AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kaden leaned forward, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. “The place she was found?”
“Yes,” she agreed, although it wasn’t the exact spot.
“Describe her.”
A sick sensation clenched Lia’s stomach, but she forced herself to answer. “It was after midnight and I couldn’t see her clearly, but I don’t think she was old. Probably in her twenties or thirties. Her hair was long and dark, although I’m not sure if it was brown or black. She was wearing a heavy leather jacket and pants that looked like it was a uniform. And she had a large gold badge.” Lia pointed toward a spot just below her shoulder blade. “It was pinned here on her jacket. At first I thought she was a cop.”
“Vanna,” he breathed.
The sickness at dredging up the disturbing memory was forgotten as she clutched the edge of the desk in a tight grip. She’d waited fifteen years to put a name with the woman who’d haunted her dreams.
“You knew her?”
He nodded sharply, his tension humming through the air. Absently, she wondered if being near Kaden Vaughn always felt like standing in the middle of a thunderstorm.
“Vanna Zimmerman,” he explained. “She was engaged to my older brother. When did you see her?”
“Fifteen years ago.” Lia’s breath caught in her throat as she realized what day it was. “Almost exactly.”
His jaw tightened. “Vanna disappeared December 14, 2007.”
“The same night I saw her.”
“And the same date her body was found fifteen years later.”
They shared a glance, both wondering if it was a coincidence or fate. At last, Lia shook her head, breaking the strange connection she felt with this stranger.
“She disappeared from where?” she asked.
“Madison. She worked as an inspector for the EPA.”
That explained the badge, Lia silently acknowledged. But nothing else. “Why would she be running away from Pike in the middle of the night?”
He looked equally baffled. “She was running?”
“That’s what it looked like.” Lia dredged through the memories of walking along the dark lane on that fateful night. “She appeared out of the darkness, and when she saw me on the pathway, she suddenly stopped.” Lia could recall the precise expression on the woman’s face. Terror. “I don’t know if I startled her or if she thought I was someone else, but she climbed onto the railing of the bridge and jumped.”
“That’s . . .” Kaden shook his head. “Crazy.”
“That’s exactly what I thought.”
His brows drew together, as if he was trying to figure out a reasonable explanation for his brother’s fiancée to be running through the dark and jumping off railroad bridges. At last, he appeared to concede defeat.
“Did she injure herself when she landed?” he instead asked.
Lia lifted her hands in a bewildered gesture. “I really don’t know. I called out for her and even went down the slope to search in case she needed help. It was dark, but there was enough moonlight to know she wasn’t lying on the tracks. At least not anywhere I could see her. As far as I could tell, she’d simply vanished.”
Thankfully, he didn’t press her for whether or not she’d searched through the heavy brush that crawled along the edge of the tracks. She didn’t want to admit she’d been too scared to do more than make sure there wasn’t a body beneath the bridge before racing back up the slope and scurrying home.
“Was there anyone else around?”
She shook her head, knowing what he was asking. If Vanna was running, it was quite possibly because she was being chased.
“Not that I could see. I walked the rest of the way into town without encountering anyone.” Lia grimaced. “That doesn’t mean they weren’t there. They could easily have been hidden in the shadows.”
With a restless surge, Kaden pushed himself out of his chair to pace her small office.
“What was she running from?”
