LITMIR.BIZ

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about settling down together. It was too soon. They’d only been together for five months. But they were five intense months, filled with a love and a passion Amanda had never before experienced. Justin was the culmination of that. And Paul would never be able to share in the miracle that was his son.

      Finding out that Paul might truly be alive had been a devastating blow to her gut. Disbelief, hope, confusion, betrayal, and most of all, anger had rushed through her, one sharp emotion at a time. But, with Justin’s diagnosis, all that emotion channeled into desperation to find Paul. The fact that he might have been lying to her since day one and that he’d done a dump-and-run was insignificant. All that mattered was Justin. She had to save her baby. Even if it meant pleading at the feet of a man who’d made a fool of her.

      Justin gave a little cough, then screwed up his face and kicked his legs. Amanda didn’t like the sound of that cough. And she didn’t like the way his nose was running. He looked paler than before. And he seemed fussier. Was that normal baby behavior or was it the pneumonia getting worse? She’d have to find Dr. Braeburn and ask him.

      She stopped singing and kissed the top of Justin’s silky head. Please, God, she prayed. Please let Forensic Instincts find Paul. And please let him be a healthy match for Justin. Please.

      But Amanda was a realist. And she knew that prayers alone wouldn’t be enough.

      Ryan McKay’s lair, as the team called it, took up the entire basement of Forensic Instincts. Usually, he was down there by his lonesome, with only his servers, his gadgets and his workout equipment to keep him company. But, at the moment, things were different. Even though it was after two in the morning, Marc was pacing around Ryan’s space like a hungry lion.

      Finally, Ryan swiveled around in his computer chair and faced Marc, hands folded behind his head.

      “Nothing jumps out at me,” he pronounced. “Our client is just who she says she is. A thirty-four-year-old photojournalist who lives in an apartment over a café in Westhampton Beach. Her only family is an uncle, Lyle Fenton, who’s a rich business tycoon serving on the Southampton Board of Trustees. He put her through school after her parents died and used his influence to get her some high-profile jobs. Doesn’t look like he’s subsidizing her, though. She’s on her own financially.”

      Marc nodded. No surprises there. Not about the information itself nor the scope of it. He didn’t ask how Ryan had accessed Amanda’s finances. Ryan could access anything.

      “I also checked out Amanda’s photojournalist friend,” Ryan continued. “She’s as legit as Amanda.”

      “Yeah, she’s also cooperative,” Marc added. “She didn’t hang up on me when I woke her up in the middle of the night. She confirmed that she’d taken the photo, and when and where it was taken.”

      “Okay, so that takes care of those preliminaries.”

      “What about Paul Everett?” Marc demanded.

      “Again, he seems clean enough on the surface. A real-estate developer, like Amanda said. Had some decent-size prospects, most of which are underwater, thanks to the economy. I can check around in the morning, see what I can find out from the people he worked with—assuming I can find them. Apparently, he owned a wharf and marina out in the Hamptons where local fisherman docked their boats. Looks like he had plans to grow it into something bigger. He was trying to get all kinds of building permits. Once again, I can’t dig deeper until business hours start. No one’s in the township office at 2:00 a.m. So we’ve got a seven-hour wait. What I can do until then is use my facial recognition software to compare the older photos of Paul Everett with the new one. It’ll take time to enhance the cell phone shot. But I’ll do it. And we’ll have stronger confirmation that the two guys in the pictures are one and the same.”

      “At least we’ll be using the time instead of wasting it,” Marc concurred. “What about D.C.? Did Everett have any ties there?” Marc asked. “Any reason he’d be in Washington?”

      “None that I can see. That doesn’t mean he didn’t start a new life after he took off—if he took off. Remember, we still have to consider the possibility that Paul Everett is dead and decomposing at the bottom of the ocean, or that he was dinner for a bunch of hungry sharks.”

      “Uplifting thoughts.” Marc blew out his breath. “So no signs of dirty dealings? No business contacts who would want him out of the way, or who he’d run from?”

      “Not yet. This was a cursory search, Marc. It was meant to give us some starting points. I only scratched the surface. I’ll go deeper. I’ll dig up Everett’s friends, business associates, partners, history—anything sketchy from his past. Whether he ran or was killed, he was into something over his head. It’s up to me to give the team something to run with. I’ll figure out if Everett was a victim or a slimeball. He can’t hide from me.” A smug grin. “No one can.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Casey faced Amanda across a table in Sloane Kettering’s institutional cafeteria.

      Amanda shifted in her chair, staring into her coffee cup and stirring furiously. She was waiting for a reaction from the head of Forensic Instincts. Just because Marc was fully invested didn’t mean the rest of the team would follow suit. And having Casey Woods fully on board was essential to the urgency with which they approached the case.

      Casey alleviated her worries with just a few words.

      “Marc made a compelling case,” she stated simply. “The whole team feels as strongly about your situation as he does. We started working on the investigation just after midnight.”

      Amanda’s head shot up. “Then you’ll find Paul.” It was a statement, not a question, one that was rife with faith that Forensic Instincts would succeed.

      “We’re going to determine if he’s alive,” Casey amended. “And if he is, my team will find him.”

      “Thank you,” Amanda said gratefully.

      She was an attractive woman, Casey noted. But she looked much older than her mid-thirties. She also looked dazed and battered, as if she’d been struck with a sledgehammer. The hell she was going through was unimaginable. Casey didn’t have children of her own, but that didn’t mean she was immune to Amanda’s pain. Having your newborn son’s life on the line, being helpless to keep him alive—Casey couldn’t fathom anything more excruciating for a new mother.

      “I have to ask you a few questions,” she told Amanda gently. “I know your heart and mind are with your son. But the more help you can give us, the faster and more effectively we can do our job.”

      Amanda nodded. “Ask me anything you want.”

      “Tell me about you and Paul. Where and when you met. How the relationship progressed. Where things stood between you when he vanished. Anything the police said when they wrapped up the investigation into his possible death. How much you knew about his work, his friends, his business acquaintances. Any enemies he might have had. Any personal details that could explain his disappearing off the grid. Any reason you can think of that he’d be in Washington, D.C. Where he lived in the Hamptons and anything you can remember about his place—mementos, photos, anything that might reveal something more about him.”

      “Wow.” Amanda blew out her breath, blinking at the deluge of questions Casey had just fired at her. “I assume Marc filled you in on what I told him and showed him?”

      “He did. And some of what you tell me will be redundant. I realize that. But I want to hear it from you.”

      “Okay. Paul and I met at a political fundraiser. There was chemistry from the start. We got involved pretty quickly, and we were together for five months. He was a real-estate developer. I never met any of his colleagues. I met a few of his friends, mostly neighbors near the house he rented and a couple of his poker buddies. Paul and I were pretty wrapped up in each other. Most of the time we spent together was alone.”

      “So things were good right

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