“Hey, Chief, have you talked to Colter Hayes lately?” Peter asked as he strode back into the police station’s bullpen the next day, Tate on his heels.
Chief Hernandez frowned back at him, disapproval in the lines between her eyebrows.
Peter had met Keara Hernandez when he had applied for the police officer position but knew little about her. In a town where people respected others’ right to privacy, she hadn’t shared much of her background with her officers. All Peter knew was that she’d come from somewhere in the Lower 48, where she’d been a detective. The move to the remote town of Desparre was a chance for a promotion, sure, but they didn’t see much crime here. Undoubtedly, she was running from something—like so many of their civilians—but Peter had found her to be a fair boss. Her one shortcoming was her tendency to cut off ideas she didn’t like, shutting them down fast.
He could see it coming before she opened her mouth, so he preempted her with another question. “When’s the last time Colter was in Desparre with Alanna’s sister?”
Colter Hayes was a Desparre transplant, a soldier who’d seen his entire unit die and decided to spend the rest of his life in the solitude of Desparre. Then he’d met Kensie Morgan and eventually followed her back to Chicago. But first, he’d helped Kensie track down Alanna—and in the process, uncovered the Altiers’ kidnapping scheme.
The chief crossed her arms over her chest, turning to face him from where she’d been standing in front of the station’s overworked coffeepot. “I’ve had some contact with him. He hasn’t been back in about a year now. His wife is pregnant. Actually...” Chief Hernandez’s eyes lifted upward, then she nodded. “No, by now, they’ve had the baby. I’m guessing they’re pretty busy back in Chicago.”
“Because—”
She cut him off with a single dismissive word, spoken with authority. “No, Peter.”
Despite the fact that she was only six years older than his twenty-nine years, she said his name the way his mom had when he got in trouble as a boy. It made him feel like a kid and he scowled. He might have way more experience as a reporter than a police officer, but he knew how to follow a lead. And Alanna Morgan was a lead.
“Alanna Morgan was a victim,” Chief Hernandez said. “It’s sad that she can’t let go of her past, but it’s not our problem. I’ve talked to the federal agents handling the investigation back in Oregon and there’s no reason to suspect Darcy Altier came this way.”
“Is there a reason to suspect she went anywhere else?”
Chief Hernandez gave him an exasperated sigh, her gaze darting once to Tate, who stayed silent, then back to Peter. “What is this fixation with the Altiers? I didn’t assign you to look into this. Alanna is on a mission for herself, Peter. She probably feels guilty for everything that happened, even if it wasn’t her fault. She wants to help, but she’s out here guessing. It’s our job to make sure she’s safe while she’s here. But she’s not a lead worth following. Leave her alone.”
“What if she’s right?”
“I already—”
“Alanna didn’t fly all this way for nothing. Sure, maybe she does feel guilty, but if she thought Darcy was still in Oregon, wouldn’t she go there?”
“Peter, this woman isn’t law enforcement. She doesn’t have any insight into this case that we don’t.”
“She does have insight into Darcy Altier that we don’t,” Tate contributed.
Peter glanced at his partner, who was leaning against the wall, looking unruffled by the argument with the chief. But Tate didn’t feel as strongly about Alanna being a lead. He definitely didn’t have as much to prove as Peter.
Giving him a quick nod of thanks for the support, Peter turned back to the chief. “Maybe Darcy Altier isn’t here. But maybe she’s on her way. I’ve read through the case information and Desparre is the only place the couple stayed for more than a year. Darcy got comfortable here. If anywhere is home to her, it’s our town.”
Chief Hernandez’s forehead creased and her eyes narrowed, like she was thinking over his argument. Then she shook her head. “Whatever we don’t know about the Altiers’ motivations or mindsets, we can say this—those kids felt loved. The Altiers raised them like they were really their own children. That couple created a makeshift family for themselves. She and her husband got away with it for eighteen years, from the time they kidnapped that first boy until they were caught. They’re not stupid. They know their house was searched and ultimately seized. She’s not coming back here, Peter. And I won’t waste your time—or Tate’s time—following Alanna Morgan around.”
“This isn’t five years ago, Chief,” Peter insisted. He thought of Alanna racing to the street to get a look at his SUV back at the Altier cabin. The expectation on her face, the hope that had shifted into wariness as he’d reversed at high speed.
Alanna believed the woman she’d called mom for fourteen years was returning to Desparre. That meant Peter believed it, too.
“That image of a happy family was all an illusion,” Peter reminded her. “I’m not saying they didn’t love those kids, in their own messed-up way. But Darcy and Julian made Desparre their hideout. In the end, this place destroyed them. Darcy spent five years in jail. Her husband died there. She watched all her ‘kids’ being taken away. This time around, do you really think she’d repeat those mistakes?”
The chief’s arms dropped from where they’d been crossed over her chest for most of the conversation. Reluctant interest sparked in her eyes. “Wouldn’t coming back to Desparre be a mistake, then?”
“That assumes she’s thinking straight. She could be operating on pure emotion. Wanting what she had, where she had it. Or wanting something else, something stronger. Maybe this time, her goal isn’t to steal herself a new family.”
“Except she’s already started one, with that little three-year-old boy in Oregon,” Tate argued. But even he had pushed away from the wall and stepped closer, looking more interested in the conversation.
“Maybe the plan isn’t to start a new family with this little boy. After all, where’s the rest of Darcy’s ‘family’? Dead. Or back with their real families. Maybe this time, she’s out to prove something.”
“What?” Chief Hernandez asked, but the question was less hostile now.
“That she can outwit us all. Maybe Alanna’s right, in a way. Maybe Darcy is coming back here to get revenge on us. The town that gave her up.”
Chief Hernandez’s lips twisted upward in the corners, but she was nodding slowly. “Except it wasn’t really Desparre who turned Darcy in. It was Alanna.”
“Exactly,” Peter said. “Which means if Alanna isn’t in on Darcy’s escape, she might be a target.”
Tate stepped a little closer. “So, you think we need to keep following her, to keep her safe?” he asked, probably assuming this was Peter’s roundabout way to keep chasing that lead.
“Sure,” Peter said. “That’s one reason to keep following her.”
“What’s the other?” Chief Hernandez asked, eyes narrowing like she already knew the answer.
“She’s our bait to catch a kidnapper.”
“ALANNA?” THE HIGH-PITCHED voice gained volume and then a hand gripped Alanna’s arm hard. “Alanna Morgan?”
Reluctantly, Alanna turned to face the woman with long blond hair and perfect makeup who’d stopped her as she and Chance stepped out of their truck in the parking lot of Jasper’s General Store. The store where Alanna had left her fateful note five years ago.
“I thought it was you,” the woman said, her voice too cheery, her eyes too bright. Her breath swirled between them in the cold, doing nothing to obscure the raw ambition in her gaze.
No doubt about it. She might not have a microphone or a camera crew, but she was a reporter.
Alanna had been here for twenty-four hours and already a reporter had found her.
From the way Chance let out a low rumble—not quite a growl, but not friendly—when she reached her hand toward Alanna, he knew it, too.
The woman withdrew her hand quickly, her too-huge smile slipping just a bit, and Alanna felt herself being transported back five years.
The flight home had seemed to take forever. She’d been heading to a suburb outside of Chicago, to a home she’d never seen because her parents had long since moved out of the place where she’d been kidnapped in the front yard. Clutching Kensie’s hand too hard on the turbulent flight, having never been on an airplane before. Nerves churning her stomach as she prepared to greet parents and a brother she hadn’t seen in fourteen long years.
The drive from the airport to her parents’ house, where she’d soon be living, had gone by in a blur but the moments afterward were the ones Alanna would never forget. She’d expected her parents and brother, had known their extended family was waiting to give them a private reunion first. They didn’t want to overwhelm her, they said.
But she hadn’t expected the reporters. The news vans had made it nearly impossible for their driver to pull up to the house. The bursts of light from camera flashes going off all around her had made it hard to see. The reporters and their crews had pushed in on her from all sides, making her feel claustrophobic. Their questions screamed at her from all directions. What’s it like being home after all these years? Do you remember your real family? Did the Altiers hurt you? Why did you leave that note? Why didn’t you come forward sooner?
Trying to shake off the memories, Alanna leveled the woman with a hard stare and pulled her arm free. “No comment.”
Five years ago, Kensie had snapped those words at the reporters, pulled Alanna protectively into the crook of her arm and propelled her forward into the respective quiet of the house. Inside, Alanna had immediately been folded into hugs by her parents, while her teary-eyed older brother stared at her in wonder.
Of course she’d known they would have changed in fourteen years. Just as she’d changed from a curly-haired five-year-old into a young woman.
Still, it had been a shock to see the streaks of gray in her mother’s dark hair, the worry lines on her father’s forehead and at the corners of his eyes. The scents of her father’s aftershave and her mother’s perfume had swirled around her, subtle but still making her eyes water—she was used to the outdoorsy scents of the Altiers when they hugged her. Her parents had looked older than their years. Alanna had been struck with the guilt of realizing it was probably from having their youngest child ripped out of their lives, from the years of searching and always coming up empty.
Then there was Flynn, standing stock-still, his lips trembling as his tears started to spill at the corners of his eyes. It had been hard to reconcile the twenty-three-year-old man staring at her with the nine-year-old brother she remembered. He’d been thinner than she’d expected and there was something desperate in his gaze she realized only later had come from years of bad decisions and addictions he’d fought hard to break. He had started when he was a teenager, feeling neglected by parents who’d been constantly looking for the daughter they’d lost, forgetting the two children they still had left.
All of it, ultimately leading back to her. To all the small moments over the years that were chances she might have had to reach out sooner, but hadn’t taken. There hadn’t been a lot, but she’d definitely had opportunities. In the beginning, she’d been far too afraid to take them. As she grew up, as she grew to love the family she lived with, she’d been scared of what it would mean for all of them.
In the early years with the Altiers, she used to squeeze her eyes closed tight and hold the images of her family in her mind, desperate not to lose them. As she’d grown, those images had blurred around the edges. Memories had faded, leaving behind only vague images and the feeling of having once been loved by a totally different family. With fourteen years between them missing, the homecoming she’d expected to be joyous had been happy but awkward. At that moment, the idea of rebuilding a life she barely remembered with a family she’d only known as a young child had seemed overwhelming.
“Are you sure?”
The reporter’s voice cut through her memories and Alanna realized she’d frozen in the parking lot while the woman stared at her quizzically.
As Alanna’s gaze refocused, the woman rushed on, “No one’s ever really told your side of the story. What it was like to say goodbye to four kids you’d considered your brothers and sisters. What it was like to go home to a family you hadn’t seen since you were five. I can do that for you.”
Alanna’s gut clenched at the reporter’s insight, but she shook her head and turned away, rushing for the store with Chance keeping pace. She didn’t take a full breath again until she was inside with the door closed behind her.
Here, at least, things looked the same. She’d been inside Jasper’s General Store only a few times over the years they’d lived in Desparre. The Altiers had feared someone would recognize her, even years later and so many thousands of miles from where she’d been kidnapped. But as time went on, she’d eventually been given more freedom.
Trailing her hands over the rusting metal shelves filled with household staples, Alanna walked slowly toward the counter where an old man sat. The owner, Jasper. The man Julian had asked her to hand over the money to for their groceries. The man who’d unknowingly taken the note within her stack of cash.
He stood as she approached, recognition in his deep brown eyes. His gaze flicked once to Chance, walking happily along beside her, then returned to her. “Alanna Morgan.”
“Hi.” She stuffed her gloved hands into the pockets in her coat. “I was wondering—you knew my... Julian Altier once. Did you know Darcy?”
Jasper had a reputation for being cranky and unapproachable, and as he came around the counter, his pace was slow but determined. But when he stopped in front of her, there was compassion in his gaze and sadness in his voice. “I didn’t really know either of them. I’d only seen Julian a few times over the years. I’m sorry I never noticed anything wrong. I wasn’t even sure how that note got into my stack of cash.”
Alanna shook her head, squeezed the hand he’d reached toward her. “It’s not your fault. Even when I handed over the money and the note, I didn’t act like anything was wrong.” In some ways, nothing had been wrong. In others, everything had been.
“So you wouldn’t recognize Darcy if she came through here?”
His eyes narrowed, making more lines crease his weather-worn skin. “I’d recognize her now, of course, with all the media coverage. But back then? I don’t know. She might have come through here with Julian before, once or twice over the years. Hard to say.”
“But not recently?” Alanna pressed, trying not to get discouraged.
“No way. People around here would know her now. We’d turn her in.”
He said it like it was exactly what Alanna would want to hear, but her shoulders dropped. Maybe the police were right. The people in Desparre felt betrayed by Julian and Darcy, were angry with all the negative attention the couple had brought them. If there was any place Darcy would be recognized quickly, it was an insular town that promised anonymity but recognized and distrusted anyone who didn’t live here.
“Thanks,” Alanna said, her voice coming out in a squeak. She saw Jasper’s lips twist in sympathy as she spun toward the door.
“Come on, Chance,” she said as her St. Bernard lagged slightly behind, probably wondering what they were doing.
She’d been a fool to come here, to think she could make a difference. A fool to think that Darcy would return to the place that had once made her most happy, instead of doing what she’d been truly doing all along: running.
Alanna had been a fool to risk the bonds she’d spent five years rebuilding with her family to chase after her kidnapper.
Shame and anger filled her as she pushed the door open a little too hard, almost slamming into someone.
The “sorry” died on her lips as the person on the other side caught the door and flung it the rest of the way open.
Then he was filling the doorway with his scowl, the gaze of his too-blue eyes drilling into her. Peter Robak. The cop who thought she was in cahoots with Darcy.
Only after she’d slipped away from the SUV following her yesterday—making a quick turn onto a wide path not meant as a road—had she realized who was chasing her. Not a threat like she’d imagined, a pair of men who’d spotted a woman all by herself in an isolated area. But police officers who thought she was little better than a criminal.
“You can stop following me around now,” she snapped at him, taking an aggressive step forward despite knowing it was a bad idea to get inside a cop’s personal space. But the fear she’d felt yesterday shifted into fury now. The shame and guilt and frustration felt better channeling outward than inward. “I’m finished here, okay? You can leave me alone.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Peter’s partner—the other man in the SUV yesterday. Surprise was on his face, his hand dropping away from his weapon as if he’d reached for it when he saw someone rush toward Peter, then changed his mind when he saw it was just her. Just a foolish woman chasing a past that was better left alone.
“You’re leaving?” he asked.
But it was Peter’s words that drew all of her attention: “You were right.”
Dread dropped into her stomach. “Right about what?” Was Darcy here after all? Had someone spotted her?
People here were often armed, ready to protect their own when help could be far away. The residents understood that Desparre usually attracted people who just wanted solitude, but that it could also attract those trying to escape something they’d done, something that had the law chasing them. Had one of those people seen Darcy and taken aim? Had the police arrested her? “What happened?”
Peter frowned at her, studying her like he was trying to unravel all of her secrets, all of the years she had spent happily living with a pair of kidnappers, then turning them in one day. “Darcy’s not in Desparre. Not yet. But I think she’s on her way.”
“What? Why?”
A slight smile twisted one side of his lips, but there was nothing happy about it. “We know she’s headed in this direction from Oregon.”
“Why?” Alanna pressed, every second she stood there waiting to understand adding to her anxiety, making her stomach churn and her breathing turn shallow.
Chance let out a low whine and nudged her with his nose.
She put a hand on his head, stroking his fur to assure him she was okay, even if it wasn’t true.
“She was spotted in Canada today. They didn’t catch her, but now this has become an international chase, Alanna.”
Alanna sensed Peter’s partner stepping closer, as if he planned to intervene in whatever Peter was going to say next, but she couldn’t take her gaze off Peter.
He stared back at her, his uncompromising expression only cracking as he said, “Darcy kidnapped another kid today.”