Grayson’s balk barely ripples the air, but I still notice it. “Alex wears this cologne?”
I shouldn’t nod, but I do.
“Are you sure?”
I give Grayson a look. It’s mydo I look like a fucking idiot?glare. Alex and I may have only been together for a week, but I’ll never forget his scent.
“Fuck,” Grayson growls when he spots the truth in my eyes.
He doesn’t say anything more for several seconds, he just scrubs the scruff on his chin as his eyes continually dart between the price on the receipt the clerk placed between us and the groove burrowed between my brows.
I want to say something to ease the turmoil in his eyes, but I’m honestly lost on what to say. I’m as confused as he is.
After a few more minutes of silence, Grayson digs his wallet out of his pocket. “Forward me your receipt, and I’ll have you compensated for the bottle.” His hand rattles when he slides an FBI business card across to me. “It might take them a few weeks to process, but I’ll push it through as fast as I can.”
I’m about to tell him not to bother; I’m not hard up for money, but he leaves the store before I get the chance, leaving me and his brother’s overpriced bottle of cologne in his wake.
Fourteen
Alex
“You need a warrant.”
I follow the receptionist at Westminster Family Clinic when she moves back to the stack of files she was sorting before I stormed into her office with a heart of steel and a face just as stern.
“I don't want any details about the patient; I just need confirmation of whether or not she had the operation she paid for.” My hand rattles when I thrust a receipt in her direction. “Please. This information will never leave this room.” I stare into her eyes, showing the rawness that’s been eating me alive the past four weeks.
That little boy I saw last month, the one I confused his mother for Regan for barely a second, hasn’t left my thoughts the past four weeks. I can’t eat, sleep, or concentrate on anything not associated with him. Even knowing his mother isn’t Regan, his familiar features are too intriguing for me to ignore. He has my jaw and eyes. He even has the same cowlick curling up the front of his identical blond hair.
“Please. I’m begging you.”
I’m two seconds from falling to my knees and pleading like a fool, but the quickest flash of remorse in the receptionist’s eyes stops me. With a grin revealing she’s more worried than happy, she moves to a stack of filing cabinets on her right. She ruffles through the drawer marked L-M for barely a second before she secures a pink-coded file in her trembling hand.
I swear, my heart stops beating when she pries it open.Here it comes, months of heartache are about to smack into me with one mammoth swing.
My eyes dart down to the receptionist at the same time her eyes rocket up to mine. The file is empty. Not partially. Not a little. Empty—empty.
“Where did it go?”
She shrugs before her hand delves between the files before and after the one she’s holding. “I don’t know. Everything else appears to be in order.”
“Could it have been filed wrong? Placed in another patient’s folder?” I stop pacing around her desk when her glare slices my steps in half. I’ve already forced her to step over one line today; she’s not willing to let me do it for the second time.
“Can you check?”
My fingers rake through my hair when she replies, “I am; it’s not here.” She slams the filing cabinet door shut before spinning around to face me. “I’m sorry. I tried.”
I nod, understanding she did her best, but I can’t help but curse God.Why isn’t anything ever easy for me?
After exhaling a deep breath, I put on the agent’s cap I lost upon entering and work this case with the years of skills I have under my belt. “If I showed you her picture, do you think you’d remember her?”
“I guess,” she replies with a shrug.
Happy she’s at least giving it a shot, I smile in thanks before digging my wallet out of my pocket. Don’t ask me why I still carry a photo of Regan in my wallet. I’ve tried many times to take it out, but failed just as many. She is slotted right between the photos of Isla and Addison that Kristin shipped me last month.
“Aww. Aren’t they cute? Are they your daughters?” The receptionist is hoping her comment will ease the tension bristling between us. Unfortunately, I’m too worked up to follow suit.
“No. They’re. . .” I’m stumped of a reply. Addison and Isla aren’t my daughters, but I take care of them as if they are. “They’re my goddaughters,” I settle on.
