A sick sensation dropped like a cold, hard stone into the bottom of her stomach. This wasn’t her birth certificate at all ...
The door opened behind her. Angie swung around, startled.
Her dad stood in the doorway. White-faced, he stared at what was in her hands, the pile of documents littered across the floor.
“Angie?”
“Who was she?” Angie demanded. “Whose birth certificate is this, and who was the baby girl who died in the car accident? Why do I have the same name as her? Who in the hell amI?”
CHAPTER 60
Law-Boy, face as white as a sheet, opened his mouth wide. He winced as a police officer trained to collect bodily substances stuck a foam applicator into it and rubbed the inside of his cheek to collect skin cells. Kjel, who stood beside his new boss, felt a quiet implosion of relief as the officer finally placed the buccal swab carefully into an approved DNA Data Bank sample collection kit and labeled it.
Next came the blood sample—a quick jab with a lancet, and the drop of blood was pressed onto an evidence card. This too went into an approved kit, and the sample was marked. Norton-Wells had already had his prints taken. Eight of his head hairs had also been plucked out and had gone into their own designated DNA Data Bank sample collection kit.
Kjel stole a look at Boss-Man Maddocks. Fuck, he wanted to high-five the dude right here and do a freaking victory dance around the room with him. He’d gone the whole hog, and he even had the process video recorded for good measure. But the sergeant showed no emotion. He just watched. Like a statue.
Once the DNA sample kits had headed off to the lab and Law-Boy was back off to campus with a uniform in a squad car, they headed down the stairs to the incident room to grab their coats. As Kjel shrugged into his bomber jacket, he said, “Sos? How’s about a beer or few at the Flying Pig, boss man?”
“I’ll take a rain check, thanks,” his boss said absently, buttoning his coat, as if deep in troubled thought.
“Got a date with a yacht boom, then?”
Those freaky dark-blue eyes snapped sharply to Kjel. For a minute the man looked dangerous, like he could kill. Then a smile cracked the intensity. “Sure. Why not. I might need a few to numb the coming wrath of Fitz.”
“So, what’s eating you?” Kjel said as they headed out of the station and ducked into the rain for the short walk to the Pig.
“The fact he gave it to us at all.”
“He almost bailed—was touch-and-go there for a few hours. Seems he managed to screw his logic jockey back onto his panic horse a bit on the way over to the station.”
CHAPTER 61
Her father walked woodenly toward the living room, where he crumpled into his chair and dropped his face into his big hands. Opposite him, on the other side of the hearth, her mother’s chair sat empty. Angie stood there, waiting.
For a long while he said nothing. The storm lashed at the house, and branches swished and banged against the eaves.
“Dad,talkto me.”
“Could you light the fire, please, Angie?”
She stared at him, dumbfounded, then did it, furiously cracking kindling and stacking wood and crumpling newspaper into balls, feeling as though she was in some kind of alternate universe, an empty pit gnawing away at her stomach. She put a flame to the paper. It whooshed to life, licking and gobbling up the kindling.
Once the fire was roaring, she poured them both whiskeys. Fat ones. She put a glass into his hands and took her mother’s seat on the other side of the hearth. She sat there, watching him.
Finally, after a few sips of his drink, he spoke.
“I love her—your mother.” He looked up and met Angie’s gaze. And what she saw in her dad’s eyes punched a hole right through her chest. It was a look of hollow, haunted emptiness. Of pain. Of love lost. She swallowed.
“I know you do, Dad, I know.”
“She was driving that day. In Tuscany. It was a sunny day. A clear sky. Everything so perfect. You were in the backseat—” He wavered, taking a few moments to marshal himself. “Angie was in the backseat.”
“Angie,” she repeated. “I am Angie. My name is Angela Pallorino.” The sick feeling deepened. “Right?”
He looked away, at the fire. “Your mother reached for her sunglasses, which she’d left on the passenger seat. She’d just come over a rise, and the sun was directly in her eyes. But she knocked the glasses onto the floor, and when she reached down for them ... she was momentarily distracted, her attention not on the road. She hit a curve and lost control, and the car went through the railing. It tumbled down a steep mountainside.” He stared at the fire, his mind going all the way back, as if he were there again, in Italy, all that time ago. He took another deep sip of his drink.
“She was badly injured in the crash, our little Angie ... Oh God, Angie ... Oh God ... How do I undo this?” He met her eyes again. “I don’t want to do this, say these things—I don’t want to hurt you.Youare Angie. YoubecameAngie.”
