by Lexi Blake
“Well, his name is Russell Seeger.” Emily took a shaky breath. “This is surreal.”
“And we are investigators,” Ariel explained. “You can certainly talk to my bosses if you would like. We’re investigating the senator, but also the senator’s daughter.”
Emily paled. “Dr. Hope McDonald?”
“Yes,” Ariel replied.
They were in synch on one thing—this was surreal. “From the information we’ve gathered, you did a little work with her.”
Emily nodded. “Yes, I did. When you were stationed here in Germany, I took a job at the military base’s hospital. She came through a couple of times with her father. She did some training sessions with the doctors. I wasn’t exactly sure why she came in so often. I got the feeling she was working on something.”
“Did I know her?”
“You met her,” Emily replied. “She was flirty with you. I thought it was creepy, like there were two sides of her. There was the cold and dismissive one I saw, and then she would turn to you and giggle like a teenaged girl. That happened at a reception we attended for her. We had a fight about it that night because you didn’t think she was flirting.”
A shudder went through him. From what he understood, she’d behaved in a similar manner with Theo Taggart before she’d kidnapped him. Despite the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he was curious. “I was stationed here in Germany? I was in the Army?”
“Yes. We met about a year after you joined up. We were stationed on the same base in North Carolina and we fell in love. We got married and they let me follow you when you got stationed here. It’s pretty easy for nurses to move around. Not so much for Army Rangers. They tend to need you in very specific places. We were lucky we got to be together even though you were often deployed.” Her hands were in her lap and she stared down at them. “I don’t know how to feel right now.”
“I’m sure you have a lot of feelings,” Ariel started. “And they’re all valid.”
Robert held up a hand. “One of my feelings is suspicion. It’s a smart feeling to have at this point, don’t you think? She can’t come in here with no proof. If she’s my wife, why didn’t she question my death? You don’t think there would be some kind of footprint out there that Adam would have found?”
“Who’s Adam?” Emily asked.
“Adam is the incredibly brilliant investigator who has spent the last several years of his life trying to figure out who I am. So you walk in and I’m supposed to believe we never posted on social media?” Now that he really thought about it, this was impossible. This was some kind of trick. He wasn’t going to fall for it.
“One of the reasons they asked me to interview her was the fact that she’s listed as a widow, but Adam couldn’t find anything about her husband. His records have been erased,” Ariel replied.
“We did have a social media page.” Emily’s eyes were red with tears. “I didn’t post a lot of pictures because you didn’t like to have them taken. And it wasn’t smart given what you did for a living. Half the time I wasn’t sure where you were. I have pictures though. I have our wedding picture at my place.”
“I’d like to see it.” He would see the pictures, then let Jax see them to prove they hadn’t been doctored in any way. He stood up. There was no need to listen to her until they’d proven she was who she said she was. “Ms. Seeger, I apologize if I seem cold, but I really don’t remember you and I’m in a position where new people could be dangerous to me. I’m going to inform my team of the new developments and we’ll be in touch with you.”
“What?” Emily stood, her eyes on him.
Ariel followed suit. “Robert, we need to talk to her.”
“Not until I’m sure she’s not tricking us.” Robert walked to the door.
“You have a scar on your back, right above your left butt cheek,” Emily said quietly. “You got it when you were twelve and wrestling with your brother. You broke the kitchen table and fell on a vase. You had to go to the hospital. You have another scar on your right thigh. You took a bullet in Afghanistan when you were escorting some politicians around. You have a birthmark on the back of your right calf. It’s faded now. When you have a tan you can barely make it out.”
He went cold. He had all of those marks. But then Dr. McDonald would have known that. She would have taken copious notes. “Did you work for her?”
“Did I work for who? I work for the US military.” Emily’s shoulders straightened. “I’m not on trial here. You’re the one who has questions to answer. You’re the one who left me alone all these years. How do I know you’re not lying about the amnesia?”
“The door’s right there,” Robert offered. “Feel free to walk through it.”
“Robert.” Ariel was looking at him like she didn’t know who he was in that moment.
Robert took a deep breath. He wasn’t handling this well. “Ms. Seeger…”
“My name is Emily,” she insisted. “You call me Em. You call me baby when we’re alone.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember any of that. Ariel, I need to talk to you.” He couldn’t sit there and pretend that this was okay.
Ariel’s expression was tight but she gestured for him to move. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Mrs. Seeger. As you can see, we’ve all been thrown for a loop.”
“Please do come back because I’m not leaving here until I understand what happened to my husband.” Her gaze moved between he and Ariel as though she was starting to figure out there was something between them.
Good. She should know. His heart pounded in his chest as he followed Ariel down the hall. She walked in front of him, her heels clacking on the floor. Her head was high and she didn’t look back.
She wasn’t going to shrink her way through this. He wasn’t about to let her distance herself. He reached out and hauled her around, and his heart nearly stopped.
Ariel was crying, tears streaming down her face.
He softened, pulling her into his arms. “Baby, this doesn’t change a thing.”
She pushed at him. “Don’t call me that. That’s what you called her.”
His gut twisted. “I don’t know who she is. Even if she was my wife, she isn’t now. She hasn’t been for a long time. I am not the man she knew. I’m the man you know. I’m the man who loved you from the moment he saw you.”
“Please, Rob. I need some time to process this.”
“You don’t need any time at all because nothing has changed between us.”
“You haven’t even asked her if you have children.”
He hadn’t thought about children. “I don’t. She would have said something. Ari, this should show you how much nothing has changed. I’m not some cold bastard. If I thought I had kids out there in the world, I would want to take care of them. But I feel nothing at all for this woman. She’s not my wife. She might have been Russell Seeger’s wife, but I’m Robert McClellan.”
“And what happens when you do remember her? What happens when you wake up one day and have a vision of marrying her or the first time you kissed her? God, she said you have a brother. Don’t you want to know about him?”
He did, but he couldn’t think about that now. “You are the most important person in my life. My other brothers, the ones I went through hell with, are checking into this right now. They’ll figure it out and if I do have a family out there, I’ll deal with it. But it won’t change a thing between me and you.”
“It changes everything.”
He tried to reach for her again, but she backed up, putting a hand between them.
He watched as she disappeared behind the door of her office.
Robert stood there completely at a loss for how to fix things.
“If it were later in the day, I would offer to sit and drink with you,” a familiar voice said. Tucker came out of the kitchen to stand beside him. “That seems to be how Dante and Sasha fix everything. But it’s early and it looks like it’s going to be a long day for you. So I think I’ll stand here
and if you want to talk, we can talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
Tucker nodded. “Then we’ll just be. But you should know whatever you decide, I got your back. And if you want to go talk to this woman, I’ll go with you. If you want to run away, we could do that too. Join the circus. Do they still have circuses?”
Despite the ache in his soul, at least he had this brother.
He had a family. He didn’t need another.
He was Robert. He was going to stay Robert. Finding out about who he used to be wouldn’t change a thing. Not one damn thing.
* * * *
Hours later Ariel was still shaking on the inside as she walked through the Englischer Garten. To her left, the Isar River wound its way through the city, and it seemed like the place was teeming with families out enjoying the day.
Families like Robert’s? Had he and Emily strolled this park, their fingers tangled together as they felt the sun on their faces?
She was not going to cry again. She wouldn’t allow it to happen.
Yet she could feel sorrow pressing against her like she would explode if she didn’t let it out.
They’d been close to having a future. So bloody close.
She gripped the shoulder strap of her purse because she needed to have something to do with her hands. Ezra would be here in hours and she would have some cover then. He’d promised to get on the first available plane when she’d called and told him what had happened. He was going to update Damon and Big Tag then come down to meet the woman for himself.
But until then, she needed to talk to the only other person she knew who might be able to shed some light on the situation.
She glanced around because she’d reached the section of park she’d been told to come to. The Steinerne Bank. It was a semicircular bench made of stone. When she’d asked where to find it, Peter had explained that it had once been a temple to the Greek god Apollo. The temple had been made of wood, and over the years had not been well maintained. In the 1800s an architect had built this stone bench over it. Peter had said a lot of stuff she hadn’t really heard. All she’d been able to think about was the fact that Robert’s wife was here.
She glanced down at the words carved into the bench. She did remember this part.
Hier wo lhr wallet, da war sonst Wald nur und Sumpf.
Here where you meander was once only wood and marsh.
This whole park had been wood and marsh once. The whole city. They’d built something beautiful. They’d created all of this, like two people in love created a life together. They worked hard and built something lovely.
She’d convinced herself it wouldn’t happen to them, that Robert’s past wouldn’t drive them apart. It had been so long and no one had come forward. There hadn’t been any movement at all on Robert’s identity. Hell, she’d convinced herself deep down that his past wouldn’t come up. Like he’d truly been born in that lab and he was all hers.
Even the file they believed was his had perpetuated the lie. Ex Novo. McDonald had used Latin to conceal the names of the men she’d experimented on. They believed Robert was the file marked Ex Novo because of his blood type and other markers. Ex Novo was a Latin term meaning built from nothing. She was sure McDonald had thought it a fun inside joke.
But Robert hadn’t come from nothing. He’d had a life and a family before he’d been turned. He had people out there who cared about him.
She could still feel his arms around her, holding her close all through the night. Had he been that tender with his wife? Had he made love to her like she was the last woman on earth?
“Hey, got your text.” Kim Solomon strode up wearing a sundress and strappy sandals, her designer bag thrown over her shoulder. “I was in the middle of something, but I always have time for you. What’s up? You said something big happened.”
“First of all, you should know Ezra’s on his way from London. I expect he’ll be here sometime this evening.” She took a seat on the bench. Despite the fact that the park was packed, this particular section was quieter than the rest.
Kim sat down beside her, and the smile had left her face. “All right. Then something big happened. Is everyone okay?”
There wasn’t an easy way to say it, so she simply put it out there. “Robert’s wife showed up this morning.”
Kim gasped. “What the ever fuck? You’re joking. Robert has a wife?”
She was telling Kim because of her connections. That was all. This wasn’t a desperate call to a girlfriend for sympathy. They were in the middle of a mission. She had to shut the emotional stuff down. “Yes. Her name is Emily Seeger. I need you to find out everything you can about her. I’ve already got McKay-Taggart working, but it would be helpful to know if the Agency has anything on her. She’s a nurse at Ramstein. I was planning on interviewing her because at one point in time she had business dealings with both Senator McDonald and Hope McDonald.”
Kim shifted her bag to her side and moved closer. “Ariel, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m worried about how Robert is handling this. He doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with her. He’s in denial.”
Kim nodded slowly. “Yeah, he’s obviously not the only one. Talk to me. Or at least tell me you’re talking to your other girlfriends. You’re close to Penny Knight, right? I know Kayla Summers moved, but she can pick up a phone.”
This was exactly what she wanted to avoid. She didn’t need more reasons to get emotional. “I was surprised by her appearance, but I’m going to be fine. I knew this was a possibility. We know very little about them. It’s actually shocking that it hasn’t happened to one of them yet. Jax didn’t have anyone left alive he was close to in his family.”
“So everything’s fine?” Kim asked. “You’re not freaking out and doing something stupid like giving him up to some chick who walked through the door after years of not looking for him, right? You and Robert are cool?”
“Of course we’re not. We’re…he has a wife. He has a life waiting for him.”
“He doesn’t have to,” Kim pointed out with a smile. An evil smile.
Ariel knew that smile well. “You can’t assassinate her.”
“I don’t see why not,” Kim said with a shrug. “Look, I’m a problem solver. She’s a problem. We go together like peanut butter and jelly. And that jelly is going to be red, if you know what I mean.”
“You can’t kill her.” She had to reiterate the command because sometimes Kim could be stubborn. If she thought assassinating her friend’s boyfriend’s inconvenient wife would make her friend happier, she might do it and then go out for mimosas afterward. She had a big heart and a surprisingly malleable conscience.
“I don’t see why not. This is why you guys get in trouble. We can do an awful lot of cleanup after she’s dead. Unless Rob already has feelings for her. Damn. I hadn’t thought about that. Is he like all over her? Maybe I should kill Rob.”
“Stop.” But she was smiling because she knew Kim was joking about that. It was her friend’s way of trying to get her to open up. Ariel had made it through the call to Damon and Ian. She’d managed to talk to Peter without breaking again. She wasn’t sure she could do it with Kim. Which deep down might have been why she’d called her. “I have to be professional now. I screwed everything up by letting the personal stuff in. I knew better. I knew this could happen.”
“You knew his wife could come back?” Kim asked.
“I knew he might have one out there.”
“Then why wasn’t she looking for him? I know if Beck went missing I would move heaven and earth to find him, and we’re not even married anymore,” Kim said. “I would do it because I still love that man even though he hates me. So where has this chick been? Who’s she been doing since her beloved went missing?”
“She thought he was dead,” Ariel explained. “I don’t have the whole story yet, but I believed she was told by the military that he died in combat. You know that was very typical of the way the McDonalds
worked. We think they had a network of loyal people in the military who helped cover up their crimes in exchange for money, or perhaps they simply blackmailed them. It’s what they did to Jax. If you look up Jax’s military records, they show plainly that he died in a helicopter accident. I can’t help but consider the fact that she could be telling the truth.”
Kim seemed to think about it for a moment. “So her husband dies in combat. The military could tell her anything they like as long as the report is good enough. I guess they could have told her there wasn’t enough of his body left if he was trapped in an explosion or a fire.”
“See, you can’t kill her.” She knew Robert thought something was amiss, but when she considered it, Hope McDonald sometimes got obsessed with a subject. Like she had with Theo. She’d met Robert and decided she’d wanted him. She’d used her father’s connections to bring in her subject.
“The jury’s out on that, but I certainly will look into his records,” Kim offered. “Have you thought about pulling up stakes? I don’t want you to do that. It fucks with my mission, which is mostly to see if your mission leads anywhere. But I also don’t like wifey showing up at a terribly inconvenient time. Toss in the fact that Levi’s somewhere in Europe and maybe you should head back to London and figure everything out from the safety of The Garden. Or better yet, I’ve got a place in Rome I could stash you and Robert. It’s super romantic.”
Had Kim heard a word she’d said? “I can’t be romantic with Robert. He’s got a wife.”
“He’s got a wife he doesn’t remember. Did he ask you to back off?”
He’d come after her like a caveman who wasn’t going to let go of his prize. Or a man worried he was going to lose someone he loved. Tears were back, pulsing behind her eyes and threatening to make the world hazy. “No. He told me nothing had changed.”
