As she attempted to slide her arm from his grasp and climb into the open door of her car, he said, “No. Wait.” His fingers tightened again, and she paused, looking over her shoulder expectantly.
“What?”
“I have something I want to show you.”
“Now?”
“Yes, but at my house.”
“You want me to drive over to your place?”
He saw the doubts in her eyes. She might have boldly hugged him and laid a kiss across his cheek, but he suspected her motive was to offer support and comfort. He was making her wonder with his request.
“I’ve got a new dog, and I’ve already left him too long,” Kacey demurred.
“Then I’ll come to yours. I just have to pick up something at home.” He saw that she might protest and added, “I don’t think it can wait.” When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll be there in about forty minutes. And it won’t take long. But, really, I think it’s something you should see.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
He felt one side of his mouth lift. “No.”
“Do you know where I live?”
He shook his head. “I did a little research. I’ll tell you all about that, too. Trust me.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she gave him a nod. “Okay.”
“Good.” As she closed her Ford’s door and started the engine, he heard the distinct notes of “Carol of the Bells” through the glass before she backed out of the parking spot.
Lifting a hand in good-bye, she drove off, and he jogged quickly to his truck. He didn’t question why, suddenly, he felt the need to confide in her. Maybe it was the way she looked into his eyes, or the manner in which she tended to his son, or just because he thought she should know the truth. He didn’t second-guess his motivations, just waited until she was out of sight, then slid behind the wheel of his pickup and turned on the ignition just as he heard the sound of a siren screaming through the night.
Red lights flashed as an ambulance pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and slid to a stop near the emergency room doors. An EMT hopped out of the back, and a stretcher with an elderly man hooked up to an IV and oxygen was quickly rolled through the sliding doors.
He thought once more of his boy up on the third floor and, with the knowledge that Eli was in safe, caring hands, drove with controlled urgency through the coming snow and home. Letting the truck idle, he hurried up the back steps and into the house, where he double-checked on Sarge. The dog, cone in place, was sleeping on his dog bed in the living room and glanced toward Trace, even thumping his tail. “Hang in there,” Trace told the shepherd, then scooped up the information he’d gathered on his desk, grabbed his laptop, and headed out the door again. The truck was warm, and he slammed it into reverse, not allowing himself to ask himself what in the hell he was doing.
CHAPTER 24
Kacey glanced at the clock over the kitchen counter. She had been home half an hour and, while waiting for Trace to show up, had fed and walked Bonzi, had turned on the radio for company, and had already accomplished several searches online, looking for information on Gerald Johnson, who had resided in Helena, Montana, for most of his life, before moving to Missoula.
He hadn’t been hard to find, and in a short amount of time she’d learned he’d been a heart surgeon of some prominence before, as her mother had told her; he’d started his own company to help develop stents for heart disease patients. As far as she could tell, he still worked there, along with several of his children.
As he was a prominent citizen in Helena, it hadn’t been hard to find pictures of his family. His wife, Noreen, and six children, two daughters and four sons, though one of the girls, had died ten years earlier. Kacey had printed out the obituary of Kathleen Enid Johnson, the victim of a skiing accident only months before her marriage. She’d been a beautiful girl, twenty-two, and she had the same jawline, cheekbones, and eyes as Gerald Johnson. In fact, most of his legitimate children took after him, she thought as she stared at a photograph from the past.
As did she, and those living and dead who resembled her…. Dear God, was it really possible?
It had to be.
Didn’t it?
She stared at one particularly good shot of Gerald and Noreen, husband and wife, standing side by side at a charity function several years back. Both were dressed to the nines, he in a tux and white tie, she wearing a shimmering silver gown. Both of them had silver hair and lots of it; he showed no sign of fat; his skin was tanned, crow’s-feet fanning from his eyes.
A golfer, maybe. Hours in the sun.
His wife was paler, her makeup subdued, her features sharp and defined. Tall and thin, Noreen Johnson was beautiful in her own right, though her genetic contribution to her children was more difficult to discern, perhaps the curly hair of her daughter Clarissa and one son, Thane, third in line.
Gerald Johnson had certainly fathered a flock of children.
Even more than he might know about, if her theory was right.
She saw the wash of Trace’s headlights, heard the rumble of his truck, and as Bonzi put up a loud, deep-throated ruckus, she stepped onto the front porch. “Hush!” she commanded the dog, and he gave off one final, quiet bark just as Trace cut the engine.
She felt a little uptick in her pulse, which was just plain ludicrous. Bonzi stood beside her, his wagging tail a whip of friendly excitement, once again dispelling any of her hopes that he might just be a guard dog.
Companion? Yes. Final line of defense? Very unlikely.
He was already lowering his head, ready to be petted, as Trace, bundled in a heavy jacket, crossed the snowy lawn in that athletic/ cowboy way she’d never found all that attractive.
Until now.
Swinging from one of Trace’s gloved hands was a laptop computer, which changed his image just a bit.
“Is that what you want to show me?” she asked as he climbed up the few steps and walked into the pool of light cast by the porch lamp.
“Something on it. Yeah.” He paused to pet the dog before they both followed her inside and down the short hall to the kitchen. Trace flipped open his computer. “You got a wireless setup here?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Security code?”
When she shook her head, he said, “Let’s put one on.” He offered her a bit of a smile as he kicked out one of the café chairs. “Just to be on the safe side.”
She wasn’t going to argue. Not with everything else that was happening. “You want something? I’ve got coffee and tea and”—she peered in her refrigerator as he connected to the Internet—“Diet Coke, oh, or a light beer?”
“Sure, the beer,” he said but didn’t even glance up. “Okay, so here we go. Take a look.”
She opened two bottles, twisting the tops off, and handed him one as she sat next to him. On the computer screen were several pictures, and at first she thought they were of the same woman, but as he clicked through them, she saw the differences. Her fingers tightened over her long-necked beer, and she felt her stomach knot. “What is this?” But she knew.
“Pictures of women I know who resemble each other. Here you are,” he said, and she recognized the photograph as one she had uploaded to the clinic’s Web site. Next up was the school class picture of Jocelyn Wallis.
The third was of a woman Kacey couldn’t name. It was a photograph taken at a distance and obviously scanned into the computer. “That’s Leanna,” he explained, his lips barely moving. “Eli’s mother.” He zoomed in so that her face, though blurry, was a little more visible.
Kacey’s blood ran cold as she stared at features so like her own. “You were married to her and involved with Jocelyn. . ” She looked up at him, heart in her throat.