27. Elijah
“Ihave to get out of here!” I yell as I try to stand again.
“Sit down before I have to start all over again,” Doc scolds as Lance shoves me back down onto the bed. His hands hold my shoulders, and even though logically I know I can’t go hunt for Andie when my forehead is bleeding, I also know we’ve already been here too long.
She could be anywhere.
Jaxson and I were both out for three hours before someone found us in that ditch. Three hours, and there’s no telling where Andie is. The other driver is gone, the car abandoned and wiped clean of prints, so I know whoever was in it had to have taken her.
But who?
And why leave us alive?
Jaxson stands in the corner, silent as he has been since Doc finished his exam and determined he has a mild concussion. Which, given the fact that the rental has been smashed into smithereens, is a pretty good prognosis.
We should both be dead.
Andie. Her seatbelt had been cut, and we found one of her shoes at the scene. Where is she? How badly is she hurt? Is she even still alive? Millions of scenarios run through my mind on repeat.
“Okay, there.” Doc steps back, so Lance releases me. I push to my feet, ignoring the aches that shoot through my body. “I don’t know how you’re still on your feet,” he says. “But if you take any more hits right now, I’m not sure you’ll be able to stand.”
“I’ll be fine.” I start toward the door.
Michael moves in front of me, hand up. “Why don’t you let us take the lead on this.”
I turn toward Lance. “If it were Eliza, would you stop?”
We both know he wouldn’t. Didn’t, in fact, when she was in the crosshairs of a stalker. “No.”
“Then get out of my way,” I tell Michael.
He moves, and I practically run out of the hospital, ignoring the fact that every step brings fresh pain.
“What is the next move?” Lance asks as he, Michael, and Jaxson catch up to me right as we climb into Lance’s truck.
“I need to get to the office and start piecing this together.”
We pull out of the parking lot and start the drive to the lighthouse.
“I contacted the sheriff. He’s searching for any traffic camera footage in the area. Most of it is empty highway, but we might get lucky.”
Please, God, let them find something.
“I don’t know. But there’s got to be something somewhere that ties all this together. Did you contact her father? Any word on Alec?” Jaxson had wanted to set up an interview but hadn’t had any luck.
“He hasn’t been seen or heard from since Andie’s collapse.”
Lance guides his truck into the parking lot, and I’m surprised to see the sheriff’s car there, him leaning against the hood. When he sees us, he pushes off and waits near the porch as we climb out.
“How are you both feeling?” he asks Jaxson and me.
“Fine. Any new evidence?”
“We actually did find something I think you’ll want to take a look at.” He gestures toward the door, so Lance unlocks it, and we go inside. Then he hands me a thumb drive. “This was taken about a mile from the accident. Caught on a traffic cam just outside of town.”
I fire up my computer, heart pounding.
This is her.
It has to be Andie.
Right?
After sticking it into the USB port on my computer, I open the file and watch closely. I scan every person on the sidewalk, every car that passes until?—
“That’s Mia.” Andie’s assistant is behind the wheel of a large white SUV.
“I thought you said she was still in New York,” Lance says.
“She was. Andie was talking to her—” And then the pieces begin to fit. Not all of them but enough that I can make out a clear picture. The coffee. The text message that directly ordered those men to take me out.
What if I’d been the target in New York too?
“Did you run a background check on her?” Jaxson asks.
“Of course.” I roll over to my laptop and fire it up, then open the file I have on her assistant. “Twenty-four, never been married. Grew up in a house with both parents and two other siblings. Went to college at the same school Andie did, studied design.”
“The woman in the car is Diana Pallum,” the sheriff says. “I had someone run her face through facial recognition.”
“No. That’s Mia Harper. She’s Andie’s assistant.”
“Diana Pallum is a ninety-seven percent match,” he insists. “And Mia Harper is currently living alive and well in Paris, France, working on a new design line for some big designer over there. I can’t even pronounce the name. I called and spoke with her before I headed over here.”
“That can’t be right.” I double-click on the photograph attached to the file I built on Mia Harper.
Blue eyes.
Blonde hair.
I zoom in. And spot a small, crescent-shaped scar at the corner of her right eye.
After doing a quick search in a database I probably shouldn’t be using, especially in police company, I open a photograph of Diana Pallum. Same general facial features, though her eyes are brown, and her hair is a strawberry blonde versus the platinum in Mia’s photo.
No scar.
Closing my eyes, I picture Mia’s face when I’d seen her last. She’d screamed when Andie collapsed, her expression almost hysterical.
Had there been a scar?
“What is it?”
“The scar. You met her assistant. Do you remember there being a scar on her face?”
“No,” Michael tells me. “I actually don’t. But it’s such a minor detail?—”
“Not in this, it isn’t. It’s not her. She was using a false identity.” I lean back in my chair, furious that I missed it. How did I miss it? But I know the answer to that, don’t I? I’ve been grieving the loss of Edna, all while trying to actively fight the growing feelings I have for Andie.
And now the price of my distraction might just be Andie’s life.