Chapter Fourteen
With Garrett hurrying out of the house with her, Isla forwarded the address to Sheriff Raines, and then she slid into the passenger seat of the SUV. Garrett started the engine, and by the time he backed out of the drive, she already had the warehouse location plugged into the GPS.
Thirty minutes.
She balanced her laptop on her knees, fingers flying over the keys. “Daniel Cole,” she murmured, scrolling. “He’s a musician. Guitar mostly, but he sings too. Rock-blues.”
Garrett’s jaw flexed as he kept his eyes on the road. “Successful?”
“More than I expected,” she said, scanning another page. “He plays clubs in San Antonio and Austin. A growing following online. He’s had a couple of songs get picked up for streaming playlists.” She paused, frowning at another hit. “Looks like he’s played some pretty big gigs in the last year.”
Garrett cut her a quick glance. “So he’s not hiding in the shadows.”
“No.” Her throat tightened as she kept reading. “He lives in a converted warehouse downtown. An artist’s loft type of thing. Wide open space, probably with a stage set up for practice or performances.”
Her hand trembled a little as she shut the laptop. She pressed it to her chest, as though bracing herself. A groan slipped out before she could stop it. “Garrett… this is him. We’ve found Harris.”
The silence stretched between them, thick with everything that had just shifted. Garrett reached across the console and wrapped his fingers around hers, a gentle squeeze that sent the heat of his emotions straight into her.
Isla blinked hard, her throat tight, and she let herself lean into the comfort for a moment. Relief, sharp and raw, welled in her chest. They had found him. After all these years, they had actually found Harris.
She gave Garrett’s hand a final squeeze before slipping free to return to her laptop.
Work steadied her, always had. Her fingers danced over the keys as she pulled up Daniel’s social media.
Post after post rolled across the screen.
Videos of him performing. Photos with bandmates. Comments from fans.
But something was missing.
“There’s nothing here to indicate he knows who he really is,” she said quietly. “To him, he’s Daniel Cole. That’s it.”
She scrolled further, then stopped, staring at the smiling face in one of the photos. A young man who looked free, unburdened.
Her chest tightened again. “Why didn’t Leah stop pretending after a few years? Why didn’t she just… adopt him? Claim him openly?”
“Because she was probably afraid,” he answered. “She had to know the risk. If she’d tried to make it official, someone would have traced it back to the abduction. And then she would have gone to prison.” He paused. “Anything online about his relationship with his mom? With Marion?”
Isla quickly searched through posts, mentions, interviews. “Nothing,” she said after a beat. “No photos with her. No mentions.” She stopped and cursed softly, the weight of it pressing in. “The sun’s barely up. We’re about to drag him out of bed and drop this on him. How do you think he’ll react?”
Garrett’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I don’t know,” he admitted. His jaw flexed, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “But this is just the beginning. At some point, he’ll also have to know about his mother’s death.”
Isla sat in silence for a while, her thoughts circling, pulling at loose threads until something snagged. She glanced at Garrett.
“What if Marion wasn’t Leah?” she asked. “What if Leah, or Randall, or even Paula hired someone to pose as Daniel’s mother?”
Garrett let out a low groan. “Text the nanny. Send her photos of all three and ask if she recognizes them. Copy Raines so he’s in the loop.”
“On it.” Isla’s fingers flew over her phone, attaching headshots of Leah, Randall, and Paula before hitting send.
Then came the waiting. Every minute stretched long, the SUV filled with nothing but the hum of the tires on asphalt and the steady rhythm of Garrett’s breathing beside her.
Finally, her phone pinged. Isla’s heart gave a hard kick as she opened the message. She read it once, then again, the words sinking like stones. “She doesn’t recognize any of them.”
Garrett let out a sharp breath, shaking his head as if trying to clear it. “Shit. That changes everything.” His voice carried the weight of years of searching, the sudden shift in the ground beneath them rattling him hard.
Isla’s fingers moved quickly over her phone. She texted Lillian back, asking if she had a photo of Marion. The reply came almost instantly.
No. Marion forbade me from taking pictures of her or Daniel. She said she had an abusive ex and didn’t want him finding them. That’s why she was so secretive.
Isla read the words aloud, and Garrett muttered something under his breath, his grip tightening on the steering wheel.
“So that’s it,” Isla said softly. “Leah, Randall, or Paula could have hired this Marion to play the mother. Any of them could have pulled it off.”
“But then why kill Leah?” Garrett shot her a quick glance, eyes hard in the dim light. “If she wasn’t Marion, why was she at that house? Who made sure she didn’t walk away from there?”
Isla stared out at the gray blur of the highway. None of the pieces fit, not yet. But someone had made damn sure they wouldn’t.
The drive felt like an eternity or two before they finally reached the city.
San Antonio spread out around them, the streets buzzing with early commuters and the steady pulse of city life.
Isla watched the skyline blur by, her nerves tightening the closer they drew to the address.
Garrett weaved them through the traffic until the GPS announced the turn.
The warehouse came into view, an old brick structure with a faded mural across one wall. The building had been cleaned up enough to pass as trendy, the kind of place artists and musicians gravitated toward.
Rows of tall windows lined the second story, some open to the morning sun, curtains flapping faintly in the breeze. The lower level was divided into doors and narrow balconies, each marked with industrial-style numbers.
Daniel’s place sat at the end of the warehouse. A corner unit with a small outdoor staircase led up to a steel door painted black, a single light fixture above it. A bicycle leaned against the wall nearby, along with a battered guitar case left just under the overhang.
Garrett pulled to the curb and killed the engine. They sat in silence for a moment, both of them taking in the sight.
A single security camera perched above the door, its red light winking in the early morning gloom.
But that was it. None of the heavy security they had found at the burned-out house.
Just a converted warehouse that looked as if it belonged to young dreamers trying to carve out a place for themselves.
But Isla’s pulse hammered anyway. Somewhere behind that door might be Harris.
She caught some movement behind them, and Isla turned to see Raines pulling up in his cruiser. Relief flickered through her, but the knot in her stomach didn’t ease. Together, the three of them crossed the pavement and climbed the short staircase to the door.
The sheriff pressed the bell, and they waited, but nothing followed. Seconds ticked by, and he pressed it again.
Isla’s chest tightened. What if he wasn’t here? What if they’d come all this way only to find an empty apartment? She curled her hands into fists, trying to ground herself as the quiet pressed in on them.
Raines rapped his knuckles against the door, firm and deliberate, and the sound echoed through the warehouse.
From inside came the muffled scrape of movement. Then a groggy voice, thick with sleep. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”
Isla held her breath as locks clicked. The door swung inward.
And she saw him.
Harris.