He shook his head. “Are you sure you’re twins?”

“Right now the resemblance is a bit lacking.”

He grinned at that. He’d seen the old photos in which Jayne was clearly her identical twin.

“You’d look more like her these days if you unnecessarily lost twenty pounds, dyed your hair platinum blond, and couldn’t hold your hands still while you talked. She’ll never have your voice, though.” He gave her an admiring look.

It’d taken her decades to accept her voice. It was low and a bit throaty. All her life, men had responded to it like she was some phone-sex worker.

“Are you worried about her?” Mason asked, setting his laptop on the coffee table and reaching for his bottle of beer.

“No more than usual, I guess. It never surprises me to hear she lost another job, but I haven’t gotten a text or a call since she came to the hospital on Christmas. That’s a bit of a long stretch for her. She must have found a man that occupies her time.” Or keeps her stoned nonstop. “She’ll reach out when she wants something.”

“Yeah, like another car to steal and wreck.” He mashed his lips together.

His sense of honor had been shocked when Jayne “borrowed” and totaled Ava’s sedan the previous year. Ava had been angry, but not as stunned as she could have been. Jayne had stopped surprising her long ago. If she let Jayne’s actions get to her, she’d have multiple ulcers. She took a large swallow of her wine. “Did I tell you about the time my mother broke up with one of her boyfriends?”

Mason looked up, instantly interested. Her childhood with her nutty twin and single mother contrasted with his stable, rural, working-class background.

“I don’t know how long they’d been together. My mother’s relationships rarely lasted more than a few months. This must have been a long one because she let him take us out for ice cream on his own. But I guess it was circling the drain because first he took us to get our hair cut.”

“Oh crap.” Distrust filled Mason’s gaze. “What happened?”

“We were about four. We both had long, dark hair that my mom would braid or put in ponytails. He told the hairdresser to cut it short.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “We looked like little boys. He promised us the ice cream if we sat still for the haircuts. I can still see my long hair on the floor under the chair.”

“That’s simply cruel,” Mason said softly.

“My mother cried when he brought us home. Then she screamed at him, and he smiled and left. Her tears made Jayne and me cry. I thought I’d done something wrong. I didn’t understand that adults could be so mean. I remember wearing headbands with bows and flowers for a long time after that as she tried to make us look girly.” Her voice shook, and she stared at the fire.

She hadn’t rehashed that incident in a long time. Shame washed over her as fresh as when she was a child, and it kicked her in the gut. Stress-triggered adrenaline pounded through her limbs. She started to drain her wineglass and abruptly set it down.

No superficial help.

She wasn’t Jayne. She didn’t drown her emotions and fears in drugs and alcohol.

It’s your first glass; lighten up.

One glass was her limit. Always.

Jayne was proof that Ava had the genetics to fall into addiction. They had identical DNA. Only by the grace of God was Ava not an addict. She glanced at Mason. He’d watched her set down the wineglass.

“You are not her,” he stated, holding her gaze. It was his mantra for Ava. He knew becoming her twin was her greatest fear.

Wired stress still pulsed through her body from the shameful childhood memory. Part of her brain screamed for her to drink to bury the memory, make it vanish. Instead Ava pulled the memory back out and studied it. “He shouldn’t have done that to children.”

“No, he shouldn’t have. And it was aimed at your mother. It wasn’t a punishment for you.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing his words, awareness of her anxiety in his gaze.

She licked her lips, willing the quivering in her gut to settle. Mason reached for her. She shoved her computer and Bingo off her legs and crawled onto his lap, burying her face in his neck and inhaling deeply. His masculine scent quieted her, and she wanted to crawl under his clothing to feel his skin touch hers. She pressed her lips against his throat, feeling the tiny prickle of stubble. Her hand slid under the collar at the back of his neck, and she massaged his shoulder. She felt his body suddenly attune to her needs.

“Are we done with work for the evening?” she asked, feeling the two of them fall into harmony.

“Absolutely.”

He wrapped an arm under her legs and pushed to his feet, lifting her in his arms as he stood. She clung to his neck and held his brown gaze.

“It’s bedtime.”

6

Mason had been inside the Portland FBI offices a few times. They were in a large, modern-looking building with manicured grounds and a serious metal fence. He’d now gone through the small security shack, where two guards had scanned him and checked his weapon. Then one of the guards had walked him to the front doors of the main building and politely told him to have a nice day. Ava had met him in the lobby and escorted him up in the elevator to the command center.

The large room was full of computer stations. Half of which were already manned and collecting information. A wall of windows let in the February sunshine, trying to convince employees that it was warmer than forty degrees outside. Mason’s goal this morning was to find out what the FBI had gleaned overnight. ASAC Ben Duncan nodded at Mason from across the room, where he was deep in discussion with three other agents. Mason felt a sense of déjà vu from December, when Duncan and the FBI had set up a command center in Lake Oswego while they searched for his ex-wife’s stepdaughter.