Page 1 of Girl Lost
1
LUNA ROSATI COULD DISAPPEARinto any crowd,any city,anylife. Except this one. This life. It had a way of pulling her back. Like a riptide dragging her under.
10:42 a.m. and the man who held the key to the life she’d left behind was twelve minutes late. She’d convinced herself she was ready for this moment. Now that it hovered before her, Luna wasn’t so sure. Not about finding her daughter—that was nonnegotiable—but about facing everything she’d left behind.
She stared out the diner’s picture window, her gaze fixed on the empty street, bracing for the moment her carefully constructed life would change.
The morning sun glinted off a passing car, and an elderly couple strolled by. Both moved without any hustle or bustle. Millie Beach was mostly locals. No surprise there. It wasn’t exactly a popular vacation destination. The small beach town had all the crime of Miami and none of the beauty.
Eighteen years ago, she’d walked away from this place and vowed never to return. But vows made in storms weren’t always kept in the calm. Which was why she was sitting in the back corner of the samerundown diner from her childhood, watching the street through the glassy expanse up front.
The dumpy place hadn’t changed a bit. Same faded tan linoleum. Same yellowed Formica tabletops. Same cracked red vinyl chairs. Everywhere she looked, same, same, same. Except the deepened lines etched into the faces of the waitstaff.
Age and a two-pack-a-day habit had not been kind to Marge. The owner frowned from her perch in the kitchen. She’d never liked newcomers. Preferred to keep it to the regulars.
A younger version of Marge appeared at Luna’s table. “What’ll you have?” The square name tag on her grease-stained shirt said her name was Angie.
Wow, this was Marge’s daughter? The woman had aged double time. Strands of gray laced her dark curls. Dark-brown sunspots speckled her weathered face. Indelible kisses from the unrelenting sun reflecting off the ocean in a town where sunblock was for tourists.
Luna picked up her plastic-covered menu, feigned a glance, and dropped it. “Lemonade for now. I’m waiting for a friend.”
Angie narrowed her eyes. “You waitin’ on Stryker?”
“You know him?”
“’Bout the only one who comes in this time a day. Tourists don’t come in for a while yet, and you don’t look like a tourist. I get a feelin’ I seen you somewhere before.”
Luna caught the lie before it slipped out. Years of deception and faking her identity were more natural than truth. But she didn’t need a cover here. Not in the town where she grew up. Here she could be herself. Here she could be Luna Rosati. “Yeah, I’m waiting for—”
The bell over the entrance tinkled when a man pushed the glass door open.
Luna looked up, and something inside her fractured. She could hear it. The sound like stepping on a glass pane. A resounding crack that broke open everything she’d worked so hard to keep bottled up all these years.
“Spoke too soon about the tourists.” Angie knocked her swollen knuckles on the table. “Be right back with that lemonade.”
Angie’s words drifted over her unabsorbed. She couldn’t take her eyes off the guy she used to know, now standing there all grown up. Hair shaved into a classic crew cut. A far cry from the boy with the unruly mop of sandy blond hair she’d remembered. The khaki-colored linen suit hung on his broad shoulders with a confidence that shouted law enforcement.
Funny, the last time she’d seen him in a suit was at his father’s murder trial.
Corbin King removed his sunglasses and scanned the room with intense brown eyes. His Adam’s apple rolled when his eyes met hers.
She didn’t dare move.
With nonchalance, he strolled over and snagged the vacant seat opposite her. His elbows found a comfortable spot on the table, fingers intertwining while still cradling his sunglasses.
Her tongue skimmed her dry lips, primed to seize the conversation first if anything came to mind. There was nothing to say. But also, everything.
His dark eyes penetrated her. “What are you doing here?”
A dozen cutting remarks tumbled through her mind ranging from “How dare you?” to “Please go away so I never have to see you again.” The reflexive restraint honed during her tenure at the CIA barred any of those from slipping past her lips.
Instead, she said, “I’m meeting Stryker.”
Corbin looked over his shoulder at the empty restaurant. “Here?”
She didn’t respond.
Angie set a glass of lemonade on the table with a clink and smiled at Corbin. “Get you anything, doll?”
