on the moment she’d entered the room. And it was obvious that something Del Brio had said or done had set off the older man. Or was she imagining things? Angela wondered. Maybe the undercurrents and shadows she sensed were of her own making and had nothing to do with the Mercados or Frank Del Brio. After all, she hadn’t exactly been herself since she’d agreed to come back to Mission Creek.
Because you knew coming to Mission Creek meant seeing Justin again.
Angela let out a shaky breath at the admission. Even after all this time just the prospect of seeing him again still had the power to tie her up in knots. It had been that way from the first moment she’d set eyes on him at the police academy when she’d been a new recruit and he’d been the handsome deputy assisting in her training class. She’d looked up into those green eyes and the world had shifted beneath her feet. It didn’t seem to matter that they were all wrong for each other. That he was a member of the prominent Wainwright family, and she was the estranged daughter of a farmer who could barely make ends meet. She’d fallen for Justin like a ton of bricks, and when he’d asked her to marry him she had accepted.
Overcome by a wave of sadness, Angela attempted to shut off the memories and the ache that always came when she thought of Justin. Hardening her resolve, she reminded herself of all that she’d accomplished since leaving Mission Creek. Not only had she carved out a career for herself as a profiler, but she’d saved dozens of lives and reunited families. And she’d done it by finding a way to put the curse she’d been born with to good use. As much as she’d hated the visions that had made her different, they had served a purpose. She had served a purpose. She had made a difference—at least in the lives of those people she’d been able to help.
Did Justin know? Had he followed her career as she had followed his?
Probably not, she conceded. Why should he when he’d made it plain that he never wanted to see her again the day she’d told him she was leaving. Angela whooshed out a breath as she recalled how angry he’d been. She’d hurt him. Or perhaps it had been his pride that she’d hurt. She’d never been quite sure. All she had known was that Justin wasn’t a man used to failing at anything, and by choosing her as his wife, he’d failed big time. He certainly wasn’t going to be happy to have her showing up on his turf now. And he was going to be even more unhappy when he found out the reason why.
“Sorry about that,” Ricky said as he rejoined her. “You see what I mean about Pop being different?”
“He did seem distracted.”
“For a while after my mother died, he sort of shut down. You know, just didn’t seem to care about anything. But then he started making noises about how maybe Frank was right about my sister, that Haley really was alive. And I thought he was better. But now since I got back he’s changed. He’s gotten… I don’t know. Almost secretive.”
“Are you sure?” Angela asked. “He seemed sad, maybe a little lonely and confused, but sometimes that comes with age. He remembered who I was, even that he knew me as a teenager.”
“He’s only sixty,” Ricky pointed out. “But it’s not a memory problem. He remembers well enough. It’s some of the stuff he says. Not all of it makes sense. Like that business about him protecting my mother. She died of a heart attack. How could he have protected her from that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m worried about him, Angela. I can feel Pop slipping away little by little each day. And I’m afraid if I don’t do something soon, one morning I’m going to wake up and find he’s gone over the edge.”
“I know,” Angela replied, and patted his arm.
Ricky shoved a hand through his dark hair, then pinned her with anxious eyes. “You’ve got to help me, Angela. If Haley is alive and Pop’s right about that missing kid being hers, it could make a difference. You need to find that baby.”
“Ricky—”
“Please,” he pleaded when she started to withdraw. “Just hear me out.”
“All right, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can do. I’m here to work up a profile on a kidnapper.”
“You’re here to find that missing little girl.”
Angela neither confirmed nor denied his claim. “What is it you want?”
“When you find her, I want you to let me see her before you call in the authorities.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Angela insisted, taken aback by the request.
“I’m not asking you not to tell the cops you found her, just let me see the kid first.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because since I’ve been back, I’ve been watching my pop die right before my eyes little by little. He needs a reason to go on living. That baby could be it.”
“He has you,” Angela pointed out.
“All I’ve ever been for him is a headache, someone he doesn’t understand. Hell, even I don’t understand me. But Haley…Haley was his favorite. If the rumors are true, if my sister didn’t die in that boating accident and that missing kid is hers, it would make all the difference in the world to Pop. He’d have a grandchild who needed him, a piece of my sister again. He’d have a reason to live again.”
“Ricky, what you’re asking—”
“Is a lot. I know that,” he said, and caught her hands in his. “But I’m desperate, Angela. I’m desperate.”
The weight of Ricky’s plea enveloped her like a shroud, and Angela pulled her fingers free. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t make you any promises. I’ll tell you the same thing I told the FBI and the police chief—you shouldn’t pin your hopes on me. Justin Wainwright’s a good sheriff. He’ll have followed every possible lead to find that missing child. So will the Bureau. If they haven’t been able to find her by now, the chances are I won’t be able to find her, either.”
“You’ll find her,” Ricky said with the utmost conviction.
“Ricky, I’m not a miracle worker. I’m a profiler,” she protested.
“We both know you’re more than a profiler. My mama said you had a special gift. Second sight, she called it. You can see things, sense things that other people can’t. Like that time when I was supposed to make that truck run to Mexico and you called me, insisted you had to see me that night. It’s because you knew what was going to happen, didn’t you? Somehow you knew about that crazy hitchhiker, that he was going to kill the person driving the truck that night. That’s why you made sure I canceled the trip. You did it to save me.”
Angela remained silent as the memory of that day six years ago came back to her. She’d seen Ricky in the Mission Creek Café at lunchtime that day, and when he’d given her a hello hug, an image had flashed into her mind’s eye of a dark roadway, of the sign indicating the Mexican border thirty miles away, of the body of a dark-haired man lying beside a truck with a bullet in his temple. When Ricky had told her he was leaving that afternoon for Mexico, she’d panicked. She’d known at once that he was in danger. So she’d called him, made up an excuse that she needed to see him that night after she was off duty and begged him to cancel his trip. And he’d done as she’d asked. Regret washed over her anew as she realized she’d been so caught up in first saving Ricky and then later defending her meeting with Ricky to an angry Justin that she hadn’t thought to ask Ricky if he’d arranged for someone else to take his run. And because she hadn’t asked him, a man had died.
“You used your gift, or whatever you want to call it to save my life that night. Now I’m asking you—begging you—to use your gift again. Only this time use it to save my father’s life by finding that baby.”
Her gift, Ricky had called it. But for as long as she could remember, she’d considered her visions a curse, not a gift. “Marked by the devil” her father had