Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
“Did you get it?”
Lincoln looked up from the photos and records scattered across his kitchen table to his daughter standing in the mudroom doorway, trophy in one hand, sports bag in the other. “You won?”
“No, I just brought this ugly hardware home for shits and giggles.” She set the trophy on the end of the buffet table that had been collecting ugly hardware all season long.
He straightened, tossed his glasses on the table, and opened his arms. “Welcome home, my spawn.”
Elena ditched her bag and ran across the room into his arms. “State champs. Next stop, Regionals.”
“State champs, congrats.” He dropped a kiss on her head. “And I promise I won’t miss Regionals next weekend.”
“Just tell me you got the missing piece.”
He pointed at the small laminated card in the middle of the table. “I got it.”
“This about the hot guy you keep looking at on your phone?” Trina asked, entering from the mudroom, two large coffee cups in hand. She handed him the one that did not smell like a diabetic coma. “The agent you worked that case with?”
Lincoln nodded. “His name is Carter, and yes, it’s something I told him I’d work on for him.
With him.” And they had, though mostly over texts these past three months owing to Carter’s undercover assignment.
Lincoln loved being home with Elena and back at the Academy teaching, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss Carter more than a little.
His heart and mind hadn’t changed from where they’d landed in Apex.
He’d faced his fears there—fire, stage fright, love.
He’d conquered the first two, and knew he’d also conquer the last, with Carter.
He wanted a shot at a future with him. He’d spent the past three months gathering everything he needed to make that happen.
He’d left Apex the same day as Carter, had arrived back in town in time for Elena’s tournament, but at Elena’s next school break, he’d packed them up and traveled back to Apex.
They’d recruited Jeremiah to the cause, and the three of them had spent a week digging through the library and police archives.
He’d followed up with interviews at the hospital, with everyone still alive who’d been on the APD force thirty-two years ago, with Larry who was in a nearby state correctional unit, and with Barry.
He was convinced it was the same accident Larry had spoken of, that Barry also remembered, and he was likewise convinced Carter’s parents had just been passing through, not Apex locals, but what had happened to baby Carter?
The forensic evidence didn’t add up. Despite evidence of a car seat in the charred remains of the car, there was no body or bones to indicate an infant perished along with the two unidentifiable adults in the car.
He’d shifted their search from the accident to people in Apex and surrounding areas who had newborns within a six-month window after the accident.
And found a Martha Richmond in the hospital records.
No prenatal care, but then suddenly one newborn-care appointment.
But that was the only mention of her. They’d rifled back through photos and found a single picture of Martha in Apex, from the winter before the accident.
Definitely not pregnant. A deeper background check revealed she’d moved to Dallas, Texas, the fall after the accident.
He’d texted Carter, who’d made a call to the DSS officer he’d found in Texas, the person who’d put him onto the Apex lead in the first place.
She didn’t recall a Martha, but she thought maybe the girl in the Apex U sweatshirt said her name was Marla Richards.
She knew it was when Carter had shown her the picture Lincoln had found in the archives.
And from Martha’s surviving sister, they’d gotten the entire story.
How Martha had been fishing near the ravine that summer when there’d been a terrible crash of metal from the interstate and a car had hurtled over the rail.
How she’d gotten the wailing baby out of the car seat before the car had exploded into flames.
How she thought a baby might get her abusive boyfriend back, the one who’d moved to Texas.
And how when that plan had failed, when the boyfriend beat her up and threatened the baby she’d named Carter, she’d surrendered Carter to DSS and committed suicide a month later.
But in the middle of that terrible, heartbreaking story, there’d been a clue that had been the break they’d needed.
The baby Martha had brought home that day was in an Arizona State jumper.
That fact obtained, the rest of the pieces had come together.
By narrowing the scope of his search to cars registered in Arizona that matched the size and likely models of the charred vehicle in Apex and cross-referencing the owners of those cars against hospital records, he’d found the couple in Tempe who’d given birth to a son in January, the same year as the accident.
Carter—before he was Carter—the last piece of evidence secured this past weekend in Tempe.
But what to do now—the path forward—wasn’t only Lincoln’s decision. He sipped his coffee and rested against the edge of the table, eyeing two of the most important people in his life.
His spawn was already a step ahead of him, phone in hand. “Do we need Mom for this?”
He nodded, and Elena dialed Gabby. “What’s up, babes?” she answered, sounding wide awake despite it being the middle of the night where she was.
“Dad’s getting cold feet,” Elena replied before he could get in a greeting.
“Ooh, the guy from Apex?”
He cut his eyes to his daughter. “You are such a fucking gossip.”
She gave him an insolent shrug. “I’m gonna be gone in five years. You can’t wander around this place all by yourself. You’ll go crazy.”
He set down his cup and covered his face with his hands, groaning behind his fingers. “Don’t remind me of my impending empty nest.”
“And don’t expect me to entertain you,” Trina said, leaning a hip next to his. Her eyes, the same honey color as his and Elena’s, drifted over his shoulder. “This guy clearly means something to you, L.”
“He does, and I’m not getting cold feet.” He looped an arm around Trina’s shoulders and opened the other for Elena to nestle against his side. “But I’m not jumping into this fire without all of you on board. I don’t want to bring someone into this family who is going to hurt us again.”
Elena stared up at him. “Nothing you’ve told me about Carter sounds at all like Adam.”
She was right. Carter and Adam were nothing alike, but it didn’t mean the worry didn’t linger. He was ready to face that fear, but was the rest of his family? “I’m willing to take that chance. Are all of you?”
“I’m game,” Elena said. “Especially if you’ll stop playing that depressing Green Day song.”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” Trina said. “That one and ‘The Freshman,’ after every breakup in college.”
“Until you met me,” Gabby preened over the phone. “And you don’t have to marry him.”
Elena and Trina snickered.
“What am I missing?” Gabby asked.
“He kind of already did,” Elena answered.
Lincoln dragged the chain out from under his collar, the braided silver rings heavy on the end. Before leaving Apex, Carter had insisted Lincoln hold them for safekeeping until he returned from his assignment. “We pretended to be married for our cover.”
“Liked it, did you?”
“I really did.” More than liked arguing with Carter every morning, flirting with him, kissing him, working with him. And Lincoln thought Carter would work well with the rest of his family too. “I think you’d like him. All of you. That’s the scary part.”
“You just put away a serial killer known as Dr. Fear,” Gabby said. “How scary can this be?”
Elena wrapped her arms around his middle, squeezing. “I want you to be happy, Dad.”
Trina hugged him from the other side, her smile soft and warm, encouraging. “We all do. When’s he back in town?”
“Soon. He was wrapping up last we texted.”
“Hold a second,” Gabby said, fingers flying over keys in the background. “He lands at DCA at ten tonight.”
Tonight. Carter would be home tonight.
“Do you need his home address?”
“No, he gave me a key before we left Ap— Wait, how did you—”
“Don’t ask, babe.”
“We’re on board,” Trina said. “The question is, are you?”
He didn’t have to think about his answer. “Yes.”
Elena squeezed him tighter, Trina clapped, and Gabby’s full, warm laugh echoed over the phone. “Good,” she said, “Now, go get your man.”
Lincoln celebrated with them, so lucky to have these three incredible women in his life. Now, if he could just be lucky in love tonight, his life and the celebration would be complete.
Carter unlocked the metal screen door of his Logan Circle townhome and winced as it creaked open.
Flight delayed out of SFO, it was past one in the morning here.
The neighbors were no doubt cursing him for making a late-night racket.
Probably were before tonight for his failure to keep up the place, but he’d been gone so much this winter, his arm had been broken, and now spring was just around the corner.
At least he was out of the cast and sling; he could assess the state of things in the daylight tomorrow.
He inserted his key into the main door and pushed it open, thankfully without further sound effects. He shut it behind him, tossed his duffel down the stairs toward the lower-level bedroom, and reached for the light switch.
The lights came on, before his fingers touched the switch.
His hand shot to his side and he cursed, reminded his weapon was still in its flight case in his bag.
He opened his mouth to shout, neighbors be damned, and inhaled the aromas of fresh-baked biscuits and burning wood.
He willed down the blood rushing in his ears and listened, detecting the crackle of a fire and then music notes.