by Lisa Jackson
She forced a smile. “I think we need to get you into the hospital,” she said, trying to sound encouraging.
“Hospital?” Trace repeated.
“Noooo!” Eli, taking a cue from his father, began to protest but ended up only with another coughing fit that made him cringe and his eyes water.
“I think yes.” She glanced toward Trace, silently suggesting he support her on this. “It’s just to make sure you’re going to get better as fast as possible.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Trace said.
Eli’s face crumpled as he had another coughing fit.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she said to the boy. “I know. You’ll feel better.”
“You’ll come with me?” Eli asked.
“Of course,” Kacey assured him. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“I don’t have to stay there.”
“For a while,” she said, “but let’s figure that part out once we get there, okay?” To Trace, she added, “I’ll meet you at the ER at St. Bart’s, and we’ll get him admitted.”
“You got it.”
Two hours later Eli was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, pronounced “stable,” and sleeping soundly. The nursing staff was taking care of his boy and had promised to call Trace in the morning and keep Kacey in the loop. From what Trace got out of it, his son still had bronchitis, along with strep throat and possible pneumonia. Kacey had insisted the boy stay overnight where he could be monitored, his fever tended, and Trace was a little relieved, though he wanted to camp out in his son’s room on the one uncomfortable chair.
“I’ll look in on him before I go to the clinic tomorrow,” Kacey promised as they walked out of the main lobby of the hospital and into the parking lot, where several cars were scattered around and the sky was thick with clouds. A cold breeze skated down the canyon where the river, far below, cut through the shimmering lights of the town.
“He won’t like being here.”
“Who does?” She glanced back at the building, lights glowing upward for three stories, a garland of fresh cedar bows draped over the portico. “But he should be out tomorrow, I’d think.”
He walked her to her car, and as she opened the door, Trace grabbed her by the crook of the arm, holding her back a second. “Thanks, Kacey,” he said.
“No problem.”
“I mean it.”
She looked up at him expectantly, turning her face so that as the first flakes of snow fell from the sky, they caught in her eyelashes and melted against her cheeks.
In the bluish lights from the security lamps, she appeared a little ghostlike, her skin pale, her eyes a shade darker than they were in daylight. For half a heartbeat, he was reminded of Leanna.
Or was it Jocelyn?
A chill settled in his guts. “You’re more than welcome, Trace,” she said and smiled. “I’m glad you called. Eli needed to be here.”
“You could have just advised me to bring him to the hospital. You went a step further.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I wanted to see him,” she said with a smile that touched his heart. In that second, he experienced an urge to kiss her. While the snowfall increased, fat flakes dancing around them, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and press his lips to hers and just see what happened.
She felt it, too. Her gaze held his, and his breath seemed to stop in his lungs.
Don’t do this — kissing this woman will only complicate things.
And yet there it was. Between them.
“I’ll give you a call after I see him in the morning.” Then, before he could react, she stood on her tiptoes, hugged him, and even brushed a kiss along his cheek, her lips running across the stubble of his beard.
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.
“You’re thinking just what the cops will, but I had nothing to do with any of this,” he said, shaking his head in confusion. “I’m apparently attracted to a certain type of woman, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“So where is she? Leanna?” Kacey asked carefully.
“I don’t know.”
Kacey heard something in his tone. “You think she might be dead,” she whispered and then was inordinately aware of the clock ticking off the seconds, of Bonzi snoring softly in the living room, of Trace’s rock-hard jaw, the tension evident on his features.
He raked stiff fingers through his already tousled hair. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think, but I’m pretty certain that since I was the last guy Jocelyn dated, and I went to her house when the school called, I’m already on the police’s radar. If they see pictures of Leanna, who could be missing… they might make a connection.” He leaned back in his chair. “Then again, they could find Leanna, see that she’s okay, which would be good. I can’t seem to reach her. Eli misses her.”
Stunned to think he’d been married to someone so much like her, Kacey stared at the image on the screen. This was all too freaky, and a part of her said she was going out of her mind, letting paranoia get the better of her, but she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her uncanny resemblance to the other women, including Trace’s ex-wife. “Do you miss her?” she asked.
“Leanna?” He made a huffing sound. “Not hardly. Not that I would deny my kid a mother, but just not Leanna. She walked out and made it very clear she didn’t want anything to do with either of us.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “I took her at her word.”
“You have to find her,” she said suddenly. Maybe Leanna O’Halleran was the missing link, the person who knew what was going on. She could be key.
“If she can be found. Trust me, I’ve been giving it my best shot.” He took a long swallow from his beer, and Kacey decided it was time to give him some more bad news.
“Leanna and Jocelyn, they’re not the only women missing, or possibly killed, who look like me.”
“We don’t know that Leanna’s dead,” he reminded. “She’s. . too mean to die.” Kacey tried to keep her expression neutral, but he must have seen something in her expression, because he asked, “There were others?”
Could she trust him? Confide in him her half-baked theory? He was right; he was involved with one missing woman and one who was murdered, but in her heart of hearts she couldn’t believe that he was dangerous. Not to her. Not when she’d seen how he cared for his son.
Decision time.
Trace was staring at her intently, and she decided to make a leap of faith. “Let me get my purse.” She hurried from the kitchen, located her bag, and dragged out the pictures she’d shown her mother only hours before. Carefully, she placed each image on the table where her grandmother had served so many meals.
“This is Shelly Bonaventure,” she said.
“That actress who died recently. I know she looks a little like Jocelyn, and you. Suicide, wasn’t it?”
“That’s the official version.”
“You think she’s part of this? Seriously?” he asked, obviously skeptical. “Other than her looks, what kind of connection is there to the others?”
“She was born in Helena, Montana, as were Jocelyn Wallis and myself.” Kacey pointed to the picture she’d printed off of Elle’s Facebook page. “This is Elle Alexander—”
“The woman in the one-car accident last night.”
“Yes, and this woman is still alive and works at a local gym.” She slid the brochure from Fit Forever. “A trainer named Gloria Sanders-O’Malley.”
“She from Helena, too?” He picked up the brochure, squinting as he studied her features.
“Don’t know,” Kacey admitted. “But I’m going to talk to her or check one of her social network sites. Lots of people list their hometown or where they’ve lived on Facebook or the like. If she’s not there, I’ll just talk to her.”
“And say what?”
“I haven’t completely figured that out yet,” Kacey admitted.
“Huh. Yeah. How do you tell someone you think she’s next on the list of some psychopath, especially when there’s no real link established yet?”
“I’m working on that, along with finding out if Elle gave me false information or really didn’t know where she was born.”
“I don’t know about this,” Trace said after a long, silent moment.
“You came here,” she reminded him. “With picture
s of Jocelyn and Leanna. Don’t you think it’s damned odd that so many women who look so much alike, who are in their early thirties, are dying?”
“Yes. . I do. . but what are you really saying? You think a serial killer is searching for a type? And that the victims aren’t random targets? That he stalks them? That maybe he knew these people while they were in Helena?”
“That’s probably unlikely,” she admitted, as frustrated as ever. “Shelly left Helena when she was really young, and if Elle was there, she didn’t know it. Her birth certificate’s from Idaho.”
He slid the picture away from the others that were clustered together. “So she’s different.”
“In that respect. But she’s in the region. I don’t know.” Again she looked at the picture of the woman to whom Trace had once been married. “What about Leanna?”
He made a face. “She said she’d once lived around Helena, but she didn’t remember any of it, either. I think her parents split, but the truth is, I don’t know much about her. She liked it that way. Didn’t want to talk about her childhood.”
“You don’t know where she went to school? Or her friends?”
He shifted in the chair. “I met her in a bar, it went down hot and heavy, and she ended up pregnant. We got married a few weeks later. Then she lost the baby and split.”
“Leaving Eli?”
“That’s the kind of woman she is. Not that I want it any other way. If she tried to take Eli from me, I’d fight her till the end. The marriage was one of those six-week wonders.” Another swig from his bottle. Kacey watched his Adam’s apple move, then turned her attention to the images.
Another woman near her age, who looked like her, who’d lived around Montana’s state capital, possibly born there, and who was now missing.
“Here’s something else,” she added. “I just found out that the man who I thought was my father wasn’t. My mother had an affair with a doctor in Helena, and even when my dad found out, he kept raising me as his own.”
“So?”
“These women don’t just look alike. Some of us are dead ringers for the other. For a while the staff at St. Bart’s thought I was the woman in ICU when Jocelyn was brought in.”
