I shake my head. Elizabeth Smith. It’s hard for me to think of her with any other name. But that’s not her name.
Alexa Lucas—that’s who she is.
I sit here and stare at a copy of her Illinois driver’s license. It’s her. It’s definitely her.
“She went missing more than a year ago,” Ethan says. “Just up and disappeared without a trace. Family members have been searching for her ever since, but with no leads, the case went cold.”
I called Ethan as soon as Grant left the hospital a few nights ago. I knew if anyone could get to the bottom of this, he could. Now I sit across the desk from him at his agency as he explains that the woman I thought I loved was not who she said she was.
And all at once, every fear I’ve ever had about her is coming true. Especially when he hands me her hospital records. Multiple records from different ERs around Chicago with Alexa’s name on them. Facial contusions, a broken rib, a deep laceration on her collarbone.
I shake my head thinking of the game ‘Never have I ever’ when she didn’t want to talk about that particular scar.
My blood starts to boil when I think of that scumbag from the other night laying a hand on her. Why didn’t she tell me? She was in a hospital. A safe place. I could have protected her. Ethan has lots of connections. We could have made it work. But she never gave me the chance. She just ran.
All this time, I thought it was because I lied. But maybe it’s something more. Maybe she got spooked—saw someone from her past whom she couldn’t risk recognizing her.
Maybe it wasn’t me at all.
All of a sudden, there is way more to her story than I thought possible.
He slides another piece of paper across his desk. “Here’s their wedding announcement,” Ethan says, pointing to the photocopy of a page from a Chicago newspaper.
I pick it up and study it, reading every word carefully. Then my eyes shoot back to Ethan. “Kessler? Are you fucking kidding me? Her maiden name is Kessler?”
Ethan cocks his head to the side. “Is that significant?”
My head is shaking in disbelief as I try to process this information. “Elizabeth, er, Alexa, told me Caden Kessler was her favorite baseball player. I thought she was just a super-fan, Ethan. He’s her goddamn brother!”
Ethan pulls more papers out of a folder, nodding his head as he reads something. “Yup,” he says. “Caden Kessler grew up in Baltimore. He has one sister, Alexa. Two years older.”
Suddenly, everything makes sense about the day I invited him to meet her.
I can’t believe Caden was right down the hall from her. Fifty feet from seeing that his sister was alive and well and about to give birth to his niece.
I replay the day in my head. She looked out the door at me. Maybe she saw him. It’s the only explanation for her mysterious sudden illness. I knew it didn’t add up. Her interest in baseball. In him. And then her unwillingness to see him.
But not everything makes sense. “Why was she hiding from her brother?” I muse aloud.
Ethan shrugs. “If she wanted to hide the baby from Grant, it may have been her only choice. Alexa’s father is out of the picture and her mother is deceased, so Caden is probably the first person Grant would have gone to in order to find her. Abused women often have to cut off ties with their entire family in order to protect themselves and their children.”
I run my hands through my hair. Shit. My instinct is to find her. Protect her. But I already tried protecting her once and she didn’t let me.
Things are different now. Six months ago, if I’d found her, I think I would have thrown her over my shoulder and dragged her to my apartment, baby stroller and all.
But now—I’ve had time to think about things. And even with knowing her identity and more details of her past, it’s obvious my feelings were not reciprocated. She was nice to me. She even kissed me when I kissed her. But I was her doctor. And patients sometimes mistakenly see their doctors as saviors. Not men they can build a life with.
The fact is, she didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. She didn’t love me enough to trust me.
She stole my heart and then she tore it to shreds. Even if she didn’t mean to.
I gaze through the window of Ethan’s office. I can’t keep doing this. I have to move on. I have moved on. I’ve gone back to basics. My job. That is what I’m living for. I never should have lost focus. I’ve vowed never to allow myself to get close to a patient again. Get close to a woman again. At least until I’ve accomplished my goals.
“Caden should know,” I say, gathering up all the paperwork and putting it into a folder. “I need to contact him and tell him everything. But then I’m done.”
~ ~ ~
I pick up my third beer of the night and crack it open, waiting for my pepperoni pizza to arrive.
I’m spent. Exhausted from my meeting with Caden. When he was here earlier, we put all the pieces together.
Caden never liked Grant. He didn’t think he was right for his sister. He and Alexa would get into arguments about him from time to time. But Caden was young and focused solely on baseball. He blames himself for not seeing the signs. For not being there for her when she needed him.
Since Alexa’s disappearance, he’d been suspicious of Grant, but without evidence to go on, there was nothing he could do. Grant kept showing up at Caden’s door, always wanting to come inside to talk—to ‘touch base’ with the brother-in-law he never gave a rat’s ass about before Alexa went missing.
We surmised that Grant could be holding something over her. Blackmailing her maybe, which is why she’s running but didn’t seek out her brother. It’s obvious, however, that Grant doesn’t know where she is, only that perhaps she’s in New York to be closer to Caden. But that seems to be the extent of his knowledge of her whereabouts.
Ethan thought contacting Grant would be counterproductive. Our hands are tied. We have no way of knowing if she’s okay, but we can’t go to Grant without him finding out we know something, which could make it worse for her in the long run.
When my doorbell rings, I put down my beer and grab a twenty from my wallet for the pizza guy. I swing the door open to see a petite redhead holding a small child. Before I can get the words out to tell her she’s got the wrong apartment, my heart lodges in my goddamn throat.
It’s her.