I’d ask Jasper to take the dog, but the few times I’ve talked to him this past year, he’s told me to start dating again, and I ain’t ready.
I’ll never be ready.
The fucker found the love of his life a few months ago. After nearly dying last year in the explosion that ended his career, he’s so happy most of the time now, it’s hard for me to be around him. Hell, I had to stop watching Channel 5 News because his girlfriend is one of their on-air reporters.
She’s damn good at her job, but seeing her reminds me of all I’ve lost. So now I’m a Channel 10 devotee—even though their coverage sucks ass.
I spin my wedding ring around on my finger. Grace’s ring is tucked under my shirt on a chain. Maybe one day, I’ll take it off, but it sure as shit ain’t gonna be today.
Setting the photo back on the credenza, I let out a heavy sigh. It’s quiet at the station this late. Elmore is still around here somewhere. She drew the short straw this week. Hardison, her partner, got to go home early while she finishes up all his paperwork.
Before I can grab my coat, my desk phone rings.
Ignore it. Belle’s waiting for you.
But I’ve never been very good at listening to my inner voice. So, I pick up the receiver. “Stone.”
“Captain AJ Stone?” a man with a thick, Mexican accent asks.
“That’s what I said. Mind tellin’ me who you are and why you’re callin’ so late on a Friday night?”
“My name is Dr. Alejandro Reyes. I work at a small clinic outside of San José de Carranza in Mexico.”
“Doc, Mexico ain’t in my jurisdiction. Call your National Guard.” I don’t have time for this. It’s been a long damn day and I won’t let Belle think I forgot her.
“I do not need the assistance of law enforcement. I am calling specifically for you. Four days ago, a woman’s body was dumped at my clinic’s back door.”
My knees give out. I land in my desk chair—hard—and the fucking thing rolls back and hits the credenza. Panic, grief, and despair squeeze my chest tight enough it’s hard to breathe. This is the moment I’ve dreaded for two years, ten months, and six days.
“B-blond hair, five-foot—fuck—five-foot-six, a hundred and forty pounds?” The stats I’ve rattled off a thousand times since Grace disappeared are so much harder to force from my lips when there’s a real possibility I’ll never have to say them again.
“Captain Stone, I found the website you set up after your wife’s disappearance with all of that information. It is why I called you. But…if I am to be certain this is your wife, I need to know if she has any tattoos or birthmarks.”
“The phases of the moon on her right shoulder over a spray of oleander flowers. Look, Reyes, if you ain’t about to confirm I can finally lay my wife to rest, hang up now or I’m fixin’ to come down there and beat the everlovin’ shit out of you.”
If this is a prank call—or another asshole only interested in the fifty thousand dollar reward—it’s gonna set my last fuck on fire.
“What about her left ankle?” Reyes asks.
The chair is the only thing that keeps me from ending up in a puddle of grief on the floor. “A semi-colon tattoo. As part of a b-butterfly. We kept that detail out of the news,” I whisper. “When can I pick up Grace’s body? And where?”
“Mierda. Captain Stone, I am not explaining myself well. When I found her, she had been stabbed, poisoned, and kicked in the head with such force, her skull fractured. My clinic is small—only a single operating room—but I was trained at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. It is the best medical school in the country.”
I don’t understand why he’s telling me this. Hearing how my wife suffered before her end is only going to make my nightmares that much worse.
“I was able to repair the skull fracture, but her brain was swelling, and I had to put her in a medically induced coma for two days. She woke up yesterday morning.”
Woke up…
Hope thaws the ice around my heart, the flames building so hot and fast, I can’t catch my breath. “Grace is…alive?”
“Sí. She is. But she has no memory of her name, her life, or what happened to her since her disappearance.”
Fucking hell.
“Can I talk to her? Where did you say you were again? I’ll get in the car right now. Drive. Fly. Both. Whatever I need to do.”
“Captain—”
