Page 31 of Finding Amanda

Mark snatched the notebook from his hand. "I can manage. Why don't you double-check the cabinet order?"

The garage was filled with every tool—power and otherwise—you could think of. Thank God for the space, too. Between the temperature and the whipping wind, he'd freeze outside.

Mark opened the garage door halfway. Frigid air swirled around his feet as he found the miter saw against the wall and dragged it into the center of the garage, plugged it in, and grabbed the first length of crown molding. With his safety goggles firmly in place, he set to work. The small space filled with the buzzing of the electric saw. Clouds of sawdust swirled in the wind sneaking in beneath the garage door while he obsessed about Amanda.

He'd fallen in love with her over crab cakes in Narragansett, Rhode Island, more than a decade earlier. He carried her picture with him to Afghanistan, staring at it so often, the glossy finish had begun to flake off. When he'd returned stateside, he'd wasted no time in proposing to her. They'd been together ever since.

No, they'd been together until a month before, when she'd kicked him out.

What had gone wrong? They had two beautiful daughters, she had a great career, and he was happy for her.

He grimaced and laid another length of molding on the pile.

At least one of them should be happy. He was proud of her. To go from being a chef to starting a business to publishing a cookbook and writing a blog, all while caring for two small children—she was a walking success story. He bragged about her to everyone he knew.

And then, out of the blue, she'd kicked him out.

Except it hadn't been as much of a shock as he'd like to think. Things had been falling apart for two years, and though he didn't know exactly why, he knew when it started—when Amanda told him about her past.

Mark would never forget that night. After putting the kidsto bed early, she'd turned off the TV set and sat beside him. "I have to tell you something."

And then she launched into the story that changed everything.

That monster of jealousy roared—the one he'd so skillfully kept hidden for years of marriage. It twisted in his gut, fed on his hatred, and fueled his anger. The face of his fragile, beautiful wife disappeared until he could see only the dark profile of a man in a high-priced suit and Italian loafers with a tongue as smooth as a knife's edge.

Even now his mouth filled with the bitter taste of vengeance. For two years he'd told himself he could not hunt down Dr. Gabriel Sheppard and kill him. But he had allowed himself the occasional fantasy about confronting him and making him pay. He refused to act on those fantasies. There was no room for the soldier inside him on this side of the Atlantic.

But if he had to, he could rip Sheppard apart, piece by piece.

Mark pressed, white-knuckled, against a length of crown molding. The piece slipped beneath the saw blade, leaving a jagged, useless edge. Closing his mouth tight against the swear word dying to escape, he tossed the ruined end into a pile of scrap, thankful that at least part of the board was still usable. He stretched his arms and tried to relax.

It was no use.

Only after Amanda told him the truth about her past did he understand why she'd used initials—not even her real initials—instead of her full name on her cookbook and blog, why she hadn't allowed the publisher to add a photograph of her to the cover, and why she'd turned down every offer to appear on TV. Hiding from Sheppard. She swore the man would never hurt her, but Mark could see that, deep down, she didn't believe it.

Writing the memoir had been therapeutic, and he'd encouragedher to do it. He'd read it as she wrote, so touched that she trusted him with it, and tried to be enthusiastic about her writing. But it was hard to think past the fury swirling inside him, even harder to hide it. More details about what Sheppard had done to her led to more creative fantasies about how he would eventually kill him.

It never occurred to him she'd want to publish it.

Mark grabbed his cell from his jacket pocket and dialed his best friend.

"I just caught a case," Chris said after a curthello. "I only have a minute."

"I need your help."

"Okay. What's up?"

"I need to figure out how Sheppard found my wife this weekend. I'm thinking maybe I should check the list of attendees from the conference against his name, see if I can find a connection."

There was a pause on the other end. "Could you give me a minute?" Chris said to somebody else. Into the phone he said, "And what do you need me to do?"

Mark ducked beneath the half-mast garage door and walked down the short driveway. "I was hoping you could use your charms to help me get my hands on the list."

"My charms or my credentials?"

Mark smiled. "Both?"

"And how exactly are you going to check their backgrounds?"

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