Tough Justice: Ambushed. Carol Ericson

       Chapter One

      How could the DNA be a match for Moretti’s?

      Not possible. Lara ground her palms into her temples in an effort to stop the spinning of her head. She doubled over, almost touching her forehead to her knees.

      The others in the conference room were all talking at once, but their words washed over Lara in a confusing froth. She couldn’t even put two coherent thoughts together in her own head, let alone trying to process the exclamations from everyone else.

      Suddenly, her head shot up. “The brother! Mei figured it out when she saw that photo from the sewer. Andrew Moretti’s identical twin, who was supposedly dead, burned beyond all recognition. It has to be. Damn. I should have put it together earlier. When Mei asked about dyslexia and I said no, she nodded, as if the final piece fit. She also had Moretti’s background file on her desk. She knew but never got the chance to tell us.”

      “So unless Moretti is a magician, in two places at once—” Victoria drew two black circles on the whiteboard “—his twin, Mason, didn’t die in that fire.”

      “Who did?” Xander dragged a hand through his hair, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.

      Lara didn’t blame him. A definite fog had encompassed her brain, too. She took a gulp of coffee. “If the death in the fire was an accident, why would the brothers perpetuate the hoax that Mason died in the house?”

      “And if it wasn’t an accident?” Ty snapped the tab on a can of soda, the liquid promptly fizzing over and down his hand. He didn’t seem to notice. Didn’t seem to care

      “That would mean—” Victoria circled the black dots on the white board “—two seventeen-year-old boys plotted murder and deceit for some future goal.”

      Lara gripped her upper arms. At seventeen, boys should be focused on saving money to buy a car, making first string on the football team, asking a girl to the prom.

      Not cold-blooded murder and mayhem. Her gaze shifted to the black circles on the whiteboard, disconcertingly like Moretti’s own dark eyes.

      “If the blond is Mason Moretti, and it appears that he must be—” Lara jumped up from her chair and paced the room “—where’s he been all these years? Has he been hiding out? Working behind the scenes for his brother? Running a parallel syndicate in another country?”

      Xander snapped his fingers. “What if we have the wrong brother in prison? What if Mason was the Moretti when the bust went down?”

      “Then we wouldn’t have the wrong brother, because there wouldn’t be a wrong brother.” Cass poked two fingers beneath her glasses and rubbed her eye. “If they both played at being the boss, then they’re both guilty of unspeakable crimes.”

      Parking herself next to Nick holding up the wall, Lara chewed on her bottom lip. “Identical twins don’t have identical fingerprints. That’s why Mason’s prints from the glass weren’t in the system. He’d been booked a few times as a juvenile offender, but his records are missing.”

      “I’m still working on recovering that