“Yeah?” she asked with a meaningful glance at the picture frame and shattered glass on the wooden planks.
Sawyer bent down, picked up the frame and shook off the shards of glass. He stared at the picture again. There was a long scratch down the center. How poetic that a piece of broken glass had scored the picture—directly between him and Jeannette. With a short, bitter laugh, he put it down on the table, slumped in a chair and finished off his beer.
Meg took a sip of her wine and set the glass on the table. She went back in and reemerged with a broom and dustpan. Without a word, she swept up the glass and emptied the dustpan into a garbage can in the corner of the deck.
She sat in a chair next to Sawyer and took another sip. “Now, do you want to try to convince me again that there’s nothing wrong?”
He looked at the picture and sighed. “The FBI thinks they’ve found Jeannette.”
He slid his gaze toward his sister. “I don’t know, Meg. How am I supposed to deal with the possibility that Jeannette’s alive? That I’m still married?”
Meghan pulled her chair closer to Sawyer’s. “Well, as for the latter, that would be easy enough to remedy, like Mom and Dad and I have been telling you to do.”
He laughed, the sound harsh to his own ears. “Oh, well. It gets better. If it is her, she’s married to someone else and has two kids.”
“What?” The word was an incredulous croak. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know how legal it is, seeing she already had a husband, but that’s what I’ve been told.”
“You should’ve gotten the divorce,” Meghan grumbled. “I won’t say I told you so, but...”
“I could have, yeah. But would it really have made a difference? Legally perhaps, but you know how we both feel—” He stopped midsentence, recollecting what he’d been thinking before Meg arrived. That he no longer loved Jeannette that way.
He was falling in love with Shannon.
“What?” Megan asked.
Sawyer looked up.
“You were saying something and then stopped.”
He drained his bottle and nodded at her glass. “With the discussion we’re about to have, I’m going to top up your wine, and you’ll either spend the night here, or I’ll put you in a cab.”
Meghan accompanied him to the kitchen and sat down at the counter. Sawyer topped up her glass with the white wine and—deciding to switch to wine, too—poured a red for himself. He took a bag of chocolate chip cookies from a cupboard before he sat down, too.
Meghan snatched a cookie and practically inhaled it. That made him smile, which was a bit of a miracle.
“I don’t know what to say to you or how I can help,” she said, as she licked crumbs from her fingers. “If nothing else, I’m a good listener.”
“I’d almost reconciled myself to the idea that Jeannette was dead. Rationalized that she had to be, because why else wouldn’t I have heard from her? If not for my sake—and let me tell you that hurts one hell of a lot—then for Dylan’s.” He rubbed at the ache behind his temples. “How can a woman leave her child? And we’re not talking about any woman. We’re talking about Jeannette, a woman with a bigger heart than almost anyone I’ve known.”
Meghan reached for his hand and held it. “I wish I had answers for you, but I don’t. I knew Jeannette nearly as long as you did. I can’t imagine it either. And—I’m sorry to say this—we can’t discount the possibility that she’s the one who’s responsible for Dylan’s abduction.”
Sawyer raised his glass and took a gulp of his wine. “Don’t think that hasn’t been on my mind. If she’s capable of something like that, I never knew her at—” He snapped his mouth shut when he noticed Dylan standing in the doorway. His eyes were shiny and his lower lip trembled. Rufus stood protectively by his side.
Sawyer swallowed a curse and, giving Meg a pained look, rushed to his son.
“Hey, champ. What’s wrong?” he said as he crouched down in front of Dylan. When he started to lift the boy into his arms, Rufus made a rumbling sound. The bond between the boy and the dog had solidified in no time.
“I heard you yelling. Why were you yelling at Aunt Meg?”
“Oh, hey, Dylan. I wasn’t yelling at Aunt Meg.” He cast a glance at her, and she came to join them.
“Your dad wasn’t yelling at me.” She wiped away the tears under Dylan’s eyes with her thumb. “Honest. We were just having a discussion. We were maybe a little louder than normal, but your dad isn’t upset with me.”
Dylan sniffled and wiped his face with his own hands. “You were talking about Mommy,” he said with an aggrieved sigh.
Sawyer knew that the word mommy was an esoteric concept to Dylan. He’d been much too young when Jeannette disappeared to remember her. To Dylan, not having a mother was something that made him different from the other kids. “Yes, we were, but I wasn’t yelling at her either. We just miss her.”
Meg nodded. “Why don’t you have a cookie with us?” Sawyer suggested. “You can give Rufus one, too. His doggy cookies, not yours,” he amended.
“’Kay.”
Sawyer carried Dylan over to the counter, gave him a cookie and poured him a glass of milk. He got a couple of dog biscuits from the cupboard and handed them to Dylan, who immediately passed them to the dog. Apparently satisfied that all was well in Dylan’s world again, Rufus sat and his tail began to sweep the floor. Sawyer rolled his eyes at all the fur the swishing tail stirred up.
He and Meg chatted while Dylan finished his milk and cookies. When Dylan was done, he scooted off the stool to go back to his room with Rufus.
When they were alone again, they kept their voices low.
“As far as Jeannette goes, we’ll have to wait and see what the FBI comes up with.” He took a moment to study his sister. “Want to know something else?”
“There’s more?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Sounds like we need more wine.” This time Meghan topped up their glasses.
“I think I’m falling in love.”
Meg had been lifting the glass to her lips, but she put it back down and tapped her ear. “I don’t believe I heard you correctly.”
“You heard me. Lousy timing. Not very smart, but we can’t always help when we fall in love.”
“Shannon?” Meghan asked quietly.
Sawyer had been staring at the wine swirling in his glass. He raised his head. “Yeah. I think I’m in love with her.”
Meg leaned back. “Okay, I’m a scientist and I’m not blind. I wonder why I didn’t see it before. But timing-wise? Oh, Sawyer. How are you going to deal with that on top of everything else—and how does she feel about you?”
“I’ll have to deal with it the best I can because I don’t have much of a say in it. Believe me, it wasn’t premeditated. It just happened. As for how she feels about me... The fact that she’s hung in despite the way I’ve run hot and cold says a lot. I don’t know much more than that. If she does have feelings for me, this development with Jeannette has got to weigh on her, too.” He turned grief-stricken eyes toward his sister. “How am I supposed to pursue a relationship with Shannon when I might still have a wife in Arizona?”
“Look, I understand about loyalty and lifelong commitments as much as you do. It’s how we were raised. But whether she’s alive or not, Jeannette is a ghost to you and Dylan. She’s been out of your lives for almost Dylan’s entire life and for half the time since you married her. If she is alive—and that’s not definite yet, is it?”
“It’s probable.”
Meg nodded. “All the more reason you’re going to have to prepare yourself for discovering why she left. Whatever it is, you won’t be happy with the answer. And if she is behind Dylan’s abduction... Well, I don’t have words for that. Don’t throw away what you might be able to
have with Shannon. At least don’t do it for the wrong reasons. The way Dylan talks about her, there’s a special attachment between them, too. Sawyer, from what I’ve seen and heard, she’d make a wonderful mother.”
Sawyer’s reflexive and immediate reaction was to argue that it was much too soon to think about that.
But he recalled the times he’d seen Shannon with Dylan. He couldn’t deny that the thought had occurred to him, too.
* * *
SPECIAL AGENT LEARY knocked on the door of the sprawling bungalow in Wickenburg, Arizona. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and looked around and down the street as he and Special Agent Anne Wilson waited for the door to open. When he heard the snick of the lock, he faced forward again.
“May I help you?” asked the young woman with lovely features, soft blue eyes and rich, auburn hair hanging nearly to her waist.
“Special Agent Leary. FBI,” he said, holding up his ID. “This is my colleague, Special Agent Anne Wilson,” he added as she held out her badge, too.
The woman’s mouth formed an O as she examined their badges. There was no question in Leary’s mind that this was the woman they were seeking, but they had to go through the motions. “We’re looking for Ms. Jeannette Evans.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You have the wrong address. I don’t know anyone by that name.”
Leary watched for the slightest indication of pretense but saw none. “Might I ask who you are?”
She looked mildly uncomfortable but answered with only a brief hesitation. “I’m Lilly Harris.”
At the sound of high-pitched squeals, Lilly glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, I’m sorry. Can you excuse me for a minute?”
“Of course,” Leary said.
They waited until she returned with a toddler in her arms. The little girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen months and was dressed in a pretty pink dress, frilly white socks and white shoes. She had an arm wrapped around Lilly’s neck.
Lilly gave the girl a warm smile before turning her attention back to them. “Special Agents, what can I do for you?”
“Would you mind if we came inside?”
Leary saw the flash of doubt tinged by the first show of irritation on her face, and she tightened her arm protectively around her daughter.
“Would you like to take a closer look at our IDs? I can give you a number to call for verification, if you wish.”
Her brows furrowed, but she took a step back from the doorway. “No. That’s fine.”
She led them into a cozy, meticulously neat living room. Scattered around the room were pictures of her, the man Leary presumed to be her husband, the little girl she was holding and a baby. She gestured to the sofa. “Please have a seat while I settle Amie down for her nap. I won’t be long.” She returned a few minutes later. “I apologize for keeping you waiting. Would you like some coffee? Water maybe?”
“Water would be nice. Thank you,” Leary responded.
“That would be great for me, too. Thanks,” Wilson said.
When she returned with three glasses of ice water, Leary took one as did Wilson. “Is your husband home, Mrs. Harris?”
“Why do you ask?” There was the fleeting look of mistrust again, but it was gone as fast as it had appeared.
“Because if he is, it might be better if he joined us.”
“No. I’m sorry. He’s at work. Oh—” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “Does this have something to do with Ron? With my husband?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Wilson assured her.
Leary could see the pulse beating at her throat. She was nervous, but he didn’t think it was because she was hiding anything. Heck, even the most upstanding people tended to get nervous when talking to the FBI. He started by asking her some general questions. About herself, her family and her life.
Her responses were consistent with the information he had from the background search they’d conducted. He got no sense of deceit. Just reserve.
“To confirm, the name Jeannette Evans doesn’t sound familiar to you?” he asked, for the record.
“I’ve already told you, no.”
“How about Jeannette Warner?” he asked, using her maiden name.
She seemed to consider again, then shook her head in confusion. “No. I’m sorry. I’ve answered your questions. Could you tell me what this is all about and why you’re asking me about people I don’t know?”
Her body language and the gleam in her eyes told Leary that she was beginning to understand. “Jeannette Evans went missing from San Diego three years ago.”
“And what does that have to do with me? You think...” Her voice petered out.
“Jeannette Evans went missing in March of that year. March 28, to be exact.”
The tumbler she’d been holding slipped out of her hand, spilling water all over the carpet.
“Oh, gosh,” she exclaimed, as she reached for napkins and tried to mop up the water.
Leary took a handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to her, while Wilson bent down to help.
When Lilly had done the best she could, she set the empty tumbler on the table and laced her fingers together. Her face had gone paper-white and her eyes looked impossibly large in that pale face.
“Can you tell us about your life before you got married? Maybe show us some pictures of yourself from the time you were a child to, say, your late twenties?” Leary prompted.
“No, I can’t,” she said, so softly he barely heard her. “I...I was in an accident. Three years ago. On March 28. I don’t have any possessions or remember anything from before then.”
Leary didn’t believe in coincidence, and it appeared Jeannette/Lilly didn’t, either. She was obviously intelligent and was able to figure out why they were there. He could see that she’d accepted the undeniable.
She was Jeannette Evans.
Taking turns, Leary and Wilson told her about her life as Jeannette, her husband and son, but withheld the information about Dylan’s abduction. Leary’s instincts said she wasn’t feigning memory loss. If, in fact, she had no recollection of her past or her son, she wasn’t responsible for the abduction. Still, he wasn’t ready to categorically clear her yet, so he wanted to continue to observe her reactions.
“You...You think I’m Jeannette Evans?”
Leary read shock rather than disbelief on her face. He could understand why she wouldn’t want it to be true, any more than Evans did. Here she was in a comfortable, by all indications, happy life with a husband and two kids—and yet she had another husband and kid in San Diego.
To answer her question, Wilson pulled out a picture of Jeannette that Sawyer had given them, taken a couple of weeks before her disappearance. The woman in the photograph had her long honey-blond hair drawn back and was wearing jeans and a sweater, but there was no denying it was the same person. She handed it to Lilly.
Her gaze locked on the photo and she covered her mouth with her free hand. “Oh, my God...” she murmured.
“Could you tell us what you know about your accident?” he asked gently.
“I was found in a ditch by the side of a road,” she began haltingly. “A team of paramedics found me. Someone had called 911. They took me to the hospital, and I was diagnosed with a severe concussion that resulted in memory loss. I had no identification. Nothing other than the clothes I was wearing. The local police were unable to determine who I was. There were no matches in the local or national missing persons’ databases. I stayed in the hospital for a few days for monitoring. The doctors initially hoped that my memory, or at least some of it, would return.
“It didn’t.” She reached for her glass and remembered that it was empty.
“Let me get you some more water,” Wilson offered.
“Yes. Thank you. Tap water is fine.
&n
bsp; “I can’t explain what it’s like,” she continued. “Not to know anyone, not to have family or a friend to turn to, not even to know yourself.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. When Wilson returned with her water, she drank deeply.
“The one positive thing was that I met my husband while I was in the hospital. Ronald is a staff pediatrician.”
A weak smile softened her face. “Ronald was incredibly kind to me. He arranged for me to stay with his mother after I left the hospital. With no identity, no money, I wouldn’t have known what to do otherwise. His mother is a teacher and she helped me get a job as a teacher’s assistant at the school where she works. Well, one thing led to another, and Ron and I fell in love, married six months later and the kids followed shortly after. Ron is a bit older than I am, and he was keen to get started on a family.” Her smile firmed. “He’s a wonderful husband and father.”
Leary was convinced that none of it was an act. She really didn’t have any recollection of her life from before she was found in the ditch. That was easily verifiable through hospital records. Her husband wouldn’t have been involved in her care, so there’d be no question of falsified reports.
“How did you end up with the name Lilly?” he asked out of curiosity.
“Oh, that was Ron, too. He hired a lawyer and instructed him to do whatever was required to establish an identity for me. And the name? After I met Ron, he brought me flowers every day at the hospital.” She smiled again, and Leary understood how easy it would be for someone to fall in love with her. “Lilies were my favorite.”
He had a few more questions before turning it over to Wilson.
“Mrs. Ev...ah, Mrs. Harris, would you like to phone your husband?” Wilson asked. “I imagine you’d like to talk to him.”
Lilly grasped on to that, almost like a lifeline. “Yes. Yes, I would like to phone him.”
She left to make the call. When she returned, she was still pale and appeared shaky. If she was everything she seemed to be, Leary realized they’d just pulled the rug right out from under her, leaving nothing below but a gaping abyss. “We can wait with you until he gets here, if that would help,” he suggested.