“We need transportation.”
“Are we going back to the cabin?” She felt torn about that. The need to go home pulled at her. But where was home? Confusion rattled her brain.
“Maybe.”
He took her hand and started forward. The jolt of sensation added to the confusing impulses already knocking around in her skull. She forced herself to analyze the feel of his skin against hers. Rougher than hers. Warm. Familiar. There it was again. His long fingers folded around hers made her feel safe. She shouldn’t feel safe. What was wrong with her?
A run-down auto repair shop appeared to be his destination. He stopped to look at a red car that had seen better days. Reece let go of her hand and walked around the car, then leaned down and looked inside.
“Can I help you?”
Mia studied the man who’d joined them. Because of his grease-stained coveralls she assumed he was a mechanic. The smell of oil that lingered around him made her think of Teddy Stewart. He operated the mechanic shop in Blossom. The idea that he’d shown up at her house in the middle of the night toting that shotgun had her shaking her head. What had he been thinking? That Reece was dangerous, she acknowledged. Teddy had said he’d gotten his orders from her uncle. Why would Vince do that?
“She run good?” Reece asked, drawing Mia’s attention back to the moment.
The mechanic nodded. “She don’t look like much but she runs real good. Uses a little oil. I keep a bottle in the trunk.”
Reece reached into his right front pocket and pulled out a thick fold of bills. “Six hundred work for you?” He counted off six one-hundred-dollar bills and handed them to the guy.
Who carried that kind of cash?
“That’ll do.” The mechanic reached inside the car and removed a document from the glove box. He signed the back and handed it to Reece. “That’s the title. Keys are in the ig
nition.”
That easily, they had transportation.
A minute or two later they were driving away. The upholstery was soiled and threadbare, but the car ran and rode smoothly enough.
“You hungry?”
Mia hadn’t thought of food since the previous evening. “Maybe.” Her stomach actually felt queasy. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll pick up something at that first convenience store we passed.” He glanced at the dash. “And fuel.”
Mia didn’t care either way. In an effort to relax she tried to study the old homes that lined the street as they drove through town, but questions kept intruding on her mind. She refused to entertain them. They were too overwhelming.
Reece slowed and turned into the convenience store drive. He pulled up to the gas pumps and shut off the engine.
“You want to go in?”
Mia shook her head and closed her eyes. She just wanted to hide. To curl up in a fetal position.
He hesitated but finally gave up and went inside. She understood that he was afraid she’d make a run for it. The thought had crossed her mind back at the dental office. For a moment she’d struggled with the impulse to ask the receptionist to call the police. To end this here and now. But she couldn’t do it. How insane was that?
Mia opened her eyes and sought the man who had yanked the rug from under her feet. Reece looked toward the car several times as he waited at the counter inside the store. She felt sorry for him. He desperately wanted to prove his wife was alive and to have her back.
He’d suffered just as Mia had.
The limp was more obvious as he walked back to the car. The workout getting to town on foot had been hard on him. She’d been so numb and disoriented she’d scarcely paid attention to the physical effort required.
He thrust a bag through the driver’s window. She took it and peeked at the contents while he pumped the gas. Chicken and fries and soft drinks. The smell of the fried foods had her appetite stirring. Maybe she could eat. Undoubtedly, she should.
Reece slid behind the steering wheel and started the car. He didn’t say anything as he drove away from the convenience store and headed toward the narrow, crooked road where their hideout waited. How could this be happening to her?
Mia wanted to blast him for turning her world upside down. What he was suggesting negated all that she had achieved in seven years—her entire life, for all intents and purposes. Reece had the memories of his wife. He had his life dating back to the day he was born. Why couldn’t that be enough? Why did he have to take hers?
The answer to that question pressed down on her shoulders, expanded in her chest. Because if what he alleged was true, Mia’s life was not real. It was fiction. Like the stories mothers read to their children before bedtime.
She stared at the blur of trees outside her window. For seven years she had been Mia Marie Grant. Daughter of William and Freda Grant. Graduate of Boulder High School. Plaster artisan and happy-go-lucky friend and neighbor of folks in Blossom. She was poor Mia who had cheated death and been reborn.
But what if she wasn’t Mia Grant? She sneaked a glimpse of the man driving. What if she was his long-lost wife? What if the life she’d had before her accident had been full and happy? Restoring a home together. Fighting crime together. Had Vincent Lopez, or whoever Reece claimed her uncle was, really cheated Reece and his wife out of that life?
“Why didn’t you have children?”
Reece glanced at her. He turned his attention back to the road just as quickly. “We had a plan.”
The shaking started again, deep inside Mia. It had been happening all day. “Tell me about your plan.” She needed to know, though the reason eluded her. The whole concept was as self-defeating as throwing salt on an open wound, but like a passerby staring at the scene of a five-car pileup, she had to see…to know.
“Our five-year plan.” His profile hardened with the grim words. “The first three were focused on finding a home in a good neighborhood for raising kids. Settling in.” His shoulder lifted and fell as if the whole story was irrelevant. “Then we’d start a family. No more undercover work for…her.”
They would have children by now. The reality hit Mia harder than anything else she’d heard today. She had wondered about children. Would she ever have any? Would she ever even find love? The accident had set all her hopes and dreams back by a decade. With her uncle’s protective hovering she might never have any of that. She wanted those things…she had dreamed of being in love.
“Do you still have the house?” Mia hoped he had kept the house. It had meant so much to his wife, and they’d worked so hard to restore it.
Reece made the turn onto the narrow drive that led up to the cabin. “I put it on the market right before I left L.A.”
Mia held her breath as he turned the car around so that he could back it up next to the far end of the cabin, out of sight.
He shoved the gearshift into Park and shut off the engine. “Got an offer two weeks later.” He dropped his hands onto his thighs. “But I couldn’t do it. I had the Realtor close it up. We’d paid for it with the savings she had from her parents’ estate. It wasn’t mine to sell.”
The relief she felt was unreasonable. She shouldn’t be feeling any of this. Mia climbed out of the car, holding the bag of food that now turned her stomach, and walked away. She shouldn’t have asked those questions. The answers made her hurt.
Reece moved around her slow steps, striding quickly to the cabin. By the time she reached the porch he was inside. She entered, dropped the sack on the table and reached for one of the soft drinks. She could use the caffeine and the sugar.
And the truth. That was what she really needed.
Could her uncle confirm what she believed to be her past? A simple trip to Boulder would do the trick. But she’d never known she needed to look for confirmation.
“You should eat.”
She set the soft drink down and faced him. “How did you do it? Keep going afterward, I mean.”
He stood only three or four feet away but it felt like he was pressed against her. The urge to be closer, to hold him and make this right somehow felt as urgent as the need to breathe.
For what felt like an eternity he looked at her. His eyes, so blue, so intense, made her ache to know every thought and hope behind them.
“I took the most dangerous assignments in hopes that I’d find myself on the wrong end of a discharged weapon since I didn’t have the guts to do it myself.”
Emotion twisted in her chest. “You wanted to die?”
“Every day. Breakfast included a shot of bourbon and the business end of my weapon.” He opened his soda and downed a long gulp, then shrugged. “Then one day I stopped.”
The trembling extended outward. She wrapped her arms around her middle to hide the quaking. “When did you stop?”
He leveled a gaze on her that weakened her knees. “When I found you.”
Mia dropped into the closest chair. Her legs couldn’t hold her another second. She wet her lips. “You’re that certain?”
“Yes.” He braced his hands on the back of a chair at the table. “The FBI has confirmed that Vincent Lopez and Juan Marcos are one and the same. I got the call a few minutes ago.”
Outside the dental clinic. She remembered. Weariness weighed down on her, threatening to drag her into unconsciousness. At least this time she wasn’t seeing spots.
What did all this mean? Other than the minor changes prompted by the surgeries, he claimed she looked exactly like his wife. The dental records were practically identical, though the small-town dentist hadn’t wanted to make the call. Her unexpected skill at repairing historic plaster had come about in the same manner as his wife’s. They shared a love for historic homes. Her uncle appeared to be the criminal Reece asserted he was. The photos her uncle had declared were Mia were in fact Reece’s wife.
But the most glaring aspect for Mia was the reaction she experienced each time they touched. One of the specialists she
’d seen had suggested there was actually an explanation for her moments of déjà vu and sensations of familiarity with certain scents and touches. He insisted that her suddenly found plaster restoration skill fell into the same category.
Sensory and muscle memory.
She may have lost the memories of her life before but her fingers, her hands remembered the movements associated with reforming damaged plaster. That had seemed ridiculous to her at the time, since the past she had been given didn’t include historic homes or anything related to them. The other part, however, she had accepted. Certain smells, certain things she touched were forever ingrained in her senses.
Learning that Reece’s wife had restored plaster seemed to confirm the specialist’s opinion.
The only answer was glaringly obvious.
She was Lori Reece.
She grabbed for courage and did the only thing she could. “Do you have a picture?”
He exhaled a heavy breath. “Too much has happened today. We should take a break.” He stared down at his hands, braced on the chair. “We shouldn’t have gone this far. It could be bad for you.”
Both their lives were hanging in the balance and he was worried about this exchange being bad for her? A surge of adrenaline fired through her and she launched to her feet. “The accident—car crash or explosion—was bad for me! Losing my whole history, whichever one it was, was bad for me! But neither of those things killed me. I don’t think trying to find the truth will, either.” She dragged in a ragged breath, telling herself to calm down, that going off like this would accomplish nothing.
His gaze bored into hers with such ferocity that she caught her breath. “The man you have believed is your uncle may very well kill you if he discovers you know the truth.”
Mia stormed across the room to where he stood. “Do you have a photo or not?”
For three frantic pounds of her heart she was certain he would refuse her. Then he reached for his wallet. The leather was worn soft, its black color faded to gray around the edges. He’d carried it for a while. Inside was more cash, a driver’s license and a few small folded papers. He fingered beneath an inner flap and pulled out a photo. He handed it to her.