Chapter Fifteen
AJ
I pull the cord on the old banker’s light on my desk. Too many late nights and too much fucking paperwork. My neck is killing me.
Spinning around in my chair, I rub the stabbing pain until it turns into a dull ache. From the credenza against the wall, Grace laughs from the last photo I took of her. Two seconds before I’d snapped the picture, Belle had stuck her tongue in Grace’s ear.
The dog has never been the same since Grace disappeared, but she no longer sits by the door all day, hoping her person will finally come home. And while I still run the trail every fucking Saturday, Belle and I spend our weeknights in a cheap studio apartment only two blocks from the station.
More than once, I’ve thought about selling the house at the lake, but I can’t face the prospect of living somewhere Grace has never been.
And Belle needs the space to run on the weekends.
The apartment was a compromise. A way for me to sleep at night in a bed that doesn’t constantly remind me of all I’ve lost, while keeping the house we bought together in case, by some miracle, Grace comes home.
She should be waiting for me right now. Steam coming out her ears. Ready to remind me what I’d promised the day she disappeared. That when I made captain, I’d come home on time more often.
Shit.
I gotta get out of here if I don’t want the doggie daycare to read me the riot act. Again.
“I miss you, darlin’.” Picking up the photo, I crush the wood frame to my chest and give myself a count of five to wallow in my grief. “I’ll never stop lookin’ for you. There ain’t been one single moment I’ve forgotten you. And there never will be.”
My eyes burn. I haven’t cried in at least a month, but the anniversary of Grace’s disappearance is in a little over three weeks. And the closer it gets…
I already put in for time off. I’ll let Elmore take Belle so I can spend a solid forty-eight hours drowning myself in a bottle of tequila.
I’d ask Jasper to take the dog, but the few times I’ve talked to him this past year, he’s told me to start dating again, and I ain’t ready.
I’ll never be ready.
The fucker found the love of his life a few months ago. After nearly dying last year in the explosion that ended his career, he’s so happy most of the time now, it’s hard for me to be around him. Hell, I had to stop watching Channel 5 News because his girlfriend is one of their on-air reporters.
She’s damn good at her job, but seeing her reminds me of all I’ve lost. So now I’m a Channel 10 devotee—even though their coverage sucks ass.
I spin my wedding ring around on my finger. Grace’s ring is tucked under my shirt on a chain. Maybe one day, I’ll take it off, but it sure as shit ain’t gonna be today.
Setting the photo back on the credenza, I let out a heavy sigh. It’s quiet at the station this late. Elmore is still around here somewhere. She drew the short straw this week. Hardison, her partner, got to go home early while she finishes up all his paperwork.
Before I can grab my coat, my desk phone rings.
Ignore it. Belle’s waiting for you.
But I’ve never been very good at listening to my inner voice. So, I pick up the receiver. “Stone.”
“Captain AJ Stone?” a man with a thick, Mexican accent asks.
“That’s what I said. Mind tellin’ me who you are and why you’re callin’ so late on a Friday night?”
“My name is Dr. Alejandro Reyes. I work at a small clinic outside of San José de Carranza in Mexico.”
“Doc, Mexico ain’t in my jurisdiction. Call your National Guard.” I don’t have time for this. It’s been a long damn day and I won’t let Belle think I forgot her.
“I do not need the assistance of law enforcement. I am calling specifically for you. Four days ago, a woman’s body was dumped at my clinic’s back door.”
My knees give out. I land in my desk chair—hard—and the fucking thing rolls back and hits the credenza. Panic, grief, and despair squeeze my chest tight enough it’s hard to breathe. This is the moment I’ve dreaded for two years, ten months, and six days.
“B-blond hair, five-foot—fuck—five-foot-six, a hundred and forty pounds?” The stats I’ve rattled off a thousand times since Grace disappeared are so much harder to force from my lips when there’s a real possibility I’ll never have to say them again.
“Captain Stone, I found the website you set up after your wife’s disappearance with all of that information. It is why I called you. But…if I am to be certain this is your wife, I need to know if she has any tattoos or birthmarks.”
“The phases of the moon on her right shoulder over a spray of oleander flowers. Look, Reyes, if you ain’t about to confirm I can finally lay my wife to rest, hang up now or I’m fixin’ to come down there and beat the everlovin’ shit out of you.”
If this is a prank call—or another asshole only interested in the fifty thousand dollar reward—it’s gonna set my last fuck on fire.
“What about her left ankle?” Reyes asks.
The chair is the only thing that keeps me from ending up in a puddle of grief on the floor. “A semi-colon tattoo. As part of a b-butterfly. We kept that detail out of the news,” I whisper. “When can I pick up Grace’s body? And where?”
“Mierda. Captain Stone, I am not explaining myself well. When I found her, she had been stabbed, poisoned, and kicked in the head with such force, her skull fractured. My clinic is small—only a single operating room—but I was trained at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. It is the best medical school in the country.”
I don’t understand why he’s telling me this. Hearing how my wife suffered before her end is only going to make my nightmares that much worse.
“I was able to repair the skull fracture, but her brain was swelling, and I had to put her in a medically induced coma for two days. She woke up yesterday morning.”
Woke up…
Hope thaws the ice around my heart, the flames building so hot and fast, I can’t catch my breath. “Grace is…alive?”
“Sí. She is. But she has no memory of her name, her life, or what happened to her since her disappearance.”
Fucking hell.
“Can I talk to her? Where did you say you were again? I’ll get in the car right now. Drive. Fly. Both. Whatever I need to do.”
“Captain—”
“AJ. You found my wife. Alive. Call me AJ.”
“Gracias, AJ. Grace is confused and very scared. Her injuries are serious, and my responsibility—as her doctor—is to keep her as calm as I can. Seeing you in person…well, I believe it would be the better option.”
“I’ll get in the car as soon as we hang up the phone. Just need to get one of my lieutenants to take care of my dog for a few days. Where did you say your hospital was?” My hands shake as I reach for my cell phone.
“Twenty miles west of San José de Carranza. There is only one road in and out of town. You will not miss it.”
“San José de Carranza?” My phone gives me directions to the middle of fucking nowhere. “How small is this clinic and why haven’t you transferred Grace to a bigger hospital?”
Digging my fingers into the arms of my chair hard enough my knuckles crack, I wonder if this sombitch is even a doctor. I wouldn’t know a Mexican medical school if it bit me in the ass.
He sighs, his voice weary. “AJ, forgive me for being so insensitive, but your wife was stabbed, poisoned, and left for dead in a burlap bag. She was suffering from hypothermia, and I believe that is the only reason she is still alive. Whoever hurt her clearly wanted her dead. What happens when they realize they failed in that endeavor? If I transferred her to Chihuahua, it would not be long at all before she was identified. She has no defenses. The people who tried to end her life could walk right up to her and she would have no idea who they were.”
Fuck.
He’s right.
“Doc, I don’t know you, but if I find out you’re lyin’, San José de Carranza is gonna be down one doctor.”
“I took an oath, Captain Stone. Not unlike yours, I believe. I put my patients first. Always.”
I can’t tell if he’s a self-righteous asshole or a truly good man. Not over the phone. But all that matters now is getting to Grace.
“Take down my cell,” I say after I unclench my jaw. “If Grace remembers anything—if anyone comes lookin’ for her besides me—you call. Understood?”
“Sí. Go ahead.”
I rattle off the digits, push to my feet, and grab my jacket off the back of the chair.
“I’ll be there by nine in the morning. If you do tell her anythin’ about me, tell her I never stopped lookin’ for her.
” It’s one of a thousand things I want Grace to know.
A thousand things I didn’t think I’d ever get to say.
“Very well. But AJ?” The doctor clears his throat and lowers his voice. “I do not recommend telling anyone that Grace is alive. Not unless you trust them with your life. And hers.”
“Elmore!” I call on my way through the bullpen. “I need you to pick up Belle tonight!”
Dammit. Where is she? The mug of coffee on her desk is still steaming, but her computer’s off and her coat ain’t hanging on the rack by the door.
“Elmore!”
Fuck. I don’t have time for this.
The doggie daycare closes in twenty minutes. I’m gonna have to pick up Belle and take her all the way out to the lake with me. I can’t go to Mexico without our passports, my personal sidearm, and some of Grace’s things.
Pulling out my phone, I text Elmore on the way out of the station.
AJ: Need you to watch Belle this weekend. Got something personal to deal with. Call me. ASAP.
I’m so distracted, I don’t notice her leaning against the driver’s door of my SUV until I practically punch her in the gut reaching for the handle.
“Fuck!” My keys slip from my hand, but she catches them before they hit the ground.
“I know you weren’t fixin’ to walk out of the station like it was just any other Friday.” Elmore draws up to her full height, hands on her hips. “And you sure as shit weren’t gonna drive all night to a tiny town deep in the middle of Sandoval cartel territory, alone.”
Yeah. I was. I am.
“Move,” I grit out, pushing into her personal space to give her my best glare. “You weren’t supposed to hear any of that.”
“No shit. Next time you have secrets to keep, use your inside voice. Or close your office door.”
“I need you to watch Belle—”
“No.” She tucks my keys into her pocket like they belong there. “I’m driving you out to the lake. You are gonna call Jasper on the way. Emi can take care of Belle for the weekend while he comes with us.”
“Fuck no. My brother and I ain’t exactly on speaking terms. And there is no ‘us’ in this scenario. I’m goin’ to San José de Carranza alone. Give me the keys, Elmore. Now.”
“You’ve been here almost”— she checks her watch—“twelve hours now. You think you’re gonna be worth spit by nine a.m. tomorrow after driving all night?
Get in the goddamn car. And since I’m about to break God knows how many laws keeping you from doing something supremely stupid, I think you can call me Parker. ”
Parker Elmore is the best Ranger I’ve ever trained. She’s also stubborn as fuck and the closest thing I have to a friend. Unsure why I expected her to just…ignore the fact that Grace is alive. But goin’ all the way to Mexico? Riskin’ her career? That ain’t in her job description.
“Fine. You can come. But I ain’t callin’ my brother.”
I trudge around to the passenger side of the car while Parker slides behind the wheel and adjusts the seat. She’s a full eight inches shorter than I am.
“If you don’t call Jasper, I will,” she says as we pull out of the parking lot. “He’s probably about to leave to pick up Emi from Channel Five.”
“And you know this, how?” I lean against the door frame, exhausted and wired at the same time.
“Emi, Isabel, and I have drinks every couple of weeks.” She gives me a quick side-eye. “And if I have to call him, you’ll never hear the end of it. We need him, AJ. The Sandoval Cartel is serious shit.”
She’s right. Maybe he won’t pick up the phone. I’ve been enough of an ass to him since Grace disappeared I wouldn’t blame him.
So, of course the sombitch answers on the first ring.
“Let me guess. They’re givin’ you another award,” Jasper drawls. “Captain AJ Stone makes the news? Again?”
How the hell do I explain the past half hour? Spit it out like it’s some movie-of-the-week plot? I didn’t think this through.
“AJ?” My twin brother actually sounds concerned. “What’s goin’ on?”
Parker reaches across the center console and gives my forearm a quick squeeze. It’s enough to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.
“It’s Grace…she’s alive, Jas. I got a call from a doctor in Mexico twenty minutes ago. She’s in a small medical clinic outside of Chihuahua.”
A rush of air carries over the line. “Holy shit. How?” he asks.
“I don’t know. She doesn’t…fuck. She can’t remember anything, Jas.
Not her own name, not me, not what happened to her.
Belle’s at doggie daycare and I need you to pick her up and leave her with Emi for the weekend.
Then meet me at the house. But if you ain’t there in ninety minutes, we’re leaving without you. ”
“We?” he asks. For all of two seconds, the radio in his truck blasts some sad country song as the engine turns over with a rumble. “Who the fuck—”
“Jasper,” Parker says, exasperation roughening her tone. “Ain’t no way I was letting him go alone. And since he’s as stubborn as both of us put together, I had to steal his keys to do it.”
It doesn’t take me long to tell my brother everything I know—it ain’t much. “We might be down there for a couple of days.”
“I’m more concerned with how we get back,” Jasper says. “Especially if you don’t want the whole world to know she’s alive. We can’t just stroll up to the border, bat our eyes, and hope for the best.”
Fuck.
I didn’t think about that. Hell, I haven’t thought about a lot of things. What if Grace doesn’t want to leave with a stranger? What if she never gets her memory back? What if she does and she’s so thoroughly broken, she can’t ever trust me again?
“The two of you are ignoring the world’s most obvious solution.” Parker flips on the blinker and takes the exit for Lake Travis.
“What?” Jasper and I say at the same time.
“Connor.”
I shake my head. “Why would I call him?”
Parker shoots me a glance, then huffs. “It’s a damn good thing I’m here, AJ. You’re not playing with a full deck.”
“Connor’s a civilian. How the hell is he supposed to help us get Grace over the border?” I ask.
Protecting the former FBI agent, his girlfriend, and her daughter was the last big case Parker and her partner, Hardison, worked with me. But Connor hasn’t been on the job in months.
Parker offers me a tight smile. “You need to get out more, AJ. Connor has some powerful friends. And he owes you.”