“I thought you said you needed me to make an identification.”
“DNA?” Bryce asked.
Perreth nodded. “Just a swab of your cheek.”
Sylvie looked from one man to the other. She didn’t just want to give a DNA sample. She needed to see the body. If her senses were wrong—the buzz in her ears, the pinch at the back of her neck, the feeling that Diana was still alive—she needed to know. “I have to see her for myself.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not possible.”
“Why?”
Perreth grunted. “You wouldn’t recognize her.”
Sylvie shook her head, not wanting to let the implications of his words sink in.
“Dental records?” Bryce prompted.
“I’m afraid that won’t help, either.”
She couldn’t let herself imagine the horror. “What makes you think it’s my sister?”
“Height, build, what’s left of the hair—all match. And she’s the only missing person we have fitting that description. We need your DNA to be certain.”
“But you don’t know it’s her.”
“No.”
Diana was still alive. She had to be. “How long will the DNA match take?”
“Our lab will expedite. But the time depends on a number of factors. I can’t be any more specific than that.”
Specific? He hadn’t been specific about anything since she met him. “You’ll still look for Diana while you’re waiting for the results?”
That bored look again. And no answer.
What little oxygen was in the room seemed to leech away. “You can’t stop looking for her. Please.”
“If she’s still out there, we’ll find her.”
“She isn’t dead. She’s my twin. I’d know. I’d feel it.”
Perreth glanced at her sideways.
She turned to Bryce. “She’s not dead.”
He reached out and took her hand in his, giving her something to hold on to. “Okay. Then no matter what the police do, we keep looking.”
Tears pressed hot against the backs of her eyes and burned through her sinuses. She was so afraid, so very afraid she would never see her sister again. But Bryce was here with her. And though she could tell he feared she was wrong, that deep down he probably believed Perreth, he was willing to listen, willing to help.
And more solid than anything she’d ever known.
Bryce
After Detective Perreth swabbed Sylvie’s cheek to get a DNA sample, they told him about Louis Ingersoll’s strange behavior, Diana’s visits to the prison, and Sylvie’s frightening experience in the hospital. The detective seemed to listen, took a few notes, and said he’d ask patrol officers to drive by Sylvie’s hotel every couple of hours.
At least it was something.
By the time Bryce walked Sylvie back to her hotel room, it was well past midnight, and he felt wearier than sleep could ever cure.
He could never make up for his decision to represent Dryden. He could never wash Tanner’s blood from his hands. And now, if Diana Gale was indeed lying in the morgue, he would have her blood to contend with too.
He eyed Sylvie as she walked beside him. He couldn’t change the past. Couldn’t erase what he’d done. All he could do now was to help her either find her sister or face her grief.
“Do you have someone I could call? Someone to stay with you?”
“No.”
“No one?”
Reaching the door, she fumbled in her pocket for the keycard. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
Like hell she would. She might have insisted her sister wasn’t dead, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared out of her mind that it was true. She hadn’t yet shed a tear, but the dam holding her emotions would crack eventually. When it did, she was going to need someone to turn to, someone to help her through it.
Bryce had no business being that person. Hell, he’d more than proved he wasn’t good at thinking of others. His single-mindedness had been a plus in the world of law, not so in the area of personal relationships. He couldn’t count the times he’d let his mother down. And Tanner…
But he couldn’t just walk away.
“Would you like me to stay? For a little while at least?” The words were out of his mouth before he could bite them back.
“I can’t ask that.”
“You didn’t ask. I offered.” He waited for her to push him away, as she’d done since they met.
Instead, she dipped her chin. “Thanks.”
He followed her into the room. It looked the same as it had hours before, but it seemed everything had changed since then. The mood. The heaviness of the air. Him. The last time he’d entered this room, he’d been looking for a way to prove Diana was a murderess. Now he clung to the hope that she wasn’t a victim.
He turned to bolt the door. When he turned back, Sylvie was still standing in the center of the room, arms hanging limp by her sides. She glanced around as if unsure where to go, what to do next.
“Sit. I’ll get you something to drink.”
She sank onto the loveseat.
Booze would be good. Just a little to take the edge off. Unfortunately there was no minibar in the room, so he settled for tap water in a plastic cup.
She gripped it with both hands and brought it to her lips. After two swallows, she lowered it. “Thank you.”
“Maybe I should run down to the hotel bar for some whiskey.”
She shook her head absently, as if his words didn’t register. “I do have friends you know. The people I work with at the restaurant, my neighbors, stuff like that. But they're the kind of friends you chat with, maybe drink with after work. That’s the kind of friends I have. That’s the only kind of friends I really wanted.”
“Why?”
She shrugged a shoulder, as if to show it really didn’t matter.
But it didn’t take a psychiatrist to see how much it did. “Because that kind of friend will never—how did you put it?—leave you in the lurch?”
“Everyone will leave you in the lurch sooner or later. With that kind of friend, it just doesn’t hurt as much.”
“You’re kind of young to be that cynical.”
“I was a foster child, remember?”
He took a seat beside her. “Why was your sister adopted and you weren’t?”
“There aren’t a lot of families who want to take on a sick toddler.”
“You were sick?”
“My heart wasn’t fully developed when I was born. At least, that’s what I was told.”
“Did you live in a lot of different foster homes?”
“Not as many as some kids do.”
“But?”
“I guess I just always had the sense that I didn’t belong. That they were taking care of me, but they weren’t my real family, you know?”
He didn’t know. But then, how could he? He’d grown up with his parents hovering over him, and his little brother teasing him and breaking his toys. He’d always known he belonged. “It must have been hard.”
“Only the first time.”
“What happened the first time?”
“It’s not important.”
“They left you…”—he paused for a moment, trying to remember exactly how she’d put it— “…in the lurch?”
“You could say that, I guess. She got pregnant.”
“So what happened to you?”
“At first, they included me in everything.” Sylvie smiled a little. “Watching her belly grow. Shopping for the crib and baby clothes. I even got to pick out these little washcloths shaped like a duckling and an elephant. They fit over your hand like a puppet. I was so excited about giving the baby a bath with those.”
Her smile faded.
“What happened?”
“The child services people came to get me a couple weeks before the due date. I never got to see the baby.” She shook her head, as if she still couldn’t understand it, as if she still felt the sting. “They let me get all excited picking out washcloths knowing I’d never get to use them.”