“Thank you, Mason,” said Robin. She stepped forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Mason watched her move back to her husband, who threw an arm around her and Jake in a family hug. Ava felt a pang in her stomach at the hungry look in Mason’s eye as he gazed at the threesome.
He misses having a family.
At first she’d thought he was watching his ex-wife, but he was focused on Jake and Lucas and their closeness. He looked away at the few boats that dotted the Willamette River behind them. Without thinking, Ava touched his arm. He looked her way with eyes that belonged to a battered animal. He was ripped up inside. His job, his kid, Henley. What else was life going to pound him with?
Ava tried to smile but faltered. For a brief second, he’d hung it all out, showing a deeply suffering side of himself that no one ever saw. He patted her hand on his arm, and his emotions vanished. He was back in cop mode. Protective mode.
For a moment, she’d seen his true self.
Her heart cracked at his pain.
Under that by-the-book, tough cowboy was a gentleman with a big heart.
Sanford’s voice penetrated her focus, and Ava glanced back at him. The agent was droning on, responding to the press questions with answers that said a lot of nothing new. They’d agreed not to share Jake’s encounter with the man at his college’s campus. Sanford held up a big photo of the type of minivan they were still searching for, along with its license-plate number.
It was still their best lead.
Ava’s personal phone buzzed. Legacy Emanuel Hospital flashed on her screen. Curious, she stepped away from the family and answered.
“Is this Ava McLane?” came an unfamiliar woman’s voice.
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m calling from Emanuel Hospital’s ER. Your sister Jayne McLane is here and has been involved in a car accident. She requested you be contacted and informed of her condition.”
“What? Is she okay? What happened?” Ava’s heart stopped.
“She’s been in a car accident, ma’am,” the woman repeated. “She’s conscious and on her way to Radiology. She’s banged up. Some possible broken bones and a concussion. We’ll know more soon.”
“How did it happen? Who was driving?” If Jayne had been riding with some drunk boyfriend, Ava would strangle her.
“I don’t know, ma’am. Let me see if the officer who came in with her is still here.”
The police accompanied her?
Ava waited and paced in a small circle. Mason looked at her questioningly, but Ava forced a smile and shook her head at him. A male voice spoke. “This is Officer Suarez. Is this Jayne McLane’s sister, Ava McLane?”
“Yes. What happened?”
“Your sister plowed through a red light on Tenth Avenue downtown and hit another car. She’s lucky the other people weren’t injured.”
“She was driving?” Ava squeaked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Was anyone else in her car?”
“There was a male passenger. He seems fine. He’s getting checked out, too.”
Ava sighed. This was why she didn’t loan Jayne her car. Hopefully, the man had good insurance.
“I’m sorry, but your sister will be arrested for driving with a suspended license once the hospital releases her.”
“Are you kidding me? Her license was suspended? I had no idea.” Could Jayne mess things up any worse?
“Yes, for a previous DUI.”
Ava closed her eyes. Alcohol. Of course. “Was she drunk this time, too?”
“We’ve requested a blood alcohol test. She was in no condition to do a Breathalyzer at the scene.”
“Do you think she was drunk?” Ava pushed.
Suarez paused. “I could smell alcohol on her breath, which was why I ordered the test. We won’t know until we get the lab results back.”
Definitely drunk. Jayne, what have you gotten into? Ava wanted to scream at her sister. And shake her. Shake some sense into her.
“The vehicle will be at the police lot. You can call to find out when it will be released,” Suarez stated.
Ava blinked. A sense of dread creeping up her spine. “I don’t want to deal with the car. Doesn’t the car belong to the passenger?”
“Uh . . . no. The car’s registration says Ava McLane. That’s you, right? Do you own a black Honda Accord?”
Yes, she did.
At the vigil, Mason had watched Ava get a phone call and nearly blow her stack at the caller. She’d been polite, but Mason was glad the person on the other end couldn’t see her body language and facial expressions. It’d been enough to make him blink and listen closely. A minute later, she asked him to drive her to the hospital, because she was concerned she’d cause an accident.
Mason followed her as she stopped to check in with ASAC Ben Duncan. “My sister’s been in a car wreck and is in the hospital. I need to be there,” she told him with no preface.
Duncan nodded. “I’ll have extra men at the Fairbankses’ all night in case the press conference stirred some things up. Take as long as you need, and check in with me later.”
Once they were in Mason’s car, Ava explained that her twin had stolen her car and wrecked it.
“How’d she get the car?” Mason asked as he maneuvered his vehicle through the quiet downtown Portland streets.
“I have a hunch.” Ava dug through her purse. “My Honda keys are missing. Damn her! She spilled my purse when I dropped her off earlier today, and she must have grabbed them then.”
Mason was stunned. “She stole your keys?” Her twin stole from her? What kind of relationship did they have?
Ava leaned her head against her window and covered her face with one hand. “I’m going to kill her. I don’t care how injured she is. This is the last time I let her do this to me.”
“The last time? She’s done it before?”
“Not exactly.” Ava sighed. “Last time she broke my television and the microwave when I let her stay with me. I had to make a personal rule that I wouldn’t let her sleep under my roof ever again. Or even come for a visit. I go out of my way to meet her somewhere else if she wants to get together.”
“I don’t understand,” Mason said slowly. “What’s wrong with her?”
Ava was quiet. “It’s complicated,” she finally said.
“I can see that.” Should he press the issue? He wasn’t one to pry, but twice he’d seen Ava rattled by her sister’s actions. He bit his lip, overwhelmed by his desire to know what was going on in the FBI agent’s life. She’d been exposed to the nastiness that’d enveloped him in the last few days. Now it was his turn for a peek at what was upsetting the usually calm and cool agent.
Ava turned to him. “Have you ever loved someone, and the existence of that emotion was completely out of your control? Someone who knows you inside and out? Someone who is closer to you than anyone else in the world? That deep-down soul connection where you physically feel them moving about in the world?”
She paused, and he felt her staring at his profile. He was scared to look directly at her. It might make her stop talking.
But had he? “No. Not even in my marriage,” he answered honestly. “The person who knows me best is my partner, Ray. But even he doesn’t know everything.”
She nodded and slumped back in her seat. “You can’t understand unless you have a twin. There’s no other bond like it. We shared everything. Growing up, she took what was mine just like I helped myself to what was hers. There was no division of anything between us. But as an adult, there have to be boundaries. I learned about those boundaries when I went to college. Jayne never did. She operates as if we’re still twelve.”
“So your car is her car, and she believes there is nothing wrong with that,” Mason guessed.
“Exactly. In her eyes, I’m being selfish by keeping my car from her when she believes that half of it is hers.”
“Even though you paid for it. She doesn’t understand that?”
“No,” said Ava. “She can’t assign a value to something that she never paid for. She’s horrible with money. She’s never saved a dime in her life and flits from job to job and man to man. She operates like the world owes her everything.”
“And you owe her whatever you’ve worked your butt off for,” Mason said. A picture of her twin had started to form in his mind. A narcissist. A woman who believed the world should rotate around her. He’d met women like that, maybe even dated a few. How would it be to grow up with one of those women as your sister? Your twin sister?
“Then there are the addictions. She’s been arrested for meth use and selling oxy. I can’t count the number of times she’s been picked up for drunk and disorderly. Not only is she drunk a lot, she’s a mean drunk. She’s been in and out of every rehab program there is. I paid for two of them and then said no more. But every six months she approaches me with a new one. ‘I know it will work this time,’ she claims. But how can they work when she puts no effort into them? As soon as she walks out the door, she’s back to her old ways.”
“That has to be hard on you,” Mason answered.
“It rips me to pieces,” she said in a soft voice. “She’s part of me. She is me. When I see her like that, it shows who I’d be if I’d made different decisions in my life. It’s only by the grace of God that I’m not the one in the hospital this minute.”