Broken Read Online Free Page A

not lying?”
    “I showed you my license.”
    “Got anything else?”
    He takes a photo out of his coat pocket and hands it to her. “That was taken when I was seven.”
    “How do I know…”
    The woman’s face changes in midsentence. She knows. Even though Laila was only ten at the time, the photo leaves no doubt.
    “God, Laila’s beautiful. I mean look at her. Even then she was so incredibly beautiful.”
    “What was she doing in Chicago?”
    The woman hands back the photo. “She was earning a living.”
    “How?”
    “Does it matter?” She pauses for a moment. “Do you really want to know?”
    Lex breathes in and doesn’t answer the question. He’s torn because he fears the answer, just like he fears where this trip
     will lead him.
    He is afraid, but he knows he has to get these questions answered. Fear has held him back for a long time, but not anymore.
    Ever since the unnamed man appeared out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago asking all sorts of questions about Laila, Lex has
     known he needs to find his big sister.
    Silence is no longer an option.
    “I need somewhere to go. Somewhere to start looking.”
    “You might not want to go looking around. You might not like what you find.”
    “I know that,” Lex says. “Has anybody else come looking for her?”
    “No.”
    “Did she tell you where she was living? Where she was working?”
    “She didn’t tell me anything. It was just high-end. That’s all I know. She was making a lot of money. A whole lot more than
     I make. But of course it was Laila. Of course she was making more money. You know? All I know is that she sounded busy.”
    “Did she sound happy?”
    The woman laughs. “Happy as in how? I don’t even know what that word means anymore, you know?”
    “Any names? Anything?”
    “No.”
    He slips the photo back in his pocket.
    “You’re from Texas?”
    Lex nods. He left a couple of days ago, flying into New York with only a name and snapshot. He wonders if Jenna is her real
     name.
    “She never said anything about being from Texas.”
    “Guess it wouldn’t really impress anybody, not around here.”
    “Why now? Why start looking for her after all this time?”
    “Something happened that I need to tell her.”
    “What? Like a death in the family or something?”
    Lex looks away. “Yeah. Something like that.”
    “I can tell the resemblance now. Should’ve come out here when she was living with me. You would’ve had a fun time.”
    “Yeah, I know I should have. Lots of things I should’ve done. Hope it’s not too late.”
    “Too late for what?”
    “For a lot of things,” Lex says again, staring out the window.
    He hopes the stranger who interrogated him a couple weeks ago hasn’t gotten to Laila first. There was something about that
     man—something unspoken, something unsettling—that made Lex worry. It wasn’t in what he said but how he said it.
    Lex knows the man has unfinished business with Laila, just like he does.

3
    My father wanted to call me Isabella, but my mother chose my name. Instead we gave it to the Arabian horse that was designated
     mine when I was only ten. Bella was the closest friend I had growing up.
    I knew the grit of dirt and sand well, the vast open land of Texas, the emptiness that could fill fenced-in walls. There’s
     a loneliness in the country, in the wide-eyed skies, in the desert roads. A loneliness that no city sidewalk can ever fill.
    I know because I’ve tried.
    And as much as I’d like to write in this journal “I can’t go back. I don’t want to go back,” I hear the winds calling out
     for me.
    Perhaps the sand and the wind and the open skies call for me.
    Perhaps that’s where I’ll end up when my last breath comes and I’m laid into the earth for one last time.
    E ven behind the counter, in dress clothes that don’t stand out and her dark hair pulled in a side ponytail, Laila Torres is
     stunning. The kind of stunning that makes you stop and wonder if you’re really