Chapter 25

Charlotte spooned the marinade over the flank steak, her mind still on that moment in the woods with Jake. For the first time in her life, she found herself faced with hopes and dreams for a home and family, dreams she had never taken much time to consider before, dreams she was afraid to explore now.

She slid the glass pan into the refrigerator and wandered over to the window overlooking the mountains. For most of her life, she had studied and trained for the career she now possessed, a career that had brought her father’s life to an end and had left her alone and on the run. But she wasn’t alone right now. She had Jake and Abigail. Or did she? One kiss didn’t mean this was going to last. Her meeting with Ace in a few weeks would surely end things even if Jake’s feelings did go beyond a few dates.

“He’s going back to New York,” she muttered to herself, trying to keep things in perspective. As much as she might want a simple life in the country, it wasn’t meant to be. She heard music coming from Abigail’s room and went to check on her. The older woman was happily listening to an old vinyl record and knitting.

With nothing to occupy herself at the moment, Charlotte wandered into the living room and debated how she should spend her time. She didn’t feel comfortable going for a ride while Abigail was awake, and she and Abigail had already gone through and tended to the basic housework earlier that morning. Jake had offered to hire someone to do the cleaning, but Abigail seemed to enjoy tending to the basic chores of keeping house.

Charlotte couldn’t remember if the bookshelves had been dusted recently and crossed the room. One particular shelf caught her eye. She moved closer to find the complete collection of Jackson Clark. When she noticed his newest book, one she had yet to read, she pulled it off the shelf.

Abigail and Jake had both told her she could borrow any of the books she wanted, and Charlotte decided now was a great time to accept that offer. She crossed to her favorite chair by the bay window overlooking the front lawn. Eager to distract herself for a while, she flipped open the first page and began to read.

She heard the door open an hour later and looked up when Jake walked in. Embarrassed to be caught indulging in what was one of her favorite guilty pleasures, she stood up. “I’m sorry. I hope it’s okay that I borrowed one of your books.”

“That’s fine. I told you to help yourself.” Jake rolled his shoulders as though trying to work some kinks out of his back. “Which one are you reading?”

She held it up so he could see the cover.

“Oh, yeah. That one just came out in April.”

“I thought I hadn’t seen it before.”

“Where’s my grandma?” Jake asked.

“She’s in her room, listening to her music.”

“In that case, do you want to go get that article? I thought we could start the research on that family you were talking about.”

Charlotte set the book aside. “That would be great, but shouldn’t you be working?”

“I need a break. I think I hit a wall.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Occasionally, especially when I’m transitioning between scenes. One of my main characters needs to transport forward in time. I’m trying to figure out a way to make it seem believable.”

Charlotte chuckled. “You could always have her drop into a pasture in the middle of a thunderstorm. A lightning strike maybe?”

Jake grinned. “You know, I actually thought about that. You were certainly dressed for the part when I met you.”

“Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” The humor drained out of her as the memory flooded through her, reality catching up with the fantasy she was currently living in.

Jake narrowed his eyes and shook his head as though he’d picked up on her thoughts. “Why don’t you go get that article, and we can start our search.”

Charlotte retrieved the article from her room and joined Jake in the office. She sat beside him and handed it to him.

“Let’s see what we can find.” Jake typed in a Google search for the accident, but he didn’t find any more than what Charlotte had already discovered. He went into one of the genealogy programs and did another search, again coming up empty. “Nothing’s showing up.”

“Do you think it’s odd that the obituary didn’t mention any living family members?”

“That is odd. I can try to dig out some actual birth records.”

She thought of the many resources she normally had access to as a government employee with top-secret clearances. She now found herself overwhelmed with the need to learn how normal people searched for information. “How do we find the birth records if we don’t know where they were born?”

“Well, the accident happened here in Virginia. That’s as good a place as any to start. I can also look in Maryland and D.C. If we don’t get a hit in those, we’ll expand our search.”

“Is it hard to find birth records?”

“Not too hard. Actually, I need to go into Richmond and file some paperwork for my parents’ estate. When I do, I can check the records out while I’m there. At some point, I’ll probably need a long drive to help me organize my thoughts.” Jake shifted his attention back to the computer. “What do you know about your family?”

“Not really anything. I only know I went to live with my parents when I was three and my biological parents were killed in a car accident.”

“You don’t think this article is about your parents, do you?”

Charlotte hesitated. His suspicions mirrored her own, but as much as she wanted to confide in him, she knew she couldn’t. Her training simply wouldn’t allow it. “I seriously doubt it.”

“Where were you born?”

“Ohio,” Charlotte answered, giving the information consistent with her alias.

“I can request your birth certificate.”

“No, that’s okay. I think for now I’d rather research this other family. I don’t know if I’m ready to find out about my own.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is, at least for now,” Charlotte said again. “Hopefully the friend I’m meeting in a few weeks will be able to give me the information I’m looking for, or at least a starting place.”

“I hope he can help you too.”

* * *

Ace juggled a bag of groceries in his hand as he walked into the safe house. What he wouldn’t give for a personal chef right now. He was halfway through putting away the cereal and canned goods when he received a secure text message from one of his fellow guardians.

He read it, his frustration rising. “This is the seventh request for emergency funding in the past three days,” he said as much to himself as to Kade, who was sitting on the couch. “If this keeps up, our emergency funding isn’t going to last the full three months it’s supposed to.”

Kade looked up from his computer, where he was researching the founders of the guardian program. “Where did this request originate?”

“Thailand.”

“This is getting ridiculous,” Kade said with a shake of his head. “Have you noticed how all of the requests for help are coming from Asia?”

“Yeah. It makes me think someone may be stirring up trouble on purpose.”

“You think whoever is behind Martin’s murder is trying to bankrupt us?”

“That’s exactly what I think. If we get desperate enough, we would have to reactivate the system.”

“And if the system is reactivated, whoever has Martin’s equipment might be able to hack into it,” Kade concluded. “What I don’t understand is why Dwight never told Charlotte about her role in all this. Why wait until her twenty-fifth birthday? She’s been working with the guardians for a couple years now.”

“Dwight was going to retire three weeks later. He said he wanted Charlotte to understand her past before she committed her future to the guardian program.”

“Charlotte is the guardian program.”

“Yes, but Dwight could have created a secondary key if Charlotte wanted to walk away and pursue other dreams,” Ace said. “Besides, having the key hidden in the middle of everyday life somewhere could be the best thing we could do. Dwight never expected Charlotte to show such an aptitude with computers and encryption programs. If she hadn’t, she never would have known anything except that she had a password he wanted her to remember and keep safe.”

“That’s true. The question is how do we protect her? We don’t even know for sure that she’s safe right now, and it’s possible that whoever killed Dwight knows about Charlotte. We know from the police report that a car window shattered at the farm.”

“We’ve been over all of the possibilities, and nothing is popping. We’re going to have to dig deeper,” Ace concluded. “Five people besides the guardians knew Dwight was managing the program. One of them must have talked.”

Kade raked his fingers through his short, dark hair. “All of a sudden, the possibilities are feeling pretty overwhelming.”

“I never said it was going to be easy.”

“Maybe we need to take a different approach.”

“How so?” Ace asked.

“I think it’s time we look at the other side of the equation too. Let’s see if we can find the buyer.”

“That’s easier said than done.”

“Maybe so, but like you said, Charlotte has quite the aptitude for computers. If we can’t find the computer equipment by the time you meet with her, we may need to enlist her help to track it down.”

Ace considered the idea. “If anyone could do it, she could.”

“Exactly,” Kade said. “Are you sure you don’t want to call her in sooner? I still can’t believe you’re leaving her out there on her own for so long.”

“Like I said before, it’s too risky. Someone might try to find her by following one of us,” Ace reminded him. “Besides, there’s no way of knowing if she is still checking the papers.”

“Personally, I’m hoping we’ll have our guys in custody by then. Three more weeks is a long time.”

“It is. I just hope Charlotte managed to find somewhere safe to hide out.”

“That makes two of us.”