Ellen made her own choices.
“No,” Art finally said, his voice cracking on the single syllable. He cleared his throat. “Alton is having his second surgery, by the way. They weren’t able to finish all the skin grafts with the first one. He’ll be okay. Maybe one more surgery after this.” Silence filled the air between them once more. “The fire wasn’t her fault, you know. She didn’t mean for any of this to happen. She tried. She really did. I should have given her more credit for trying.”
Fire? As hard as she tried to ignore it, worry gnawed at Jo.
“In case you didn’t know, Ellen had a serious problem.”
Had? More of that tension twisted in Jo’s gut.
Art drew in a shaky breath. “I tried to help her but nothing ever seemed to work. Don’t worry though, Alton will be okay. The burns on his hands and arms will heal. I tried to tell her he’d be fine, but I guess I was so angry I waited too long to reassure her. At first I was too upset to think rationally. Any father would have done the same. I was so scared and so damned furious. I told her she had to leave. That I couldn’t trust her to take care of the children anymore. So, you see, it’s really my fault. I shouldn’t have said so many hurtful things. I wasn’t thinking... I was so upset by what she’d done.” Pause. “I guess I should have called you sooner, but I—”
“Art,” Jo snapped, “where is Ellen?”
He cleared his throat. “Ellen killed herself three weeks ago today. Last night I finally worked up the courage to go through some of her things and I thought—since you were the only friend listed in her contacts—that you might want to know. And maybe you could tell me what she meant by the note she left. Three words and I don’t have a clue what they mean. She knows everything. Do you know what she meant by that?”
Jo ended the call.
Ellen had tried to call her three weeks ago and Jo had ignored the incessant ringing. No voice mail was left. If a caller didn’t leave a voice mail, you weren’t actually obligated to call back, right? It had been a Saturday. Must have been the day before...
Jo sank onto the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. She should have answered. She should have tried to be the friend Ellen’s husband thought she was. And Ellen was right. She did know everything—Jo had lived it with her. Now the only other person who knew what really happened eighteen years ago was dead.
Jo wondered why in all this time she’d never considered taking that avenue out of this pretend life she muddled through?
Maybe because she was a coward—or maybe because if she did then the bad guys won.
She looked around the place she called home for now. Her entire apartment was this one ten-by-twelve room. Even the bathroom was nothing more than a small corner hidden behind a makeshift partition wall. The wood floors were worn and creaked with every step she made. The plaster on the walls was cracked, the blue paint faded. The only window was covered with a cheap, nicotine-stained paper blind, the sort made for temporary use. There was a tired sofa that served as a bed, along with a rickety metal and Formica table accompanied by two well-worn chairs. Along the shared wall between this room and the neighbor’s the kitchenette looked like something out of a 1950s Airstream.
Jo blinked. None of it really mattered. There was a roof over her head and four walls to protect her from the weather and whatever other threat showed up. No leaks in the roof and the plumbing worked most of the time. She pushed to her feet and shoved her cell into the back pocket of her jeans. Uncertainty and disappointment and all the other weaknesses she rarely allowed herself to feel suddenly assaulted her.
Memories from her former life poured through the emptiness inside her before she could stop them. She’d had a family. She’d had a scholarship. The future had been hers for the taking. Now, Jo turned all the way around in the middle of the room; she was thirty-six years old and this was her life—all because she’d made a terrible, terrible mistake eighteen years ago.
Poor Ellen had tried as best she could to salvage some semblance of a life and look how that turned out.
Bottom line, they had both allowed persons whose names they hadn’t known—whose faces they couldn’t be certain they had ever seen—to get away with destroying their lives.
Determination surged in Jo’s veins. Ellen was dead. The other girl was dead. Jo suspected the bastards who had orchestrated all of this were responsible for numerous other devastated lives and deaths, as well. Was she going to do nothing and allow them to never have to face responsibility for what they’d done?
Jo had been silent far too long.
Besides, what did she have to lose?
Not one damned thing that wasn’t already gone.
3
Lorton, Virginia
Tuesday, April 10, 11:16 a.m.
The god-awful sound wouldn’t go away. Like an earthquake shaking the whole damned townhouse, the noise splitting his skull.
Former Special Agent Anthony LeDoux cracked one eye open. Sunlight poured in through the slits in the blinds and he snapped his eyes shut once more. What idiot designed bedrooms facing east? Better question, what idiot rented a townhouse with a bedroom facing east?
A rusty groan growled out of him. You did, Tony. Special agent... Yeah right.
He should probably get up. Maybe eat something so he wouldn’t lose any more weight. Maybe even do something worthwhile like look for a job. His brain ached with the weight of the thought.
What the hell time was it? One hand tunneled from under the sheet and pawed across the bedside table until he found his cell phone. Once his fingers wrapped around it, he dared to raise his head from the pillow. Pain abruptly throbbed in his skull like a series of IED blasts.
“Shit.” Despite the agony, he forced his eyes open and peered at the cell phone—11:20 a.m. “Christ.”
Before he could drop the phone back onto the table it vibrated. So that was the infernal noise that had awakened him. Even with the phone in his hand the noise was like a blender full of rocks roaring on high speed. He stared at the screen until the caller’s identity came into focus.
Angie.
Oh hell. Tony cleared his throat and said hello aloud a couple of times just to make sure he sounded normal and not hungover before answering. “Hey, sis. What’s up?” Didn’t help. His voice sounded rusty and cracked twice.
“It’s Tiffany.”
He sat upright, the room rocking like a boat about to capsize. Plowing a hand through his hair, he prayed his head wouldn’t explode before he got through this conversation. “What’d she do? Drop out of school?”
His niece had been the perfect angel from the day she was born until high school. It was as if the day she turned sixteen she wanted to make up for lost time. The girl had given her conservative parents pure hell the past three years. As Angie’s only sibling, Tony had been the sounding board for the worst of the awful episodes. Thankfully things had been mostly quiet since Tiffany left for college. He’d hoped she had grown out of her wild stage.
A sob echoed in his ear and his heart reacted. “Ang, what’s going on?”
He stood. Swayed some more before he could steady himself. It wasn’t until then that he noticed the blonde in his bed. Her bare ass and rumpled mane were the only parts not covered by the tangled sheet. What the hell was her name? Chelsea? Chanel? Fuck! He couldn’t remember.
“She’s missing, Tony,” Ang said in his ear. “My girl is missing.”
A hint of fear roiled in his belly. He turned away from the blonde, who hadn’t moved. “Okay, sis. Take it from the top. Tell me what happened.”