Read Online The Almost Wives Club: Kate by Nancy Warren - Free Book Online Page B

of her again. He discovered something interesting. There were two Kates. There was the young, laughing woman before Ted and there was the post-Ted woman, the more restrained, more careful version.
    So, what happened when you had turned into someone else and the new identity blew up in your face?
    In his opinion, a person went back to where they’d been before it all went wrong.
    If he could make one guess it was that she was by the ocean. Not a real genius assumption since the woman had been born and bred on the California coast, but it was a place to start.
    He walked out of his office, dossier under his arm. “Okay,” he announced. “I’ll be out of the office for a week. Maybe two. I’ve got to track down a missing bride.”
    “Any idea where to start?”
    “Nope.”
    Dwight Elgar, a junior investigator, said, “Follow the money.”
    Susan glanced at him. “The French would say, cherchez la femme, follow the woman.”
    He shook his head at both of them. “You’re both wrong. I’m going to follow the car.”
    “He’s got no sense of romance,” Dwight complained.
    He tracked Kate’s car to a garden apartment in Long Beach. It was parked outside and a glance inside the pricey convertible told him he wasn’t going to find Kate here. He didn’t need his extensive training and experience as a detective to tell him that the woman he’d researched would not keep her car like this. Crumpled fast food wrappers, several take out coffee cups and, even more telling, a pair of red high heels in a size much bigger than Kate’s suggested that Ted’s bride-to-be had anticipated somebody might try to track her down. She’d switched cars with a friend.
    “Nice going,” he muttered as he co-referenced her friends and the area. None of her friends lived here. He closed his eyes and thought. Checked her co-workers. Bingo. And headed up the path and knocked on the door.
    A harried looking Hispanic woman about Kate’s age answered, already talking as she did so. “I am about to give my notice. Seriously, this plumbing—” Then she spotted him and said, “Oh.”
    “Lissa?” he asked.
    An expression of wariness came over her face. “Who wants to know?”
    “I’m looking for Kate.”
    “Why?”
    There were a dozen smooth lies he could spin right here on this woman’s doorstep but instinct told him she would see right through any or all of them. He did not relish telling her the truth. She had the kind of eyes that had seen it all and he imagined her view of human nature was even worse than his. But he knew the truth was his best shot at getting her help.
    “I am going to guess that if Kate traded cars with you that she also told you her story.”
    She neither confirmed nor denied, merely kept looking at him. But she didn’t slam the door, either.
    “I’m Nick.”
    “Thought you might be. You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?”
    “I was doing my job.”
    “Well, your job sucks.”
    He didn’t argue.
    “So, that rat bastard broke her heart, now what? They pay you to go find her and drag her back?”
    “Nobody’s paying me.”
    She did not look as though she were buying it.
    “Look, it’s obvious you care about Kate and that she trusts you. That’s why she came to you when she needed a favor. But nobody’s heard from her. I was part of the reason why she ran away and I need to make sure she’s okay.”
    “So she can marry that dickhead?”
    “No. Believe me, I think he’s a dickhead too and there is no way Kate should marry him. He doesn’t deserve her.”
    “You sound pretty hot when you say that. Sounds to me like you got an interest there yourself.”
    Damn, that woman was sharp eyed as well as sharp tongued. “I—I want to make things right.”
    “Maybe I believe you. But I don’t know where she is. I truly don’t.”
    “Okay, then tell me about your car.”
    She hesitated and he could feel how torn she was between slamming the door in his face and trusting him. Finally, she