Itâs not her.
For some reason, I canât escape the doubt and the hesitation creeping into my head.
Beyond the logic that screams that the woman Iâve brought here canât be Annika, because I fucking saw Annikaâs body, thereâs another voice adding its opinion to the mix.
Itâs not like I ever touched Annika before. We never even kissed at the weddingâit was abundantly clear that neither of us was remotely interested. But now that I have touched her, in almost every way I possibly could, itâs like Iâm pulling back the hazy curtain of rage and revenge thatâs been clouding my ability and truly seeing her.
And I haveâ¦questions.
At least half of those are questions directed at myself. âWhat the fuck are you doingâ is top of the list. But that still leaves plenty of bandwidth for questions about the woman Iâve just chased through the darkness and fucked like a savage.
Back in my office, I open my laptop again. I can still taste her on my tongue and smell her on my fingers. Still feel her wet, greedy pussy clenched so fucking snug and tight around my cock. But I focus on the screen in front of me as best as I can, bringing up a new email from Dimitri.
I asked him to dig deeper.
He delivered.
The files delve a little deeper into Taylor Crownâs past. I frown as I read the police report, getting thoroughly confused.
Her parents were Paul and Lea Crown. They lived in Washington, DC.
Just as she saidâ¦
There was an accident. A drunk driver smashed into their car, killing Paul and Lea instantly and putting a teenaged Taylor into the ICU with severe brain trauma.
A week later, she was brought out of a medically induced coma and diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, remembering nothing about her life, her parents, or who she was.
My jaw tightens, and anger I donât quite understand surges inside.
She wasnât lying. Everything she said really did happen. The living in DC. The parents. The car accident.
All of it.
And yet, when you pull on a string, you donât stop pulling at the first resistance you get.
At least, I donât. I keep fucking yanking. And in Taylorâs case, thatâs where things start to get interesting, according to what Dimitriâs sent me.
Yes, her parents were real people, who really did die in a car crash, and have official death reports.
The problem is, thatâs all there is.
Thereâs not a single other record of them in the system. No mortgage, bank accounts or employment records. Not even social security numbers on their death certificates.
Nothing.
Theyâre fucking ghosts. But theyâre ghosts with a daughter who has a record naming her âTaylor Crownâ.
I, however, have a marriage certificate naming her Annika Brancovich. Whose body I saw.
â¦Or did I.
What I actually saw was a charred, almost unrecognizable corpse. I assumed it was her, because who the fuck else would it have been?
Clearly, I was wrong.
I frown, drumming my fingers on the edge of the desk before I pull up the cameras to her room. Sheâs not in the bedroom. Sheâs in the bathroom, sitting in the tub with her arms wrapped around her knees and her cheek lying on them, staring at the wall.
She has to be Annika. She is Annika.
If not, who the fuck is she?