Shattered (23 page)

Lisa took a deep breath. She felt as though she were teetering at the top of the proverbial slippery slope.

"Hypothetically," she agreed.

"Who knew you took the file home?"

That was a logical first question, one Lisa had already been halfheartedly trying to work out for herself. Trust Scott to cut right to the heart of the matter.

"Not very many people. I've been trying to think." She did a quick visual sweep of the hall. Most of the doors were closed. There were now two nurses at the nurses' station, and they were conferring over a pile of charts spread out on the counter. Another nurse was pushing a cart toward them, stopping at every room as she came. The janitor, still wielding his mop, had nearly reached the end of the hall. No one was paying them any particular attention. Her eyes returned to Scott. "Rinko was the only one left in Siberia when I took the file out of there, but I'm pretty sure he had no idea I was taking it. While I was driving home, Joel called. I think I told him I had the file with me. It's possible he told his father, who was with him when he made the call, although I don't know why it would have come up. Then, you may have seen it."

"I may have seen it?"

"When my car broke down and you stopped. My briefcase fell open. The file was one of the things that spilled out. You had your hand right on it. At the time, I was surprised you didn't see it."

"I didn't," he assured her.

"You would say that, though, wouldn't you?" She gave him a small, faintly mocking smile, to which he responded with an acknowledging grimace. "After I got home, I took my briefcase up to my bedroom. It had the file in it. I got the file out. This is going to sound stupid, but I have--had--a doll that looked a lot like the little girl in the picture, and I wanted to compare the two. My father called while I was doing that, and I believe I may have mentioned the file to him and said I had it with me, but I'm not sure I told him that. I know I said something about the file and the Garcia family, though." She shot him a quick, defensive look. "Actually, I asked him if I was adopted."

"If you were adopted?" Scott looked mildly astounded. Then he frowned at her. "Is that what you think this is about?"

Lisa shook her head. "N-no. I mean, it was just a sudden thought I had but--no. In any case, Barty assured me that I wasn't, and then my mother showed me my baby book. It was all there, all the pictures, her being pregnant, me being born, the hospital, everything. The whole nine yards."

"Okay, so it's possible your father may have known you had the file at home. Who else?"

Lisa sighed. "This is where it gets tricky. When I went down to supper, I'm almost positive I left the file open on my bedroom floor. After that, I suppose anyone who was in the house could have come into my room and seen it. Andy and Robin were there, and so was Lynn Carter, my mother's nurse, whom you met. Plus we had some painters working not far from my bedroom. Remember that big oak that fell on the house in May? They were finishing up the last phase of the repair work. There were five or six of them, I think. Any one of them might have seen it, if they'd walked into my bedroom for whatever reason. By my count, that's fourteen people who possibly knew I had the file and where it was. Along with anyone they may have told."

Scott's brow had slowly furrowed while she'd been speaking.

"You said the contents of the file had already been entered into the computer when you took it home?" he asked.

Lisa nodded. "Everything should be on there, thank goodness. Wait till you see the picture. You won't believe how much I look like her."

Even as she said it, she knew she was assuming Scott would want to see the picture. That he was in this with her now. It was, she realized, a good feeling. Comforting. Reassuring.

He still frowned.

"Once the file was logged in to the system, it was supposed to be tagged with a security device before being re-stored. One of those little plastic stick-on things like they use in library books. Did you see anything like that on it?"

Lisa shook her head. "If it was there, I didn't notice it."

"Well, it should have been there, and if it was, it would have registered the file number and name when you carried it out the door. If the system worked like it's supposed to--and I know that's a big if--potentially anyone on the building's security staff could have known that it had been taken out of the building, and probably could have figured out that you had taken it."

"Great. How many people are we talking about?"

Scott shook his head. "I don't know. I'll check it out."

The cart rattled past, making Lisa, who was already on edge, jump. The nurse pushing it gave them a curious glance and then a quick smile as she stopped outside Martha's door to knock on it briefly.

"Go on in," Lisa told her.

"Staying the night again?" the nurse asked, opening the door, and Lisa smiled and nodded.

The nurse pushed the cart into the room, leaving the door open behind her. It was a routine check, Lisa knew, but still she felt she needed to be in there. With her mother's hesitant speech and impaired mobility, some of the hospital staff had a tendency to treat her as if her mind was impaired, too.

"I need to get back to my mother," she said to Scott.

Scott nodded, but he seemed to be deep in thought. Then, as she started to turn away, he caught her arm. The warm curl of his hand around her bare skin caused her breath to catch and her pulse to quicken. Such a sudden, intense reaction to his touch was new. Disconcerted by it, her eyes flew to his face.

"You're spending the night in Miss Martha's room?" If he was feeling anything like she was, he didn't show it. She pulled free of his grip and folded her arms over her chest in a kind of instinctive self-defense.

"Yes."

"Don't go outside again tonight. Not to get something out of your car or for any other reason, hear?"

"I wasn't planning to, but why?"

"Either you're really unlucky lately, or our hypothetical scenario isn't so hypothetical after all. Whichever one it is, you don't want to be running around by yourself in the dark."

Lisa's eyes widened as she forgot all about the way his hand wrapped around her arm had made her feel. "Are you saying you think I'm in danger?"

That was the thought she'd been shying away from, the one she didn't want to face. Now she had no choice.

"Let's say I'm starting to think it might be a possibility."

A thrill of dread ran through her. "Scott . . ."

"Miss Grant?" The nurse put her head out the door. "Your mother is refusing to take her sleeping medication. If you could help me with her . . ."

Distracted, Lisa glanced around. "She doesn't want to go to sleep right now. She apparently wants to watch
House.
Give me a second, and I'll be right there."

Looking disapproving, the nurse withdrew. Lisa turned her attention back to Scott, who was frowning at her.

"I want you to leave this case alone. Don't talk about it to anyone else, and don't go poking around in it anymore. I'll get it checked out for you," he said before she could say anything else.

"But I don't want anybody else checking it out," she protested. "Just in case . . ."

Her voice trailed off. The truth was, she didn't want to examine her burgeoning suspicions closely enough to put what she feared into words. Not that she knew, exactly, what it was she did fear. It could, however, be summed up in two words: nothing good.

"Trust me, would you please? I'll make sure that whatever's done is done discreetly, and I'll keep your name out of it. Stay in your mother's room for the night, and leave that damned case alone. And if anything comes up that makes you nervous, call me. I can be here in ten minutes. My apartment is right down the road."

"Okay, fine," she said, although not without misgiving. She wasn't sure about turning anybody else loose on the case, even if it was done discreetly. But she knew from experience that arguing with Scott was an exhausting experience that she didn't feel like entering into at the moment. At the various and assorted memories that conjured up, she smiled at him, a quick, wry smile that to her surprise caused his eyes to narrow and his mouth to tighten as if something had suddenly displeased him. Before she could even begin to figure out what, they were once again interrupted by the nurse.

"Miss Grant . . ."

"I'm coming." With an apologetic grimace for Scott, Lisa turned away. "I really have to go."

Then, with one hand on the open doorjamb, she glanced back at him.

"Thanks," she added softly.

"Anytime."

Even as she went to her mother's assistance, she was aware of him heading toward the elevators, walking with that easy, athletic grace she had always associated with him. When she was inside the room, dealing with the sleep issue, when she knew he had gone, she was surprised to find that despite the presence of her mother and the nurse, she felt very alone. And far too vulnerable. And just a little bit afraid.

17

Okay,
you can forget reincarnation.

That was Lisa's first relieved thought when she saw that the Garcias had disappeared on May 1, 1981, almost a month after her own birth. Not that she had ever believed such a thing was even remotely possible, of course.

The great thing about the combination of wireless Internet and lap-tops was that she could do all kinds of research from just about anywhere, Lisa reflected as she read the date one more time late the following morning. For example, while she was sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs that lined the waiting area outside the MRI room with a smattering of other patients' relatives, killing time while her mother was inside, having yet another scan done. That was where she was when she discovered that the snapshot of the Garcia family that had been taped to the inside of the folder had been taken on the day they had moved into the house from which they had disappeared eight months later. Before that, they had lived in Arlington, Virginia, for a number of years.

She'd had Rinko e-mail the case file to her (and never mind that Scott had told her to leave the case alone; she was far too emotionally invested in it to obey, and besides, when had she ever just meekly done what Scott told her?). Reading the various documents, she was riveted when she stumbled across the information that Angela, before moving to Lexington, had been a radiology technician at Saints Mary and Elizabeth Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, which was, like Arlington, practically a suburb of Washington, D.C. The coincidence of the woman she so closely resembled having worked at the hospital where she had been born made her pulse quicken, but since she'd been born in Silver Spring in April 1981 and Angela and her family had been living in Lexington for months at the time, there didn't seem any way to forge a connection between the two happenstances, as tantalizingly significant as the fact seemed to be.

There's no mention anywhere of the dog's name. No mention of a Lucy at all . . .

"Miss Grant." A female voice dragged her attention away from her laptop.

"Yes?" Lisa looked up to find a plump gray-haired woman in a white lab coat standing in front of her. She recognized her as one of the phalanx of doctors who'd been treating her mother but couldn't quite place her otherwise. She was saved by a plastic name tag identifying her as Dr. JoAnn Dean, head of radiology. Oh, yes, now she remembered.

"I just wanted to let you know that as far as we can tell, your mother has not had a stroke. What we think occurred is that stress combined with her weakened condition caused several small blood vessels to pop in her brain, resulting in the loss of consciousness she experienced. There should be no lasting damage from that, and if the other tests come back negative and we can get her back physically to where she was before, she should be able to be released from the hospital in a few days. Maybe as soon as Monday."

Lisa felt a wave of thankfulness ease something inside her that she hadn't even realized was gripping her heart like a tight fist. What that rush of emotion told her was that, as braced as she had thought she was for her mother's passing, she still wasn't ready. Not even close.

"I'm so glad. Thank you for telling me."

Dr. Dean nodded and talked for a few minutes about the physical therapy her mother would be getting to strengthen her enough so that she could once again get around in her wheelchair. Then she left, and Lisa returned her attention to her laptop and the Garcia family.

The husband, Michael, had been working at a service station on Winchester Pike at the time of his disappearance, according to the initial police report. He had a rap sheet with convictions for a number of mostly petty crimes ranging back to his teenage years. The most serious, receiving stolen property, had resulted in him spending time in jail just before they had moved to Lexington. Not a lot of time, just ninety days, but still Lisa wondered if it had something to do with the move.

A handwritten police note clipped to the rap sheet suggested that Michael's background be investigated further for possible connections to the disappearance. Paging through the rest of the file, Lisa could find no evidence that this had been done. After nearly thirty years, though, it was only to be expected that the file would be less than complete. It would have gone through a lot of hands before being finally filed away as the leads petered out and the trail went cold, which meant there would have been ample opportunity for things to get lost.

The lead detective on the case was a Lexington police officer named Dean Graves. Although the note suggesting further investigation of Michael Garcia's background had not been signed, Lisa thought, from matching it to other handwriting throughout the file, that he had written it. Talking to him was a logical next step, but a quick scan of police records revealed that he had retired in 1995 and had since died.

That was the trouble with cold cases. People died, or moved, or forgot. Documents got misplaced. Evidence was lost. And after a while the case got buried under the sheer avalanche of new crime.