Storm Born Read online

  “It’s okay,” Jake murmured, and passed a hand over her hair. “Don’t ever feel as if you have to apologize for being sad.”

  She nodded, then sniffed. “It’s just — we lived there for a year and a half, and while people were friendly, we really didn’t make any friends, you know. And for them to have gotten together and raised the money to give her a real funeral and a spot in the cemetery…I guess it just means maybe we weren’t as alone there as we thought.”

  “People don’t always show what they really think until some crisis comes along,” he said quietly. “But I’m glad your neighbors and the people you worked with could come together on this.”

  No immediate reply, only her head moving against his shoulder in what Jake thought was another nod. “I want to visit her grave,” Addie said, voice barely more than a pleading whisper.

  Sitting in his office chair, Jeremy sent his brother a look of alarm, even as he shook his head. Jake raised a hand, letting him know he’d take care of this.

  “And you should,” he said, then continued before she could speak. “When it’s safe. We don’t know whether Lenz still has any fellow agents in the area. He might have her gravesite surveilled to see if you come back.”

  “Exactly,” Jeremy agreed. “Also, everyone in Kanab thinks you’re dead, too. They put your name on the headstone and everything. If you show up there, it could cause a little bit of a problem, you know?”

  Addie reached up to blot her eyes, then pulled away from Jake’s arms. Although he didn’t want to, he knew he had to let her go, had to make himself stand still as she passed a hand through her hair and stared at the still image on Jeremy’s Mac, her eyes reddened but still beautiful.

  “I know,” she said, in a small voice that didn’t sound very much like hers. “I’m not saying I want to go tearing back there right away. But someday….” The words faded away, and she pulled in a breath, one that had a little hitch in the middle. When she spoke again, though, her tone was much firmer. “Can we go back to your place, Jake? I think I want to lie down for a while.”

  “Sure,” he replied immediately. It was sort of awful that her victory over at Joanna’s house should be followed so quickly by such a vivid reminder of her recent loss. No wonder she wanted to check out for a bit. A nap wasn’t a cure-all, but in this particular situation, he thought it could only help. “We can go right now.”

  A dreary little smile touched her lips. “Thanks, Jake.” Her gaze moved to Jeremy, and she added, “And thanks for letting me know, Jeremy. It actually does help.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, and wisely left it at that.

  Jake guided Addie back out to his truck, and waited until she had climbed into the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt before he went around the other side and got behind the wheel. Since the drive was short, he decided it was probably better not to say anything until they were back inside his house.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked as they entered the kitchen and she set her new purse down on the countertop. “Water? Iced tea? I think there might be a couple of Cokes in the fridge, too, but — ”

  “Jake.” Her tone was quiet but firm, and he made himself stop and look at her. Although her eyes were still a little red, the tears appeared to be gone. “I’m okay. In a way, what I just saw…that helped.”

  He watched her, studying her face, and he realized she was only telling him the truth. There was a calm in her expression that surprised him, a certain strength in the set of her delicate jaw. “It did?”

  “Yes.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and he realized she was wearing a pair of silver hoop earrings. Had she worn them this whole time, and he just hadn’t noticed until now? “It gave me some closure. I kept seeing her — seeing her on the floor with blood everywhere. But now I know someone came along and took care of her body. They gave her a funeral service and said goodbye to her, and they gave her flowers and a headstone and treated her like she was part of their family. I couldn’t have done any better for her myself. It’s…it’s good, Jake.”

  Tears gleamed in her eyes again, and he took a step toward her. She raised a hand, shaking her head.

  “It’s okay. Really. I just…I just want to go upstairs and lie down for a while. Then I’ll be up to going out tonight.”

  Jake stared at her, wondering if he’d understood her correctly. Would she really be ready to be around people and act as though she was having a good time after witnessing her mother’s funeral? “You still want to go out after all this?”

  She smiled then, a little sadly, as if she somehow knew that what she’d just said wasn’t making any sense to him. “I do. Because I can’t honor my mother by hiding and pretending that none of this happened. I knew her, Jake — she was full of life, always looking for the fun in everything. She wouldn’t want me to hide in the house and torture myself by trying to think of the ways I could have made all this turn out differently. No, she would have told me to get out there and live my life. So…that’s what I’m going to do. I just need a little time for myself, and then I’ll be okay.”

  As he watched, she turned away from him and left the kitchen. A moment later, he heard her footsteps on the stairs, followed by the door of the guest room closing. Curled up on the floor by the stove, Taffy stared at him and gave an inquiring head tilt. The dog had stayed quiet during the entire conversation, as if she’d known they were discussing people topics that didn’t involve her, but now she was alone with Jake, he could tell she needed a little reassurance of her own.

  Don’t we all, he thought as he went over to his dog and knelt down next to her so he could ruffle her lopsided ears and run his hand along the soft fur on her back. Taffy leaned into him, her small weight a welcome pressure, grounding him somehow, reminding him that there were always small pleasures to be had, no matter how difficult the situation.

  And in that moment, he resolved to make sure that Addie had the best evening out he could manage. He might not be able to make her forget what had happened to her mother, but at the very least, he wanted to give her a few hours of happiness, something to ease the weight of the world from her shoulders.

  Anything less wouldn’t be worthy of her.

  The hotel clerk squinted at the black and white photo Agent Lenz pushed across the counter toward her and uttered the words he’d been waiting to hear.

  “Oh, yeah, I remember them.”

  A surge of excitement went through him, but he kept his tone flat, almost disinterested. “When?”

  The clerk tilted her head to one side. She was a pretty woman, with bright red hair pulled back in a sleek twist and improbably long eyelashes. The glance she gave him wasn’t entirely professional, but he did his best to gaze back at her coolly. He wasn’t here for dalliances, only to do what he could to track down Adara Grant and the man who had stolen her away from him.

  “Day before yesterday,” the woman said. “Let me look it up.” Her fingers — tipped with long, bright red nails — tapped on the keyboard in front of her. “That’s it — Jake Anders, Rancho Cucamonga, California.”

  “I’ll need the address he gave you.”

  She hesitated at that request, then gave a very small lift of her shoulders. He’d showed her his I.D. earlier, and so she knew that although technically she could request he provide a warrant, it probably wasn’t a very good idea to question the motives of someone working for Homeland Security.

  Instead, she picked up a pen and jotted down the information on a pad of paper printed with the logo of the hotel, then tore the top sheet off the pad and handed it to him. “Are they in some kind of trouble?” she asked, looking worried. “They seemed like a nice, quiet couple.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” Lenz replied crisply. “But thank you for your cooperation, ma’am.”

  Her russet brows drew together at the “ma’am” — he had a feeling she didn’t think she was old enough to have earned that particular designation — but she only nod
ded. “Not a problem, Agent Lenz. We’re here to help.”

  “And you have.”

  He folded the piece of paper and slipped it into his breast pocket, then stepped away from the counter so the next person in line could get their particular business handled. Even the din of the slot machines in the background and the piped-in music blasting through the speakers wasn’t enough to dull the excitement surging through his veins.

  I’ve got you…Mr. Anders.

  Down to the parking garage, where he got into his car and drove away, getting comped at the gate when he showed his Homeland Security I.D. He’d need to head back to Mandalay Bay and check out, since he hadn’t canceled his room there, not knowing when he’d finally track down his quarry.

  Now he had a name and an address. When he got to his hotel room, he pulled out his phone and entered the address in the map program, figuring he might as well get the lay of the land before he started his journey to Southern California. When he entered “6351 Haven Avenue” into the phone, though, he found himself frowning immediately.

  What the hell kind of joke was this?

  Oh, the address was located in Rancho Cucamonga. However, it wasn’t in any quiet residential neighborhood, but on a major street, and it sure as hell wasn’t a house.

  No, apparently that address belonged to a Vons supermarket.

  “Son of a bitch,” Lenz said aloud, scowling down at his phone. He supposed he should have guessed that Jake might have given a fake address, but he was forced to admit to himself that he hadn’t thought his quarry would be quite that clever.

  As he sat there, wondering what the hell to do next, his phone rang. Dawson’s number.

  “Lenz.”

  “Hello, sir. I have the dealership records you requested. Shall I send them over?”

  “Yes,” he said, not bothering with a “please.” Maybe he could salvage the situation after all. It was one thing to lie to a hotel clerk, and quite another to falsify the information given to a dealership during a vehicle purchase. Not with the DMV and the individual’s insurance company involved.

  “Sending now.” A slight pause, and Dawson asked, “Any leads?”

  “They were here,” he replied, his tone curt. “They provided a false address, though, so I’ll have to hope that one of the records you sent has the correct information.”

  “I hope so, too, sir. Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment. I’ll get back to you after I’ve looked over the information you sent.”

  “Understood.”

  He ended the call and pulled his laptop out of its bag, then set it down on the table by the window. Jaw clenched slightly, he attached the phone to the laptop, then entered his authentication and looked for the packet Dawson had just sent.

  As she’d warned, the file was large, but nothing his computer couldn’t handle. He began to scroll through the data, moving quickly because he was only looking at the driver’s license images and not much else.

  And there he was.

  Jake Reynolds, Rancho Cucamonga, California. So the bastard did live in Southern California, had given the address of a place he knew. Lenz did a quick search of the address provided and confirmed that this one was an actual home and not the local Trader Joe’s or whatever. But it was real, in a tract of vaguely Mediterranean-style houses — and only a few blocks away from the Vons whose address he’d given to the front desk clerk at Treasure Island.

  “Got you,” Lenz said softly.

  It was a little more than a three-hour drive from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, putting him at his destination around six in the evening. That should do fine. This time of year, the sun wouldn’t have even set by then.

  He sent a message to Dawson, telling her to get a backup team in place for an extraction at eighteen hundred hours. Then it was time to pack up his things and get on the road.

  This time, he’d catch up with Jake Reynolds and Adara Grant on Jake’s home territory…and the man would find it a lot harder to get away this time.

  In just a few hours, Lenz would finally have Adara right where he wanted her.

  15

  I surveyed myself in the mirror and thought I might be halfway presentable. When we were out shopping, Laurel had encouraged me to buy some makeup — real makeup, not just lip gloss and mascara — at the Sephora located inside the JC Penney at the Flagstaff Mall, and so I was a lot more “done” than I usually would be, with some eye shadow and liner and actual lipstick instead of gloss. I’d used the concealer I bought to hide any lingering redness around my eyes, and hoped no one would be able to tell that I’d allowed myself a good cry earlier in the day.

  What I’d told Jake hadn’t been a lie. It really had helped to see my mother given a resting place in Kanab’s city cemetery, where lush green trees shaded the gravesites and looming red rock formations provided a starkly beautiful backdrop. Oh, I wouldn’t lie to myself and pretend it didn’t still hurt, and yet I thought the raw wound within me had begun to enter its first stages of healing. That was the most important thing, to recognize that healing was possible, and necessary. If I was going to start over here in Flagstaff, I needed to let that part of me go.

  Now, as I scrutinized my reflection, hoping that the silky top and dark jeans and lightweight cardigan were okay for a night out in Flagstaff, I thought I hardly looked like myself. The old Adara Grant wouldn’t have bothered with this much makeup, and would have told Laurel that the silky green top wasn’t practical. But I wasn’t going to be scraping my way through college or waiting tables anymore. Now I thought I almost looked like I could be the daughter of someone like Jackson Wilcox.

  Not that I even knew what my father had looked like. I realized Connor hadn’t shown me any pictures of him. Maybe he didn’t have any at the house in Jerome; I could tell that he hadn’t cared much for his father, and probably didn’t see the need to have any mementos to remind him of a man who’d been dead for more than twenty years.

  Well, someone in the clan must have pictures, and once I’d been introduced to everyone as Jackson’s daughter, I could probably ask to see the photos. In the meantime, though, I had Jake waiting for me downstairs, and a whole evening in Flagstaff to look forward to.

  I descended the steps and found Jake in the front room, bending down from the armchair where he sat to scratch Taffy’s belly. The little dog lay on her back in front of him, eyes closed in doggy bliss, clearly ready to have her master keep rubbing her tummy for as long as she could keep him occupied.

  “Hey,” I said softly, and Jake looked up from the dog, eyes widening slightly.

  “You look great,” he said, in such a sincere tone that I could tell he wasn’t trying to butter me up with false compliments.

  Still, I brushed a hand against the hem of my silky top and said, “It’s not too much?”

  “No. It’s perfect.”

  I realized then that he’d changed his shirt, was wearing an untucked button-down in a dark brick color instead of the T-shirt he’d had on earlier in the day. “Well, I’m ready when you are — assuming the dog lets you go.”

  A quick flash of a grin, and he gave Taffy’s tummy one final pat before he got up from the chair. At once, the dog rolled over on her stomach, looking indignant, but then she let out a little huff of a breath, as if realizing she was going to get abandoned for the evening.

  “She’ll live,” Jake said. “She got an extra treat after her dinner, so I think she’ll forgive me…as long as we’re not out all night.”

  “Can you stay out all night in Flagstaff?” I asked, genuinely curious. After all, even though it was a college town, what I’d seen so far didn’t seem that wild. It wasn’t New York or Los Angeles or someplace like that.

  “Well, the bars close at two, but there are usually a couple of Wilcoxes hosting after-parties at their places every weekend night,” he replied, mouth still lifted in amusement. “Not that I would know from personal experience — I’m not exactly a party animal.”

  That c
omment wasn’t at all disappointing — exactly the opposite, actually. I’d never been what you could call a partier, either. Frankly, the thought of hanging out in bars until 2 a.m. and then going in search of a party after that just made me feel tired.

  Some twenty-four-year-old I was.

  “I think it’s okay if we skip the after-parties,” I told him, and his dark eyes crinkled a bit.

  “Thank God. I thought we’d just try to wander a little, have some dinner, stop in at a place where I know there’ll be some live music.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He patted Taffy on the head and told her to be a good girl, then gestured toward the front door. I went outside and waited as he touched the latch to lock it, but was surprised to see him stride down toward the sidewalk rather than head over to the garage where his truck was parked.

  “We’re walking?” I asked as I hastened my pace to keep up with him.

  “It’s only a few blocks,” he replied. “Parking can be tight downtown on weekend nights, especially during the summer, and since we’re going to be drinking, I figured walking was wiser anyway.” His glance moved toward my feet; I’d put on my favorite black flats since it seemed safer to wear something broken in rather than one of the new pairs of shoes I’d bought earlier that day. “You can walk in those, right?”

  I chuckled. “Jake, I can walk, run, climb a fence if need be. So, no worries about that.”

  “Good.”

  We fell into a comfortable silence as he led me down the street where his house was located, then jogged onto a different road, a little busier one. A couple of blocks more, and then we were downtown, walking along a street called Aspen Avenue.

  “I figured we’d go to Blendz first, have a drink,” he said as we waited for the light so we could cross the street. “Or actually, several.”

  “You trying to get me drunk, Jake?” I asked, wondering what I’d gotten myself into.