Truth and Justice - Fern Michaels Page 0,12

the Post, itching all the way. When he itched like this, he could feel trouble coming around the corner.

Chapter 4

Six months later

Bella Nolan looked around her tiny apartment and the minuscule paths she’d created among her packed belongings, which consisted of trash bags and boxes and piles of stuff that she was undecided about and were stacked and waiting for a box or bag or the trash heap.

She was finally, finally, going to do something constructive now that the six months of mourning she had allowed herself were over. She rather thought now that she’d been overgenerous in allowing six whole months to wallow and wail, along with hosting a pity party every day of the week. She had quit her job, packed up the apartment, and was ready to move to North Carolina, where she had a distant cousin who was around her age.

Feeling desperate, she had reached out to her for help, and her cousin had agreed to lend her a hand. Adeline Beaumont said she would be delighted to help Bella out and invited Bella to stay with her while she sought out an apartment and a new job.

Addie, as she liked everyone to call her, said she could help with that, too. She knew of a spacious two-bedroom apartment that was newly renovated, and the rent was only $450 a month. She went on to say that until Bella found exactly what she was looking for in a job, she could hire on at the company she worked for as an assistant. She’d added that Bella had gotten in touch in the nick of time because her company was sending her abroad to open and oversee a satellite office for a year. She’d just sublet her own apartment or she would have let Bella rent it.

Done and done! The only downside (if there was a downside) was that she would be starting over somewhere not knowing a single person. For the most part, she thought that might be a good thing because she would then be open to anything new and challenging.

A new life. A new beginning. Starting over. Slow and easy. One day at a time.

Bella eyed the packing boxes, bags, and the piles of junk she’d accumulated over time. Most of the boxes belonged to her, but three of the huge cartons were Andy’s, which he had stored in a closet in her old apartment. To this day, she had not looked at the contents. She’d just moved the boxes from one place to the other. She knew she needed to make a decision regarding the boxes, but it did not have to be right this minute. Maybe if she could find out where the sister lived, she could send them on to her. Damn, now she was thinking about her again. She never did figure out what it was that bothered her about Andy and his sister. By now, you’d think that it would have come to her. She told herself that if she would stop thinking about it, practically obsessing over it, it would eventually come to her.

What she needed to do and do right this minute was to make an appointment at the fertility clinic where she had stored her eggs. If she was moving to North Carolina, never to return to this unhappy city, she needed to transfer the eggs to a clinic close to where she was going to live. Leave nothing behind was her motto so she would never have to come back to Washington. Never, ever!

But she had doubts. Should she just leave the eggs? Stop paying the monthly fee to store them. Maybe she needed to rethink this whole thing. She wished now, the way she’d wished a hundred other times, that she’d never allowed Andy to talk her into harvesting her eggs.

She could, if she wanted to, just walk away and pretend that it had never happened. If she didn’t leave a forwarding address, the clinic people couldn’t track her down. Had she given them her social security number? She couldn’t remember. If she had, they could track her that way. Damn it, why did everything have to be so complicated?

Bella leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. She needed to think. But her only thoughts were about Andy’s sister. Why? “Because I hate her, that’s why!” Bella screeched to the empty room. Damn! Damn! What was it I couldn’t remember about Sara Nolan?

Bella jumped up. “That’s it! That’s it! I am so