Dying for Love by Rita Herron Page B

was meant for.
    She swayed slightly at the thought. That bear . . . it was just like the one her alter Bessie used to have.
    Arthur Blackwood had put it inside as some kind of cruel message.
    John cleared his throat. “Burying the teddy bear probably indicates that whoever did this . . . cared.”
    It took a moment for her voice to work. “No, it was a taunt to me. My child alter Bessie always slept with a teddy bear just like that one.” Amelia swallowed back her revulsion. “He must have thought that one day I might remember and come looking for my baby.”
    John’s expression darkened. “I’ll have forensics look for evidence linking the teddy bear to the Commander or an accomplice.”
    Another scenario made Amelia’s throat thick with fear. What if the Commander or one of his cohorts took her baby because he was disfigured, or mentally or physically challenged?
    Blackwood’s techniques twisted normal men into soldiers who would have no remorse over killing innocents as a casualty of their cause.
    Her heart ached as she watched the workers load the casket to transport to the lab. “I thought when the Commander died and Six was arrested, it was finally over.” She turned to John. “But it’s not. I can’t rest now until I find out what happened to my son.”

    The scent of damp earth beneath the snow suffused John, the biting cold stinging his hands. He kicked off the dead flowers that had landed at his feet, his eyes glued to the hearse as the men drove the casket away.
    Was Amelia right? Had the Commander put that bear in the coffin as a message to her?
    The missing children cases he’d worked blurred together, the common denominator being the fear that nearly incapacitated the parents.
    Fear of the unknown and the endless, heinous possibilities of how their child might have suffered.
    Guilt compounded the emotions.
    Now Amelia was feeling all those things. The Commander’s sick way of continuing to torture her even though he was gone.
    A parent’s job was to protect their offspring at all costs. To fail brought unspeakable pain, grief, and a sense of failure that was impossible to overcome.
    And if that child was found dead . . .
    Hell, it went against the natural order of life for a parent to bury a child.
    “I’ll get to the bottom of this,” John said, knowing he could no more walk away from Amelia or this case than he could quit searching for the truth about his own past. Because if Commander Blackwood had hurt Amelia’s baby or used him as an experimental subject as he had Amelia, the child might still be in danger.
    And if he hadn’t, if he’d given the child to a couple to adopt, Amelia deserved to know that, too.
    If the child was alive at all.
    He braced himself for Amelia to fall apart. If she was as unstable as reports had indicated, he might have to call her shrink.
    “Thank you,” Amelia said.
    He hardened himself. “Don’t thank me yet. I have conditions. You have to be honest with me. If you remember something, if one of your alters takes over, or if one of them knows the truth, you have to tell me.”
    Her jaw twitched slightly as if she was trying to deflect the blow he’d given her, making him feel like a heel.
    Dammit, he had to set some rules though.
    He’d investigated too many cases where parents or friends of the family had lied to him, leading him in a thousand different directions chasing false leads.
    He wasn’t in this for the parents but for the children. He didn’t sugarcoat anything or worry about hurt feelings.
    “Where do we start?” Amelia asked.
    “ We don’t start anywhere,” he said, determined to make it clear that he worked alone.
    “But I have to help,” Amelia said. “We’re talking about my child.”
    “Then work with your therapist and see what other memories you can recover.”
    “I will do that,” Amelia said, as if that was a given. “But I need to know what’s going on.”
    The temptation to comfort her needled him, but