Page 4 of Forging Caine

“Later today. Bad weather grounded his flight from O’Hare, but he’s driving.” I stopped at a painting that looked eerily like a Chagall, but the details were wrong. It was too crisp, the colors too muted. Stapled to it, a list of dimensions, photos of the stretcher from the back, close-ups of a gallery tag from a museum in Texas.

“You must be excited. Anything special planned for his grand return?”

“Antonio suggested three weeks of vacation. I said no. He insisted. I caved.” I rolled my eyes, thinking back to a full month of his begging. “When I brought it up at the insurance company, they said it was a perfect opportunity to test the processes we’ve been implementing since I joined the Special Investigations Unit.”

“Where are you two headed?”

“Why? Want to get a team assembled wherever it is in case some criminal activity follows us?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

I laughed, but there was a shred of truth to it. Both of my trips to Naples with Antonio, his trip home to see me at Christmas, plus our trip to Boston last month—criminal activity followed us everywhere we went. “We haven’t picked a destination yet. I’m reviewing some of the claims pending for Jimmy’s trial. He said he’d planted evidence and I know he glossed over details in his police reports. Once I’m done, I’ll have the brainpower available to—”

“Change of plans!” Lucy came rushing down the hall, swinging her backpack up on one shoulder. “I’m heading to a movie.”

So much for my afternoon of distraction. “With…?”

From the grin she couldn’t contain, it was obvious. She and Antonio’s younger brother had been spending a suspicious amount of time together.

“On a Friday? Lorenzo’s not working?”

“How’d you know it was him?”

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Elliot and walked to the door with Lucy. “The makeup gave you away. Plus, you’re way too excited.”

“I texted him last night this new movie looked interesting.” She shrugged and sat to lace up her boots. “I may have dropped a hint or two that I was thinking about going, in the hopes he’d want to come with me.”

“And he does?”

She flashed me a smile. “He just called to tell me he bought us tickets.”

“I don’t get you two.”

“Me either.” Her smile dimmed and she let out a sigh. “The friend zone isnotwhere I want to be, but what else am I going to do? We go to the movies, he takes me shopping when I need something, helps with my groceries—did I tell you he came over to my place last weekend and made me dinner?”

“And nothing?”

“Nothing! I don’t understand him.” She stood and huffed out a breath. “But I do understand numbers and codes.”

“Progress on the letter?”

“Yup.” She riffled through her backpack and presented two sheets of paper, each folded into quarters. “I already translated it. Turns out it’s an apology from someone named Charles—”

I sucked in air. That was my father’s name.

She held out the papers. “—to someone named Deb.”

A shiver ran up my spine and my hand halted, unable to take the letters. Deb was my mother, who’d died eight years ago, on the day I graduated from Quantico.

Lucy peered at me, folding my unresponsive hand around the sheets. “And here’s a strange coincidence. The letter says Charles was leaving with someone named Elliot. Crazy, huh?”

I fumbled with the sheets—the original and her notes—as the door swung shut behind her, barely registering she’d left. My mother had hidden a letter from my father inside the book? And Elliot? Surely it wasn’t the same Elliot who was standing in my dining room?

Something odd churned in my stomach.No such thing as coincidences.

My eyes clamped shut before I could read a single word. My father took off when I was five years old. Deserted my mother, sister, and me. Would this explain it? Or make it worse?

Either way, I had to know. I forced my eyes open and skimmed the translated letter.

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