Identity

“One more month,” she murmured.

Winter’s back was broken, and if spring hadn’t taken full advantage, if snow and cold continued to threaten, the worst still lay in retreat.

Another month meant a more substantial down payment, less to finance. And Nina’s car only had to get her to work and back, run the occasional errand, get into town if she helped out at the café.

She put that aside, started to research easy recipes instead.

When that scared her off, she decided to take a walk.

Clear the head, she thought as she pulled on boots. Figure out what step to take next. She couldn’t keep running in place indefinitely.

Yes, she had a job, she reminded herself as she stepped outside. A good job, one she liked a great deal. She had shelter, and she’d found living with her ladies an education.

She didn’t miss her house. It hadn’t been her home after Nina died. She missed Nina, and always would, and the friendship she’d had with Sam. Her coworkers and bosses who’d become her family when she’d rooted.

She paused, looked over the shockingly blue sky toward the mountains. She hadn’t had this, she thought. Hadn’t had this painting in her own backyard.

She’d have four seasons here, too. Couldn’t she already see the first hints of spring? And yes, the change in the air, in the light.

The next step?

“The car, Morgan. You know it. Suck it up, and go find a car.”

Because it wasn’t just the money, it was letting go of that last piece of Nina, that last tie with the before.

She went back inside, dressed like a woman who knew her own mind. She got the paperwork—the title Nina’s parents had signed over to her, her insurance papers, banking information, whatever she could think of.

With everything in a folder, she put on her lucky earrings. Negotiating a price and getting financing would take some luck.

She could expect the rockiest of rock bottom on a trade-in, but she’d make it work.

“Dealerships want to sell cars, don’t they? They’d make it work, too.”

She fussed with her hair—sassy and bold, she remembered. Then went downstairs, dragged on her coat.

When she opened the door to leave, Special Agents Morrison and Beck stood in the portico. Everything inside her froze.

“Ms. Albright. You’re going out? We can come back.”

She stared at Morrison. “I was just— No, it’s not important. Come in.” She stepped back like someone caught in a dream. “I’ll take your coats.”

When she had, she hung them, very precisely, in the hall closet. “I’ll make coffee.”

“Don’t trouble,” Beck told her. “Why don’t we sit down?”

“Yes, of course. We’ll sit down.”

In the living room they each took a chair, so she sat on the couch. Gripped her hands together in her lap.

“He—he did it again, to someone else. You’ve come to tell me he’s done it to someone else. Is she dead?”

“A woman in Tennessee, outside of Nashville. Single,” Beck continued, “a slender blonde, age twenty-nine. She was found two days ago by her sister when the victim didn’t answer calls or texts or report to work.”

“Her bank accounts had been emptied. Multiple loans had been taken out in her name, using her house as equity. Her car was stolen. The sister identified Gavin Rozwell as the man her sister had been seeing for a few weeks.”

“I see.” But she didn’t. She just couldn’t.

“He went by the name John Bower,” Beck told her. “He claimed to be a freelance photographer working on a book. Her name was Robin Peters.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened to her. I’m sorry for her family. I don’t understand why you’ve come all this way to tell me.”

“Previously, he left nothing behind. If the victim wore jewelry, he took it, along with anything else of value. In this case, the victim was found wearing this.”

Beck took out a photo, passed it to Morgan.

“That’s—that’s my locket. The locket my grandmother gave me. It was her mother’s. There’re pictures inside. My grandmother’s parents inside. I don’t understand. He gave this to her before he did this?”

Morrison waited until Morgan looked at him.

“We don’t think so. The sister couldn’t identify it. None of her coworkers had seen her wear it. Rather than the photos you listed in your statement at the time of the incident, this locket held these.”

She took the next printout, and stared at the photo of her own face, and one of the man she’d known as Luke Hudson.





PART II

New Start





Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

—JOHN MILTON

All beginnings are hard.

—GERMAN PROVERB





Chapter Eleven



Panic. It overwhelmed, rang in her ears, closed her throat.

“What is this? What does it mean? He can’t possibly think of us as a couple. We never—it wasn’t serious that way, not even when I thought he was…”

“Rozwell doesn’t have relationships in the normal way, Morgan.” Beck spoke carefully. “We believe you’re the only woman he’s targeted who survived, and as far as we know, this is the first time he’s left a trophy he’s taken from a target on a subsequent victim.”

“Trophy,” she repeated.

“Items he may keep,” Morrison explained. “We know, as we’ve recovered some items, he tends to sell or pawn the more valuable, but there’s no evidence leading us to believe he disposes of all. It’s probable he keeps one or more objects from his victims.”

“As trophies.”

She’d heard of this, of course she had. She read books, she watched movies. But it brought fresh horror.

“Like—like a deer head on the wall. But he didn’t keep my locket.”

“He placed it on this victim, knowing we’d identify it as yours—even without the photos inside, we would have identified it as one of the items stolen on the day of Ms. Ramos’s murder.”

“Why would he do that?” But she knew. She already knew. “To scare me,” she said before either agent could speak. “To let me know he hasn’t forgotten about me. To—to allude we’re connected. Why does he care?” she demanded. “He won. He killed Nina, he killed my closest friend. He took everything from me. I lost everything I’d worked for. I lost my home.”

“You lived,” Beck said simply.

“Nina didn’t.”

“He didn’t want Nina. He killed her out of necessity, not desire. For the first time, he failed. He missed. You lived,” Beck repeated. “And you’re rebuilding your life.”

Step-by-step, she thought. Brick by hard-won brick.

And now?

“You’re saying—or he is—he’s not finished with me. You’re telling me he could try again. What am I supposed to do?” She pushed up, hugging herself as she paced. “Move again, go into hiding, change my name? And what good would any of that do? If he wants to find me, he’ll find me.”