Page 19 of Accidentally Mine
It was the date of my accident.
That couldn’t be just a coincidence.Could it?
If it was her, what the fuck was she doing here, in Boston after disappearing all this time?Was she coming to claim her inheritance?And why had she left in the first place?What had she been running from that night?
I slammed my elbows onto my desk and fisted my hair in my hands.My mind was fucking with me.Thoughts pinged through my head like a metal ball through a pinball machine.That couldn’t have been Rebecca Reece in the café.And Rebecca Reece hadn’t been there that night.All of that would be an unbelievable coincidence.
Unable to get any damn thing done, I picked up my cell phone and called Kyle.
Kyle White, my best friend, was my ace when it came to this kind of thing.We’d gone to high school together at Woburn, and he had been accepted to MIT too, but he’d gotten his girlfriend pregnant right after high school and decided to get a job instead.Now, he was a police detective with the Boston Police Department and looked every bit the part.
“Hey,” I said when he picked up, trying to think of the last time I’d spoken to him.February?It had been a long time, but whenever we did speak it was like no time had passed at all.
“Well, if it isn’t the Humanitarian of the Year,” he snarked.“Saw the write-up in the paper.I’m honored by your phone call, Your Grace.”
“Don’t call me that, asshole,” I muttered, grinning as I scanned the bare walls of my office.I’d cleared everything from the walls, leaving them blank.Blank slates seemed to help with my concentration.Not that it was working very well now.On the blank walls, I only saw turquoise eyes.Everywhere I looked, those eyes.
“I’m sorry.Your Highness,” he corrected.
“Better.”I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window.From there, I could see the Pike, almost exactly where I’d nearly been killed, a constant, looming reminder of the day my life had changed.“How’s…” I couldn’t think of his daughter’s name.
“Avery,” he finished for me.“She’s good.Graduating from middle school in a month.She’s turning thirteen next week.”
Holy fuck.Kyle’s daughter was going to be a teenager.“Jesus.”
“I know.I know, man.Karma.You still saving the world?”
I laughed.These days, I was doing good just saving myself.“Trying to.Listen.Can I ask you to dig something up for me?”
“Sure.Us lowly plebes, we’re just sitting around, waiting for your call, Your Greatness,” he said without a hint of joviality.Kyle White had the typical cop dry sense of humor.“What can I do to serve our city’s brightest star?”
My eyes wandered to the newspaper.“Rebecca Reece.From Boston.Can you tell me what you know about her?”
“Reece,” he mumbled thoughtfully.“Yeah.Like Lyndon Reece?The construction guy?”
I checked the article.“Yes, what do you know about him?”
“Well, he died less than two weeks ago.At the site of that new hotel in the Back Bay.”
“Right.He’s the one.Can you tell me what you know about the Reece family?”
“I can tell you what I know about his death.I was on the scene for that one.Fell thirty stories down an elevator shaft in one of his buildings.Real mess.”
“Shit.Really?”
“Yeah.But from what I heard there was no next of kin to notify.This Rebecca…who is she?”
“I think it’s his daughter.From what I read in the paper, she disappeared a couple years ago.But I figure there’s got to be more to it than that.”
“Yeah.That sounds familiar.Between you and me, I’m betting there were some shady business dealings going on, and someone finally shored up with him by pushing him into that shaft.”
“You think?”
“Yeah.Whenever there’s a bunch of drama going on in one family, it’s usually not a coincidence.They’re up to their eyeballs in it.But that’s just me speaking, off the record.I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Great.Thanks, bro.”It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’d seen her, but I hung up instead.The longer I sat at my desk and thought about it, the more I wondered if I was mistaken.
Shrugging it off, I concentrated on the business at hand.I’d shortened my work day in the extreme since the accident, and I’d already cut significantly into my productive time.
