Free Dead Ringer by Mary Burton Page B

into her cup. Then in an about-face, she smiled brightly. "You know
what we should do first thing in the morning? Go shopping. I saw the cutest
dress that would look perfect on you."
    Her
mother knew the right buttons. Her daughter, unlike her, loved pretty clothes
and shoes. Shopping always distracted Kendall. However, this time the
not-so-subtle evasion wasn't lost on Kendall. She understood without hearing
the words that she'd get no answers. She dropped the subject.
    Later,
she went to her father and asked him about her adoption. "You know this kind of
talk upsets your mother."
    "But
why don't we ever talk about it? Is something wrong with me? Was my birth
mother some space alien freak?"
    Tenderness
in his eyes, he patted her on the shoulder. "You are perfect and don't you ever
believe different. Mom and I love you and that's all you need to worry about."

    Her
father had been dead ten years and her mother had been gone a year now. There
was no one left to hurt or disappoint.
    And
yet Kendall hadn't initiated a search of her birth parents and hadn't told
anyone, including Nicole, she was adopted.
    Questions
about her birth mother had never left her. But even as an adult, voicing
questions about her birth family left her feeling disloyal and afraid.
    Kendall
traced the rim of her porcelain cup with the tip of her index finger. She
sipped her tea.
    She
made her living asking questions, digging into people's lives and turning the
news into stories people enjoyed. But she couldn't ask the most basic questions
about her own past. Where had she come from? Where had she lived the first
three years of her life?
    Kendall
rubbed her itchy eyes. The weight of it all suddenly felt so heavy on her
shoulders. "Sleep. I desperately need sleep."
    So
far she'd been able to hide the dark circles under her eyes with makeup. But
soon the television cameras would betray her sleepless nights no matter how
much foundation she caked on.
    Rising,
Kendall moved to the sink. She poured her tea down the drain, rinsed out the
cup, and set it on the counter.
    "This
is ridiculous. It doesn't matter where I came from. I had great parents and I have a great life. The past simply doesn't matter."
    But
deep inside her, she sensed that it did.

Chapter
Five
    Thursday, January 10, 10:12 A.M.
    The
last forty-eight hours had been frustrating. Jacob and Zack had tracked down
Phil White's town house, but there'd been no sign of him and neighbors reported
they'd not seen him since Friday morning. They'd learned from his boss at the
cable company that he was on vacation, but no one seemed to know where he'd
gone or how to reach him.
    Interviewing
Jackie White's church friends and coworkers had been just as elusive. She was
an intensely private woman, and though all seemed to like her no one really
knew much about her. Her cell phone records, bank statements, and credit report
showed nothing out of the ordinary.
    Jacob
had gotten a call from the medical examiner's office this morning. Jackie
White's autopsy was happening today.
    As
Jacob and Zack strode into the medical examiner's office, Jacob felt himself
tensing. Death was a part of his job but he didn't like this place. The tile floor. The chrome. The smell. The place had an eerie feeling that he'd never
grown comfortable with.
    "God,
I hate the smell of this place," Zack muttered.
    Jacob
inhaled through his mouth. "I hear ya."
    The
detectives pushed through the double doors into the autopsy room. The tile
floor had a drain in the center. Adjustable lights hung over five different
chrome examining tables, all of which were empty except the one where Dr. Alex
Butler stood.
    Dr.
Butler was young, not much older than thirty. He was tall, lean and had a thick
stock of blond hair cut into a crew cut. Blue eyes reflected intelligence. He'd
finished medical school at age twenty and some called him Doogie Howser. He'd
spent several years working in Hawaii for the federal government helping to
identify the remains of