Absolute Fear. Lisa Jackson

She walked into the kitchen, the dog at her heels, and untied the plastic bag she’d been carrying, then opened each individual container of food. As she scooped steaming noodles, vegetables, and chicken onto two plates, she added, “I know this goes against everything you believe in, but maybe you should just let this one go.”

      Montoya shook his head. “I can’t. Cole Dennis is dirty, I know it.”

      “But you can’t prove it.”

      “Not yet.” He rubbed at his goatee as he followed her to the kitchen, where he rested his jean-clad hips against the counter.

      “Sounds like a vendetta to me.”

      “Call it what you want.” He took a swig from his long-necked bottle of Lone Star. “There’s got to be a way to nail the son of a bitch, and I intend to find it.”

      Handing him a plate, she said, “Clear a spot on the table, and I’ll get the forks. Unless you want chopsticks…”

      “Forks’ll do.”

      “So, where’s Ansel?”

      Montoya lifted a shoulder. “Beats me.”

      She skewered him with a glare of pure gold. “Was he in when you got home?”

      “Don’t know. I’m tellin’ ya, the cat hates me.”

      “Honestly!” she said with more than a little exasperation in her tone. “You don’t try to be friends with him.”

      “It takes two to tangle.”

      “That’s ‘tango.’”

      “Is it?” He grinned widely, and Abby sent him a scathing look, handed him the forks, and instructed him to set the table before heading off in search of the miserable gray tabby. Montoya wasn’t big on cats to begin with, and this one was a royal pain, but he tolerated it as Abby seemed bewitched by the damned thing.

      A few seconds later she returned, the gray tabby in her arms. The cat was purring loudly as she rubbed his pale belly and made little loving sounds into Ansel’s flicking ears. The cat rotated his head and stared at Montoya with wide gold eyes and such a smug look that Montoya could almost believe the feline understood every word and was using it to his advantage. “Safe and sound, I see.”

      “Cowering under the bed.”

      “I’m telling ya, I didn’t do anything but walk in the door.”

      “Sure, Detective,” she teased as the cat squirmed out of her arms and dropped to the floor, only to hide under the couch.

      “Hate at first sight.”

      “Don’t worry about it. Eat,” she said and pulled a couple of place mats from a nearby cupboard before slapping them onto the table.

      Montoya grabbed a second beer from the fridge, and when thoughts of Cole Dennis regaining his freedom surfaced, he forced his mind from the case. Maybe he needed a break. He opened the bottle and handed it to Abby, added napkins and a bottle of soy sauce, along with knives, then settled into his chair across from her.

      Their living arrangement was new enough to feel a little awkward at times. They’d gotten engaged and she’d moved in, and though they’d known each other only a short time, he was certain he wanted to live the rest of his days with her, a divorced woman whose life had been in chaos from the first minute he’d set eyes on her.

      “Zoey called today,” she said, winding noodles over her fork.

      Zoey was Abby’s older sister, who lived in Seattle. “How is she?”

      “I asked her, and she said, and I quote, ‘More beautiful by the day.’”

      “No problem with her self-esteem,” he said, but they both knew Zoey was referring to the plastic surgery that had helped erase the scars from a vicious attack that had left her nearly dead. Montoya didn’t doubt that Zoey’s face would heal, but he wondered about her psyche, if the terror of being held by a madman, her life in dire jeopardy, would ever be completely erased.

      “She wanted to know if there had been any progress on finding out about our mother’s other child.” Abby set her fork down and stared straight at Montoya. “I told her I hadn’t found anything.” Tiny lines of frustration crawled across her forehead, and Montoya understood her agitation. Abby had grown up believing that she and Zoey were the only children of Faith Chastain, a tormented woman who had spent much of her adult life at Our Lady of Virtues Hospital, a mental asylum that had been closed for nearly two decades. Only recently had the mystery surrounding Faith’s death been solved and another revealed: Faith Chastain had borne another child. The autopsy report from the time of Faith’s death revealed a cesarean scar, one that hadn’t been there when Abby, as a young child, had caught a glimpse of her mother’s naked body.

      So what had happened to the baby?

      So far, no one had a clue.

      Abby frowned. She pushed her plate aside and folded her arms over the table. “I’ve searched all the birth and adoption records for the fifteen years between my birth and my mother’s death. If she had a baby, it would have had to have been in those years. I came up with zip. What about you?”

      “Nothing.” The department, of course, had nothing. No crime had ever been reported, so Montoya had phoned an old poker buddy, an ex-cop who was now a private detective. “I talked to Graziano last week, and he hadn’t found anything. But he’s still looking.”

      “The only way we’ll find out anything is to go through all the hospital records.”

      “Our Lady of Virtues was a private institution.”

      “So? There have to be records. Somewhere.” She picked up her plate and carried it to the sink. Hershey was only a step behind. “And someone knows about them.”

      He knew where this was heading, and he didn’t like it. “The church.”

      “Bingo.”

      He picked up his plate and set it on the counter next to the sink, where she was running water. “You want me to talk to the nuns out there?”

      “You don’t have to do it. I will.”

      “Abby,” he said softly, touching her arm so that she glanced up at him. “Maybe it’s time to let this go.”

      “You want me to just forget that I have a brother or sister that I’ve never met?”

      “The baby might not have made it.” They’d been over this ground before, but as always, she was stubborn as hell.

      “Then let’s find out, okay?” She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and tossed it at him. He caught it with one hand as she pointed a long finger at his nose. “Look, Detective, I’m getting to the bottom of this. I can’t go on living the rest of my life not knowing. So either you help me or I go it alone. Your choice.”

      “Okay, okay. I know. I’m with you.”

      “Good.”

      “I’m just telling you we might not find anything, or, if we do, you might not like it.”

      “So what else is new?” She let out her breath and held up both hands. “Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to pick a fight.”

      “You didn’t.”

      She smothered a smile. “I tried.”

      “And failed miserably,” he teased.

      “You’re impossible.”

      “At least.” He snapped the towel at her rear. “Besides, I’ll get even with you later.”

      “What? In the bedroom?” she asked, eyes widening in mock horror. Splaying the fingers of one hand over her chest, she added, “Whatever do you have in mind?”

      “You’ll see…”

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