Page 73 of Tear Me Apart

They have to step carefully. If Gorman suspected the same and went out to Colorado to casually check things out, and something happened to him that wasn’t an accident...

Parks is grasping at straws, he knows, but it all feels so strange and wrong, and he’s been a cop long enough to know there is no sense ignoring a hunch.

And he has a hunch Gorman found a trail.

38

DENVER, COLORADO

Fueled by beer and pretzels, and around 2:00 a.m., delivery Chinese, Juliet and Cameron work all night, running and re-running DNA tables while researching the Armstrong murder/kidnapping. She loves Mindy heart and soul and will do anything to keep her from getting hurt. But she is becoming more and more convinced Mindy is the lost child from Nashville. The photographs of Vivian and Zack Armstrong are telling—Mindy resembles them both, especially Armstrong himself.

As horrible as the case and the situation, there is, of course, a significant upside to this discovery. Zack Armstrong, or his immediate family, might be a match for Mindy’s stem cell needs.

Juliet longs for a pipette of his blood. Blood she understands. It is simple, straightforward. Hemoglobin, plasma, water. Potassium, chloride, phosphorus, sodium. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen. It is beautiful—balanced, the perfect nutrient to keep the body moving. Until it decides to betray its host in some way, as it has Mindy.

The more she learns about the case, the stranger this all feels. She is trying to stay rational and focused but is having a hard time. She is family; these are her people. She is involved. It gives her a new appreciation for the crime victims she works with, albeit anonymously, behind the scenes.

Around four in the morning, they have the DNA profiles lined up, and Juliet goes to work. She runs the sequence one more time, bottom lip between her teeth, a pencil stuck in her hair pulling it back from her face, Cameron looking over her shoulder.

“It’s a match,” he says, but she shushes him and runs it again, just to be sure. Her blood is whirring in her veins, the adrenaline rush coming as the sequence lines up perfectly, again.

“Come on, Juliet. It’s right. You know it’s right. You’ve known it all night.”

It is. The mitochondrial DNA doesn’t lie. Mindy is Vivian Armstrong’s biological daughter.

“Just...give me a second, okay?”

He rubs her shoulders, and she closes her eyes, lets him soothe her. She is having a hard time grasping what this means, and at the same time, her coolly logical side is running a situational awareness report.

Vivian Armstrong, stabbed to death. An infant daughter, stolen from the home. A doctor in Colorado, running an illegal adoption scheme.

Her sister, taking receipt of a stolen child. No teen mother named Graciela, wanting her child to have a better life. But a child ripped from her mother, who is very, very dead.

Lauren is going to freak out entirely when she finds out the whole truth behind Mindy’s birth.

More importantly, how is this going to affect Mindy?

Juliet can already see the headlines.World-Class Skier Stolen Child of Murder Victim.

The notoriety alone will be difficult for Mindy, who only wants accolades for her hard work. She will be devastated to have her skills supplanted by what will amount to tabloid news after the initial flush.

“Okay,” Juliet says, finally. “What are our next steps?”

“You have to report this to Woody, obviously. And tell your sister. As for the rest?”

She spins her chair around. “I need to get Zack Armstrong here, immediately, is what I need to do. We need to get a blood sample. He could be a match for the transplant.”

“He could. Two-pronged approach then? Find Armstrong, bring him to Colorado, and let your people start an investigation at the same time.”

She leans the chair back so she can see his face. “I’m worried the investigation will take precedence. That Armstrong will say no. That the whole world is going to collapse in around us.”

Cameron toys with the edge of an empty noodle container then shrugs. “Well, it might. But it all might work out for the best. It’s not an optimal situation, no matter how you look at it. But you have to tell. You can’t keep this a secret.”

“I’m not my sister,” she snaps.

“I know you’re not, J. But we’ve made a discovery that’s going to have long-term ramifications. Why don’t you fill in Woody, and Lauren, then fly to Nashville and haul Armstrong’s ass back here.”

“I think that’s my only course of action, don’t you? And let the investigative chips fall where they may. I’m just... This is going to kill Lauren. She’s so private, so determined to let Mindy shine. Having a spotlight on her and Jasper, her actions, it’s not going to be easy on her.”