The Agent's Redemption (Special Agents At The Altar 4) Read Free

than that. But he had no right to expect or ask for anything from her—not even information.
    She had barely looked at the picture. So he held it out to her again. But she had barely looked at him, either. Instead, she kept glancing over his head.
    He was surprised to find her here—in Wisconsin and so close to where her sister’s car had been found. He’d thought for sure she would have wound up in another state—maybe even in another country—for her medical residency. Instead, she lived just down the road from the wooded area that law enforcement and search teams had torn apart looking for Lexi.
    To no avail...
    He glanced behind him, where she kept looking, and noticed the clock on the wall. Large metal hands moved across the surface of a barn picture, like a weather vane moving in the wind. Her house was cute—a sunshine-filled ranch with bright colors—like something that would’ve been featured in a country living magazine. He hadn’t pictured Becca winding up living in the country.
    She’d wanted to do her residency in a big city. A bigger life than the small town where she’d grown up—just like Lexi had wanted.
    She tore her gaze from the clock to focus on the photo. But not him.
    Couldn’t she even stand to look at him? Had he hurt her that badly? Guilt clutched his heart, like her palm still clutched his chest. Instead of pushing him away, her hand held on to his coat and shirt—as if she needed some sort of support to look at the photo again.
    “I’ve seen her face on the news,” she said. “But that’s the only place I remember seeing Amy Wilcox before.”
    “We can look into their pasts—see how they’re connected. You can help me,” he urged her.
    She shook her head. “I don’t know how she knew Lexi. But then again I was gone so much—for college and med school—that I didn’t know all of her friends. And Lexi was always making friends.” She smiled wistfully—sadly. “Everybody wanted to be her friend.”
    Six years had passed, but it didn’t appear that Becca’s pain had lessened any. Her loss seemed as fresh and painful as it had when Lexi had first disappeared. She had loved her sister so much.
    Regret clenched Jared’s heart—regret that he had hurt her. And regret that his being here was hurting her again. He shouldn’t have come. She wasn’t the only one he could have asked about Lexi.
    “Do your parents still have your sister’s things?” he asked. He could talk to them instead. Maybe they would have something of Lexi’s—her journals or photos—that would explain her connection to Amy Wilcox and maybe lead him to a suspect that they had both known.
    Or at least the suspect had known both of them. Maybe they’d been unaware of him. Jared had apprehended many suspects whose victims had never officially met them. They hadn’t even been aware that they were being followed.
    “No,” Becca replied shortly, dashing his hopes.
    He cursed. But he wasn’t surprised.
    While some people kept shrines to their lost loved ones, leaving their things exactly as that person had left them, others removed every trace of them—as if that could make them forget their loss and pain. Her parents had been so broken and devastated that they hadn’t been able to talk to him or any of the other authorities. That was how he’d gotten so close to Becca—she had spoken for all of them, for her parents and for her missing sister.
    “They couldn’t handle any reminders of her,” she said with a trace of resentment.
    Had Becca been a reminder of her sister, too? Had they removed her from their lives, too? It might explain why she had settled in Wisconsin instead of the farm town where she’d grown up in Ohio—where her parents probably still lived unless that reminded them too much of Lexi, too.
    “So I have her things,” Becca said matter-of-factly. She wouldn’t have wanted to forget her sister—no matter how much pain that loss caused her. She was incredibly strong; she