Destiny's Chance (2 page)

Every muscle protested when Destiny twisted her body to reach for the bedside phone. No doubt she would have some colorful bruises. She couldn’t believe how lucky she’d been.
Zoe shouldn’t be dead
. Tears threatened again.
Later. Cry later.

After a few frustrating attempts, she discovered she had to dial nine to get an outside line. The phone at her parents’ house rang several times.
Should have called Mom’s or Dad’s cell
. She had started to hang up when her mother answered.

“Hi, Mom. I guess you guys didn’t get the news,” she said lightly, carefully, to avoid alarming her.

“Who is this?” Her voice broke on a suspicious note.

She wasn’t surprised her mother didn’t recognize her voice. She’d strained her throat screaming, and the husky tone that came from her mouth didn’t sound like her. “It’s Destiny. I am perfectly fine. I had a car accident, and I’m in the hospital. But
I’m okay
.”

Her mother’s shriek hammered nails into her head.

“Mom, it’s all right. I’m not hurt.” Destiny held the phone away from her ear as the screams continued.

Her father rumbled in the background, then came on the line. “Who is this?” he barked.

She cleared her throat. “It’s Destiny.”

“You’re a sicko. If you call here again, I’ll report you to the police.”

He hung up.

Chapter Two

Chance entered the waiting room; his brother tossed aside a magazine and stood up. “How is she?”

Chance raked a hand through his hair and sighed.

Roman frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Physically, she’ll recover, although her face took a beating. She’s not going to be able to work right away. But mentally?” Chance shook his head. “She’s confused. I’m hoping it’s the pain meds.”

“Why? What did she do?”

Chance flexed his shoulders to work out the tension. “For starters, she asked about her parents, expected them to come pick her up. Zoe’s father disappeared before her birth, and she hasn’t spoken to her mother in years. They were never close.”

Roman held out his hands palms up. “So? Maybe the trauma of the accident and her friend’s death motivated her to mend fences.” He motioned for them to leave, and Chance fell into place beside him as they headed down the hospital corridor.

“I don’t think that’s it.” He frowned. “There were times when she seemed like she couldn’t quite figure out why I’d come. We were a couple. I still care about her. Of course, I’d come to the hospital.”

“What happens now?”

Chance shrugged. “I take her home.”

“To her apartment.”

He decided not to answer a question that wasn’t asked.

“She has her own place now, right?” Roman looked at him as he punched the elevator button.

He sighed. “She had intended to get one, and then this happened.”

“Oh man!” Roman grimaced and shook his head. “You’re still living together? What kind of crazy shit is that?”

Crazy shit. Which was why he’d never mentioned it to him.

“We parted amicably. We both agreed we were better off as friends than lovers.” Friends with occasional benefits when one of them got an itch that needed scratching. The arrival of the elevator with one passenger forestalled conversation, although it didn’t prevent Roman from scowling.

At soon as they were off the car, his brother spoke. “It’s best to make a clean break. When it’s over, it’s over. Neat and sweet.”

“Breakups are never sweet.”

Roman laughed. “You’re right about that. And I seem to attract the crazies. Stalkers. Prank phone callers. Tire haters.”

“Tire haters?” Chance arched his eyebrows.

Roman stabbed the air.

“An ex slashed your tires?”

“Two exes.”

“That’s because you’re not particular about who you hook up with,” Chance said. His brother had slept with more women than Chance thought about sleeping with.

They reached Chance’s pickup, he unlocked it, and they hopped in. “Thanks for coming with me. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. I know you cared about that chick. I didn’t want you to be alone in case you got bad news.”

“I did get bad news.” His chest tightened. He’d never again see Destiny’s cheerful, happy face, listen to her giggle at some stupid joke he made. They’d had an easy friendship. He’d felt a need to hide his feelings in front of Zoe, but Destiny’s death had hit him like a sucker punch he never saw coming.

“Zoe’s friend.” Roman nodded. “How well did you know her?”

“Pretty well. Zoe would drag me to parties and other social events, and then disappear so Destiny and I ended up talking to each other.”

“You and her ever…you know?” A vulgar noise accompanied his crude gesture.

Chance glowered. “That’s wrong on so many levels. I lived with Zoe! Who’s in the
hospital
, by the way.”

“Ordering the main menu item doesn’t mean you can’t have a side dish too.”

“Which is probably why so many of your girlfriends become tire haters. Can you be any crasser?”

“Actually, I can,” Roman said, but at least made a pretense of looking shamefaced.

A squiggle of guilt burrowed under Chance’s skin. He’d wondered if in another time, another place, under different circumstances, he and Destiny might have had a relationship deeper than friendship. Most of the time, though, he realized it wasn’t meant to be. He’d felt an indefinable spark, but she’d never indicated by word or deed that she felt the same. Besides, there was another big reason why he and Zoe at least appeared a better match than he and Destiny could have been.

“Destiny was a nice girl.” Not that Zoe wasn’t, but in Destiny’s case, nice meant vanilla.

“You’re such a kinky bastard.” Roman understood.

“Says the man whose idea of a double date is a ménage à trois.”

Roman laughed. The man rarely took offense no matter what the insult. He was too good-natured…and dissolute. But a good brother. He’d dropped everything to come to the hospital. And while Chance was a one-woman-at-time man and his brother probably had never had a girlfriend he hadn’t cheated on, Roman had pegged him straight about his kinky side.

He and Zoe had shared a fetish, so while they weren’t soul mates, their relationship had filled their needs. For a while. Until Chance had decided he wanted to find his one true love. Zoe had understood. If she hadn’t just lost a modeling job, she would have moved out already. It would take a little longer now, that was all.

“Once Zoe recovers from the accident, she’ll get her own place,” he told Roman.

Chapter Three

Destiny huddled under the thin hospital blanket, worry and confusion knotting her stomach. She sounded hoarse, like she had a cold, but her parents should have recognized her anyway. They hadn’t given her an opportunity to explain. Why had her mother screamed like that? What was going on? After her father slammed the phone in her ear, she called the house again and their mobiles, but no one answered. Why hadn’t the sheriff’s department or the hospital contacted them? Chance had been notified about Zoe.

She wished she could bounce her worries off her sister, but she was vacationing in the Caribbean. Besides getting insight on what was going on with her parents, she needed Laura’s assessment of the weirdness of the accident. She recalled the car flying through the air, the door popping open, and then…then she’d had one of those out-of-body experiences she’d read about, a mental disassociation in which she’d
seen
her body tumble out of the vehicle. She wiggled, the small motion stirring a large ache, evidence that, unlike her out-of-body hallucination, the bone-jarring impact of the car smashing into the rocky canyon bottom was real.

She stretched her legs and curled her toes. Muscles protested, but the pain reassured her she was alive. The drugs the hospital must have given her caused her body to feel strange. Light-headed she could understand, but light-bodied?

Destiny expelled her breath in a heavy sigh and reached for the phone to try her parents one more time.

What the hell? She’d been too wrought by news of Zoe’s death to pay attention to much else, but now she noticed her arm looked…weird. Her wrist seemed thinner, her skin paler, the hair so fine it appeared almost nonexistent. And when had she gotten acrylic nails?

Her pulse rate doubled. The arm, the hand, the silver infinity ring on the index finger weren’t hers, but she recognized them. She fixated on the ID bracelet encircling the skinny wrist.
RICHARDS, ZOE
. And her friend’s date of birth.

They got the bodies mixed up. Gave you the wrong wristband.

But they couldn’t have switched arms. She flipped her hands over.

Destiny ripped back the covers and swore in frustration when the bed rail fought her frantic efforts to lower it. She forced it down, but her hospital gown caught in the metal. She tore it loose and scrambled for the bathroom.

Bruised and battered, Zoe stared at her from the mirror over the sink.

A nightmare. Wake up! Wake up!
“No! No!” Slapping her face, Destiny searched for her plump cheeks, her ski-jump schnoz, and the mocha-brown eyes she considered one of her best features. The image mimicked her movements but presented high cheekbones loved by the camera, a perfect nose, and large blue eyes gone feral.

She yanked up her hospital gown. Where were her hips? Her boobs! She stared at her flat chest. She dropped the gown and screamed.

A nurse charged into the bathroom. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“My face!” she yelled. “What happened to my face?”

“The bruises will heal, and your hair will grow back and cover the scar.”

“No, no! It’s not
my
face!”

“What do you mean?”

“The person I see isn’t me,” she cried.

The nurse stiffened, and wariness erased her expression of concern. “Who is it, then?”

Destiny flung a hand at her reflection. “
She’s
Zoe Richards.” She thumped her chest, which felt bony and nothing like it should. “
I’m
Destiny Grable. I am.” Confusion and fear overwhelmed her, and she collapsed into sobs. “What happened to me?”

The nurse grasped her arm with a gentle but firm touch. “
Zoe
, let’s go back to bed now. You’ve been in a bad car wreck, you’ve had a big shock, and you need to rest.” She used the ultracalm tone reserved for lunatics.

“I’m not crazy.”

“No, you’re not. You’re upset,” agreed the nurse insincerely, continuing to tug. “You’ve suffered a trauma.”

Recognizing the futility of arguing, she allowed herself to be led back to her room.

The nurse raised the head of the bed, then plumped up the pillows and poured a glass of water, even though she hadn’t requested one. Destiny’s hand shook as she obediently took a sip. Shivers racked her body. Goose bumps roughened her skin.

“Are you cold? I’ll get you a warm blanket.” Without waiting for an answer, the nurse exited. “Contact Dr. Myerson,” she called in a hush from the corridor. “Tell him to order a psych consult.”

Moments later the nurse draped a heated cotton blanket over Destiny, who continued to tremble. A warm blanket couldn’t eliminate the cold horror.

“Better?” the nurse asked with a fake smile.

“Yes, thank you,” she lied.

Once alone, Destiny reread the name printed on the wristband. She yanked her arm under the covers and huddled under their warmth.

Maybe she did need a psych consult. Perhaps the accident had caused a delusion in which she had assumed another person’s identity. Could she be Zoe? She peeked again at the ID tag. The hospital thought so. As did Chance, apparently.

Her face and body claimed she was.

Memories disagreed. She recalled her parents bringing Laura home from the hospital. Her third grade teacher, Mrs. Norris, used to draw big red stars on her homework papers. She’d gotten her first kiss from Tommy Thomason in high school after their movie date. Her savings account held $9,450, and the dry cleaner had her navy wool sweater waiting to be retrieved. She could recite Destiny’s social security number, her late grandmother’s address, and her high school locker combination. Zoe didn’t have that information.