The door was locked as Melanie had known it would be, but that didn’t present much of an obstacle. As she’d told Lassiter last night, phasing through walls and locked doors was no problem for her. She could do so easily enough, but it wasn’t something she liked to do. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t human. And therefore, it just might be something for which God would not forgive her.
But it was too late to worry about that now. Melanie could already feel the tingle of electricity, the shifting vibrations in her body that allowed her to flow almost wavelike from one dimension into another.
She’d always thought going through the doorways a little like walking through warm Jell-O. Not difficult, but not an altogether pleasant sensation, either. The initial resistance was the hardest because during that time, half in and half out, Melanie was fully aware of two separate and distinct planes of existence. She was part of both worlds but belonged to neither, and it was always that brief moment of suspension that she feared the most. It was there, trapped between the two dimensions, that she was afraid she might lose herself forever, that the essence of her humanity might dissolve into nothing.
But as always, she emerged unscathed on the other side of the wall. She took a moment to reorient herself, then glanced around the office.
She had no idea what she was looking for, of course.
Removing a penlight from her bag, she shone the beam around the room, letting it linger on the desk, then angling it slowly over the walls until she spotted the row of file cabinets that she remembered were to her right. She started with the desk and then, finding nothing there, went straight to the files, wincing at the loud screech as she pulled open a metal drawer.
Most of the names on the tabs were of Spanish and Mayan origin, and she didn’t recognize any of them. Aguilar, Andres, Arias…
She closed the drawer and skipped over to the last cabinet, searching through the S’s. Sanchez, Serrano, Soto, Stark…
Melanie’s fingers flew by the tabs so quickly she had to backtrack, certain her eyes must have played a trick on her. But no. There it was. The familiar name scrawled in faded ink across the tab. Richard Stark.
Her heart pounding, she pulled the folder from the drawer and scanned the contents. The medical reports were all written in Spanish. Melanie’s language skills were sufficient to get by in everyday situations, but reading medical or technical jargon was a different matter entirely.
She carried the folder to the desk and tried to make sense of the report, but before she had time to painstakingly work out the translation, loud voices in the hallway brought her head up with a start. Closing the folder, she hurried across the room and opened the door just wide enough to peer out.
Three men she’d never seen before strode down the hallway toward her. They were dressed in camouflage gear, which made her instantly think of Lassiter. And then of soldiers. Were they looking for her? Had Elena seen her go into Dr. Wilder’s office and reported her?
Melanie started to panic, but then she saw that one of the men was injured. He was covered in blood and filth and leaning heavily on his companions, as if unable to stand on his own. The others were heavily armed and spoke rapidly in a dialect with which she was unfamiliar. She could only make out a word here and there as Elena shepherded them down the hallway.
The young nurse used soothing tones, as if trying to calm or placate them, but Melanie could detect an undercurrent of fear in her voice. She ushered them into a room at the back of the clinic, closed the door softly behind them, and then rushed back up the hall to the front of the clinic.
Satisfied that she hadn’t been found out, Melanie closed the door and turned. And gasped in shock. Someone stood directly behind her.
A hand clamped over her mouth, and Melanie’s first instinct was to struggle against the hold even though she almost immediately recognized Lassiter.
He put a finger to his lips and she nodded.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered furiously when he removed his hand.
“Looking for you.”
“Did you feel it necessary to sneak up on me like that?”
He took her arm and pulled her away from the door. “Do you really want to have this conversation here?” he asked against her ear.
She smoothed clammy palms down her jeans, trying to calm her racing heart. But it wasn’t fear that caused her shortness of breath. It was the man. It was his nearness. It was the way he made her feel. Like she was trapped on a crazy Ferris wheel that had suddenly spun wildly out of control.
“We need to get out of here,” he said. “Those men are dangerous.”
Her gaze shot to his. “You know them?”
“They’re rebels. One of them was wounded earlier today when they ambushed an army convoy. The nurse has gone to call Dr. Wilder.”
“Rebels?” Melanie repeated in surprise.
Lassiter nodded, his expression grim. “If your Dr. Wilder is caught aiding and abetting, he could be thrown in prison or even executed. I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to wait around here for the Cartégan Army to come looking for these guys.”
“Oh, my God,” Melanie breathed. “Then that explains why Blanca is so anxious to get rid of me. And why she feels so threatened by me. She’s been worried all along that I’ll find out what they’re doing here.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Lassiter said, “but I repeat. We need to get out of here. Now.”
He took her arm, but Melanie shook him off. “Lassiter, wait a minute. I think I’ve found something important.” She hurried over to the desk and held up the folder. When he joined her, she shone the penlight on the tab. “This file has my father’s name on it. He must have been a patient here at some point.”
Lassiter frowned. “Have you read it?”
“I tried but the medical terms are a little beyond my ability. How’s your Spanish?” She didn’t really need to ask because she’d heard him that day in the old woman’s shop when he’d followed her. Melanie knew he was fluent. Just one of his many talents, she suspected.
He took the folder and rummaged through the reports while she held the light for him. “The date on this file is from ten years ago. Kind of odd they’d keep something this old in here with what I assume are the more recent files.”
“What does it say?” Melanie asked anxiously.
“He came in complaining of severe abdominal pains and was treated for acute appendicitis. Looks like he had to have emergency surgery.” Lassiter turned a page and froze. Melanie saw something cross his face that made her catch her breath.
“What is it?”
He closed the folder. “It doesn’t matter. We have to get out of here.”
“Not until you tell me what you saw.” When he didn’t answer, Melanie took the folder and scanned through the pages herself. The official-looking document was stapled to the back of the medical report and this time she needed no translation.
Certificado de Muerte.
Certificate of Death.
ONCE THEY WERE safely away from the clinic, Lassiter found an outdoor café where they could sit and have a drink. Melanie had said nothing since they’d left Dr. Wilder’s office. She looked as if the wind had been completely taken from her sails.
The waitress came by their table, and Lassiter ordered tequila for both of them. But when the shots arrived, Melanie slid hers across the table to him. “No, thanks. I don’t drink.”
“One won’t kill you. It might help settle your nerves.”
She stared at the drink for a moment, then shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t dare.” Her gaze lifted. “I haven’t had anything stronger than coffee to drink since I left rehab ten years ago. And the only drugs I take are an occasional aspirin for headaches.”
Considering what had happened to her as a child, Lassiter supposed a history of addiction wasn’t surprising. But she seemed like such a strong-willed woman now that had he not known about her past, he would have had a hard time imagining her succumbin
g to such self-destructive habits.
But he did know about her past. He knew about the kidnapping, the missing memories, the screams she heard every night in her sleep. He knew about a mother who couldn’t bear the truth of what had happened to her daughter so she’d swept those missing years under the rug. Pretended the abduction had never happened. And Melanie, the adolescent, the teenager and now the woman, had to cope in the best way she knew how. In the only way she knew how.
“Could I have a cup of hot tea, instead?”
“Sure, no problem.” He motioned for the waitress.
When the tea arrived, Melanie cradled the cup between both hands. “I don’t know why I feel this way,” she said. “I didn’t even know him.”
Lassiter shrugged. “It’s not surprising. He was your father.”
She glanced up, an edge of defiance sharpening her features. “It’s not that. I’m not the sentimental type. But I was counting on him for answers that would help me understand and would…I don’t know, maybe even give me a little peace.” She stared into her tea. “Now it just seems hopeless.”
In the candlelight flickering between them, she suddenly looked young and vulnerable, but Lassiter knew she wouldn’t have been pleased by his observation.
He tried to ignore the sudden stir of emotions that tightened his chest. How could he feel anything for her? He was empty inside. As dead as the cold remains of his comrades that still lay at the bottom of the ocean. Even Melanie Stark couldn’t resurrect something that had been buried for that long and that deep.
And yet the way she looked tonight, with candlelight dancing in her eyes…
Lassiter drew a deep breath, steadying himself. “We don’t even know for sure that your father is dead.”
Melanie looked up with a frown. “But you saw the death certificate. It looked pretty damn official to me.”
“Death certificates can be faked.” Lassiter leaned toward her. “Think about it, Melanie. Your father was on the run. He changed his appearance, his identity. What better way to disappear for good than to have the people who were looking for him believe him dead?”
“But if that were the case, he took an awfully big risk by writing that last letter to my mother. By asking me to come down here and meet him. He must have known there was a chance they’d follow me. Even after this long. Why would he take such a risk?”
“Because you’re his daughter.”
She gave him a look. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking he harbored some great love for me all these years. I still think he was involved in my kidnapping. When he couldn’t face what he’d done, he took the coward’s way out and left. All those years, he could have written to me. He could have come back to see me, but he didn’t. So why now?”
Lassiter picked up his drink. “I can’t answer that. There’s only one person who can. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to condemn a man unless you know his side of things.”
His defense drew an angry scowl across her face, but behind the cynical facade, Lassiter saw something else. A glimmer of hope. And suddenly he understood.
For years, Melanie had managed to convince herself that her father was the enemy. She’d had to in order to deal with his betrayal and abandonment. But a part of her had always harbored the hope that when she finally found him, he’d somehow turn out to be the father she’d always wanted and needed.
She glanced away, as if not wanting him to see what was in her eyes, let alone in her heart. “I still say if he faked his own death, he wouldn’t have risked exposing his new identity by contacting my mother.”
“There’s always a chance he wasn’t the one who faked the death certificate,” Lassiter said. “It still strikes me as a little suspicious that a ten-year-old medical report—on a foreigner, no less—would still be conveniently filed in Dr. Wilder’s office.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning someone could have put it there recently for you to find.”
“Like who?”
“Someone who doesn’t want a reunion between you and your father to take place. If you thought he was dead, maybe you’d give up searching for answers and go back home.”
Melanie shoved a lock of hair behind one ear. “But how could they be so sure I’d find that file? How could they know I’d go there tonight looking for it?”
“Because they know you.” Lassiter lowered his voice as he glanced around the terrace. They were seated away from the crowd, but he couldn’t be sure of who might be listening in. He couldn’t be sure if one of the nearby tourists was in fact an operative sent to keep tabs on them. “If we’re right about these people, they’ve been watching you for over twenty years. They know your darkest secrets. Your deepest fears. They know everything about you because they’ve been inside your head. Given all that, it wouldn’t be so hard to figure out what you’d do.”
Melanie shuddered violently.
“I’m not trying to freak you out,” he said. “I’m just reminding you that you can’t believe everything you see or hear. Or read, for that matter. Reality is merely an illusion, remember?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I know. But in some ways, it would be easier to believe that he really is dead. At least that would explain why he never came back. And why there was a gap in his letters. He and my mother corresponded all during the time I was missing and for several years afterward. But then the letters stopped for ten years. The last one arrived just weeks before my mother died.”
“How did she die?” Lassiter asked carefully. “I don’t think I’ve heard you say.”
“She had a heart attack.”
“Sudden?”
“Yes.” Lassiter saw the implication of his question hit her. She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God. Lassiter, what if they killed her? What if they gave her some kind of drug to make it look as if she’d died of natural causes? You said it yourself. We can’t trust what we see or hear. Or what people tell us. They must have known that as long as my mother was alive, I’d never come looking for my father. But with her dead…”
“Melanie—”
“No, Lassiter, listen for a minute. They planted the letter in my mother’s house knowing that I would be the one to go through her personal belongings. Don’t you see? They killed her to get to me. They wanted me down here for a reason. And they wanted you here, too. It’s not a coincidence that we both ended up in Santa Elena. It can’t be. We’re connected somehow.”
Their gazes locked across the table, and in spite of the seriousness of their discussion, something warm and electric passed between them.
Lassiter didn’t want to feel anything for her. The last thing he needed was to become involved with Melanie Stark who, if anything, carried around more baggage than he did. But like it or not, she was the most intriguing woman he’d met in years. And this thing between them…he couldn’t remember a time when his attraction to a woman had been so intense. It was an adrenaline rush every time she looked at him.
She felt it, too. He could tell by the way her gaze suddenly darted from his, as if she’d seen something in his eyes she wasn’t quite ready to face.
“Why us?” she asked almost desperately.
He thought she was referring to their attraction at first, but then he realized she’d gone back to their previous conversation.
“From what I’ve read, dozens if not hundreds of people were experimented on at Montauk. Why did they want the two of us here?”
“I think you’ve got it all wrong,” Lassiter said slowly. “I don’t think they did want us here. Not together, at least. These people operate in shadows, and they can’t risk having their activities exposed. As long as they keep us isolated and under control, they have nothing to fear. But once we start asking questions, make no mistake, Melanie, they’ll do whatever they have to do to stop us.”
Chapter Ten
Doubt flickered in Melanie’s eyes. “So you’re saying our being here in Santa Elena at the same time is just a coincidence?”
�
��I don’t believe in coincidences,” Lassiter said. “We were brought here for a reason, all right, but the Montauk people had nothing to do with it.”
“Then who brought us here? And why?” When he didn’t answer, Melanie’s eyes widened. “You really do think my father is still alive, don’t you. You think he’s the one who arranged all this.”
“I don’t know,” Lassiter replied truthfully.
She stared off into the distance. Light danced across her features, casting an intriguing mix of light and shadow, like the woman herself. “You told me last night that you think the sniper who killed one of your men had been sent here to warn you. Or to stop you. And you think he’s one of a group of men, including my father, who served together in Vietnam.”
“It’s only a hunch.”
“I know. But those men you mentioned last night—Hoyt Kruger, Martin Grace, Angus Bond.” Her gaze came back to his. “What if they aren’t just connected to my father, Lassiter? What if one of them is my father?”
He’d thought about the possibility himself, especially after his strange talk with Angus Bond earlier. “You’ve met Bond,” he said. “Did you recognize him?”
“No, not really. But there was something familiar about him,” she admitted. “Something in his eyes that I’ve seen before. But I don’t think it was recognition. Not in the way you mean.”
“Do you know anything about the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne?” he asked suddenly.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne?” Melanie’s brows lifted in surprise. “Whoa. Where did that come from?”
“Do you?”
She shrugged. “I read The Scarlet Letter in high school. Why?”
“I had a talk with Bond today. He was in a strange mood. He seemed to want to tell me something—about his past, I think—but then he started rambling on about a recurring theme in Hawthorne’s writing. Man playing God. Science corrupted by hubris. He compared himself to someone named Rappaccini.”
Melanie stared at him for a moment. “Are you sure he said Rappacini?”
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