The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Thirty-Two

N ine motherfucking days .

Countless Oak Roads, Streets, Lanes, Avenues. All of them dead ends. None were dirt roads, and none had farms with horses on them.

Pitch fucking black, in the middle of nowhere southeast Kansas at almost midnight, I sat in the SUV wondering what the fuck I was doing. Chasing a goddamn woman I’d fucked once. Three times if you wanted to get fucking technical.

I didn’t want to get technical.

I wanted to find her ass.

And spank it.

Fuck.

Fuck.

But that wasn’t gonna happen.

I had to call it.

Inhaling, I dialed Luna.

He answered on the first ring in a hushed voice. “Luna.”

“You can’t talk?” He knew it was me calling.

“Affirmative.”

“Copy that. Just a heads-up, I’m coming back in. No results, I’m calling it.”

“Negative.”

“What?” Tired, I rubbed a hand over my face.

“Calling back.” Luna hung up.

I sat there a minute looking at my phone. Then the minute turned into five, and I threw the SUV into drive. As I pulled back on the road, my cell rang.

I pushed the button on the steering wheel to answer. “What’s up?”

“I didn’t call you earlier because it was only a hunch. I needed time to confirm it, but something came up two days ago.”

Two fucking days ago? I pulled back over and threw the Escalade in park as my heart rate rocketed. “Confirm what?”

“Did you know her first agent died?”

“No.” And I didn’t care.

“Me either, not at first, until I did some searching a couple days ago, trying to tie up loose ends. She died five years ago. She was single, never married, no kids, her clients were her life, but she didn’t have any that were nearly as successful as Dreena.”

I hated her nickname. “So?”

“So, guess where she grew up?”

“No fucking clue.”

“Kansas.”

So she grew up in the same state as Audrina, so fucking what? “You going somewhere with this?”

“No siblings, she was raised by her grandparents.”

Frowning, I sat up straighter. “Okay.”

“They died a year apart.”

“Shit,” I said quietly. That was Audrina’s bio. Word for word.

“And guess what her middle name was?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “MacKenzie.”

“ Jesus fuck .” Who the hell had I been chasing for nine goddamn days? “Then who the hell is she?”

“I don’t know. I’ve searched name changes using her screen name, and I can’t find anything. Usually those are public record, but you can request they be sealed for safety purposes. Or?” He paused. “For minors.”

Fuck me . “So how do we find out who the hell she is?” And where she went ?

“I have a few ideas, but I need to be back at base and on my machine there. I’ve been with a client for two days, but I’m wrapping it up.”

“Have someone else do the search.”

Luna snorted. “It’d take me longer to explain how to do it than if I did it myself. Give me an hour to get back in the office and run a search. I’ll call you then.”

A fucking hour? This was the first lead I’d had in nine days. I didn’t want to wait an hour. “Tell me what to search for.” I pulled back on the road and headed for a hotel I saw earlier. “I’ve got my laptop.”

“Give me an hour,” he repeated.

“Fine.” Fuck .

“Later.” Luna hung up.

I drove to the hotel parking lot then sat in the SUV and stupidly did a search on my phone for Audrina’s first manager. The first shit that popped up was the South Beach video. My dumb ass watched it five times, fluctuating between a jealous rage at Tyler carrying her naked and remembering every inch of her body I’d tasted.

For nine days I’d replayed the shit I’d said to her in anger, and I was fucking pissed at myself. I remembered what I’d said to her about not being her next viral video. I should’ve cut her some slack for trying to keep another video out of the media.

Luna had told me he’d gotten it out of her lawyer that there was in fact a video. A neighbor had filmed the shit by the pool and sold it to someone on Miami Morning ’s staff. The lawyer had been able to get the footage destroyed with threats of lawsuits, but it didn’t make me feel any fucking better.

She was still out there somewhere.

Fifty-seven minutes later my cell rang and I answered.

Luna cut right to the chase. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this nine days ago.”

I was out of patience. “Think of what?”

“To look into her previous agent. Before you left nine days ago, when I called her agent and her publicist to tell them she’d split, the publicist gave me a bullshit line about respecting her privacy, but her agent was livid. I asked if he knew where she’d go, or what friends she might turn to. He’d told me she didn’t have friends unless you counted her useless previous agent. When I asked him for the contact information, he’d told me she was dead, so I’d let it slide.

“But two days ago when I was reviewing my notes to close out the case, I remembered his comment about the dead agent. I ran a background check on the woman, and that’s when I found out what I told you.”

Goddamn it. “And now?” What the fuck did he have now?

“And now, we hit pay dirt,” he said proudly.

“Tell me what the fuck you found,” I ground out.

“At first, nothing. But then I found an old court filing. She’d become the legal guardian of a thirteen-year-old female minor ten years ago. The name of the minor on the paperwork was sealed, but the parent who signed the papers wasn’t. Lorna Jensen, aged forty-three.”

My heart was fucking pounding. “Goddamn it, Luna.”

Ignoring me, he went on. “But I couldn’t find a Lorna Jensen that age anywhere. Not in California, not in Nevada, Arizona, or Oregon. Nothing. No birth certificates, no driver’s records, no legal documents, nothing. So on a hunch, I checked Kansas.”

I held my fucking breath.

“Nothing. So as one last ditch attempt, I checked the neighboring states.”

Jesus fucking Christ . “And?”

I could practically hear him smile. “I found her. Inadvertently. Twenty-three years ago, listed as the mother, Lorna Daisy Jensen gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Magnolia Audrina Jensen. Town? Drinaville , Iowa. Address?” He paused for effect. “Nineteen eighty-nine Oak Road.”

I quickly plugged the address into my phone’s GPS. “Motherfucker, that’s twelve hours from where I’m at.”

“You’re welcome. ”

I ignored his sarcastic ass. “Her parents are alive?” Besides the obvious greedy reason, why the fuck had her mother signed over guardianship to an agent?

“And kicking apparently,” Luna answered. “Because the address on the property records is a farm with thousands of acres.”

“I’m heading there now.”

“Copy that.”

“I’ll report in tomorrow.”

Luna chuckled dryly. “Just get your woman and come the fuck home. I’ve been short a man for nine days.”

“She’s not my woman. I’m going after her because—”

“Gunther,” Luna snapped, interrupting me.

“What?”

“Shut the fuck up and admit you got it bad for this chica.”

My back teeth ground. “I don’t get it bad .”

Luna laughed loudly. “Right, Marine. Keep telling yourself that.” He hung up.

I drove to fucking Iowa.