Reckoning for the Dead by Jordan Dane Page A

memory.
    â€œWhen we got that hit on your DNA, I looked at your missing-persons file.” The chief pursed his lips, letting what he’d said sink in. “Terrible thing happened to you.”
    Jessie saw the look of pity in his eyes, and she hated it. That look was the reason she never talked about what had happened to her.
    â€œThat Danny Ray Millstone case hit national news. I didn’t need to read your file to remember that sorry excuse for a human being. He got what was coming to him.”
    Guess the chief thought that commiserating over the serial pedophile who had tortured her and so many other kids was a way of breaking the ice. Well, she didn’t need that. Ever.
    What she did need was a look at the chief’s investigation. Seeing what the local law had accumulated would give her a glimpse into a past she knew nothing about. And maybe, for the first time, she’d get a lead on the woman who might be her mother.
    The way she figured it, she had a fifty-fifty chance of discovering that her mother had been involved with Danny Ray Millstone and given her up or had loved her the way a mother should and hadn’t been given the choice to keep her child.
    But to get a look at the cold-case file—or gain the trust of the man behind the desk—would require her to do the one thing that didn’t come naturally. She had to open up to a stranger, or her business in La Pointe would be done—over, out, finito.
    â€œAll that took place after your murder, Chief, but I don’t know how your case would be connected to what happened to me.”
    â€œTo find that out, you may have to talk about things you don’t care to. You okay with that?” He furrowed his brow.
    When the chief leaned forward in his chair, she knew she had his attention, making what she was about to ask him more difficult.
    â€œSince you did DNA tests, was the woman who was killed . . . was she related to me?” Jessie cleared her throat, unable to look him in the eye. “Was she . . . my mother?”
    â€œYou don’t remember anything about your mother?” His voice softened.
    â€œBottom line is that I don’t know how my blood got here in La Pointe because I’ve blocked out a big chunk of my past. Either I was too young to remember stuff, or I didn’t want to know what had happened. I don’t know which, but I came here to see what you had, hoping I might learn something about my family . . . my mother, actually. That’s why I want to see what you’ve got on this case. Do you think you can help me, Chief?”
    At first, the man stared at her as if she had two heads. Like the boy who cried wolf, she was about to find out if the guy believed her when she finally told him the truth. When his expression softened, he leaned back in his chair and heaved a sigh. He kept up his silent stare as if the truth would appear on her forehead.
    Eventually, he broke the stalemate. “You have time to take a ride with me?”
    The Pérez Compound
    Outside Guadalajara, Mexico
    Ramon and his men had left them alone, for hours now. Estella Calderone listened to every sound coming from the corridor outside, waiting for the footsteps that would signal that her nightmare wasn’t over.
    And in the stillness of the cell, she also heard the labored breathing of the man next to her. They’d given him loose-fitting clothes to wear, pants that tied at his waist and a shirt that had not been buttoned. Since they’d taken his shoes, his feet were bare. Suspended by chains, he looked more like a ghost in the darkness of their cell. That was why Estella was shocked to hear the American speak to her for the first time.
    â€œI’m s-sorry.”
    His voice had been so soft, she almost missed what he said.
    â€œFor what, señor ?” Estella found it hard to breathe. Hanging by ropes made it hard for her to fill her lungs. And when she tried to relieve the