Unbreakable Bond & The Missing Twin: Unbreakable Bond / The Missing Twin

But he would investigate.

Tomorrow he’d ask Gage and Amanda to pull all the police and medical reports from the hospital. Maybe Amanda could use her expertise to determine if Peyton Nash’s body had been among those in the fire.

* * *

NINA’S PHONE WAS RINGING as she let herself into her house. Thinking it might be Slade, she hurried to answer it.

But the voice on the other end of the line startled her. William.

“Nina, what the hell are you doing hiring a private investigator?”

Nina tensed at the rage in his tone. “How do you know I hired a P.I.?”

“Dr. Emery called. He’s worried that you’re having another breakdown.”

Nina gripped the phone tighter. “Well, I’m not. And what I do is none of your business, William. You gave up that right the day you walked out on me and our baby.”

“Listen to me, Nina. I don’t need some nosy P.I. in my business, especially asking questions about something that happened years ago.”

“Something that happened?” Nina said, her own fury mounting. “What happened was that your daughter went missing. That I was told she died, but that no one ever proved it or even bothered to look for her.”

“For God’s sake, you need psychiatric help,” William bellowed. “My mother tried to warn me, but I thought eventually you’d come to your senses.”

“Maybe you don’t want me asking questions because you have something to hide,” Nina said between clenched teeth.

William’s breath wheezed with anger. “If you make trouble for me, Nina, I’ll make sure everyone at the school where you teach knows just what a basket case you are. Do you think the people of Sanctuary will want an obsessive nutcase teaching their precious children?”

Adrenaline sizzled through Nina’s blood. “Are you threatening me, William?”

“Take it however you want, Nina, just leave me alone and tell that P.I. to do the same.”

Nina started to shout at him, but he slammed down the phone, cutting her off.

She stared at the dead phone in her hand, then dropped it into its cradle, paced to the mantel and picked up Peyton’s photo. “I won’t give up,” she whispered. “Not even if William did threaten me.”

In spite of her resolve not to do it, she walked into the bedroom, dragged on her nightshirt then slipped open the drawer where she’d stowed the tiny pink dress with the butterflies on it that she’d bought years ago. The outfit she’d planned for Peyton to wear home. She knew it was crazy to have kept it. Pathetic.

But she crawled in bed, pressed it to her chest and inhaled the sweet scent of fabric softener.

Then she closed her eyes and imagined her daughter coming home.

* * *

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD REBECCA DAVIS fumbled for her glasses, sweeping her hand across the desk in the bedroom at her foster parents’ house. Without the glasses, she was nearly blind. But at least the social worker had gotten her a computer with big print.

She hated the clunky glasses though. They were too big for her face, and some of the kids teased her and called her Four Eyes.

Other kids looked at her with pity just because she was handicapped, and she didn’t have a mommy.

She didn’t want them to feel sorry for her. She did want a mommy though.

She clicked on the keyboard, brought up her journal and began to type.

* * *

Mommy, I know you’re out there somewhere. I prayed that you would find me on Mother’s Day but that’s passed, so maybe you will on my birthday.

I don’t like it here. The house is dark and dusty. And Mama Reese says her knees hurt too much to play with me outside. Papa Reese’s cigarettes make my eyes itchy and watery and then I cough, and then he tells me to shut up. They don’t like my singing either.

I have to sing though. I dream sometimes that you’re looking for me. That you didn’t just leave me. That we just got losted from each other, and that you can hear me. That one day you’ll follow my voice and come and get me.

* * *

SHE SWIPED AT a tear running down her cheek. Crying was for babies but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sniffling and swallowing to hold back more tears, she finished the journal entry.

* * *

I know I look kind of dorky, and I’m little for my age, and I can’t run like the other kids. And one of my eyes looks funny because I can’t see out of it, but I take my medicine every day so I don’t have the seizures anymore.

I’m getting better in school, too. I’m only a year behind. I’ve been practicing my writing, and I can almost make the letters right now. I can pour my own cereal and make my own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And I don’t mind wearing hand-me-downs if you don’t have much money.

Please come and get me, Mommy. I promise not to be any trouble.

* * *

SHE SAVED HER entry, then pulled on her pj’s and crawled in bed. Then she closed her eyes and prayed her mommy would hear her this time and come to get her as she began to sing….

CHAPTER FOUR

SLADE LET HIMSELF into the fixer-upper house he’d purchased on the side of the mountain. The wooden two-story needed painting, a new roof, the wood floors needed to be stripped and restained and boards needed replacing on the wraparound porch.

He’d thought doing the work himself would be cathartic, but he’d yet to change a thing. Still, the place had character and at one time was probably a cozy home for some family.

He scoffed. As a kid, he’d dreamed about having a home like this. Now it didn’t seem to matter.

But the place was isolated and offered him privacy, as well as an abundance of wide-open mountain air. Something he’d desperately needed after Iraq and the place he’d been kept when he’d been taken prisoner. Cramped, dark, filthy, bug-infested, the stench, the human wastes…

And the blood from the soldiers who’d died trying to save him.

He inhaled a deep, calming breath, the summer air filling his nostrils with the scent of honeysuckle and wildflowers, chasing away the demons from his past. He had a job to do now, and he’d focus on that. Get through the day.

One hour at a time.

He spotted the bottle of whiskey on the counter, and the temptation to reach for it, to pour himself a mind-numbing shot seized him. Just one drink to erase the images in his head.

No… He was done burying his pain. He’d have to learn to live with it or it would destroy him. Then he couldn’t atone for his sins.

Instead, he strode to the workout room he’d created off the garage, yanked on boxing gloves and began to pound his punching bag. The faces of his bleeding and dying men haunted him, and he hit the bag harder, the rage eating his soul, chipping away at his sanity.