Fracture (F-BOMB: Curvy Vigilantes #8)

Chapter 12

12

“Don’t move!” Karli shouted at the woman. Or maybe at Lorelei. All Lorelei knew was they both froze.

“Lorelei?” the woman said, her blue-eyed gaze stuck to Lorelei.

“What do you want?” Karli asked.

“I… I just wanted to say hi. Lorelei saved my life, and I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The woman broke down, sobs bouncing out of her like they were held back and had to break free.

“Do you have a weapon?” Karli demanded.

“What? No. Why would I have a weapon?” The shock of the question silenced her sobs. Was that a trick or was that real?

“You were reaching into your handbag.”

“I was going to show Lorelei a picture of my daughter. She saved us both. Made it possible for us to have a life. It’s been years since I’ve seen Lorelei.” She turned to Lorelei, her brown ponytail swinging. “Do you not remember me?”

Lorelei shook her head, hating the anguish in the woman’s voice. Pain came from disappointment and sorrow. This woman thought Lorelei would remember her. Should remember her.

“I have amnesia,” Lorelei blurted. “It’s not you. I don’t know myself. Or my cousin, Karli.” She waved toward Karli.

The woman glanced at Karli, her gaze clearing. “Wow, you really look alike.” She straightened and turned to Karli. “I’m Bonnie. Lorelei and Adam saved my daughter and me from my ex-husband. He was going to sell my daughter and kill me so he could pay off his debts.”

“I’m so sorry,” Karli said.

Bonnie nodded, sniffing. “Thanks. Lorelei was amazing. She protected us and arrested him and took down the group that was going to buy my daughter. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever been through, but Lorelei made sure we survived.”

“She’s good at her job,” Karli said, a genuine smile for Bonnie.

“You really don’t know me? Or anyone else?” Bonnie asked Lorelei.

Lorelei shook her head and turned so she could get out of the vehicle. Karli grabbed the crutches and held them for Lorelei to stand while Bonnie gasped.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lorelei admitted. “I was abducted and tortured and left for dead. I was lucky. Someone found me, and I’ve been trying to recover, but my memories are not coming back quickly.”

“Oh, wow. I’m so sorry. And I’m sorry I scared you. I know you don’t know me, but I really do want to show you pictures of my daughter. Maybe it’ll help?” Bonnie looked at Karli as if asking for permission.

Karli nodded, and Bonnie reached into her handbag.

Lorelei moved away from the vehicle and closed the door. They stood at the curb to look at pictures of an early-twenties dark-haired white girl that Lorelei swore she’d never seen before.

“She’s beautiful,” Lorelei said.

Bonnie nodded. “She is. And smart. She’s in college right now, trying to decide what she wants to study, but she’s considering law enforcement because of you.”

“Wow, that’s a huge honor,” Karli said.

Lorelei nodded. “It is. I know it’s not an easy job, and I hope my current condition doesn’t scare her away from it.”

Bonnie smiled, her eyes kind and understanding. “I hate that you’re hurt, but I know what you do is important. You’re saving lives. You saved ours. We would both be dead if you and Adam hadn’t helped us. If my daughter wants to do the same thing, wants to be like you, nothing could make me more proud.”

“Thank you,” Lorelei whispered. The compliment made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. Like her life had value. She had value.

“Are you just here to visit your cousin while you recover?”

Lorelei shook her head. “I’ve sort of moved here. I guess.”

Karli stepped in. “It’s a long story, but Lorelei and Adam came here for a case and stuck around. Adam got married a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, that’s so exciting! I’m so happy for him. And I feel safer knowing you are here and working to keep Niagara Falls safe. There’s been a lot going on lately that has had me wondering if we should find somewhere else to live, but Lexi loves it here and I can’t imagine not being close to her.”

“It’s a great place to live,” Karli said. “And the people working to keep us safe are all working hard.”

Lorelei recognized that as a diplomatic answer, one intended to stop the conversation. Was it because Karli was one of the victims? One of the people directly tied to the hell that was happening?

And why the fuck couldn’t Lorelei remember any of it? Ugh. It was so damn frustrating.

“Oh, yes. I have no doubt.” Bonnie smiled. “I should go. Let you get on with your day. Lorelei, it was so nice to see you. I really hope I run into you again. Hello to Adam for me. Nice to meet you, Karli.”

“You, too, Bonnie. Have a good day,” Karli said.

Bonnie waved and moved past them, continuing her walk down the sidewalk.

“Did you trust her?” Karli asked.

Lorelei glared at her cousin. “I don’t trust myself. How the hell do I know if she was telling the truth?”

“Let’s text Adam when we get inside. Make sure he knows her story.”

Lorelei nodded, following Karli to the restaurant door and watching Bonnie walk away.

A server led them to a table by the front windows, and Karli immediately pulled out her phone. She typed out a message, then set her phone on the table to wait for Adam’s reply.

The server came back with waters for both of them and asked if they were ready to order.

Lorelei shot Karli a panicked look, but Karli just smiled. “We need a minute, please.”

“Not a problem. Take your time.”

“Thank you,” Karli said, smiling at the server. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed at Lorelei.

“I have no idea what I like. None of this is familiar to me.”

“I will order. You don’t have to freak out. What have you been eating all week?”

“Whatever Vinnie puts in front of me,” Lorelei admitted. She hadn’t realized how much she was relying on Vinnie until that moment. “He hasn’t asked what I like, just cooked food and gave it to me. How does he know what I want to eat?”

“He probably watched what you were eating in the hospital. And he’s pretty healthy, so he’s making things that he likes and if you’re not complaining, he’s assuming you’re okay with it.”

Lorelei nodded. “You’re probably right.”

The server came back, and Karli ordered for both of them. Lorelei sipped her water and looked around. No recognition at all.

It was getting frustrating.

“I hate this,” Lorelei said when the server walked away.

“Hate what?”

“Not knowing anything about myself. That woman, Bonnie, she could have been dangerous. She could have been innocent. She could have been anyone. I had no idea who she was. I walk by the mirror sometimes and wonder who is right there before I realize it’s me. I am sick of not knowing what the hell is going on.”

“Is that why you opened the computer today?”

Lorelei considered the question, then nodded. “I guess so. I… I want answers, but it’s terrifying. The nightmares…”

“Are you still having them?”

Lorelei shook her head. “Not since Vinnie started sleeping with me again.”

Karli’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Not sex, just sleeping in the same bed as me.”

Karli’s raised brow said she didn’t believe Lorelei.

“There’s been no sex.”

“Just orgasms?”

Lorelei’s cheeks burned. “There have been a few of those.”

“Okay, start at the beginning and tell me how this all happened.”

Lorelei sighed heavily and grinned. “I yelled at him.”

“And he gave you orgasms?”

“Basically, yeah.” She told Karli the whole story about threatening to leave and Vinnie’s reaction, then the aftermath and how the last few days had gone.

“And things are okay?” Karli asked.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t they be?”

Karli inhaled, then let her breath out slowly.

Lorelei couldn’t remember her training, but she knew that slow breath meant Karli was about to say something Lorelei was not going to like.

“I keep going back and forth, but I wish you’d come to live with Cade and me. That you were around people you know.”

Lorelei wanted to argue that she didn’t really know any of them, but she kept her mouth shut.

“Vinnie is a stranger. We believe he’s one of the good guys, but we’ve thought that before.”

“He knows Marcus and Frannie,” Lorelei said, remembering Frannie saying she spoke to Karli. Maybe that would ease her cousin’s mind.

Karli nodded. “I know. And Frannie said he’s good. Said she would trust him with her life.”

“So why can’t I?” Lorelei asked.

Karli shook her head. “It’s not that you can’t. It’s just that…”

“You want me to trust you.”

Karli looked up at Lorelei and nodded. The pain in her eyes said it hurt her that Lorelei chose Vinnie over Karli.

“I’m sorry,” Lorelei said. “I do trust you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have told you about my notes. I wouldn’t have let you in. But it’s hard. It’s so damn hard. I fucking hate my brain. I hate that I have no idea what is going on all the time. That I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel, who I’m supposed to turn to, what I’m supposed to do. It’s confusing and aggravating and miserable.”

Karli reached across for Lorelei’s hand. Her outburst drew the attention of diners closest to them, but Lorelei was having a hard time caring. She just wanted to remember something. Anything.

Karli’s phone buzzed, and she glanced down at it. “It’s Adam.” She let go of Lorelei’s hand and picked up the phone. “He said he remembers Bonnie. She was a little clingy, but she was telling the truth about her and Lexi and the ex-husband. The ex is in prison, but he cut a deal to flip on the group he was going to sell his daughter to.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Lorelei dead-panned. “Why would we give people deals? He was going to sell his daughter.”

Karli texted back to Adam, then set her phone down. “I don’t get it, but if it means someone worse goes away for longer, I guess it’s a good thing.”

“Maybe I’m not a very good agent. I think they should all be in prison forever.”

Karli grinned. “There’s that spark that drove you to become an agent. When you first told me you were switching your major, I thought you were crazy.”

“I switched my major?”

Karli nodded. “You did. You were a psychology major, but one of your friends went missing. She was on her way home from class one night and disappeared. No one ever found her. You spent an entire semester searching for her in every spare minute you had, and when you pissed all off the campus officers and the local and federal ones, you changed your major so no one would ever be lost forever like she was.”

“Seriously?”

Karli nodded again, her gaze full of admiration. “I thought you were the most amazing person I’d ever known. You were so strong, and so smart, and so determined. I think a part of you thought you’d find Annie one day.”

“Annie?” Lorelei asked. The name didn’t ring a bell, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t in there somewhere.

“Yeah. Annie Lake. Do you recognize her name?”

Lorelei shook her head, hating that another person who mattered to her was gone from her memory. “I hate this.”

“You’ll get your memories back. I know you will.”

“I hope so.”

Vinnie couldn’t remember ever being so happy to be on his way home from work. He loved his job. It gave him purpose and direction at a time when he had neither. Being a police officer, and then a SWAT officer, said he was making a difference in the world.

But he had something else he was enjoying just as much. And she was waiting for him at his apartment.

Vinnie had a smile on his face as he climbed the stairs to his floor. He expected Karli to be there, but the only one he wanted to see was Lorelei.

Voices inside his apartment surprised him. A male voice blended with the female voices. More than two voices.

Tension put him on edge, but they laughed, and Vinnie tried to relax. He never said Lorelei couldn’t have people over. He just hadn’t expected her to have a party.

Vinnie unlocked the door and walked in to Lorelei, Adam, Raina, Karli, and Cade all in his living room. They looked up when they realized he was there.

“Vinnie! You’re back,” Adam said. “How was work?”

“Um, it was good. How are you? How was your honeymoon?”

Adam’s smirk, followed by his shared grin with Raina, told Vinnie far more than he wanted to know about Adam and Raina. “Honeymoon was very good.”

“Ew,” Karli said.

“Just wait until it’s yours,” Raina countered.

Karli’s eyes went wide.

Cade threw his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t scare her off for me.”

“Are you going to propose?” Raina asked.

“Not right now,” Cade said. “When we’re ready.”

“Ooh, I can’t wait!” Raina gushed.

“Lorelei was going through some of the files with me,” Adam said, extracting himself from the couch and moving toward Vinnie at the door. “Sorry we all invaded your space.”

“The files?” Vinnie asked, glancing at Lorelei. He thought she was going to wait for him.

Adam nodded. “Yeah, on her new computer. She used some kind of shorthand that she doesn’t know and hoped I would be able to put some pieces together.”

“Oh. Um, good. I hope you could.” Adam was Lorelei’s partner. Of course she went through the computer with him. Vinnie had no reason to be upset. Or jealous. He wasn’t an agent.

“Unfortunately, no.” Adam shook his head, his gaze unfocused, like he was trying to figure something out. “She and Karli were looking at everything this morning, and Karli was no help. She thought maybe I would know something, but none of it makes sense to me. Lorelei had her own investigation and code for her notes. Even Cade couldn’t decipher it and he keeps notes in code, too.”

“Cade? And Karli? And none of you could figure it out?” Vinnie asked. That wasn’t really what he wanted to know. He wanted to know how many people Lorelei shared her notes with that weren’t him.

He offered. He told her they’d go through everything when he got home. But she didn’t wait for him. She shared it with her cousin and her partner. And her cousin’s boyfriend.

Not just her partner, who would have access to the same information, but two civilians. Two people who wouldn’t know what Lorelei knew.

She didn’t want his help. Not for anything besides orgasms and sleeping.

“It’s not simple,” Adam continued, as if Vinnie’s question was only about the complexity of the code. “We’ll keep trying, though. Next time you work, Lorelei is probably going to come into the office with me so we can go through things in a place where we have access to more information.”

“Sounds good. I’m going to jump in the shower.”

“Wash off the day. I get that,” Adam said. He returned to the couch and wrapped himself around his wife.

Vinnie walked away. He wasn’t in their group. Just like when he found Lorelei, he was an outsider. In his own home.

Vinnie remembered to grab clothes before he went to the bathroom. He locked the door and turned on the shower, frustrated with himself for thinking Lorelei was there for him.

It was sleep and orgasms. She didn’t think he was worthy of sharing her notes. Of confiding in about the case she was working on. Just the physical stuff.

Vinnie wanted to shout into the water, but he kept it in. It wouldn’t change anything. He couldn’t force her to open up to him.

The apartment was quieter when he got out of the shower. He dressed and stalled as long as possible before admitting to himself it looked weird for him to be in the bathroom so long.

Adam and Raina were gone when he walked out of the bathroom, but Karli and Cade were still there.

“We were going to go out to dinner. Want to join us?” Cade asked.

“Nah, I’m good,” Vinnie said.

“Are you sure?” Lorelei asked.

Vinnie nodded. “Yep. You go have fun. Enjoy your night out. I’m not your keeper. You don’t have to check with me before you do things.”

“I’m not… I wanted you to join us. That’s all.”

“It was a long day. I’m just going to stay in. I might be asleep when you get back, so lock the door. Unless you’re staying with Karli and Cade?” It was petty, but he couldn’t help but ask.

“I’m coming back here. Unless you don’t want me to.”

“It’s up to you where you want to be. I’m not going to force you to stay here.”

“Why are you acting like this?”

Vinnie shrugged. “I’m not acting like anything. Just want you to do what you want.”

“I… I’ll be back after dinner.”

“Whatever you want.”

Lorelei’s eyes narrowed, trying to figure out why he was being an asshole.

He couldn’t explain it. But he also couldn’t stop.

“I’ll see you later.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” she said. She moved toward him like she was going to touch him, but she stopped. She shook her head once, then turned and went to the door.

“What was that about?” Karli whispered as the door closed.

“I wish I knew,” Lorelei answered.

That makes two of us.