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“I appreciate your compassion.” Amanda wasn’t just referring to Casey’s concern for Justin. She wasn’t stupid. She understood that the team was trying to give her the space she needed to prep herself for a painful walk down memory lane.
“No problem.” Casey’s gaze slid to Claire in the rearview mirror and she gave a quick nod.
All three team members climbed out. Marc went around back of the van and opened the double doors so that Hero could jump down and join them.
With a quick lap of his water, Hero scrambled to the gravel drive, waiting obediently while Marc leashed him up.
“All set?” Casey asked.
“Ready and raring to go.”
“Then let’s do it.”
* * *
Amanda watched the FI team head into the house—Paul’s house—and her throat tightened. How many times had she and Paul stepped through that door, sometimes toting grocery bags, sometimes laughing and talking, sometimes pulling off each other’s parkas in their haste to make love?
Being back here was surreal, like being plunged into a vivid, bittersweet memory and being forced, by one’s own mind, to relive it.
This was hitting her much harder than she’d expected. After all, she and Paul had been together less than half a year, no matter how intense their relationship had been. Amanda was far from a weak and clingy woman. She’d been on her own since college, and had loved the freedom of her own independence. Meeting Paul had been the last thing she’d expected. Yet it had happened, and, from the moment it did, she’d sensed that her life was about to be changed in a major way.
Losing him had been unbearable, especially after she realized she was carrying his child.
But she’d gotten through it and survived. Her life had gone on.
Except now there was Justin, a precious gift—but one who’d come with a reality she’d never imagined in her worst nightmares. And the unfathomable possibilities were staring her in the face.
So maybe it was the combination of Justin’s precarious health and her postpartum hormones that were making this walk down memory lane so painful.
Or maybe it was because she’d so successfully blocked out the happy times and allowed
them to be replaced by grief, anger, hurt and resentment.
Today was going to be one long confrontation with the past. More unnerving than that was the question of what their investigations would uncover. If Paul was alive, what kind of man had he really been? What had he been involved in that he’d kept so well hidden?
Squeezing her eyes shut for one long, aching minute, Amanda picked up her cell phone and snapped back into the real world—the one she’d been battling for almost a month now.
Justin.
She pressed the speed dial number for Sloane Kettering.
Please, God, she prayed, as she did every time she picked up the phone or walked back into the Pediatric BMT unit. Please let him hold on. Please let us find a miracle.
And, for good or for ill, that miracle had to be Paul.
* * *
Casey headed up the stone path that led to the cottage. She turned the knob, and, as promised, the door was unlocked.
The place was cozy and charming—one large and one small bedroom, a full bath, a galley kitchen, a little eating area and a family room with a brick fireplace. The back door opened to a wooden deck and a dense cluster of trees. Not exactly woods, but certainly the foliage offered privacy from probing eyes.
Hero immediately went to work, snout to the floor, dragging Marc every which way as he took in all the new and interesting scents. He zigzagged through the house, investigating every inch of his surroundings. Marc let him take the lead. The more comprehensive Hero’s olfactory experience was, the better it would be when Marc made scent pads of anything they found that belonged to Paul. Paul’s scent would be that much more recognizable to Hero, which could be a key factor down the road.
It wouldn’t be the first time Hero had lived up to his name.
“It’s a pretty secluded half acre,” Marc commented a short time later, standing on the deck beside Casey and gazing around. “No houses in back. Set back far enough from the road. And with lines of trees on either side that block the neighbors’ view. Interesting.”
“Very,” Casey agreed. “If someone wanted to stay as inconspicuous as possible, this is a good place to do it.”
