judge was pacing the front room when she emerged. Running a critical eye over her, he nodded. “I hardly recognize you. Ready to go?”
She swallowed the bitter taste of guilt and regret. “Yes.”
“Okay. Let’s get you on your way.”
Taking her elbow, he hustled her out to his car. “Your temporary ID, credit cards and passport are in the dash. I’ll send new ones when…if you decide to go ahead with cosmetic surgery.”
Gulping, Haley retrieved the documents and fingered the embossed passport. She could only guess the favors the crusty jurist had been forced to call in to manufacture her temporary identity.
“I’m sorry I pulled you into this mess, Judge.”
“I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, missy. I don’t count helping Isadora’s daughter as one of them.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
“I don’t expect you to. Now duck down and stay out of sight until I get you to the rental I parked down the road earlier this afternoon. It’s only a few miles.”
The wily judge had thought of everything, even obtaining a nondescript sedan from a rental agency. Judge Bridges had made sure there was no way the car could be traced to him, or to the woman who’d park it at the San Antonio airport later tonight.
The drive to the hidden vehicle seemed to take forever, yet was all too brief. Haley crouched low in the seat, trying desperately to blank her mind to the frantic search she knew was taking place out on the lake. She’d made the wrenching decision to leave. For her father’s sake, she had to follow through with it.
“Here we are.”
Slowing, the judge pulled off onto a narrow track. Branches scraped against the sides of his car as it bumped down the path. When the headlights picked up the gleam of metal, he shoved the gear-shift into park but left the engine running.
The hot Texas night wrapped around them as they made their way to the waiting Ford. Digging the keys out of his pocket, Carl passed them to Haley.
“You’ll need some cash,” he said gruffly. “Here’s two thousand for immediate expenses. I’ll wire more when you get settled.”
“Judge, I—”
Her throat closed, tears burned behind her eyelids. This was it, the moment she’d both dreaded and planned for so meticulously. Her last seconds as Haley Mercado.
No, not as Haley Mercado. Haley was already dead. Lost beneath the dark waters of Lake Maria.
“You’d better get going,” the judge said gruffly, his own voice thick. “It’s a good stretch of road to San Antonio, and you have a plane to catch.”
She couldn’t get a single sound past the ache in her throat. Awkwardly, Carl patted her shoulder.
“Don’t worry. I’ll look after Isadora and Ricky. And I’ll do what I can to extricate your father from the mess he’s gotten himself into over the years. I can still pull a few strings ’round these parts.”
Maybe then she could come home again. Clinging to that hope, Haley threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.
“I hope so, Judge. God, I hope so! Keep me posted, okay?”
“You know I will. Now scoot, girl, before we both start bawling like new-weaned calves.”
She gave him another fierce hug, then slid into the sedan and waited while he backed his own car down the track. Its headlights stabbed into Haley’s eyes. Almost blinded, she turned onto the paved road. She idled the car for a moment, waiting for the black spots to fade, then slowly accelerated. A few moments later a turn in the road took her away from Lake Maria.
In the weeks that followed, Carl Bridges was Haley’s only contact with Texas and the life she’d left behind.
The judge’s assurances that her family was working through their shock and grief sustained her through long days and lonely nights in strange cities. After a circuitous journey across several continents to cover her tracks, she found refuge in the comfy flat Carl had leased for her in London. There she found funds waiting to cover her expenses, including the cosmetic surgeon who altered Haley’s features.
Under the surgeon’s knife, her nose lost the little bump she’d inherited from her mother, and her slanting, doelike eyes became rounded. She considered breast reduction and possibly liposuction to diminish her lush curves, but by then stress had carved off so many pounds that she carried a far more slender, if still subtly rounded, silhouette. Dying her hair a glowing honey-blond, she adopted a sleek, upswept style that gave her an unexpectedly sophisticated look.
With her degree in graphic arts, it didn’t take her long to land a terrific job. She’d just begun to feel comfortable in her new skin when a call from Carl shattered her shaky sense of security. It came mere weeks after her supposed death. She could tell from his terse greeting that he was upset.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her pulse kicking into overdrive. “Are my parents okay? Ricky’s not hurt, is he?”
“No, no one’s hurt.” His voice took on an odd note. “No one we know, anyway.”
“Tell me, Judge. What’s happened?”
“They found your body.”
“What!”
“Some fishermen out on Lake Maria hooked on to a corpse. It’s badly decomposed, but it matches your height and physical characteristics with uncanny exactness.”
“Frank!” she breathed. “Frank must have planted it.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, too.”
According to Carl, Del Brio had gone beserk when divers found his fiancée’s halter top still tangled in the branches of the submerged tree. In a bitterly ironic twist, he’d insisted the local authorities arrest Luke and the others for taking Haley out on the lake and operating a high-powered speedboat while under the influence. Tests had confirmed a high level of alcohol in the men’s blood, and now the four marines had been charged with reckless endangerment.
“All hell’s broken loose ’round here,” Carl related. “Your father wouldn’t let Isadora view the corpse, but he and Ricky went down to the morgue. They both near about fell apart. Now even Ricky’s out for blood. He’s turned against Luke, blames him for taking you out in the boat when he was drunk.”
“Luke wasn’t drunk! I don’t care what the tests showed. He was completely in control of himself that night.”
“He’s going to have to prove that in court. I don’t know what kind of hold your uncle Carmine and Frank Del Brio have over the county D.A., but the idiot’s upped the charges against Luke and the three others to manslaughter. They’ve been put on administrative leave from the marines and are being held in the county jail without bail until their trial.”
“Oh, no!” Shattered by the unforeseen consequences of her deception, Haley searched desperately for a way to clear the four men. “What about DNA tests? They’d
