Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)(101)

Foster turned and walked away, and Bodie stood there clutching the envelope, then fast-walked down the path toward the lake. He wanted far away from Foster. He wanted to find a quiet place, someplace with no one around. He raced into the park, found a bench under a tree near a light. A woman passed him, a scraggly terrier trotting beside her. He needed them to pass before he opened the envelope.

He couldn’t read fast enough—his eyes soaking in every word, every implication—sweat dripping down his back, even though it was fifty degrees. By the time he’d finished reading, his hands were trembling. “Oh my God.” He read everything again, then a third time. Then he tried calling Amelia’s number and got voice mail again. He’d left earlier messages, frantic ones, pleading for her to call back. This time, he had just one thing to say. He laid the envelope on his lap as though it were a precious thing, then waited for the beep. He had just two words for his twin, likely the last words he’d ever say to her.

“I’m free.”

He walked fast back to his apartment, clutching the envelope, but the walking quickly morphed into a trot and then a full-out run. He was angry, angrier than he had ever remembered being. She had kept it all from him, knowing what it would mean for him. If he wasn’t tainted, he could be anyone, do anything. He didn’t need Amelia. For the first time in his life, he could be completely his own person. No Am to hide behind, to defer to. No Bodie Morgan bringing up the rear, disappointing everybody, including himself. No Tom Morgan. No sin.

“Boden Jensen.” He whispered the name to himself, trying it on. “I’m Boden Jensen.”

He could feel himself shedding his old skin as a weight lifted off his shoulders. He didn’t have one drop of Tom Morgan in him. When he reached his apartment, he crumpled the envelope in his fist and tucked it inside his jacket, placing a hand over it as if to protect the truths that lay inside. He didn’t need to talk to Amelia. She would only lie. He didn’t need to talk to her ever again if he didn’t want to. She didn’t know it yet, but he was already gone.

“I’m Boden Jensen,” he muttered to himself, finally clean. “And I’m free.”





CHAPTER 74


“Tell me about my mother,” Amelia said as she watched Tom Morgan stare out the window onto the backyard of his new house. She’d given it all night and half the morning to decide and now stared at the familiar stranger as though he were nothing, no one. “You always said you would tell Bodie and me about her when we got older.” He didn’t bother turning around. Was she not even important enough to face?

“I did, but now’s not the time,” he said. “We have a lot to do. There’s the doctor and the detectives.”

“The doctor. Right.”

“I don’t hold her against you.”

“But you keep bringing her up.”

It was true that you never really knew a person. She’d thought she knew exactly who and what she was, who’d made her, only she didn’t. She hadn’t a clue. She wondered if he could feel the change in her. She could feel it. He had always been so intuitive, so tuned in to the shifts in the air, sensing when things were off. Could he do that now? Could he sense that Amelia knew? She hadn’t told him about the police station. It was no longer his business.

“I’d like to know now . . . about her.”

He turned around. He wasn’t smiling; neither was she. There was no longer a reason to lie. “When did she die?” Amelia asked. “How?”

“You’re upset about the doctor,” he said, ignoring her questions. “I’ve already forgiven you for that. I think we should start with Detective Li. She has a child. Her loss will be devastating, and it will hobble them long enough for everything to fall apart. I’ve done the advance work. I anticipated that things would likely come to this.”

“You anticipated that I would fail.”

“Your mother died of a rare blood disorder shortly after you and Bodie were born. She suffered horribly in those last days. You can see now why I kept it from you? To spare you both.”

“Yes, I see now. And you loved her.”

“Of course.”

Clearly, now, she could see there was no real resemblance. Funny, how the mind worked, how conditioning happened over time, clouding things, forcing the eye not to see what the brain knew it did. If anyone would have asked her days ago, she would have sworn that she was this man’s spitting image. But now she was Anika Jensen, not Amelia Morgan or Davies. She had parents who’d loved her, a different life. “About your plan . . . ,” she said. He put warmth in his eyes when he looked back at her, but she knew better. It was a thing he did.

He wagged his finger at her. “Our plan.”

“Right.”

What could she have become if she hadn’t been corrupted by this? she wondered. It was far too late to know. He’d lied to her, to Bodie. She knew she was looking at her mother’s killer. She could feel something coming for her. It was like a train roaring down a track, its lights flashing a warning. Impact was inevitable.

“You seem distracted,” he said. “You can’t be. I need you at the top of your game. Are you?”

Amelia smiled sweetly. Her mother had been pretty. She and her father had made a handsome couple. She wondered what they were like together before this man came along. “Of course. Dad.”