The light was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, blinding her eyes so suddenly and completely that all she wanted to do was press her hands over them. Instead she closed them, tightly. Her heart pounded wildly as, for a moment she stumbled, fighting the urge to drop her weapon in case it misfired.
Then a pair of strong hands grabbed her shoulders and she felt herself being pulled into a muscular chest.
“It’s okay, Jess.” Travis’s voice was in her ear, firm and reassuring. “Just breathe. I know it hurts and it’s scary, but it’ll pass. Now, I’m going to take the gun from you, just for safety’s sake.”
“Thanks.” She let him take it. She didn’t know how he knew that was what she’d been most worried about, only that somehow she knew what he’d be most worried about, too. “Willow and Dominic are safe upstairs with my colleague, Seth.”
The long sigh of relief she felt move through his core told her she’d been right.
Then she heard him pray and thank God. Huh? The Travis she used to know had given up on his faith long ago and used to roll his eyes whenever she’d prayed.
“How do we contact their parents?” she asked.
“Their parents are gone,” Travis said. “They were friends of mine. Geoff and Amber Tatlow. Both cops. Amber went back to work part-time eight weeks after Dominic was born. They were both working at a roadside impaired driving checkpoint on the highway, just pulling drivers over to make sure nobody’s drunk, overtired or impaired, like cops do across the country every long weekend. One drunk driver apparently panicked and tried to drive around the road stop, injuring three people in the process and killing Geoff and Amber.” She felt Travis shrug. “Their grandmother, Patricia, is all they have now.”
And him apparently.
“I saw Patricia being rolled out on a stretcher and into an ambulance,” Jess said. “She looked conscious. I think a man and woman got in the ambulance with her.”
“That was probably Willow’s new kindergarten teacher Alvin and the baker’s daughter Cleo,” Travis said, and there was something both coplike and familiar in how he was giving more detail than was necessary. “One of them will contact me as soon as there’s news. They’ll know I’m with the kids and Kilpatrick is the kind of town where people keep everyone else in the loop.”
She heard him set her gun down on the desk. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. She wasn’t sure if the hug was because she’d been blinded or if he was happy to see her.
“You said there was no active threat against me,” he said, an edge to his voice that belied the softness of his hug. “You said my identity hadn’t been compromised.”
“There wasn’t,” she said. “It hadn’t.”
“Are you sure?” he asked and, even with her eyes closed, she could sense him searching her face.
“Yes.”
“Then how...why are you even here?”
“You weren’t returning my calls,” she said, “so my colleague Seth and I drove out to see you.”
“The same Seth who’s with Willow and Dominic now?” Travis asked.
It was bizarre. He was grilling her and holding her at the same time.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Seth Miles, the hacker. Remember hearing about him? He only hacked criminals, there was a warrant out for his arrest, he got hunted by really bad guys and then ended up in witness protection.”
Travis blew out a long breath. Yeah, she wasn’t surprised Travis remembered the man’s name, considering the stir he’d made a few years back. Not that he probably had any idea who Seth had become since then.
“Now he’s my team’s tech guy,” she said. “He’s like an obsessive savant when it comes to all things online and he picked up a distress signal Willow sent through the baby monitor’s short-wave.”
“Whoa,” Travis said.
She pulled back out of his arms slightly, tried opening her eyes and saw nothing but a wall of white swimming with indistinct dark shapes. She gritted her teeth. So much for hoping she could do anything for a moment other than stand there helplessly and pray Travis was right about the light thing.
“Your turn,” she said. “Who’s the Shiny Man? Where did he go? What does he want? And what did he hit me with?”
“I don’t know who he is or what he wants.” Frustration filled Travis’s voice. “He showed up when Patricia was closing the store, confronted her in some way and then ran upstairs where I found him. He went down the fire escape and he hit us both with some kind of high-brightness tactical flashlight. Illegal, I’m guessing, but temporary. His whole get up, from the reflective gear to the respirator mask, could’ve easily been slapped together from an online tactical gear store.”
“So, probably not a pro. And much sloppier than anyone the Chimera would ever hire, so I expect there’s no connection there.” Jess opened her eyes again, thankful to see less white and more splotches. “But apparently the kind of criminal to plan ahead, considering he was in disguise. Did he steal anything?”
“No.” Worry moved through Travis’s voice. “My laptop and tablet computer are all still here, along with some emergency cash I had in a jar on my desk.”
There was a matter-of-fact dryness to his tone. It was reassuring, and Jess suddenly realized how much she’d missed it. There’d often been a sharpness to his voice, too, that other people had thought of as rude. Maybe it had been a little intense, but she’d liked the fact it was direct and to the point. He’d never been one for compliments or affection. He’d never even hugged her, until now.
Travis stepped even further back, her hands slipping down his arms and coming to rest just below his elbows. She felt the strength of muscles under her fingertips. His chest had been unexpectedly strong, too.
The Travis she’d known hadn’t exactly been weak but, with the exception of his time on undercover assignment, he’d definitely been a desk jockey. But this new Travis felt like he could fell trees with an ax. Her mind flickered back to the sketches of the woman on the kitchen wall. Was he now an artist, too?
She looked up into Travis’s face and blinked as slowly it came into focus. His eyes were worried and his strong jaw was clenched. He reached for her hand and took it in his. While she knew it was only to guide her, somehow that didn’t stop the warmth of his touch from spreading through her limbs. She tapped her earpiece to keep herself from focusing on it.
“Seth, I’ve got Travis. He was attacked by someone who got away by shining a tactical light in my eyes. How are the kids?”
“Good.” Seth’s voice came back in her ear. “I’m sitting in the playhouse, holding Dominic while Willow is telling me about all her favorite books. Apparently one of them has the cover on upside down.”
“Willow really loves books,” Travis said, and Jess realized he was leaning in close enough to pick up Seth’s voice in her earpiece.
“We’re on our way.”
Travis picked up her gun, removed the clip and helped her slide it back into her ankle holster. Then Travis straightened and took her hand. When she pulled it out of his grasp, he didn’t question it. Her vision still wasn’t great, but she’d rather use the walls for guidance if need be than be led around.
They walked out of his study and back into the hallway.
“There’s a lot of people gathered downstairs,” Jess said as they started up the stairs to the third floor. “It’s like the whole block turned out to make sure Patricia was okay.”
Travis paused halfway up the stairs, as if a new thought had just hit him. “Please tell me you didn’t blow my cover.”
Jess shook her head. “No, we came up the fire escape. Though the Shiny Man might’ve heard you call me ‘Jess’ and definitely knows I was carrying a gun.” Although she’d done her best not to sound like a cop when she’d pulled it.
They kept walking, reached the top of the stairs and entered a wide attic that had been converted into a living room with mismatched furniture and slanted ceilings cutting down in corners on all sides. An empty playpen sat beside a large window bow filled with pillows. A large pink-and-purple wooden playhouse, about four feet tall, stood against a wall on the far side of the room. The door was closed, but when Travis crouched in front of the playhouse door and knocked three times, it swung open.
Seth’s six-foot form sat cross-legged and folded sideways on the floor, with a sleeping baby, about eight or nine months old, curled up in his arms. The baby’s eyes were closed and he was sucking on a blue pacifier with a tiny yellow duck on it.
“You must be Seth,” Travis said. “You look nothing like your reputation.”
Seth snorted. “You don’t much look like yours.”
“Uncle Travis!” A small girl with long blond hair and huge green eyes crawled out from around Seth. She slipped from the playhouse and barreled into Travis’s arms. “You escaped the Shiny Man!”
“Of course I did!” Travis swept her up into his arms as she clasped them around his neck. “There is nothing for you to be scared about, Willow. I will always keep you and Dominic safe. I promise. Your nan had a little fall, but she’s going to the doctor’s now and they’ll take good care of her.”
Willow took his face in her hands and turned it until he was looking directly into her eyes.
“I saw the Shiny Man outside my window at night with a flas’light,” she said, seriously.
Travis nodded. “I know. And I’ll make sure he never bothers you again.”
Jess knew as he said the words that he had no idea how he was going to make good on his promise to the little girl, but that he’d do everything in his power to figure it out. She’d heard him make similar promises to victims they’d known only through photos or videos on their screens back when they’d worked special victims cases. And no matter what it had taken, how many hours he’d had to work, or what kind of evidence he’d needed to go through, Travis had always come through for them.
Willow’s face spread into a wide and trusting smile. Unexpected tears rushed to the corners of Jess’s eyes. Was it because she’d never imagined Travis as the kind of man who’d have a family? Or because it was rare in her line of work to see little children being so protected, cared for and loved?
A wail filled the air. The baby was awake. She glanced past Travis to Seth, who still sat holding Dominic like the little boy was a very fragile bomb he was working very hard to keep from exploding. She wondered if the hacker had ever even held a baby before. In a single, smooth and seamless motion, Travis shifted Willow into one arm, bent low and scooped Dominic from Seth’s arms with the other hand. The baby’s tears faded almost as suddenly as they’d started. Then Travis stood, cradling both brother and sister in his arms, bent his head low over theirs and hugged them both for a long moment, prayers of thanksgiving slipping quietly from his lips.
And Jess realized she had no idea who Travis was anymore.
Seth stood slowly and ran his hands down his jeans.
Travis glanced up over the children’s heads, from her to Seth. “Are you both positive my i-d-e-n-t-i-t-y hasn’t been c-o-m-p-r-o-m-i-s-e-d?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” Seth said. “I give you my word.”
Willow wriggled in Travis’s arms and, without being asked, he set her down.
“Seth is my new friend,” Willow told Travis, seriously. “He likes books, too. He has a sister work friend who talks in his ear.”
A sister work friend? Yeah, that would do. Her small off-the-grid witness protection team definitely felt like an ad hoc family.
Willow looked up at Jess, her little brows knit. Then she pointed past her and Jess followed her gaze to a colorful painting of a woman. It was the same woman as the one with long, flowing, blond hair she’d seen sketches of in the kitchen. Even with her face turned away from them, the figure was unmistakable.
The little girl asked what Jess was thinking, “Is that you?”
Travis felt heat rise to his face and the fact that Jess wasn’t meeting his gaze made it even worse. What could he say? He’d been a broken man when he’d moved to Kilpatrick, having lost something he couldn’t tell anyone about. It had felt like a death. Only, the one he’d lost was himself.
When after too many nights of not sleeping, he’d then fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed his tree into a car, the children’s dad, Geoff, had suggested he join an art therapy group. Travis hadn’t even known what to draw to represent the aching hole inside him. Somehow in the lines his fingers had sketched across the empty sheets of paper and painted on the canvasses had turned into Jess, again and again, even though he’d never once sketched her face or anything that would identify her, let alone told anyone her name or who she was.
“My name is Jess,” she told Willow, saving him from having to come up with an answer. She crouched down until she was eye level with the girl. “I’m your uncle Travis’s friend, and I’m Seth’s sister work friend.”
“I’m Willow.” The little girl stuck out her hand and Jess shook it. “Dominic’s my brother. He’s a baby.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Dominic,” Jess said. She reached for Dominic’s tiny hand and pretended to lightly shake it, as well.
“Clearly we have a lot to discuss,” Seth said. There was a mildly amused tone to his voice Travis couldn’t quite place. “I want to go over your entire security system, for the bookstore, your apartment and the house where Patricia and the kids live, as well as whatever your internal baby monitor video system has recorded. Everything for the past months.”
“It doesn’t actually record more than twenty-four hours,” Travis said, feeling almost foolish as he did so. “And Patricia’s farmhouse doesn’t have any security.”
He wasn’t even sure she had a front door lock that worked, considering he’d never seen anyone in Kilpatrick lock their doors the whole time he’d lived there. And while Kilpatrick had a district police chief, Gordon Peters, he and Travis had definitely gotten off on the wrong foot, thanks to Travis’s minor car accident. The cop had made no secret of the fact he wasn’t Travis’s biggest fan and wasn’t sure Travis was responsible enough to be a volunteer firefighter. Probably hadn’t helped much that whoever had created Travis’s new identity police file for witness protection had given him more than a few fake traffic tickets and citations. Not that Travis himself hadn’t racked up just as many in his real life.
Travis closed his eyes for a moment and prayed. God, I’m thinking too much like a Kilpatrick resident right now and not a cop. Help me get my head back into the game, without losing my sanity in the process.
He opened his eyes and turned to Seth.
“Obviously, we can all agree I need to keep my c-o-v-e-r,” he said, reminding himself that while a lot would go over Willow’s head, there were certain words he didn’t want her repeating to anyone. “My top priority right now is taking care of these kids and waiting on word about their grandmother. Also, I really need to head downstairs, as there are probably a dozen people inside the bookstore and no one working the counter.”
Not that he expected anyone was about to steal anything. It wasn’t that kind of town. When Cleo Mitchell had come home from college with her foul-mouthed, abusive ex, Braden Garrett, the whole town had practically risen like a wave to repel him and let him know that his kind of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated. When Cleo had asked Patricia for help, the elderly woman hadn’t just called both the police and Travis, she’d also pulled her hunting rifle on Braden and told him she’d shoot if he ever came around pestering the poor girl again. Knowing Patricia, the gun might’ve even had bullets in it.
“Considering your skills, I imagine you know your way around a phone camera,” Travis added and Seth chuckled. “If you don’t mind doubling as our c-r-i-m-e s-c-e-n-e photographer, that would be awesome, as well as gathering whatever you can from the limited camera systems. Not to mention, I’m sure you know how to track online purchases. Every part of the guy’s getup looked like something you could easily buy online. Maybe we’ll be fortunate and you’ll happen upon someone who bought a mask, jumpsuit, tactical flashlight, work gloves and an electronic voice distorter online and had them all shipped here.”
Seth nodded. “On it.”
“Great,” Travis said. “You can use my laptop to access the security camera and baby video monitor footage. It’s clean as a whistle, I have nothing to hide and the password is Tatlow3.”
Travis felt Willow’s hands on his leg. He looked down into the little girl’s huge green eyes.
“The bad man is not a const’uction man, Uncle Travis,” she said. “He’s the Shiny Man.”
Her eyes were so serious, Travis felt the weight of her trust weighing in his chest. She’d gone through so much already. He would not let her down.
“Whoever he is, we’ll stop him,” he told her, mentally kicking himself for not taking the little girl’s fears more seriously earlier. He glanced at Jess and Seth. “Right, guys?”
“Right,” Jess said, her eyes locked on Willow’s face. “We’re really, really good at stuff like this.”
Yeah, she was. Better than he’d ever been.
“Now, can you show Seth how to close the playhouse door and take him downstairs?” Travis asked Willow. “I’ll meet you downstairs in the kitchen in one minute.”
Willow nodded and Travis watched as the little girl walked over to the big hacker and very seriously showed him how to do the three little pink-and-purple flower-shaped latches Travis had built on the outside of the door. Then he stepped back and gestured for Jess to join him.
“I want you to stick with me,” Travis said. “If that’s okay with you? I want someone to have a second pair of eyes on these kids.”
“Absolutely.” She nodded then her arms crossed. “Are other people going to be asking if I’m the woman from the pictures? I saw the sketches in your kitchen, too. Also, your file didn’t mention anything about you having children in your life.”
He wasn’t sure which one was going to be easier to explain, so he started with the first.
“People in this town think she’s my ex-fiancée,” he said. “I’ve never confirmed the gossip or told anyone her name, but rumor is I moved here when she left me at the altar. It’s...it’s very hard to have any kind of secrets in a town where everybody knows everyone else’s business.”
And he’d never done anything to dissuade the rumors or to shoot them down. It was as good a reason as any as to why he walked around like a man whose world had ended. He’d needed a cover story and the town’s rumor mill had created one for him.
Yet, as he watched, shock and confusion filled her eyes. Then her lips twitched slightly and, for a second, he almost thought she was going to laugh.
“You have no idea how devastated I was when I moved here,” Travis said. “I felt like I’d died or that someone I loved had. I was depressed and snapped at everyone. I stopped eating, sleeping at night or showering. I practically lived on coffee. I was basically the worst version of me you’d known dialed up to a hundred. I even fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree.
“But Willow and Dominic’s parents were there for me. They dragged me out to church, board game parties and Bible study with them. Patricia made sure I ate. I needed to come up with something to explain what I’d lost. This mystery woman and the rumors people constructed around how I’d lost her, became like a metaphor for that.”
The hint of a smile dropped from her lips. She wouldn’t understand. How could she when he couldn’t even begin to understand it himself? Yet, as her eyes held his for a long moment, he felt something tighten in his chest.
“Come on! Let’s go!” Willow’s voice tugged his attention away from Jess. Willow was now leading Seth down the stairs, back toward the main floor, holding his hand tightly, and something in Seth’s bewildered gaze left Travis with the sneaking suspicion the hacker had never held a child’s hand before.
Yeah, he remembered that feeling all too well. It hadn’t been that long ago.
“I want to show him my paintings,” Willow called.
“Okay, but then Uncle Seth’s got to go do another job and we’ve got to close the store and go home for supper,” Travis said.
Willow nodded and disappeared down the stairs and Travis was thankful that her skill at finding new friends had temporarily distracted her from the Shiny Man or the fact that her nan was with the doctor.
“She likes people and people like her,” Jess said, only something about the way she’d said it made it sound like a cop observing a target.
He bristled. “You make it sound like that’s a suspicious thing.”
“No, it’s an interesting thing,” Jess said. “Because if the Shiny Man was outside her window, that means there’s someone in this town who’s willing to scare her to get what they want.”
Whatever that was. He paused a second, shifted Dominic higher in his arms and started toward the stairs.
“You had a duty to inform witness protection that you lived with children,” Jess said.
Even though he’d ignored her earlier comment about the kids, she clearly hadn’t forgotten it.
“I don’t live with them,” Travis said. He started down the steps and she followed. “They live with their grandmother at her farmhouse.”
“Don’t play games,” she said. “Not with me. You’ve got a playpen in your office, a second playpen in your living room and both a high chair and a booster seat in your kitchen. You know full well you’re supposed to report any significant relationships including minor children.”
“Need I remind you that my original witness protection officer is dead—” Travis felt his voice sharpen “—after conspiring with criminals at Christmas to steal and sell witness protection identities. So forgive me if I haven’t been in a hurry to return the calls of the next witness protection officer who got my case, especially since all he seems to want to do is convince me to leave this town and this life, and start again somewhere new. Judging by your voice mail, you were apparently so suspicious of the broader RCMP that you and some colleagues created your own little task force that’s been scrambling to pick up the pieces ever since the auction. Right?”
Jess stopped partway down the steps. He turned and looked back. She was almost at his eye level and her lips were pressed together tightly, like she was holding words back to keep from saying them.
“Right,” she said. “Within minutes of the theft, three colleagues, Seth and I met together, in secret, and formed an elite off-the-grid team to stop the criminals, despite the fact they started trying to kill us almost immediately. But we not only stopped the auction of witness protection files, we’ve been working around the clock to locate, protect and resettle every single witness whose identity was compromised. Scoff all you want about the RCMP witness protection program after what happened, but my team and I are very good at what we do.”
He hadn’t exactly been scoffing. But she was talking so quickly now, she wasn’t about to let him point that out.
“What people don’t know, is that when those secret identities went up for auction on the dark web, hundreds of criminals showed up online to bid on them, leaving some of our worst enemies vulnerable and exposed.” Fire flashed in the depths of her eyes, like flint striking against stone. “Because the moment those criminals slipped out of the shadows and showed up online to bid, Seth was able to extract their data and gather a treasure trove of information about them. It’s the kind of vital intel that you and I could’ve done so much good with back in the day and I wasn’t about to let it slip through our fingers. We could use someone with experience dealing with nasty criminal organizations. So I went to bat for the one person I knew had the skills and ability to take these people on and win—you.”
His heart stopped. He might’ve guessed she was calling about more than her message had implied, especially as she’d showed up in person. But was she actually offering him a job to work with her on her team? “I thought you just wanted my advice on a case.”
“Not advice, a partner.” Her arms crossed. “Specifically, I wanted my old partner back. And not a case. The case. The case that ruined your career and got you stuck here in Kilpatrick. Thanks to the secret identities auction, I found the Chimera.
“He’s back in the country and reopening a new operation this summer on the West Coast. It’s under the front of a holiday complex and timed for when school lets out. Summer is a prime hunting time for a criminal like that who presses vulnerable people into illegal work. I’m going in undercover as a hostess. This time, I’m going to be the one who locks eyes on him and identifies the man behind the alias, once and for all. And when I do, I won’t miss my shot.”